He reached out to themand console and called up Leonardo.


    "How is she?" te asked without preamble.


    Leonardo sighed.


    "Tell me. Don''t leave anything out." te pressed.


    "Her left cheek ispletely destroyed. When I was able to get her to the hospital, the strands of her skin had fallen off, exposing all her teeth and gums. Almost half her face is gone."


    "What about her eyes?"


    "Thankfully, his w missed her eyes so she can still see out of her left eye, but he sliced off part of her ear. She only has half of her left ear intact."


    "Is it possible to reconstruct her face?"


    Leonardo nodded. "It will be a long road to full recovery. I can only heal if there is something to heal. She''s missing so much of her facial skin that the best thing to do for her is a skin graft which will take several weeks to heal."


    "Even with your energy healing?"


    "I can''t use it that much. This is her face we''re talking about. If I go too fast, there will be too much scarring which would be disfiguring. Furthermore, she won''t be able to control her facial nerves which take even more time to grow and heal properly."


    "The wedding…" te hissed sharply.


    "We could postpone the wedding—" Leonardo muttered, but even as he said the words, he knew it was impossible.


    "We can''t, Leo. It''s timed to coincide with a multitude of things which must happen at the right time. This is not just our wedding, it''s also a political situation. Invitations have been sent out."


    te scratched his head. "You''re going to be there, right?"


    Leonardo gave him a disgusted look. "No matter what happens, I cannot miss my own wedding. My wife will kill me!"


    te grinned. His wife would kill him too, if he missed his own wedding, but then he sobered up when he realized something important.


    "Mother Fatima is not going to be able to make it to her sons'' wedding."


    "No, she''s not." Leonardo confirmed.


    "Neither will Father." te grimaced.


    "What''s going to happen to him, te?"


    "What do you think will happen to him?"


    Leonardo shrugged. "He''s a monarch. Isn''t he absolved from criminal charges that have nothing to do with governance while he is still an Emperor?"


    te sighed. "Normally yes. While assaulting Mother Fatima is a terrible crime, it is not a crime against Erenveil''s world or the gxy in general."


    "So what will you do?" Leonardo gave him a pitying nce.


    "I cannot charge him with personal crimes, but I can hold him without charges onboard the Raptor 600, at least until after the wedding."


    Leonardo looked dubious. "This is an official event. Will keeping Father from attending be a good idea?"


    =============


    "That''s a terrible idea." Dante threw out, interrupting te.


    All the brothers were in Candace''s suite of rooms, seated around her lounge area, sharing arge pitcher of sangria.


    "Dante, I cannot simply allow Father to attend the wedding, knowing that he has destroyed Mother Fatima''s face to that degree." te insisted.


    "I was there, te. I saw what he did." Dante''s look was dark and thunderous. "But we have hundreds and hundreds of kings from across the gxying from all the major worlds."


    "And?" te threw back.


    "Think about it te." Dante sighed harshly. "Without Father there, they will think something is horribly wrong, or we are staging an uprising, or he''s secretly been kidnapped. They may think that it''s a great time to start a revolt if the Erenveil Empire just lost its Emperor."


    "We don''t want him at our wedding." Jason spat. "He has shown how he feels about our mother and sister."


    Byron shook his head. "This is an intergctic affair. He simply cannot be absent. It would cause a huge ruckus and we would not be able to exin his disappearance to anyone''s satisfaction."


    "But because of him, my mother cannot even attend my wedding! She is right now, in great physical pain and distress!" Jared hissed with fury.


    "Okay, all of you please calm down." Leonardo threw up a hand. "Take a deep breath and drink up your monthly dose of blood wine Sangria."


    He gave a lopsided grin.


    "I don''t want any of you to get too hungry and begin draining my wife. She''s borderline anemic AND she''s going to be pregnant very soon."


    He threw a nce at Candace, who was at the moment sleeping on the bed in the far corner, having run herself ragged all day trying to organize the wedding''s myriad of details.


    The brothers all sighed and drank down their allotted blood that had been mixed in with the sangria.


    Lucas cleared his throat. "What if we let him attend, but only for a very short amount of time, like a quick ''hi folks, I''m here!'' And then we yank him back into istion again."


    "That would work." Dante rubbed his face. "Even if it was only for about half an hour, it would mollify all the heads of states who will be there."


    "No. Absolutely no." Jason shook his head.


    "Do we need to vote on this?" Leonardo put down his crystal ss and looked around.


    He sighed. "All in favor of allowing Father to attend the wedding for half an hour, raise your hand."


    Immediate, Dante, Byron, and Lucas raised their hands. That left te, Jared, and Jason opposed to the idea.


    Damn it. Leonardo scowled. He was the tie breaker yet again.


    "Look, guys." Leonardo picked up the pitcher and poured another ss of sangria. "I have been working on healing Mother Fatima for thest twenty-four hours. I, more than any of you, know the extent of the damage that''s been done to her face."


    He took a gulp of the sangria. "However, I am also one of the ones out on the front lines every day, healing the wounded from wars and conflicts."


    Leo sighed, staring into his red blood wine sangria. "I know how trigger-happy some of these kings are. It wouldn''t take much for them to attempt a conflict to erge their space holdings."


    He looked up at the twins. "I know you''re going to hate me, Jason, Jared…but I have to vote for the thirty-minute Emperor Pop-Up scheme."


    "Leo!" Jared mmed his rocks ss onto the table, startling Candace, who woke up with a gasp.


    Jason pped the back of Jared''s head with annoyance and ran to Candace''s side.


    "Sorry Babe…go back to sleep." He soothed her. "We''re just being a little bit noisy."


    Candace turned a sleepy face at the men and sank back down into the pillows. Within minutes, she was again fast asleep.


    te turned back to the men and nodded.


    "I understand. We''ve voted. Let''s just move forward with this, and after the wedding, we can all simply take over Father''s position as Co-Emperors.. Thereafter, we won''t need to consider his presence during meetings of Heads of States."