If anyone is interested I wrote this chapter while listening to a playlist on Youtube called "Villans but make them the main character" it has some bomb tunes, I'll leave a link if you want to listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Azv0iKFnU

The dawn of a new day. The dawn of the end. HyeJin lays with her arms around WheeIn in their tent, the firelight of the morning seeped through the light canvas that housed them. Today people were going to die. HyeJin had been terrified for so long that she was going to kill someone, with her power, she always feared it being in WheeIn’s clan, that one day she was going to be the monster her mother always thought she was.
She was trying hard to make herself see these people as monsters. Stealing people, stealing children, and doing goddess knows what to them, they deserved it… or did they? Were they not just soldiers, were they not just like the Clan, doing what they are told? HyeJin ran a hand over her face, letting the rough surface of her palm rubbing the thoughts from her mind. 
WheeIn stirred, shifting so she was facing HyeJin. Her brown eyes looked into HyeJin’s, she felt like they were reaching her soul. WheeIn blinked a few times, her eyes closing once again as she moved in closer to HyeJin. “War is messy.” She mumbled against HyeJin’s chest. “There is no murder in war but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make us feel like murders.” HyeJin let out a shuddering breath. “We are in this together HyeJin, just like always, I won’t let you lose yourself to this, just as you won’t let me lose myself.” She pushed back so she was looking HyeJin in the eye. “Can I trust you will hold my life as I hold yours?” 
HyeJin smoothed her hair. “Always.” 
WheeIn put a strong hand against HyeJin’s chest. “This does not make us monsters.” She said it with such certainty, it made HyeJin envious of her. “You will never be a monster, I will not let you so trust me to hold your life.”
HyeJin nodded. “I love you.” She whispered, this was the only person in her life that ever understood her mind and her heart. 
WheeIn smiled. “I love you too.” She pressed her lips to HyeJin’s, a promise on them. “Let’s go get our people.” She rolled away from HyeJin, grabbing her hand with impressive strength, pulling them both to their feet. HyeJin followed the woman she loved into uncertainty. 

Luna watched as the camp got itself running for the morning. Her muscles tensed when the first wave of prisoners went into the mountain. Every second she waited for them to start screaming, the other clan found out and their plan was ruined. But it did not come. SolBi must have hidden herself and her second well. 
From her spot, she could see Mina. Her fire-red hair was visible from here. It was taking a lot of her willpower not to rush in there right now and take her little sister back. But a lot has changed in the last few months, for one, more than just Mina’s life depended on this, even if she was the only child Luna cared about, there was no way she would return home and tell those other families she lost their kids to save her sister. Then there was TaeOh. If she ruined this mission it was likely he and YongSun would die before they could even get a message to the castle. She knew Byul would execute her, herself if Luna was responsible for either of their deaths. But she would be kidding herself if she thought for a second she would ever put TaeOh at risk. 
After all of these months, she had changed, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it. The waiting was killing her but she knew even if she marched in there now, she would not be making out alive and neither would her sister. So she waited and she watched, counting the hours until they struck. This was the end of it, the end of a lot of things, and that was both exciting and unsettling. 

