Megurion

5

The meeting room of the Royal Palace was something to be reckoned with, as was the Palace itself, but this was the first room Valora managed to actually take a look at. The Palace was very crowded and everything was so hectic that she couldn't really pay attention to the details around her.

It was obviously a rare occurrence to have this many people in the Palace, seeing as how the workers of the Palace were running around in different directions, yet at the same time being extra careful. It looked like they could jump out of their skin anytime from overheat.

Today, Valora found out that there were many silent agreements in the world. One of them being that each noble family had their own colour for their attire. Valora had no idea why her parents told her earlier to only bring purple dresses, but now she knew.

There were a few familiar faces in the sea of nobles she saw earlier, but now they were finally gathered in the meeting room. Not all of them were allowed to enter, but only the representatives of each family, which ranged from four to six people. They were all seated comfortably, waiting for the wise words of the King to grace them.

Counting by the colours, there were probably around twelve noble families in the gigantic building. The royal family themselves were wearing red. Despite the letter saying to bring as many people as possible, the only ones allowed to the meeting room was the representatives of each family, which was at most four people.

The room was filled with whispers, guesses at what this meeting was about, but it abruptly fell into silence when King George stood up in all his glory.

"I'm sorry to have you all gathered here on such short notice, but there is an urgent matter I have to discuss," he started his speech with a very serious expression. "Firstly, has anyone received letters of threat? Or experienced other kinds of suspicious things?" He let the question hang in the air, looking at everyone's expressions as if calculating something.

Everyone in the room simply looked confused. A threat? From where? The four High Kingdoms had been at peace for a very long while now, despite not exactly being overly friendly with each other. What other power dared to threaten them? It sounded extremely foolish.

No one replied, so he continued, "Very well. Then, I will explain.

"Recently, the Royal Palace has been getting letters of threat from an anonymous source. We still do not know where they came from, but it's gotten bad enough that some of our knights have gone missing," he announced grimly. "One of the newest letters told that they will burn down all of Hamtalin unless we execute a noble family in front of the public."

The moment he said this, everyone seated in the room other than the royal family started muttering loudly in panic. They were scared that they would be executed, obviously, and most likely wanted to escape from this room. As long as they were in the royal family's grasp, there was a chance they would be executed along with their whole family, to save the country.

Nobles were anything but heroic.

The King raised his hand and everyone shut up. "I am not going to execute a whole family for this; that's absurd. We don't know who these people are or how strong they really are; they could be a bunch of kids playing around, for all we know. I have discussed this matter with the ministers, and we have decided that this group's target must be the noble family. Therefore, we have decided making you stay here in the Royal Palace has to be the best conclusion."

Everyone stayed quiet, wondering if the consequences.

His Majesty continued, "Everyone will be free to leave whenever, but we from the royal family sincerely suggests you to stay here until we settle this matter."