"the girl that tried to save the shape -shifter?" princess bianca asked in a delicate english accent. she had long golden blonde hair, the same color as lucan and kiran's. it fell in endearing waves down her back, a little messy but glorifying her porcelain skin and perfect bone structure. she had the deep blue eyes that lucan had and was his perfect mirror in female form. she seemed to be older than lucan, the creases in her smile more pronounced and the corners of her eyes turned up in the smallest of wrinkles. but the signs of age did not diminish her beauty in any way, they only enhanced her elegance.

"yes, that's right," the military man to my right agreed.

"i wasn't there darling, but i heard you caused quite the uproar," bianca addressed me straight on, her deep blue eyes as unsettling as lucan's, when holding my full attention.

"well, i, um, she was my friend," i tore my eyes away from the princesses and turned them to the basket of bread, untouched but sitting in the middle of the table.

"your friend?" scoffed victor the minister. "that is blasphemy child."

"you'll have to excuse eden," lucan spoke up, clearly amused by the change in subjects. "she was abandoned as a child and a human raised her. she is still learning all of the different customs of our people," his smile turned wicked, and i knew he was enjoying watching me squirm. "how can that be?" gasped the minister of foreign affair's wife thora.

"i've asked the same question myself," lucan answered, not giving me a chance to speak. "really though, amory should be the one to tell the story. after all, he is the one who found the poor thing, causing quite the trouble in the human world as well. or so i'm told."

the attention of the table moved from me to amory who took over the story telling with the melodic, deep tone of his voice and i exhaled. amory would know what to say, how to walk carefully through the mine field lucan was engineering for us.

"kiran," lucan turned to his son, with a quiet voice. "see if you can track down talbott and find out what's keeping sebastian."

kiran nodded to his father and stood up without acknowledging me or the rest of the table. i suddenly felt very exposed without kiran blocking lucan's direct view of me and wanted to run after kiran and beg him to take me home.

"you are like the wind." lucan said quietly and i half turned to him, not understanding who he was talking to. the rest of the table stayed engrossed in amory's retelling of my ignorance of magic and the schools i closed down before kingsley came into my life. "the wicked and wild wind, eden. you are sweeping through my kingdom in a melee of destruction, aren't you?"

i snapped my head up when he used my name and sat speechless. his eyes remained amused and the wicked smile still turned his mouth up. i did not know whether to drop down to my knees and beg for forgiveness or pretend like i still had no idea what he was talking about.

i shook my head in quiet desperation, not knowing what to say or how to respond. lucan's eyes grew more serious, but the mysterious smile did not leave his lips. he turned more towards me, the smallest flash of frustration marring his amusement for only a second.

"the wind, eden," his voice was quieter still and i leaned in just slightly to make sure i caught every single word. "it can be a deadly force, can it not?" i shook my head, agreeing with him. "so soft at times, the gentle breeze, the refreshing puff of air; one might almost forget the baleful power it's capable of. isn't that you? so innocent, so naive? and yet you are a tornado of destruction, uprooting thousands of years of tradition with just your simple questions and ignorant interruptions."

my mouth dropped open; i didn't know what to say, or how to react. my mind was reeling, trying to wrap my head around the accusation. i had no excuse or speech planned to walk out of this trap. i searched for kiran from my peripheral, but he was nowhere in sight, so i scanned my consciousness for avalon but he too was involved and unreachable.

"i'm so sorry...." i began, swallowing my panic and digging deep for courage. "it was never my intention.... please, forgive me if i've ever acted...." i whispered frantically, the fierce regret completely genuine.

lucan held up one hand and silenced me immediately. "relax child. you have won the favor of my son and that is enough for me. but something will have to be done, of course. this will simply not do." he looked me over, amusement replaced momentarily with disgust. i didn't know what to make of it.

"and so here we are," lucan turned his attention back to his guests without missing a beat. "i could hardly have treated her with the full letter of the law after finding out her unfortunate circumstances." lucan looked at me with pity while the other guests nodded solemnly as if i truly were the poor orphan. "thankfully for us, eden is very talented magically, and so along those lines we have nothing to be afraid of. she won't be burning down kingsley any time soon. i'm afraid it's just her way of thinking that gets in the way. she has that stubborn american independent spirit i find so annoying."

the guests laughed politely at lucan, eying me over with renewed suspicion. i searched again for kiran, not even able to imagine what could be keeping him.

"so then, you have befriended a shape-shifter?" thora asked me directly, the disgust thickening her tone.

"well, yes. i mean, i didn't know she was a shape-shifter when i befriended her," i started and then rushed on, frustrated with how i fumbled my explanation. "i mean, i am still friends with her, she is really the sweetest girl. she's probably my-"

"actually it was kiran who saved her in the end, wasn't it lucan?" amory interrupted, asking the king a pointed question.