WheeIn sharpened her blade. It was pointless, it was sharp enough to cut a feather in mid-air with little effort but she needed something to do with her hands. There was the urge to spar, to practice, to do something but sit and wait, but wasting energy was not going to help them in the long run. She and HyeJin already burned off some extra energy last night, loud enough for the whole camp to hear them, she hardly cared. So she sat and did the one thing that felt like preparing. 
Being a leader has its weight, its burden. However, it was hardly like she was the only leader here. Back at the Knight, yes, everyone looked to her. Even now Blue relayed her orders to his people, and Sylvia to hers, but they were leaders of their own, their people’s lives on their backs, just as her clan was on hers. 
The most unexpected leader here was Byul. The only one of the leaders to see war. She stood at the edge of the clearing, looking in the direction of Henry’s castle, in the direction of her people, who she has to trust will be okay without her. WheeIn watched as she absent-mindedly patted her wolf’s head. This was something more to her than it was to them, they all wanted the same thing, they were all on the same mission. WheeIn knew these kids, and the other prisoners felt just as much to Byul as it did to any member of the Knight, just as WheeIn and the others felt responsible for TaeOh and YongSun. Everyone was torn, but they had to do one thing at a time, focus on the task at hand. 
WheeIn stopped sharpening her blade and walked over to where Byul stood. “No one would blame you if you went to them.” She knew for a fact if it were HyeJin where YongSun was, WheeIn would probably already be halfway to the castle. 
Byul tensed, almost like WheeIn was reading her thoughts. “The plan will get us there in time to get them out.” She said so forced, like she had repeated those words over in her mind, making herself believe them. “TaeOh knows what to do.” There was relief in that statement, she trusted TaeOh, her brother, to succeed. WheeIn felt almost like a fraud for thinking he was her brother too. 
“Are you afraid she is going to marry him?” The words had the effect WheeIn hoped when Byul’s shoulders relaxed and she laughed out loud. 
Byul let out a long sigh. “That would be interesting. I’ve known Eric for so long, of course at a distance, he was the child in the war tent next to the general, giving us orders as if he knew anything about what we were about to do.” She shook the thought from her mind. “I can’t even picture them together, and yet I could. I think part of me would be satisfied stealing Eric’s wife from him.” A smile. “But I would want YongSun to choose who she wants to marry.”
WheeIn nudged her shoulder. “I have a feeling I know who she’d choose.” 
Another laugh from Byul. “We are a complicated family aren’t we.” That stuck something in WheeIn, she never thought Byul would consider them as family. “I guess we will have to start seeing Luna as our sister-in-law once this is all over.” 
It was WheeIn’s turn to laugh. “You never know, I have a feeling he goes through women like water.” 
Byul shrugged like she wasn’t wrong. “It is different this time.” WheeIn knew that too, she could tell by the looks on their faces, just like she knew the moment the three of them walked into the Knight that Byul and YongSun were made for each other. It was almost funny that TaeOh ever tried anything with YongSun. All of this felt like years ago. 
“At least we walk into battle as a family.” There were more people to trust.
“More people to lose.” Byul finished the sentence in WheeIn’s mind. With that, the tension rose again. There was no relief in war, not even when it was over. 

TaeOh held the paper out in front of him as it burned. Another note from the others. This one told him what he already knew, they strike tonight. By tomorrow morning he would be extracting YongSun from the castle, hopefully with his friends by his side. He dressed slowly for the day, making sure his uniform was perfect. 
Nothing and everything was going on in the castle at once. YongSun told TaeOh everything she had seen from the King, about Eric’s words, her mother’s actions. For the most part, those seemed unimportant, just like JongKook has become. TaeOh was aware JongKook was following him around, probably at the order of the king, maybe because he never heard from his contact since TaeOh tortured him and they locked him up somewhere in town under one of Blue’s men’s eyes.
TaeOh just had to keep everything together for one more day. Tonight they liberated the camp, and when Byul and the others flashed their signal here tomorrow, TaeOh would grab YongSun and they would escape through the underground tunnels. It seemed wrong, it seemed… something. Just walking away from this all, not taking Henry down, running when he could very well just find them again. But he knew there was no way that they were equipped enough to take Henry on, there was a battle for another time, another day. Still, it felt like a mistake. The original mission was to save the kids, but it turned into something so much more than that, it all had gotten out of control. 
TaeOh thought of this on his way to YongSun’s room. Henry ordered her to remain in her chambers until the wedding, he could not afford for the wedding to be pushed back any longer, so he made sure YongSun got all the rest she needed. TaeOh heard the reports from the front lines, reading many of them with his own eyes. Henry was losing to the North, his army was dwindling, even with them conscripting any man of age, it was throwing untrained children into war. Henry needed Thaiston’s forces and he needed them now.
YongSun was sitting in bed looking about ready to burn her whole room down, she was not taking the bed rest well. The second TaeOh walked in she sent everyone out of the room. “Tonight?” She asked before he even sat down. They would have to keep the meeting short, usually, he never met her in person, they had been endangering Jin’s life by having him be their secret messenger. But they couldn't meet in person without major suspension, especially now, this was the first time since she woke up that they met and it would be the last until the mission was underway. 
TaeOh nodded as he sat. “It all ends tonight.”