"Your Highness?"

            Brenda knocked on the door to Dawn's bedchambers lightly, hoping desperately that the Dark Princess was already awake and wouldn't become angry with her assistant for waking her.

            "Enter." Came the answer from inside.

            Brenda slowly turned the handle of the door and stepped her foot into the room. Dawn's bedchambers were unlike any other that had ever been seen by the human eye. Where most teenage girls slept in beds decorated with pink pansies and blue tulips, Dawn slept in a bed draped with dark purple velvet that prevented any sun from entering the area whatsoever. Then again, there was little need for the drapes to block out the sun, for the room had no windows; the stone walls were cold and gray, interrupted only by a large red flag directly across from Dawn's bed. The flag was almost identical to the ones flapping about on the top of the castle turrets, with a depiction of a shattered mirror on the front. The only difference between this flag and the ones outside was the fact that on this flag, a terribly sorrowful face could be seen behind the shattered glass, staring forlornly at the room in front of it.

            Dawn was sitting on the edge of her bed, sliding an earring into her right ear and gesturing for Brenda to approach her as she did. Brenda obeyed, and advanced towards the princess without showing fear.

            "Why do you call on me at this hour?" Dawn asked, standing up from the bed and walking towards Brenda, her heels clicking loudly on the cold marble floor.

            "Your Highness, Gregory wishes to speak with you. He is ready to share the plan."

            Dawn smiled.

            "Bring him to my throne room. I'll meet him there."

***

            Dawn strutted down the halls of the castle, ready to finally be enlightened on the terms of Greogria's destruction. After the end of their last conversation, Gregory had refused to tell Dawn about Troya's plan until he was prepared with every detail. Therefore, Dawn had sent him to the castle dungeon until he was ready to speak. Brenda was in charge of checking on him on every hour until he was prepared with his plan.

            The time had come.

            Upon reaching the doors of the throne room, Dawn paused for a brief moment. The people already inside the room were whispering feverishly, and there were clearly more people inside than simply Brenda and Gregory. Dawn attempted to listen to the conversation but couldn't make out anything other than a few phrases or words at scattered points.

            Just go in.

            A part of her was terrified of hearing this plan from Troya, but a much larger part of her was eager to get started with their destruction of Gregoria, and the only way to do so was to have a plan to get the Banished army out of the Forbidden Forest.

            Naturally there were going to be doubts flying around her head, but there was something else as well—guilt?

            Dawn shook away the notion immediately. She didn't feel guilty for what she was about to do; her family deserved it and so did their kingdom. No one knew that better than she, and she was determined to make them pay. There would be no childish feelings such as guilt to deter her from the path that she had already set herself on.

            Taking a deep breath, Dawn entered the throne room, pulling her shoulders back and setting her mouth in a thin line. Her skirt billowed out behind her as she strode to the front of the room, her eyes on her throne and her only goal to reach it without falling on her face or running back out of the door in fear. The conversation ceased the second she opened the door, and she felt at least ten pairs of eyes on her as she turned to sit down.

            Before her were about twelve people, two of them being Brenda and Gregory, and not including the guards that were stationed next to the doors that had just slammed shut behind the Dark Princess. The other ten people were clearly members of Troya, for they all carried an air about themselves that made it obvious to those around them that they thought they were oh so much better than the others in the room.

            That aura wouldn't last long with Dawn at the throne.

            "Your Highness," Gregory began, "I would like you to meet the other members of my team. They were sent here by our leaders to share our plan with you."

            Dawn raised her eyebrows slightly, not saying a word.

            Gregory took her silence to mean that he was free to continue, and did so.

            "We at Troya have a very specific goal: to destroy the lands we deem to have wronged Ariesia in the past. Gregoria, naturally, is at the top of that list, and we are ever so grateful to be able to join forces with you and—"

            "Simply because I set your hair on fire does not mean that you need to grovel at my feet." Dawn snapped, "I wish to hear this plan and I wish to hear it now."

            Gregory nodded.

