Narayya narrowed her eyes at the guard. "Is this to mean that the king is dead?"
"No."
Both women stiffened at the news. "What do you mean no?" the queen demanded. "I thought you told us that the prince had moved to kill the king!"
"I am sorry, my queen," he responded, his eyes on the floor as he maintained his bow, weary of the queen's wrath. "I had been informed that it was so. From the reports that are coming out now, it would seem that the prince threatened, but did not follow through with a kill."
The air in the room seemed to grow instantly cold as the queen growled the word, "Leave," to the guard before her temper disappeared completely. As he scurried down the hall, the queen slammed the door shut. "What have you done?"
Kaeyea felt ice water in her veins. Failure had never crossed her mind. Vegeta had been given a task, and no matter how harsh his tasks had been, the boy had followed through. Every day of his life, he had been taught that his life was to be in service to his people. He had the fate of the Saiyan race on his shoulders, something he had been burdened with since his first day. That boy had very little that was important to him, deep in his heart. His life was not his own. It never had been. It never would be. It belonged to his people.
How could he fail them like that?
Her head snapped to the side. Kaeyea was so lost in her thoughts that she did not even move to defend herself when the queen struck her, nor did she move to correct herself. She knew full well what the queen was thinking.
The abortion of the plan might just be the killing blow to their race.
"Excuse me," Kaeyea grit out. She did not wait for a reply. To hell with rank and protocol. She needed to speak with the boy. Now.
/
Takyra embraced her brother. "You're back."
Vegeta said nothing. He had entered the room mutely, unable to even make eye contact with the girls as he did so. He had failed. He had failed and he had failed outright. The challenge had been called. The fight had been started. The ring had been thrown. All he had to do was finish closing it off and it would have been done. All he had to do. It was that simple.
And he had failed.
He could not bring himself to do it. He did not like the king. He virtually never referred to the man as his father. They held no bond with one another. There actually would have been no love lost at all. None of that had stopped him.
No, he had hesitated for a different reason. It had all been too much for his young mind to handle. His only experiences killing thus far had been with Cultivars. Creatures so primitive that they lacked language and were destined to die in a matter of days, regardless of the level of mercy shown, were easy to kill. But this was a man. And more than that, that man was a king. A king whose death would bring grave repercussions, ones that he thought he could deal with.
Ones that someone else did not think he could handle.
Takyra's voice had echoed through his mind. Her every anxiety at the action pulled at his nerves and pushed in from behind his eyes. She had begged him not to do it. She begged before he left, she begged as he went down the hall, and she cried for him to stop as he launched his assault. It had never sat well with her, the plan to take down the king. She had feared for her brother. The king's death meant the virtual end of Vegeta's life. He would become a boy king, tied to that throne until the day he died.
Her anxiety had been so high that Vegeta could not block it out, no matter how hard he tried.
And he had failed his mission for it.
Roma, standing a distance away, cleared her throat uncomfortably. "So what happens now?"
The children had no further time to think about it as the door burst open. Kaeyea moved so quickly that none of them could move to stop her. Aggressively she clamped a strong hand down on his young shoulder, crushing it somewhat as she struck him repeatedly.
Nothing could stop her rage. Takyra lashed out and Roma pounced, but both of them were quickly thrown away without even a mild thought. Furious blows rained down on the child. Kaeyea assaulted relentlessly, and Vegeta did nothing to stop her.
He could not. He had failed, and he deserved his punishment.
Roma and Takyra tried again and again to stop the enraged guardian, but there was nothing they could do in the wake of her fury. Though it lasted for only a minute, the tortuous beating seemed to last an eternity.
"You fool!" she hollered, finally throwing the child to the ground. "You idiot! Do you have any idea what you have done?"
She moved to grab him again, but the sound of metal becoming unsheathed stalled her. From the corner of her eye, Kaeyea saw Roma, now armed, holding her weapon in an aggressive manner.
"If you hit him again," the little redhead threatened, "I will kill you."
There was no doubt in Kaeyea's mind that the girl meant her words. Roma had proven before that she was more than willing and ready to take on the guardian on behalf of the two royal children. The girl still paled in comparison to the grown warrior, but Kaeyea was a seasoned enough soldier to know that even a weaker opponent could do substantial damage when properly motivated. Roma was most certainly motivated.
Fighting to get her temper once more in check, Kaeyea clenched her teeth. "You failed," she growled at the boy.
Vegeta was on his knees, his eyes down to the floor. "Yes."
"The king still lives," the woman bit out.
"Yes."
"Our people are running on borrowed time."
The boy convulsed slightly as her words sunk in. The meaning of the mission was not only to overthrow an incompetent ruler. It was to unify and strengthen their race as a whole. It was to bring the Saiyans together, to stand proud with one voice in the face of their oppressive enemies.
He was supposed to give his people the strength to fight off annihilation.
He had failed.
Another convulsion racked his small body, and he barely repressed the urge to vomit.
He had failed.
"Someone's coming."
Takyra's voice was soft, but the other three heard her clearly. No matter the rage, shame, and protectiveness felt by the others, they could not be caught in their positions. Roma sheathed her weapon and reached for the prince, using her dark sleeve to wipe the blood from his face as he stood. Kaeyea took several steps back, distancing herself from the children as best she could, knowing that even being in the room made her too close. Takyra backed away from the door, her clothes too pale to hide the blood but wishing to help nonetheless.
Only seconds later the room filled with royal guards, ones who quickly surrounded the former guardian. "Lady Kaeyea," one of them announced, "you are being charged with conspiracy to treason. Stand down immediately and come with us for questioning."
