A/N: Whoo three for three! Hope you guys like this strategy meeting. I might be able to make a map with the different kingdoms to help you readers ( if you're reading :( ) visualize the whole thing. See you at the bottom!

Summary: Bella Swan is suddenly teleported to the Bronze Age through a mysterious portal where she's suddenly accused of murder. There's a mysterious man helping her and it turns out he's the queen's son, heir to the throne! Join Bella in her quest to prove her innocence, and more importantly, to return home before it's too late.

Rating: M (For several reasons, enough said.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, it belongs to SM. What does belong to me though is this plot and any original characters that I add in there. I repeat: I make no profit off of this.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE DENALI MARKET (PART TWO)

Bella rolled her eyes, responding to that question would only lower her IQ points and she didn't have that many to begin with so instead she looked back to the guard that came in to deliver the message.

"I need you to bring me bandages and anything to treat a wound for an animal."

The guard frowned then looked at Edward for confirmation, he only followed the orders of a royal. She may have blood bonded with the prince but that didn't mean he accepted her, she may have killed Emmet after all.

Bella looked to see where his went to but before she could retort in anger at being ignored, Edward nodded and the man left immediately. She ignored the exchange and handed the snake cage over to Alice carefully. It was sleeping, whether from pain or exhaustion she didn't know.

Her eyes looked over the map laid on the table, there were stone figurines on it to identify the different armies perhaps. She thought for a moment before asking a few question,

"Where are we?"

Edward sighed, not understanding what she was getting at. Jasper on the other hand was having none of it.

"Look, Bella the Murderer, I don't know what Edward may have told you or not but you don't belong here," he crossed his arms and glared at her, "You're just a common girl with no knowledge about politics and war, you should start acting like one and let Edward and I plan our defenses."

Alice tried to calm Bella's impending rage but the brunette jerked her arm away.

"Why?" She retorted, practically spitting the word out, "so you can create a strategy that ends up killing your brother?"

The tent grew quiet and the tension was so thick, Alice seemed to have trouble breathing. Jasper's glare only intensified and Edward proceeded to end the conflict then and there.

"Jasper, we have no strategy right now so it wouldn't hurt to listen to what she has to say."

It was quiet once more before Jasper grabbed his gear and started heading for the tent's exit.

"Once again, you've let a woman get between us. Does loyalty and family mean nothing to you?" And with that, the prince left the tent.

That statement seemed to strike a chord in Edward because his eyes seemed far away and guilt was etched across his face. Bella looked over at Alice who nodded indicating she would explain this situation later.

"Where are we again?"

Edward cleared his throat and decided to begin explaining our surroundings. Bella was actually good when it came to memorizing graphs and directions.

"Here is the Cullen castle," He pointed to an area south of the map, "Northwest of that is the Denali castle. A bit further south of the Denali castle is the Denali market which is where we are," He pointed put two fingers on the map so show how close they were.

The Denali castle was probably about a day or two's travel from here. Bella nodded, she'd need to study more about the area but for now that was enough.

"What about the villages? You said Victoria was in the next village over, where are these villages located?"

Edward nodded and pointed to three different areas between the Denali market and the Denali castle, and extra village was located west of the next village away. Bella bit her bottom lip anxiously, her plan probably couldn't work then.

"Okay well I saw some crops a bit north of here, would Victoria's troops march through there to reach us?"

The prince frowned before looking between her and the map repeatedly.

"Probably. Carlisle already sent some replacement crops to the Denali family, most of their crops are going to be destroyed during this ordeal."

Bella smirked, this could probably work then.

"Are the crops outside the Denali castle flammable?"

Edward frowned, "what is flammable?"

Oh god, his face was so serious Bella couldn't help but laugh, "can they catch fire you idiot."

"How dare you call the prince of your kingdom an idiot? I have received an education far beyond your status and the-"

"Yes Bella," Alice cut in, "they are flammable as you say."

Alice sat on the chair, reading through what seemed like tablets with strange scripts. The snake cage was by her leg.

Bella absentmindedly nodded at Alice before continuing the discussion of her plant, did Edward consider her as part of the Cullen Kingdom? That made her feel some way she couldn't describe.

"Here are what you requested. The poultice was made exclusively by the alchemist of this market," the guard announced as he set the materials on the second table in the tent.

To keep her mind away from Edward's previous comment, she inspected the different materials and reached for the cage. The guard left them alone and Alice, who seemed bored, decided to leave with him. Bella took Alice's seat and carefully took the injured snake from its cage and began applying the bandages and poultice.

"I noticed that we have archers, and a lot of them. We could set the arrows on the fire once Victoria's troops are halfway through the crops. That would force her to head back to avoid the fire so we could have some of the foot soldiers stationed behind Victoria's troops to take those that ran back."

In the meanwhile, Bella was taking off the infected bandages from the snake's body. She used some of the cloth to wipe off the excess pus. The brunette rubbed the poultice in and around the infected wound and began bandaging it tightly. The snake hissed and jerked throughout the process, feeling the pain. She didn't have anything to lessen the animal's pain sadly.

Her mind was wrapped around healing the animal's wound so she was unaware of Edward's inner turmoil. How could she devise that strategy while doing such a precise task as healing? Was she a tactician at this Washington she spoke of? His mind tried to work around her strategy and he couldn't find much of a weakness other than the actual fire. After the shock wore off, Edward cleared his throat and continued,

"We've tried making the arrows catch fire before but they always run out in the air. There's no way to let the fire be big enough to light all the crops."

"Have you tried bathing the arrow in oil?"

Edward nodded, flattening his hands on the table, "yes, they still went out."

That was weird, oil shouldn't let the fire go out like that unless the oil they used here was different or weaker than the future's. Bella sighed, her mind going through images of different movies that lit their arrows on fire.

"How about this?"

She looked around and found a quiver of arrows. Bella took one and used some of the bandages to wrap it around the arrow's neck. The bandage took about a third of the arrow's body and she set it on top of the fire that kept the tent warm. It caught fire and despite waving it around like a maniac, it didn't go out.

Edward's eyes could have popped out of their socket, he would never want to go to war with her Washington village, they seemed to have great minds. He nodded and called for the guard outside and gave the order. They were to assemble four thousand fire arrows and wrap them with cheap cloths for the battle. That's when a particular problem came to mind,

"It's going to take at least three days to finish all those arrows."

"And?" Bella asked, before finally realizing it.

The Denali castle is a one maybe two day travel, Victoria was closer than that which didn't give them much time to do much. That was definitely a problem.

A/N: A problem indeed! I posted the last few chapters rather quickly but now I'm going to take some time to finish the next chapter. Let me know if you guys liked this chapter by leaving me some sweet reviews, they drive us writers...seriously. There's no point in continuing a story that no one is interested in :P

Next time on Secrets of a Murder

"How many of you are there in this pleasure house?"

"Tens of thousands miss," the one sitting on Edward's lap replied, she bent to nibble on his ear and Bella had to fight hard to not roll her eyes at the scene in front of her.

"Edward, how about we slow Victoria's troops down?"

"Huh?" Edward hm'd, all of his brain cells had traveled south.