“My Queen, Princess Lucy is here to see you.” Julie bowed her head with respect.

Queen Grace replied, “Tell her to come in, I don’t want to waste more time here than we need to.” She rolled her eyes. Her daughter was a naïve, selfish woman; how could she be of the same blood?

Lucy strolled in, her typical posse of bodyguards nowhere to be found. “Mother.”

“Hello, Lucy. Have you come to gloat?”

Her daughter scoffed. “I’ve come to make an offer, actually.”

Grace sat a little stiffer in her throne. “Well then get on with it. I do not have all day.”

Lucy cleared her throat and clasped her hands behind her back. She looked incredibly rigid in her three-piece suit, with velvet navy fabric and gold chains. “As you may know, the settlement I have developed outside of Rowan has flourished. So much so that we are expanding every day.” She paused, letting the Queen’s raised eyebrow suspend in silence. “I’ve come to ask for an official declaration to declare Greenfeld its own kingdom.”

The laugh Queen Grace let out boomed through the throne room. “You cannot be serious! You? A queen? You know NOTHING!”

“Mother, I’m not a child anymore! And I refuse to let you treat me as such!”

“My dear, let it be known that I will NEVER allow Greenfeld to stand on its own. It is part of the Empire.”

The former princess stared at the shimmering tile floor. “Please, mother. Don’t make me do this.”

“No. Now get out of my castle.”

Lucy shook her head, rage and sadness bubbling out of her. “Fine. Have it your way. Captain!”

From behind one of the marble columns, the Captain of the Greenfeld military propped a crossbow on his shoulder, and fired.

“GRACE!” Jamie cried out from the corner, rushing to where the Queen had slumped over in her once glorious throne. When she arrived and saw the state of her friend, Lucy and the Captain had already disappeared. “Guards! Hunt down the traitor, and bring them back to me alive!”