Few people would ever know about the battle on the docks of Hammer Bay that night. Genoshan troops were close; they cleaned up the skrull bodies and confirmed for the queen that her son had safely escaped the island.

            Madelyne Summers did not sleep that night. Xavier had performed his wizardry, and the queen's husband rested peacefully in stasis. She worried about him and about her brave but foolish son.

            "My Queen?" It was Xavier. He entered the chamber slowly, cane in one hand, a steaming cup of liquid in the other. "Drink this, it will calm your nerves and help you rest."

            "I don't want to rest, Xavier."

            "Your Highness, there's nothing more you can do tonight. The king has been secured, Bishop has swept the palace for more skrull spies, and the prince is safely off the island." He pushed the cup in front of the queen's face; she took it reluctantly. Her nose turned up at the aroma.

            "This smells terrible."

            "It tastes even worse. I'd drink it quickly. Tomorrow will be a big day as the Lords Imperial will begin hearing rumors about the king's condition. We will need to devise a strategy to keep them at bay." The queen nodded as she began to sip the drink. It did taste terrible.

            There would be a buzz on the streets of Hammer Bay the next morning, and it had nothing to do with the skrulls or the royal family. Violence had struck elsewhere in the city. Lord Harold Leland, a high ranking member of the Genoshan Lords Imperial had taken a dive out his bedroom window and been fatally impaled on the iron fence below. Officials and witnesses were claiming it was an accident, but many suspected foul play, particularly because his assets and title would go to his new wife, a relatively unknown noblewoman by the name of Emma Frost. Leland had lived a debaucherous life, so all kinds of gossip about illicit behavior filled the streets like a low-lying fog.

            Much of the real power in Genosha was housed in the Lords Imperial. They operated as both Parliament and bureaucracy for the island nation. What a nation of a few thousand needed a bureaucracy for, most citizens couldn't understand. As a group they were ineffective and disjointed. As individuals they were scheming, manipulative, and ambitious.

            Leland had been a member of the Inner Circle, a group of the most powerful lords. Some had ascended to the group through economic means; Sebastian Shaw, for example, was one of the richest men on the island. An industrial magnate, Shaw controlled nearly all mines on Genosha as well as the means to refine the unearthed ore.

            Other positions came from noble blood. Leland was one such lord, and with his death, his position would go to his next of kin. He had no children, so his widow Emma would soon become the sole Lady Imperial in the Inner Circle.

            Of all the men in the Inner Circle, none was more dangerous than Lord Magnus. Just two generations previous, Magnus' family had ruled Genosha. A peasant's revolt had unseated and executed his grandfather while most of the king's loyal soldiers had been abroad, fighting in the Fisk province over a trade dispute. Magnus had spent two years in a Fiskian prison camp before he had even learned his family had fallen from power. The rival Summers clan taken over. They waited another whole year to negotiate a release for Magnus, first making sure their power base was consolidated and they were insulated from potential coup.

            Once free, Magnus returned to Hammer Bay and received another shock. His wife Magda had died in childbirth. He hadn't known she was pregnant, yet here instead of her were two wide-eyed toddlers, Pietro and Wanda, in need of a father. They would never truly receive one; instead the twins would come to see Magnus as harsh taskmaster and masterful teacher in the ways of court politics, but never a father. Just as Magnus never saw them as children, just one more way his former life had been taken away from him.

            Magnus pondered these things the morning after Nathan fled from Genosha, calculating his political capital. "Mortimer," called the silver haired nobleman. Mortimer Toynbee was a wretched, misshapen creature that just barely passed for human. Many wondered why Lord Magnus would deign to allow the grossly disfigured hunchback anywhere near him. It certainly wasn't pity, for Lord Magnus had none.

            "Yes, master?" Mortimer was always just within Magnus' reach. The servant had never figured out for himself why Magnus had picked him off the street years ago but thanked the Light everyday since. Pietro might not consider Magnus his father, but Mortimer certainly did.

            "What have the servants been gossiping about all morning? Their incessant chattering is mind-numbing."

            "They continue to speak of Lord Leland's accident, master."

            "Have you heard anything about an incident at the palace yesterday?" Mortimer had learned long ago that people who looked down on him generally forgot he was around; over the years the servant had added to his value with the things he heard when noblemen didn't know he was listening.

            "No master." Very little information had come from the palace yesterday, which in itself was almost newsworthy. "Though I heard that Prince Nathaniel met with Lebeau of all people yesterday."

            "How curious. That'll be all Mortimer." The servant crept away like a loyal puppy that had just been given a treat. Summers was up to something, Magnus thought. He could sense instability in the air, and imbalance in the political sphere, a chink in the seemingly impenetrable armor of the royal family. He must find that chink, now more than ever.

            "Genosha will be mine yet."