The children froze. "You can't do that!" Takyra cried. "She didn't do anything wrong!"
But the guards paid her no mind as they closed in on the tall woman. Knowing that resistance held no point, the woman held her hands up, surrendering immediately. Without another words she went peacefully as they took her away.
Horrified, the children looked at the once more closed door. "Oh, no…" Takyra once again barely got loud enough for anyone to hear.
Roma trembled slightly. "They're not going to…I mean, she's not…"
None of them could verbally finish the thought. They all knew what it meant. Kaeyea was charged with treason for helping to plan the attempted assassination. If Vegeta had finished the job, he would have held the authority to dismiss the charges and save her life. But without that, Kaeyea was almost certainly going to be found guilty, and there was only one possible sentence for treason.
Immediate public execution.
And those three young children were helpless to stop it.
/
"You're insane."
Roma had been hearing that phrase in her direction so often that the words had almost lost their meaning. "Trust me, Takyra, this could work."
"I don't know," the little princess replied. "Brother, what do you think?"
Vegeta had not spoken since he had returned from the throne room. His face was showing substantial bruising from his beating and there was still a trace amount of blood on his face, but those were not the most disturbing things about his presence.
His eyes were distant, haunted. It almost seem like part of him had broken.
The girls exchanged a glance, both of them unnerved by his state. Takyra had never been privy to her brother's difficult moments; it had always been important to him to try to hide them from her. Roma had seen glimpses, brief parts where he seemed resigned, but nothing at all like this.
For all their training in war and politics, they knew nothing on how to work with someone emotionally.
Sadly, Takyra turned back to Roma, trying to distract herself. "I still thing you're insane."
"And I still think it's got a decent shot at working," the redhead challenged. "Look, I know it's way out there, and I really, really do get how crazy it sounds, but can you think of anything else that could work? Because in my book, a long shot is better than no shot."
"Long odds and impossible odds are not the same thing," Takyra countered.
With a shrug, Roma shot back with, "Actually, they're usually the same thing."
"They're going to kill her."
The girls stopped and looked once more at the prince. Takyra leaned in, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Vegeta…"
"They're going to kill her," he said again. "They're going to kill her and it's my fault."
Roma squirmed uncomfortably. "They might not."
"Of course they will," Vegeta bit out. "The law is clear on this. I killed her."
"You didn't kill her," Roma fought back. "It's not too late. We can fix this. Now if you could just listen to me…" The little redhead tried to explain her ideas to her friends, but very little was getting through. Vegeta was too lost in his mind to truly hear her. His own emotions on his actions were difficult to deal with, but they were not the ones pushing him to the edge.
Takyra's mind was plagued with the notion that Kaeyea could be executed and that the blame lay with them. Her imagination was running wild with images of beheadings and torture falling upon the woman who used to take care of them. Waves of guilt and anxiety hailed down upon her thoughts.
But most of her own agony was not felt, because without even being aware of it, she was releasing her horrors to her brother. And he, no more aware than she, was taking on every single one of them.
/
Kaeyea stood before the Council, her head held high. She knew full well what was about to happen. She was going to be accused of giving the information to the prince, a crime she was guilty of. She was going to be accused of deliberately pushing the prince to overthrow the king, a crime she was guilty of. She was going to be accused of high treason against the head of the Saiyan monarchy, a crime she was guilty of.
There was nothing for her to say in her defense. Anything she said would either damn her or be an all-out lie, a path she refused to take. If she was to be executed before sundown, then so be it. She had done what she could for her people.
So she stood wordlessly, listening to the accusations fly, along with a very obscene dose of rhetoric. Apparently the Council felt that high treason was a good time to try to win points for their own political careers. The knowledge that she was likely going to be killed soon made it damn tempting to make faces of disgust as the speeches began to fly.
After over fifteen minutes of lecturing, the hall doors flew open. Every member of the Council shot to their feet, fear in their eyes as they looked to the door. "Your Highness," one of them gasped.
Dark energy seemed to fill the room as the queen strode in. "Let her go. Now."
One daring Councilmember swallowed hard. "Your Majesty," he tried to explain, "I am sorry, but you do not have the authority to…"
Even Kaeyea flinched slightly as the queen fluxuated her overwhelming powers.
"I have the authority to do as I wish," she hissed. "I have been made aware of your charges against this woman, and I can tell you they are not true. I demand that you release her immediately."
"But ma'am…"
The Councilmember did not make it further than that before the entire room began to reverberate from the queen's awesome power.
"You accuse my bodyguard and confidant of treason," she darkly spoke. "You have no evidence. I know you have none, because there is none. You claim that she has been working with the prince on high conspiracy. This cannot be true, because the timetable that I have been listening to you prattle off includes only time where she was never away from my side. It is impossible. Therefore, you will be releasing her back to me. Now."
That one Councilmember did not fold, though. "I apologize, Your Highness," he stated, his nervousness evident as glasses began to crack in the wake of her power, "but the king…"
The windows cracked and the glasses on the table shattered. "If the king has a problem with it," she smoothly said, her dark alto voice hiding none of her malice, "then he can take it up with me."
The Council found themselves in the crosshairs of what might have been the worst place to be: a confrontation between the king and queen. Both could execute them at will. Both of them could take everything from them. Both could remove rank and privilege from entire families on a whim. Neither was likely to back down.
"Release her," the queen stated one final time. "Now."
The king might hold the right to kill them in a few hours, but the queen was ready to do so immediately. The head Councilmember cleared his throat. "All in favor of dropping the charges against the prisoner?" he quickly asked. The vote was unanimous and instantaneous.
The queen did not wait for them to formalize the motion before glaring at her bodyguard. "Come. Now."