"Prince Nitesh, how is the battle going?"

Nitesh looked in surprise to see Mahaado. He gave a nodding bow. "My men are only playing with them. But we were going to end it soon. The ball will be starting soon and I want to be there. My wife thinks we're a poor little flower Kingdom with no way to defend ourselves. She's all worried."

Mahaado laughed, "If that were true Mako or another country would have invaded and done what we're about to do."

Nitesh frowned, "What do you mean?"

Mahaado told him about the phone call Jasmine heard.

"I knew he was sick, I just didn't know he was depraved, as well."

"Yeah this coming from two people who together couldn't figure out how to change the mind of a scumbag parent who wants to marry off his underage children."

"Who are you?"

"My brother, Baniti. Baniti met Prince Nitesh of Kamilah."

Nitesh glared at Baniti, "You go to the Sky Kingdom's castle and you will quickly learn that for reasons unknown you can't cast any form of spell. I saw the girls beg their father to not go through with it and not force them to marry us."

"They did? I don't remember this." Mahaado said.

"Perhaps because as I said you wanted her. The only reason you hesitated and didn't do what you're complaining about what Prince Mako wants to do is likely because your advisors have kept you out of trouble and you know better than to disobey them. You feared losing the throne. I didn't even know you had married until I saw an announcement. But by then your bride would have been about 15. If I'd known you agreed to marry a 10 year old I'd have snatched her and threatened to expose you. Then the kingdom would have been mine. After all, what do you think the people of the Star Kingdom would have thought if they knew their king was into underage little girls?"

Most kingdoms anything under 16 is considered underage. You're side eyed at 15 but otherwise few have issues with it. Anything under that you're seen as a monster and a child predator.

"I told you to stop that. I've never had to force any woman to sleep with me. I am not interested in children. Thinking about it more, I think Diana was a couple of years older. But I never forced myself on her. She refused me on our wedding night. It was a couple of years before she allowed me to touch her."

"So you married her in secret to keep anyone from finding out?"

At that Nitesh chimed in, "We had a joint wedding. The Sky Kingdom knew a wedding was being held. It was a grand affair despite the fact the brides didn't want to go through with it. My parents didn't tell our people about the wedding in case it was called off. We were planning on having a proper wedding in my country when I returned. But since Jasmine was only 11 we held off until last year when Jasmine was 14. I would have waited till earlier this year when she turned 15, but someone in the castle leaked our relationship to the press. So we formally announced our engagement and married in my country a couple of months later."

"Engaged? But you were already married." Baniti said.

"As far as my people knew I wasn't. Jasmine was kept away from anything formal. We started our relationship slowly when she was 13. We got careless and slipped up and someone saw me making out with her on her 14th birthday."

Mahaado laughed, "You actually did another wedding? I didn't feel the need to do a second wedding. Weddings are pointless anyway. I'd rather just have the preacher do the vows and skip straight to the announcement which I did when Diana was 14. Then we had a ball to celebrate."

"Right, you enjoy partying and getting drunk." Baniti said.

"It takes a lot for me to get sloppy drunk thank you. I have an extremely high tolerance."

"Why did you agree to a joint wedding without your family there?" Baniti questioned.

"I think Hera feared she'd lose control of her husband by having two separate weddings. If Princess Maura hadn't only been 4-5 at the time she would have married her off too. I'm surprised she didn't."

"I'm not. She was lucky to get the two of you to take on a couple of 10 year-olds as wives. The odds of finding a Prince willing to marry a 4-5 year old would be extremely hard to find."

Nitesh sighed, "My parents arranged the marriage with Jasmine. They just didn't know the bride was only 11. They were upset I went through with the marriage until I told them about Hera's threat to kill her. I tried reaching out magically to the father but I couldn't reach him. You could see he wanted to say no when the girls pleaded with him. But Hera grabbed his hand in what I assume is some form of spell or something."

Baniti, "What makes you think that?"

"He was protesting the marriage. But that vanished when she took his hand. Then he was stone faced and adamant the wedding goes ahead."

"Well, have you tried talking to him about Princess Maura? You haven't mentioned him protesting this marriage or Mahaado said something about another kingdom adopting her."

"That's because the king of The Sky Kingdom died of unknown circumstances six or so months ago. I heard he had been heavily protesting against the marriage before his death." Nitesh said.

Just then Prince Mako appeared on the scene in a rage. He started to flood the entire area. Nitesh's men while skilled magic users couldn't fly. They had been countering the water thrown at them with dirt and fire.

Mahaado growled, "This guy has got to go. Time to start our plan."

It was then Nitesh remembered them saying they were planning to do something. "What exactly are you planning?"

"We're taking this guy and his father down. We're staging a coup. Baniti will be the new king."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

Baniti looked at him and asked, "You're not going to try to stop us are you?"

Nitesh shook his head, "Prince Mako and this kingdom have been a headache for a lot of kingdoms. They start wars just for looking at them wrong. So as long as you can straighten the kingdom out and not start wars with us or other kingdoms do as you wish."

Baniti hadn't expected Nitesh to agree with letting him be king.