Miran waited. Her eyes glued to the entrance of the Eletrave Hotel entrance, through a pair of high tech binoculars Ezra had gotten her for her fourteenth birthday. Miran had been in this surveillance location for five hours, patiently watching for the arrival of the royal family. Her ear twitched slightly as she sensed something from behind. Something was watching her. She quietly and subtly slipped on her gauntlet, she turned suddenly and found Ezra standing there with a bag of chips in her arms.

"Geez, Ez, you gotta stop doing that!" Miran exclaimed in an honest relief. Miran was never nearly as good at fighting, that was left to Ezra. She had some minor explosives for emergencies, but her specialty of density manipulation was never really good for combat, more meant for thievery than anything else.

"I thought you knew I was there!" Ezra replied defensively.

Miran sighed heavily. "Whatever it's fine, just get down, we don't want anyone to spot you."

Ezra huffed. "Yeah right like anyone's going to be paying attention to a rickety old apartment," she looked around. "It's quite the stake out location." She gestured to the musty mattress in the corner. "Look, we even have a place to nap, let's just hope there aren't any rats."

Miran ignored her comments and continued. "It's smart that they chose such an obscure place to stay, I mean it's not like the Eletrave hotel is bad but it's not exactly royalty worthy. We are just lucky, it makes our jobs easier."

"Riight," Ezra responded. "Let's just remember that the entirety of the royal family specializes in the use of Arcanum crystals, this mission won't be as easy as we perceive it to be."

"Yeah, especially since Kaito is back in town," Miran said. "He will probably try to steal it before we get the chance."

Ezra nodded in agreement. "So what's the plan? I got a hold of the hotel layout like you asked."

"Perfect," Miran said as she took the device wielding the hotel layout. "We are going to strike tonight, before anyone else can. We will hide the jewels and then once the search for them dies down we will sell them."

"Cool, but how exactly are we going to do such a thing?"

Miran smiled and shared the plan with her quietly.

A wide smile slid across Ezra's face. "Sounds wonderful."

At that moment a taxi pulled up to the hotel. Miran and Ezra quickly retained surveillance positions and looked down cautiously.

Three figures stepped out of the rickety taxi.

Miran whispered to Ezra. "That's the first prince, Aayan, and the first and second princess Jazmin and Elham."

"They are not all travelling together?" Ezra asked.

"Looks too suspicious," Miran replied. "They will travel in scattered groups, on taxis that don't have video surveillance or facial recognition scanners."

Ezra smirked. "A little out of royalty's comfort zone."

"Trust me, Ez. They are tougher than they look."

...

Eron, Kamran and Mariam sat in a cramped taxi. The small vehicle was self driven, and frankly tiny. So they sat alone in awkward silence. It took a while for them to find different self driven taxi companies that didn't survey their cars. But these rust buckets were hardly worth surveying.

Kamran broke the silence. "Who do you think will win the succession?"

Mariam and Eron answered in unison. "Faisal."

It was apparent that Kamran didn't like how sure they were of their answer. "Really? That's it? I mean there is so much to take into consideration!"

Mariam spoke to answer her twins question. "Aayan is much too prideful, it will lead him into problems and traps until he is disqualified, he isn't a diplomat by nature he will make more enemies than allies. Haseem is simply a fool whose only prowess is combat, and we know combat will not be the only category in the succession process. No one in our entire family trusts Jazmin enough to even sponsor her, and even if she was sponsored no one would support her in the competition, even her own full siblings won't help her if they know she'll stab them in the back."

Mariam paused to collect her thoughts. "Elham is tricky, she is well rounded in her abilities but I can't see her on the throne after the dust settles. She will probably try to manipulate and support whomever she thinks will win to get a higher rank once they are on the throne. That is it for the children of the first queen and well hardly any member of the non immediate family likes our mother." She looked at her two brothers. "We are the underdogs, we are younger, less experienced and not at all well rounded. Young Farrah and Rohaan can hardly even do anything to win this contest. The three of us are all relatively smart and good at combat, but Faisal is older and better in nearly all the area's we excel in and that fact leaves Faisal and the throne."

Silence returned to the taxi, for everyone in the vehicle knew that Mariam was correct.

Eron spoke. "Mar, don't you have some sort of new ability that was supposed to give you an edge? What about that?"

"Even an edge can't always cut down the beast," Mariam said, detached.

"It doesn't matter!" Kamran said passionately. "Because we don't know what the competition will be! We can't predict the outcome of these events until they happen, and even though we are not well matched we can still try."

Eron smiled at his younger brother's feriosity and something came to mind. "Hey, how about we make a deal right here. Because I think the best person to be on the throne would undoubtedly be Kamran."

As Kamran reeled back in shock, Mariam was quietly listening.

"It's true that we are the underdogs, but if me, Mariam, Rohaan and even little Farrah support Kamran wholeheartedly we could win. Do you know why? Because all of the children of the first queen want to see themselves either in power or on the throne and can't fully support each other as long as they have ulterior motives. We can, and we all know that Kamran would be a fair king. We don't have schemes of our own, so if we can focus on one singular goal we might win."

"Full self sacrifice to lift someone up," Mariam mused. "It would be interesting to see."

Eron smiled slyly. "So is that a deal?"

At that moment the taxi stopped at the hotel and Kamran quickly got out of the door and went to open the trunk.

Mariam eyed her elder brother. "Are you really that confident in Kamran, it's true that he might be a good king, but he is so easily manipulated."

Eron looked at Mariam. When did she get so big?

Mariam's eyes were like stone. "Kamran could end up being the king of fools."

"True," Eron admitted. "Or he could start the most prosperous era the nation has ever seen, with his good judgement and fairness. He could become a king of diamonds."

"But the real problem is if Kamran even wants the throne," Mariam said.

Eron sighed. "True but if my proposal is going to work one of us needs to step up, you don't seem like you would really want to rule and trust me when I say I don't want any part of the throne."

"Why is that Eron?" Mariam asked coolly. "Why are you so uninterested in political affairs? And if you despise politics so much, why are you even trying to get involved with me and Kamran?"

Eron smiled a thin wiry smile and in that moment Mariam briefly saw Faisal in her older brother, and that sent chills running down her spine.

"I want no share in this empire, it is as simple as that. Power and authority doesn't exactly appeal to me and why would I want the crown when after I were to take it my entire life would follow the same cycle as those who came before me?"

Mariam's eyes narrowed at Eron's proclamation.

"You see if I were to be king I would simply marry a political pawn and then bear children who were destined to someday go to war with each other, my life would eventually end and I would be forgotten quickly unless I died by assination or I started a war."

Eron continued. "Unlike you and Kamran, I don't have any grand plan to better the nation or make big changes. I would simply live with this empire in the palm of my hand, only protecting it, never actually using it."

This statement left Mariam a bit rattled and she could give no answer or comment, she could only get out of the car in silence.

"Everything is beginning to be set into motion," Eron whispered to himself. "Make your alliances quick, Faisal. Time is running out before this all starts. You better be ready, because I've been ready for years and now it's finally time."