A door closed another one opening

While men bled and died in the mud in her name, their swords clashing in distant battles, Jasmine Veloni-Isha, the newly crowned princess of Yarkat, sat in the quiet opulence of her chambers, reading the latest reports. Her brow furrowed slightly as her delicate fingers turned the pages of the ledger, detailing the autumn taxation from the royal fiefs. 

Her emerald eyes skimmed over the figures, silently calculating the resources at her disposal.

The royal fiefs had yielded 6,000 bushels of wheat in taxation, a figure that brought a brief but fleeting sense of relief. This harvest, would not be sold for coins. Instead, she had decided that it would be stored in the royal granaries—an insurance against possible campaigns of war or the sudden grip of a famine.

A wise ruler must think of tomorrow, even as today crumbles around her, she mused inwardly, as she thought of the army standing outside Confluendi.