Zander didn't have to wait long, and about ten minutes later, as promised, the King, Queen, Zoey and Cyrus all entered the room, along with Ethan in their casual royal clothing.
"Thank you again for meeting with me," Zander said politely.
"The honor is ours, so what is this news you bring us?" The King asked.
The Hart family listened intently, asking Zander to repeat certain parts, such as Leo slaying the King and Queen of SilverCrest, having a Dragon born and raised in Haven, and having beast monoliths outside their walls, instead of inside the walls.
"It will be difficult to get a meeting with the King and Queen of SilverCrest, just as it was difficult to get a meeting with my brother and sister in-law," the King said as he sat deep in thought.
"Yes, but that can be arranged more easily than you think, it's just a lot of security measures," Zoey said, pulling out what looked like a cell phone, but then unfolded into a tablet which looked about a foot long and a foot wide.
Zoey opened a secure program, which needed her finger print, facial recognition and a passcode, which she then had to change again. It opened up a program that allowed her to send messages via the cards, to which she messaged, "Hi Zander," to Zander with a giggle.
Zander frantically pulled out his card, read the message and watched it disappear after he read it. Zander's face was a little red, and the King and Queen also let out a little chuckle.
"Our Zoey is quite talented, as I'm sure you've noticed," the King said, booming with pride.
"As we also found out about Cyrus, I forgot you weren't there for the noble assessment Zander. Are you sure you don't want to take it?" the Queen asked.
"I mean no disrespect, and I would love to take it, but there seems to be much more urgent matters going on that require our attention, wouldn't you agree?"
"He's right Father, plus you told me that Zoey and I excelled in some similar areas but approached the noble exams quite differently. I think that should have us well covered, especially with you and Mother, if they were ever to bring the war to us," Cyrus said proudly.
"Indeed, that is very true, my son," the King said.
Zoey continued typing away on the tablet, and had sent a message to the King and Queen of SilverCrest, on their cards, the following:
"We need to talk, regarding Solace. Please shoot the following pattern of magical colors for yes: red, blue, green, yellow and please shoot the following pattern of magical colors for no, green, blue, green, purple. It is of the utmost importance. Please reply at exactly 2:00 PM today," Zoey finished typing and then excused herself.
"The message has been sent, I am going to await their reply in the observatory," Zoey said, looking down at her watch, which she always had on, just like her trusty ear bud, which she wore in her left ear. It looked quite fitting of her beauty, especially with her diamond stud earrings she wore.
As Zoey made her way to the observatory, she couldn't help but think, "I'm not entirely sure they're going to be willing to just die, even if they're guaranteed a spot in Eden. Would I be able to say yes if I was asked that question? I'm not so sure I would be able to, although I'm only 23. No one knows the true age of the rulers of SilverCrest, as their magical abilities have allowed them to slow down their aging process."
Meanwhile, Sophie had just finished her first spar with Bruno, Juno's twin brother. It was a very long, close duel that Juno officiated. Bruno managed to land several different spells on Sophie, and had learned his lesson from the spar with Zander and closed the retractable roof, denying Sophie access to the sun.
He also didn't use any fire spells this time, as he realized that only aided Sophie.
Sophie had grown leaps and bounds in her magical abilities since coming to Haven. She had learned different types of fire spells, and even had a rare type of pink magic, from which they could find no information in any of Haven's historical books of magic, as well as scripture, which only led them to believe this was something unique to her.
This was the key to her winning the fight, as Bruno shot an ice lance at her, she transformed into her phoenix form, flew behind him, avoiding another ice lance and despite having a shield of ice, she was able to make eye contact with him, and her eyes went from pink to a darker shade of pink, and she shouted, "Confusion," to which made Juno chuckle.
As soon as she yelled Confusion, though, Bruno dropped his Ice shield and when he tried to send an ice lance, he sent it flying in the complete wrong direction, which opened him up for Sophie to hit him with a few pink fireballs, which were different than her regular fireballs as well. They caused a temporary shock on Bruno and she quickly jumped on him with her claw to his throat.
"Match," Juno said, with her jaw dropping.
Sophie transformed back into her human form and immediately asked Scarlett what to do about Bruno.
"That's the first time I've ever seen any magic like that, what do you typically do to cancel spells," Scarlett asked, knowing the answer but hinting at Sophie to figure it out.
"Oh, that's easy," she looked at Bruno directly in the eyes and yelled, "Negate," and Bruno came back around to his normal self.
"Thanks Scarlett, you're the best," Sophie said, to which Scarlett smiled in the white space.
"What the heck did you do to me?" Bruno asked with a smile and a laugh.
