Married to the Vampire Prince

Chapter Fourteen

Silas

It took me a week and a half to prepare Estone for war. Together with Luke I informed the Heads of the Houses to ready themselves to march on Rosworth. Of course, not every House wanted to comply with my declaration of war. There were some households who insisted that they had done favors for my father and been promised favors in return – and they wanted to call in those favors by abstaining from battle now.

However, I remained adamant about the need for their participation. I needed every able-bodied vampire ready to protect our country. Begrudgingly, all the Houses eventually agreed to take part in the war.

Luke and I organized supply lines and worked out strategies for the coming week. Soon we were marching to the Rosworth border, supported by supply convoys. We were a force of a thousand vampires, armed with oak stakes, ready to strike at the hearts of our enemies.

Estone had to be protected at all costs.

As I left Grace behind in the castle, my heart felt heavy. I didn’t want to part ways with her, but she would be safest staying in the capital. I couldn’t bring her to the battlefield. She was a fragile human with no fighting skills. There was no place for her in a vampire war.

I hoped the war wouldn’t go on for a long time, but I knew that idea was a pipe dream. No matter how long I was needed on the battlefield though, I swore to myself that I would visit the castle from time to time. With my vampire speed, traveling to and from the border and the royal palace wouldn’t be difficult or take long at all.

When the day to march to the Rosworth border finally came, I pushed all thoughts of Grace aside, focusing only on the task at hand. As the army’s general, I had to put all of my mental energy on the war. I couldn’t be distracted.

The supply convoy slowed down our march, but we finally arrived at the border after traveling on foot for four days.

Rosworth’s army was already waiting for us.

A battle broke out immediately, our forces clashing on the plain between our two countries. I commanded the main group of vampires while Luke took over the left flank. The right flank was under command of the representative of one of the Houses, Thomas, who had fought against Rosworth with us in the previous war twenty years ago. I trusted him to serve well again.

As I was acting as our General, I didn’t go out onto the battlefield myself. Instead, I observed the fighting from a nearby hill and issued my orders as needed. I was on full alert. I couldn’t let Rosworth defeat us in the first battle; such a loss would seriously harm our morale.

However, I quickly discovered that defeating them was nearly impossible unfortunately. The fight continued for hours, both our sides too evenly matched for one to win or lose. The fight was a perfect stalemate. Our side gained advantage for an hour, pushing harder against Rosworth’s force, but just when I felt a glimmer of hope that we would win, Rosworth made another push against us and regained their equal position.

Finally, after the battle had gone on for eight hours, I issued the command to retreat.

We fell back into the woods in Estone, and Rosworth didn’t follow. They understood our forces were at a stalemate and now needed a rest and chance to recuperate.

When we were safe again, I addressed Luke, Thomas and the heads of the Houses that had returned from the battlefield. “Rosworth forces and ours are too evenly matched. I have no idea how we can defeat them since we have the same strength and numbers.”

My words made the atmosphere in the tent where we’d gathered grim. A large map of the region was lying on a table in the middle of the shelter, several pins and pawns scattered around the border between Estone and Rosworth.

We strategized for a few good hours but still couldn’t come up with a suitable conclusion for how to break the stalemate.

As the next week passed, we sat in the woods while our scouts reported movements between Rosworth and Athalis. On the seventh day, Rosworth advanced into Estone’s territory. We didn’t want to fight in the woods, so we came out onto the plain and fought against them there once more.

Again, though, neither side managed to gain advantage for longer than an hour, and after another long battle, Rosworth’s forces retreated. Again, Luke, Thomas, and the House Heads ended up standing beside me in our tent, all of us staring down at the map on the table, still unable to come to a conclusion on how to win the war.

With Rosworth advancing on us, I couldn’t leave the forces without their General, but it was time for me to feed on Grace’s ruby blood again. I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring her to the battlefield for my feeding, but Luke assured me having her here only for a day would be safe. I finally agreed and entrusted him with escorting my wife to our encampment, even though worry weighed heavily on my soul.

Two days later, Luke came back from the palace, carrying Grace in his arms.

“Hello, husband,” she greeted me with a blush on her cheeks.

Thomas and I along with the other House heads were in the middle of another pointless discussion on battle strategy again when Luke and Grace entered the tent.

I nodded at Grace in greeting then gestured for her to sit down in one of the chairs around the table. The House Heads glanced at each other, clearly uncertain about continuing to speak with our new guest here, but I told them to continue with the discussion.

I didn’t mind my wife’s presence at the strategy table. I didn’t think I needed to keep our talks secret from her.

“We’ve been fighting Rosworth’s forces for two weeks now. It’s been almost a month since they declared war against us,” Thomas said. “But they’ve only attacked us twice so far. On both occasions, the battles ended in a stalemate.”

As I realized he was summarizing the current state of the war for Grace, gratitude filled my heart. Thomas wanted to include my wife in the talks.

“From what our scouts have reported, Rosworth seems busier fighting Athalis than they are on our front. In a sense, they are ignoring us until they defeat our neighbors,” I noted.

“That theory could be true,” Thomas said, and some of the House heads murmured in agreement. “But if we continue to stand by here, not advancing more on our enemies, then all we’re doing is giving them time to defeat Athalis. And once they squash them, they will incorporate Athalis’ forces into their army. Then Rosworth will finally overpower us. We won’t be able to defeat them.”

“We aren’t able to defeat them right now either,” one of the other Heads protested. “We need some sort of miracle to break Rosworth’s front.”

“Excuse me,” Grace said in a small voice. “May I suggest something?”

Everyone turned to stare at her. The House Heads gave her surprised looks, but before they could say that her opinions had no place at the war table, I waved my hand. I wanted to hear what Grace had to say.

“Tell us what’s on your mind,” I replied in an encouraging voice.

Grace blushed and shifted in her seat, but she held her head high and spoke in a confident tone. “Have you considered allying with Athalis? If our countries join forces we will have an advantage in numbers against Rosworth… isn’t that right?”

“Ally with… Athalis?” The House heads gave her incredulous looks.

My wife bit her lip but didn’t lower her head. “Athalis and Estone have had a neutral relationship so far. Estone may not agree with how Athalis’ vampires run their society or treat humans, but since we’re now faced with a common enemy maybe we could temporarily put our differences aside?”

The nobles’ eyes widened.

I smiled, and I saw a grin appear on Luke’s face too.

“That’s smart thinking,” Luke said. “I guess we haven’t wanted to bring up that option yet because we don’t really like Athalis. Their vampires are often stuck in the past, and we have our differences with them, but you’re right – in the last century there has been no open animosity between us. If we propose a war alliance, they may agree.”

“And even if they don’t,” Thomas started in a thoughtful tone, “We can at least say we made the effort and explored all our options.”

“That’s ridiculous,” one of the House Heads objected. “Ally with Athalis? That’s-”

“Novel but not unexpected, given our situation,” I concluded the sentence for him.

Some of the House Heads protested while others nodded in agreement.

“I’m in favor of Grace’s idea,” I said.

The others tried to convince me that an alliance with Athalis wasn’t a sound choice, but I stood my ground. We had no other option considering our current situation.

If we wanted to win the war, we would have to play all the cards at our disposal.

I was proud of Grace for coming up with a plan for us. She had used the knowledge of politics she had gained from her tutors and helped us see a fresh, logical solution that we had ignored because of our traditional and limited way of thinking.

After an hour, I finally managed to convince all the House Heads that allying with Athalis would be in our best interest. Maybe there was still hope for us to win this war, after all?