The sharp clack clack of heels on cold stone floors echoed through the tall, arched hallways of Marble Palace.  Miriam's pace was urgent as she made her way through the marble corridors and toward her family's private quarters in the heart of the massive complex.  Her eyes were wide; her gaze vacant, as she struggled to comprehend what she had just been through.  A month ago, it had been business as usual in the small kingdom of Tanvir.  She had left for the small, secluded health resort town of Crystal Falls with only her personal demons to contend with and conqueror, just as she had done for 16 years before, but never had she returned to such chaos and disorder.  

Her car had been swamped by seas of desperate citizens, their bodies pushing against the vehicle as her driver very slowly attempted to enter the heavily guarded entrance to the palace grounds.  Armed guards and police with riot shields had to step in to clear the path as angry mobs pounded on the windows and random items from the crowd bounced off the glass.  Miriam was quite shaken.  Never in all of her 55 years had she seen the people act in this manner.  Tanvir was a peaceful nation known for its rare flowers and more recently, its advances in technology.  She had gathered bits of information from her best friend and driver, Calvin, on her way back from Crystal Falls.  The worst flooding in more than 100 years had struck the northern half of the country, causing massive destruction and sending newly homeless citizens flocking in one direction--toward the capital city.  

Miriam could feel that familiar old pain in the pit of her stomach beginning to burn once more the closer she drew to the private office where she knew she would find her eldest son.  Her health had been rapidly deteriorating the past few years, and everyone had always told her that her constant worrying could eventually kill her.  But worry came with the position, especially when she was the mother of the ruling High Lord Wolffe of Tanvir, and beyond the mahogany doors ahead, she knew she would find her brooding son.

Miriam's eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of herself in the large mirror that hung on the marble wall just short of the large door.  Her normally kind, grandmotherly face was etched with worries.  She was usually the picture of perfection, but today her short cropped, wheat colored hair appeared windblown, and her blazer wrinkled and off center.  She did her best to straighten herself before turning and rapping urgently on the heavy wooden door.

“Come in!” came a deep, notably irritated voice as she turned the knob and entered the office.  
          
Miriam was surprised at the dark state of the executive office and had to let her eyes adjust before stepping any further.  The curtains were drawn, shutting out the morning light, and only the dim lamps scattered about the room provided illumination, meager at best.  Miriam’s deep blue eyes locked onto the desk in the center of the adjacent wall and the dark shape of her son.  At this very moment, he looked so much older than his age of thirty years.  He sat with his forehead braced against his left hand, his right hand rested on a short glass that appeared to contain some sort of liquor.  He glanced up at her briefly as she made her way across the room, but the thick black hair that hung in his face kept her from determining his mood.

“Willim?  Willim, what is going on?”

Thick locks of black hair that had shielded his eyes were now pushed away, revealing his narrowed, ice blue eyes.  Now this was a look she knew all to well.  Willim Taylor Wolffe, Jr. sat up straight, his arms coming to rest straight out before him, flat on the desktop.  A sigh seethed out from between his clenched teeth as his eyes fixed on her, his gaze hard and cold.  

“What is wrong?  Have you not been watching the news on your little vacation?” he spat in return, his voice laced with anger and frustration.  

Miriam flinched; Willim was stressed to his snapping point, a state she found him in quite frequently these days.  She always hated having to speak to him when he was in one of his moods.  Pain stabbed at her chest as she straightened her posture, standing defiantly as she faced him.  Her own eyes narrowed as she shot him a stern look.

“Willim, you know I was in Crystal Falls.  The clinic there does not turn on their televisions.  It would defeat the whole purpose!  I’ve gathered bits and pieces of what was going on from Calvin as he drove me back.  And don’t you talk to me like that; I’m still your mother,” she snapped back, her anger growing as she spoke.
          
His mood seemed to darken even more as he glared back at her.

“Let’s see.  What all is wrong, besides everything,” he started sarcastically, breaking his gaze with his mother only briefly before once more locking onto her.  “First and foremost, the negotiations with Kalpac have hit rocky ground, especially concerning agricultural imports and exports.  They’ve fulfilled their part of the current contract, but with all these damn storms and the flooding, our crops have been damaged beyond being able to fulfill our end.  And they are getting impatient.  And then, there are these storms.  I’ve sent aid of every kind we can muster, yet the people keep streaming here.  The locals are beginning to revolt, and things are just getting nasty out there.”  His voice rose in volume as his hand thrust out, pointing towards the window and the chaos beyond the safety of the palace.
          
