King Turin and his nurse, Marie, descended the high landing of the loading platform and began to make their way through the people with the king’s guards flanking them on either side. A young man intercepted them. He wore a royal courier’s uniform and King Turin recognized him immediately as one of his most loyal and trusted couriers.
“Michael, how are you today?” King Turin said.
“Your Highness. I have an urgent message for you from Captain Hastings.”
“But Hastings has just departed. How could he have already sent me a communiqué?”
“Sire, Captain Hastings asked me this morning to deliver this important document at precisely the time the Andromeda reached the second set of sea doors,” Michael said, trying very hard to sound official enough.
King Turin accepted the courier’s silver cylinder and opened the end where it latched. He tilted the tube enough to reveal its contents and let the rolled up scroll inside slide out into his hand. A red wax seal had been set to the document. The seal of Captain Nathaniel Blackborne had been impressed into the wax—two crossed cutlasses overlaid by the capital letters “NB.” Turin was shocked. Why would Captain Hastings use such a seal? Or, perhaps Samuel had merely passed on a document which had not been unsealed…he hoped.
The elder king broke the red wax seal and unfurled the parchment to read the words written within. What he found sent a cold chill through the man’s very soul. His eyes flew wide open, and his breathing became labored. Turin clutched his chest as the parchment page fell to the ground. Turin’s nurse and his bodyguards swarmed around their king, trying to help if they could. Turin heard their voices, but the sound was muffled and distant. He began to succumb to unconsciousness and his last cohesive thoughts were of the writing on the parchment and what it meant for his people in Gennedy and his guests aboard the Andromeda.