“Your Highness, we need to get you someplace safe. The surveillance at the port just showed us the whole group of people who were on the ships of the Armada are grouped together in formation. The King is alive,” I say as Emerald hurries to help the Queen get ready.

She was in a deep sleep, and we had no choice but to come into her bedchamber to see if she was okay. A half-empty glass of the purple drink she seems to have around her at all times sits on the bedside table.

“I will leave you to help her, Emerald. Please hurry, Love.” I leave the room and go to gather the people I’ve managed to scrape together from the Earthlings and the few guards who were left here.

At a meeting late last night, we came up with a plan to hold the palace if for some reason the King wasn’t killed as the Queen had ordered. I will have a few men at intervals take out key guards who are known for their superior combat skills.

The guards who have worked with the others for many years are less than keen on helping to kill their co-workers and friends. This will not be an easy war, and I have tried to talk to the Queen about it, but she won’t listen to reason.

Though her son, himself, is in danger she’s so dead-set on the King’s death she’ll risk killing her only son. I’ve found it hard to back her, but over-throwing her at this point could mean my head once the other royals find out what I’ve done.

So I ready myself to make one more attempt to talk to the Queen and explain how much better this could all be handled.

Emerald finally walks out with the Queen who is clad in a regal purple, flowing gown that goes all the way to the floor. Her crown upon her head makes her look like the pictures of her in the great room.

After I bow, I say, “Your Majesty, if I could have a word.”

She waves me off. “I need my morning meal first. I can do no thinking until I have that.”

“They have landed, and your husband still lives,” I blurt out so she can get a grip on what’s going on and there is urgency.

She stops and looks at me. “She didn’t kill him?”

“She?” I ask.

“The new Princess. Kerr’s wife. She was supposed to kill him. It was all very well planned,” she says as she looks confused.

“How do you know this?” I ask.

“I fixed the ring. I placed the hardware on the ship. It was all working. She took the power from the entire Armada. She did all she was directed to. How could she not kill him? That was her main directive. Her main one. How could she have not done that?” She looks pale and seems to be swooning.

I run my arm around her to steady her and look at Emerald. “Help me get her to the room I set up for her to go to in case of an emergency; this is one.”

My wife nods and moves under the Queen’s arm helping me hold her up. “Your Majesty, may I ask why and how you involved the new Princess in the death of your husband. And did she knowingly agree to this plan of yours?" my wife asks her.

“She was unaware. Completely unaware,” she says and then her body begins to shake. “I don’t want to see him! I can’t see him!”

“No matter what, you’re back in control, Your Highness,” I tell her. “Let the royals help you decide what the King’s punishment will be. Once they all get here and see you’re alive and you tell them your story and how he used his brother in his plan, they will deal with him.”

The Queen looks at me. “You don’t understand. The Princess will destroy us. She has the ability to destroy us all. It has to be that she has such a dark side that she wants to rule now. She will kill us all to get what she wants.”

A chill runs through me as one of the guards runs into us as we go down the long corridor to the hidden room I’m taking the Queen to.

His face is ashen as he says, “We have some footage of the group after they got off their ships and they seemed to be discussing something. The sound was out. Anyway, there was a young woman with long dark hair. She stood by the Prince and King, and she seems to have powers.”

I ask as I move the Queen along and he follows, “What did she do?”

“She made flowers burn on a tree and then twisted the huge limb off and tossed it. It seemed as if she was only using her mind. Then it looked like she created a force field around the prince as a few of the guards tried to attack him, but they acted as if they were hitting an invisible wall.”

Emerald laughs. “Perhaps it was all staged to frighten us.”

The Queen shakes her head. “She is capable of that and so much more. We are doomed.”

“We’re not doomed,” I say as I open the door, though it doesn’t look like a door at all, but a long mirror framed in gold.

Ushering the Queen inside, she takes a seat on a comfortable sofa I had put in here, and Emerald sees the food on a shelf and goes to get some for her.

“I’m leaving Emerald here with you, Your Majesty. She can keep you company and make sure you’re okay. I’m going to try to end this with no bloodshed.”

I walk away, but she grabs my arm. “Kill him for me, Caleb. Please.”

Emerald stops what she’s doing and comes to my side. Her arm goes around my back, and she leans her head on me.

My heart pounds and there is just no way I can take the King’s life. None of us can. She doesn’t seem to realize the punishment for such a thing.

I weigh my words before I speak, “Your Majesty, I understand you don’t wish to see the man and I can make sure that doesn’t happen. But I will not be able to take his life as he is a royal, and that is punishable by death. This is my wife by my side, and I very much want to live for her.”

Dejection fills the Queen’s face. “No one will kill the man for me. I can’t understand. He did a terrible thing, yet no one sees it fit to kill him.”

Suddenly she looks around, and I see her eyes go wide. I take her hand. “Your Majesty I placed none of that purple liquor in here. This is a time when you have to keep your head.”

“You don’t understand, Caleb.” Her hands are shaking, and her mouth is twitching up on one side.

“I do. Your son will be here soon, and he will want to see you, I am sure.” I pat her back and look at Emerald. “I will be back to check on you before they make it to the palace. You cannot leave this room from the inside. Someone from the outside will have to let you out.”

“I’m imprisoned in here?” the Queen asks as she looks up at me.

It’s sorrow that covers her face. She seems to think I’m against her. “You are not imprisoned by any means.” I kneel in front of her and take her hands into mine. “Your Majesty, please understand. There are better ways to handle this than with the death of the King.”

“But I don’t want to ever see him again,” she says.

She reminds me of a child unable to understand things clearly. I have to wonder if the drink has taken parts of her mind. People are about to die because she has turned her anger at her husband for his evil deed into a vendetta the others aren’t even aware of.

“Leave everything in my hands, Your Majesty. Everything will be right before you know it. Your reign is stable. I will make sure of that.” I stand, and her eyes follow me.

“You will?”

I nod, and Emerald moves to my side. I wrap an arm around her and kiss the side of her sweet head. “I’ll be back soon.” I look at my wife. “In the cupboard there is a box of donuts for you, my sweet. I had Blarto make them just for you this morning.”

With a giggle, Emerald skips to find the food for the Queen and takes the box out. “Care for a nibble, Your Highness?”

The Queen shakes her head. “My appetite is gone, child.”

An uncomfortable tightness forms in my stomach, and I walk away from the women. I close the door behind me and have to wonder what happened to the Queen.

Jared meets me at the front entrance. “Everyone is at their stations. The first report has come in. They all walk behind the dark haired woman. It’s assumed she’s the new Princess, Kerr’s bride.”

“I believe the reports are correct. I heard the same woman did a couple of amazing things. Does she walk alone in the front?”

He shakes his head. “She’s flanked be Kerr to her left and the King to her right. Nar and her family are right behind them from what the report says.”

“I’d like to get to the Princess first before they arrive here. I think she might help the Queen see reason.” I motion to my father who walks slowly toward me. “Father, my equine, do you know where he is?”

He nods, turns back and shouts at another one of my brothers. I look at Jared. “I have no wish to bring war to any of these people. They have no idea of the pain, agony, and horror that will follow them the rest of their lives. The ones who live that is.”

My black equine, Jasper is brought to me, and I jump into the saddle and speed away to meet the group that went to Earth for a wedding only to return to their home where everything has gone awry.

Please let them allow me to approach them without annihilating me!