Miriam knew all too well the unrest of the people.  She’d never seen it this bad.  She almost started to ask him what he’d done to help the people when she saw his eyes lock on a stack of newspapers scattered about on his desk.  He angrily brushed away a few loose pages of paper, exposing the entire front page of this morning’s paper.
          
“And then we have Nate!  The stupid, arrogant little son of a….”
          
“Willim!” came Miriam’s stern, hard voice.  It was all she said, but all that was needed-a one word threat.  If he dared even finish that sentence… She could feel her blood pressure rising; her head was pounding, and she felt ill, but she stood strong despite the fact that she felt as if she could just collapse right here and now.
          
Willim wisely bit back his words as he angrily looked up from the newspaper, his black tipped ears pulling back flat against his skull.  Finally, after a few seconds of dead silence, a snarl of rage erupted from the young leader as he raised his right fist and brought it down hard atop the oak desk, the force of the impact jarring the glass of amber liquid, tipping it over.  The contents of the glass instantly spread over the desktop, saturating the newspapers and some of the scattered pages of notes, and down the sides of the desk.  Willim swung about in his chair, barely moving out of the way before the amber liquid would have ran into his lap.
          
“Shit!” he yelled angrily, yanking open the opposite drawer and retrieving a handkerchief.  Willim shoved himself to his feet as he dabbed at the liquid, soaking up as much of it as he could.  A low growl of frustration, along with some unrecognizable words mumbled under his breath could be heard as he mopped up the mess.  

Miriam just stood there in shock.  It was all she could do.  It would have been a mistake to try to help.  Things were much worse that she had thought.  She watched as his quick movements slowed and his gaze fell to the newspaper once more.  He dropped the saturated handkerchief and snatched up the paper, holding it up so that she could read it.  

Big, bold headlines read: “WHILE THE PEOPLE PAY, OUR LEADERS PLAY”.  A large photograph of Nataniel, her younger son, accompanied the article.  Nate’s overly charming smile grinned out from the photo, and it looked as if it were taken just as he was climbing the ramp to enter one of the family’s several private jets.  His hand was resting on the shoulder of an unidentified individual, no doubt the week’s romantic interest.
          
Her legs trembled weakly as she took a few shaky steps forward, her blue eyes scanning the front page.  Other words stood out, smaller headlines.  Hundreds dead; thousands missing and feared dead.  She threw a horrified glance up at Willim.
          
“And you think that is bad.  This paper is from earlier in the week,” he snarled, snatching up another stack and held it up.  The sobbing face of Angel Crieler sat front and center, the headline above declaring that the hotel heiress threatened a lawsuit for emotional trauma.  Miriam felt dizzy and nauseous, her hand quickly finding the support of a chair in front of the desk, before her legs finally gave out and she plopped down into the chair.  Sorrow and shame filled her eyes as she raised a hand and took the paper from him so she could read it better.  Willim willingly released it before lowering himself back to his chair with a loud huff.
          
“He didn’t…I told Nate to be careful, to stop this foolishness before someone got hurt.  And he knew that I did not approve of his involvement with Miss Crieler.  That girl was after one thing and one thing only.  She was bad news.  Oh, Nate, how could you,” she spoke quietly as she read the story.  
Her youngest had never really grown up.  Nataniel was a charming young man of 21.  He could make anyone laugh, and he had a presence about him that everyone liked.  He could temporally charm even his enemies to have a fun, friendly conversation.  But he took nothing seriously.  He lived to party and play.  And he had absolutely no respect for women-they were his playthings.  She and Willim had been after him for years to start taking his life more seriously, to go to school.  He’d been in and out of more schools and programs than she could count.  And he’d squandered unknown amounts of money and had nothing to show for it, except for maybe a very large mob of really pissed women.
          
“Luckily, I have yet to hear anything concerning Angel.  If we’re lucky, it was just an idle threat. But something has to be done about Nate, Mother!  He is supposed to be working with me, learning how help me run this country.  I could really use his help right now to deal with these people so I can concentrate on keeping our alliance with Kalpac intact.  We don’t need conflict with our neighbors to further complicate the already out of control mess we have here.  So far, no one seems to know where he is.  He could be halfway around the world for all I know,” Willim said with a growl.
          