"I've never seen or heard of any magic attack like that, but when you cast it, I tried to use my hands and my head would turn. I tried to use my legs and my hands would move. I finally managed to figure out how to form and throw an ice lance, but well, you saw how that turned out."
Juno, also curious, asked Sophie when she learned the new spells.
"I can't really explain it, I felt like I was backed into a corner and I couldn't rely on what I normally do, but then Scarlett said she felt something different emanating within me and I should go with my intuition and confusion just felt right," Sophie answered honestly.
"It would have been nice for you to try that on a beast, you'll eventually have to do that on a hunt or something," Juno suggested.
Sophie challenged Juno to a spar, to which she accepted and then immediately surrendered, and despite not sparring, both Scarlett and Sophie felt Sophie's power and aura growing.
She decided to bind over to Zander.
Zoey had just returned from the observatory and let everyone know the King and Queen agreed to talk. Zoey explained their meeting time would be in an hour, on a secure line and couldn't run over 5 minutes, which was going to make things quite difficult to explain.
"I honestly think it's best if we let Zander and Sophie take the lead on this one. Zander's parents were very close with the King and Queen and they're more likely to believe people with beings of Solace inside of them than us," Ethan stated.
"I couldn't agree more," both the King and Queen chimed in.
Zoey was making preparations for the meeting on her tablet, which required even more security than the card messaging.
Zander noticed she opened a different program, which also required the facial scans of her Mother and Father, all of which had a passcode, which they then had to change.
The next screen required more data entry, to which Zoey kept typing away and entering the recipients of the call, followed by another face scan by her, her Mother and her Father, all with the new passcodes that they created, and created new passcodes again.
Zander had asked Sophie to freshen up and dress in her Haven casual clothing and Ethan would come to their room to pick her up shortly.
Ethan had made his way to Sophie's room and knocked on the door. Sophie came out, and Ethan couldn't help but admire her beauty.
"Are you ready Miss Sophie, you look gorgeous. You and Zander will have five minutes to explain your plan to the King and Queen of SilverCrest. We all agree it needs to come from you and Zander, as you both are blessed by Solace," Ethan explained, as they walked back to the meeting room.
"Ok, I don't know how we can possibly convince them to willingly die, even with Eden guaranteed. I don't think I could do it, Ethan. Does that make me a bad person? I'm only 17, I just got married in April and it hasn't even been a year yet. Our birthdays are still 5 months away. Is it selfish that I want to save Solace and the Earth just so I can finally enjoy my life with Zander?" Sophie asked, with a frown on her face.
"No Miss Sophie, that does not make you selfish. If anything, you, Master Zander and the Young Prince have already given up so much just to help Earth in your own way. Even if you were fated to do these things or not, it doesn't change the fact that you are human, feel emotions, fell in love, have great friendships and most importantly, have so much life left to live. Plus, I don't think it'd exactly work on you and Zander, the whole Leo killing you think," Ethan said with a chuckle.
"Zander told me no one knows how old the King and Queen of SilverCrest are because magic allows them to slow their aging down, but I know they have two children, both in their late twenties," Sophie said.
"I'm going to trust you to keep a secret, telling Zander is fine, but no one else, but as a blessed being of Solace, I can see and do many things. I will tell you that if you ensure their children's safety, perhaps send them an invite to Haven before the attack happens to spare them the grief of having to watch it happen, they could say their goodbyes and the King and Queen have lived a very, very long happy life," Ethan said with a smile.
"Thank you Ethan, your secret is safe with me but I have already let Zander know. You see, he and I made a permanent bond that allows us to communicate to each other telepathically and if one of us is in imminent danger, we can teleport to the other," Sophie said while showing Ethan the forever bind on her hand.
"That is the blessed magic of Solace, indeed Miss Sophie. It's very rare, beautiful magic that must be shared between two who are deeply in love and will be for eternity," Ethan explained.
Ethan let Sophie into the room, where she sat next to Zander, and Zoey had the tablet ready to go.
"The call will start in 5 minutes and cannot last longer than 5 minutes, otherwise we risk a security breach, despite all our other measures," Zoey explained.
Sophie and Zander sat next to each other, holding hands with their forever bonds showing. Zoey had the King and Queen, as well as herself, Cyrus and Ethan sit strategically behind them to show everyone was aligned on the plan.
After all, aside from dying and handing their kingdom over to Leo, it was Haven who would be dealing with the majority of the task from Solace, including hatching a dragon egg, having two creation monoliths erected in their inner barrier, and Haven would be on lockdown for the foreseeable future.