            "The way we managed to get Kabos out of the Forbidden Forest was through a potion." A small man with mousy brown hair and beady green eyes stepped forward slightly, "This potion has very specific properties, rules, and procedures, and they are all outlined on this parchment." He held it out, unsure of whether or not he should approach Dawn.

            "Do you honestly believe that I can reach that parchment from here? Step forward, you numbskull."

            The man nodded hastily and walked quickly up to the throne, handing Dawn the scroll and scurrying back to join the rest of the Troya representatives.

            Dawn unraveled the scroll and read the shaky, slanted handwriting carefully.

Removal Potion

The removal potion is to be used in an effort to escape from a place of Banishment, yet can only be used under the correct conditions. The person who is escaping must not be escaping for themselves, but for someone else, the person in charge of brewing said potion. If the person who brews the potion drinks it, death will follow immediately.

The potion contains fairly regular ingredients, yet there is one that will not be simple to obtain.

The main ingredient that will allow the drinker to transcend through the boundaries of permanent magical Banishment is a token from the brewer's past. For each person who is set on drinking the potion, a different item from the homeland of the brewer must be obtained and mixed into the potion. If the object is from the childhood home of the brewer, the chance of the potion working immediately is far greater than if the object is simply from the same land.

Without this object, the potion is useless. The object must be obtained by the brewer themselves, otherwise there is no way for the potion to work. Such a strong and powerful potion must have a difficultly obtained ingredient.

            Dawn looked up at the other people in the room. Brenda was studying the Dark Princess' face in confusion, while the members of Troya seemed to be hovering between fear and hope.

            Dawn closed the scroll, not bothered with the rest of the ingredients. She stepped down from the throne and stalked past the other people in the room, shoving the scroll into the hands of the mousy man who had given it to her.

            "I guess I'll be paying my family a little visit."

——-

A/N: That can't be good.

Hey guys! I hope you all are having a great Mother's Day! I'm super excited to share with you the summary of my new book "Mask" that I will be releasing in the next month or two, and it will be the first book in a series titled "The Baron Chronicles". This is the summary as of right now, and I hope you guys like the sound of it!

"Vivian Baron's life is about to start: she's graduating high school with the class of 2087, she has great friends, a loving family, the High Power, her country's government, is leading them into a new age of technology and innovation, and she is ready to begin living. Her dreams come to a screeching halt when she is kidnapped in the dead of night and taken to the Agents Resisting High Power: an organization dedicated to defeating the government at all costs. They get their work done through their Masks—masquerade ball-style fabrics that, when worn, turn their faces into those of another. Vivian is forced through blackmail to stay at the agency for the rest of her days, and she starts to become accustomed to life there. Yet as the agency starts to give her more freedom, Vivian starts to realize that perhaps the High Power could be hiding something after all. Through love, loss, and the battle between morality and survival, Vivian comes to find astonishing secrets, perfect lies...and a conspiracy that could mean the end of her world. The first book in the Baron Chronicles follows the adventures and trials of a teenage girl navigating her way through life as a victim of kidnapping, and shows how she manages to turn her trauma into a weapon against those who deserve it."

Comment below letting me know what you think of it! I hope you all will read it and enjoy!

I also casted Gregory: Mark Ruffalo, and Brenda: Meghan Markle! Let me know what you think of those!

Also, don't forget to read/vote/comment and check back for the next update, which will be coming next Sunday! I'm feeling close to 30 chapters for this story, which means we're around the halfway point! And maybe in the summer I'll up my updating to twice a week...if I have time :)

ONE MORE THING (I'm so sorry I talk a lot). You guys should totally check out @WildSpirit44's "Survival Games" because I'm a judge in them and it's going to be AWESOME! Plus I'm considering hosting a kind of writing games/competition similar to this one in the future because it's a pretty cool idea, and I need things to entertain me during the summer! So head over to her profile to check it out!

Okay I swear I'm done now. Thanks for reading all this and I hope you have a fantabulous rest of your Sunday!

-Katherine