Miriam looked up at her son.  His gaze had wandered to the shuttered windows.  He looked exhausted, like he had been up for days without any rest.  Willim always looked sharp, and he prided himself in a clean, tidy, professional appearance.  But today, everything was just out of place.  She folded the newspaper and sat it back on the corner of the large oak desk.
          
“Willim, when was the last time you rested?  I am sorry things have grown so precarious while I was away, but you will do no one any good in your current state,” she started.  

Willim snorted, his piercing ice blue eyes locking on her once more.
          
“I don’t have time for sleep, and not that anyone would give me any peace to seek rest!” his voice was raising once more, causing Miriam to flinch at the outburst.  “I’ve tried to get some rest.  I grew tired of hearing knocking on my door and the phone ringing off the wall.  I…” he cut his rant short with a growl as he shoved himself to his feet once more.  He pushed the chair aside as he stormed over to a nearby window.  He paused there, prying open a section of the louvered shutter, peering out into the morning light.
          
Miriam felt so torn.  Her eldest son looked so much like his father, her dear Willim, Sr.  But they were so different, like night and day.  Glancing back at the newspaper spread open on the desk with Nataniel’s grinning photo, she couldn’t keep from thinking that it was all her fault for the way they had turned out.  And with those feelings came the old pain, the shortness of breath that came with the anxiety these thoughts caused.  She fought with all the strength she had left to keep the panic attack at bay.  She struggled to stand, her trembling legs feeling as if they could give out on her at any moment.  How she wished she could bring comfort to his troubled mind, but that was hard to do considering her own mind was troubled.  How she wished her husband was here to help.  Willim, Sr. had always had the right things to say for any given circumstance.  She took a few hesitant steps toward where Willim stood at the window.
“If only your father were here right now; he would know….”Miriam caught herself too late.  
            
At the mention of his father, Willim spun on his heels, pure anger burning in his eyes.  His teeth were clenched as he stormed straight up to her.  Miriam’s eyes flew open wide as fear took hold of her.  This was an entirely new look that she had never seen.  She stumbled backward a few steps before the chair bumped the backs of her knees and she fell into it.  
          
“He would know what!  Do what!   Say some nice words and poof!  Everything would be magically better?”  He practically screamed, his voice thick with fury as he raised his hands above his head, wiggling his fingers at the word ‘magically’.  Now he stood over her as she sat in shock, gasping for breath.
          
“Well, HE isn’t HERE!  Hasn’t been now for sixteen years!  He left us-left us alone a long time ago.  That will never change!  Don’t go telling me how HE would have done things differently!”
          
Miriam was in total shock as she sat there, hot tears stinging the corners of her eyes as Willim’s cold, hard, rage filled eyes stared deep into her.  She couldn’t move; she could barely catch her breath as pain exploded over her chest at the onset of a severe panic attack.  It was a chronic problem that she had dealt with now for sixteen years.  But never had one been caused by the outright cruelty of one of her sons.
          
Willim's posture stiffened as he stepped back, leaving her personal space.  He knew the warning signs of the panic attacks, and made it a habit to keep spare bottles of her medications in a cabinet above the sink that sat in the corner of the room.  He stormed to the sink and pulled a cup from the cabinet, along with the proper bottle of pills.  Filling the cup with fresh cold water, he strode back to where she sat, sitting the bottle of pills and the cup of water down on the desk before her, almost too roughly, as the water sloshed in the cup, a few drops spilling over the side.  He looked down at her, his ice blue eyes still hard, an expression that said that he didn’t really have time to deal with this, too.
          
“Take your pills, Mother,” he said coolly before turning his back to her.  

He shook his head in irritation as walked towards another door behind the desk.  As he grabbed for the handle, he threw one last, quick glance her way.  Miriam thought she recognized a hint of regret as he opened the door and stepped through into the next room.
          
Miriam's breathing was labored and her heart pounded as she reached for the bottle with trembling hands.  This panic attack was worse than it had been in a long time.  The burning sensation in her stomach was new.  Her hands found the bottle of pills, but she was having the hardest time opening it, and the harder she tried, the more it seemed impossible that she would get the bottle open.  She finally reached into a pocket, withdrawing her cell phone.  Hitting the speed dial, she held the device up to her ear with a trembling hand.
          
“Miriam?” came Calvin’s voice on the other side.  She sucked in a few deep breaths, her voice coming forth strained.

“Calvin…Calvin, I need your help.”