The palace meeting chamber is a bright, warm room projecting an aura of time-worn comfort and security. In the distance, children can be heard laughing and screaming through the corridors. KING OXUS, silver-haired but amazingly youthful under a tanned and leathery face, motions for one of his aides to shut the partially closed door. The group then sits down in comfortable chairs, placed in a large circle.
OXUS: We fear an abduction has occurred. There has been no word from your ambassadors, and my niece is still missing as well. Their rendezvous was to have quietly taken place far from here, in one of our small outlying communities, but my soldiers have found no trace of them. They say there also seems to be an unusual absence of men. Upon a thorough search, only this was recovered in the nearby grasses...