"it was," he replied curtly. "i'm surprised to hear you ask though. you ran off so quickly, i thought you had lost interest in the trial," lucan did not even pretend to hide his irritation with amory and i couldn't help but feel like the dinner party was taking a turn for the worse, and that is was my fault.

"i had," amory sighed, taking a long sip from a tumbler full of scotch.

"forgive me for boring you with the formalities of our justice system," lucan snapped. "next time one of your students is found to be a malicious traitor; i won't bother you with the smaller details of their execution."

i gasped involuntarily and the eyes of the table turned sharply on me. it wasn't a sound that my consciousness would have allowed me to make in such an intense moment, if not for the concrete tone in lucan's voice, reminding me of why i went to romania in the first place.

"you wouldn't have really executed lilly, right?" the words tumbled out of my mouth before i could stop them. i felt the panic flood amory's expression and the wise warrior inside of me scream for caution. i felt avalon suddenly join my thoughts, the warning bell alerting him to my recklessness, but i couldn't stop it. the words were there and they wanted out. "she wasn't a malicious traitor. you cannot say that." i demanded, full of righteous rage.

"can't i?" lucan narrowed his eyes at me, while the rest of the table sat in stunned silence.

"it's not true," i dared to continue; "she fought to save kiran's life, not harm him. she would never hurt anyone. she's not capable of hurting anyone. she is too good of a person."

"and how would you know what she is capable of? were you present during all that went on? perhaps you were an eye witness?" lucan spoke evenly and with controlled anger. i was too far in to give up now, but i remembered my cover story too late.

"no, i wasn't," i shook my head, but my argument had already started to weaken. "but i know her. i know how good her intentions always are and the purity of her heart. she is a good person," i finished with emotion.

"but that is the thing, isn't it?" jean cartier, the grand duke of canesbury and sebastian's father spoke for the first time all evening in a thick french accent, "she is not a person, she is not human and she is not immortal, she is a shape-shifter. and we know that they are all evil. pure evil." there wasn't accusation in his voice or even a hint of conjecture, jean cartier was stating a fact.

"here, here," mumbled victor, tapping his stein of beer heavily on the table surface.

i caught amory's eye for just a moment, but it was enough to tell me to shut up. the argument was finished and i had lost. to these people i made no rational sense and to fight the king on such a concrete issue would certainly be a prison sentence, if not more.

"forgive me, your highness. i forgot my place," i bowed my head in humility, hoping to at least see the end of this terrible dinner party without a death sentence being signed.

"that seems to be the root of the problem, doesn't it?" lucan asked facetiously and without emotion, raising his glass and tipping it towards me before drinking. the rest of the table also took a drink and i had the oddest feeling the toast was to me, but couldn't understand why.

"excuse me, father?" kiran entered the room again, his hair more disheveled than when he had left and sebastian at his right arm. "talbott is ready to take eden home."

my heart leaped with joy, even if going home meant a car ride alone with talbott. the only thing left for me at the dinner party was the wrong side of a guillotine. i looked to lucan for permission to leave the table, while trying to remain poised. he gave me a nod of the head. i thanked him again for the lovely meal and all but ran from the room, ignoring both kiran and sebastian.

i had said too much and defended a group of people the general population of immortals accused of being malicious, untrustworthy liars and universal outcasts. lucan was playing a careful game of cat and mouse, trapping me into situations where i was either vulnerable for attacks or shooting myself in the foot.

my beliefs still held true and i didn't even think i was capable of not treating people as equals; but instead of feeling encouraged that i wasn't losing myself, i felt overwhelmingly lost. i had dreamed, not that long ago, of a scenario where i united the kingdom and set the shape-shifters free.

i was finally understanding what a monumental task that was going to be and coming to the realization that while there was a monarchy in charge, no matter who was the ruler; the goal for elitism would never die. someone would always have to live on the bottom. i wasn't prepared to completely reeducate an entire society deeply rooted in racism and lust for power.

suddenly i didn't know kiran at all. what if he had these feelings? how would i convince a king to give up the racism? how would i convince a people that we were all created equally and with just as much worth. i would have to figure it out. i would have to set those people free or my aspirations to be queen would be worthless.

chapter thirty-four

"when is amory going to be here?" i plopped down on the couch next to jericho, my feet landing on his lap.

"any minute," he pushed my feet without removing them from his legs and scowled at me. "what makes you think this is ok?"

"of course, it's ok!" i grinned, "you've forgiven me by now, plus, i think you secretly like how my feet smell." i accused him playfully, doing my best to get him to stop being mad at me without actually having to apologize to him. he had been furious with me when the events of my date night with kiran had come out a week ago.