Irah of the Seven Dominions

Chapter.9: The Summit (Part-B)

Chapter song: Just like fire by Pink.

The grand conference hall was a wide room, with spotless marble tiles and absolutely no windows and other doors. It was lit by a myriad of golden lights that spilled through small spotlights in the ceiling, though the far corners of the room were drenched in shadows giving the room an eerie and depressing look.

There was a large table in the room's center shaped like a crescent adjoined by six seats, three on each side. The kings and Crown Prince Nicholas were standing casually to the left side of that table when she entered the room, prompting them to stand to attention.

They gave her the customary bow as she headed towards her seat, which was next to a large mahogany desk that was slightly separate from and faced the crescent table.

"Our Queen." The Kings said in unison as Irah took her seat.

"Kings of My Dominions ." She responded with her practiced smile, "You may be seated."

The Kings took their seats, in order of rank from Irah's right. Prince Nicholas, King Abioye and King Lee took up the right side of the table, with King Malik, King Matias and King Jasper, taking up the left.

They all looked at Irah expectantly as she opened the file that Reeves had left on the desk for her.

Irah glanced down at the talking points listed on the page, made a mental note of them and closed it, ready to discuss the issues at hand.

"Kings of my Dominions, I thank you all for being patient during the delay today. I understand that you all have travelled and must be exhausted, therefore we'll try to keep this session short and to the point." Irah spoke in a loud clear voice, making eye contact with each of the royals as she spoke.

"We'll be discussing the individual security concerns of each of the dominions." Irah said, as the other rulers also opened their files and glanced at their talking points.

"We'll go rank-wise lowest to highest.", Irah said as she looked towards Jasper, "King of Vesper, Begin."

Jasper who'd been the only one not looking at his talking points, him being busy looking around the room like a lost puppy, suddenly shifted his expression to that of a wolfish grin.

"What's there to talk about, My Queen?" Jasper said leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.
"Our sea trade with the Island nations is going fantastic. No threat there." He said appearing to be extremely proud of himself.
"Though I've received reports that a blockade has been set to prevent ships from entering the Continents to the Far West. Not a problem since we don't have any links with the countries there."

"Understandable." Irah replied, twirling a pen in her hand absentmindedly.

"On a side note though, a member of my royal family has gone missing." Jasper said a little more enthusiastically than he'd probably meant to.

"For the last time Jasper, we are not organizing a search party for another one of your escaped, exotic pets." Irah replied sternly, remembering the time he had filed a formal application to locate three missing penguins and an ostrich. The other kings probably remembered too because they grunted in agreement with Irah.

Jasper gave his fellow leaders a sour look but didn't dare to glare in Irah's direction, before saying, "First of all, I take offense to that. Second, it's my twin brother Asper, who has gone missing."

"It's one after the other with your chief advisors." Irah replied off-handily, thinking about Asper's disappearance, realizing too late that she had said the wrong thing.