Endless Magic (38 page)

I stood up from the car a little off balance, determined to walk on my own, but he held out his arm to catch me and I realized I needed it more than I wanted to admit. I leaned into him and we walked up the castle steps and through the front doors into a buzz of activity.

All of the lights were on, despite the late hour, Titans rushed from one hallway to another and Sebastian, Seraphina and Amelia stood against one wall watching it all happen with looks of horror on their faces.

Kiran pulled away from me, tensing immediately. I straightened too, made alert by the panic thick in the air. We walked over to Sebastian who barely registered our arrival.

“We don’t know,” Seraphina jumped in. She seemed to be able to put more words together than Sebastian. “But as soon as Talbott left, your father had his Guards start bringing them in and they haven’t stopped all day! There are hundreds of them…. We don’t even know where he found them all! But they just keep coming.”

“Who keeps coming?” I whispered, afraid of the answer.

Seraphina looked at me, her cobalt eyes meeting mine in strangled terror. “Prisoners,” she replied softly.

Next to me I felt Kiran’s skin go hot with rage. He ripped his arm from around me and clasped trembling hands behind his back. He looked down at me with an expression I had never seen before, pure rage, unadulterated hate. He turned on his heel and headed for the throne room. The rest of us scrambled to keep up behind him.

Kiran stalked through the castle, his shoulders tense with purpose. I couldn’t see his face, but even I felt afraid of the anger that shook his body. I tried to make sense of it all, the prisoners, the hundreds of captured people that were caged beneath us. The castle seemed to buzz with the frenetic energy of the collective magic. Only this magic pulsed in a unified rhythm that screamed out in tortured agony and confusion. I looked back at Sebastian to see if he knew Kiran’s plan, but his eyes were clouded with deep concern and I couldn’t read why.

We all stopped just before the throne room doors. They were half open from the constant activity of Titans entering and leaving with updates and reports. Kiran turned toward us, not seeing us at first, but slowly registering that we followed him. His eyes fell on me, and a frown etched deeply across his mouth.

“Sebastian, take Amelia and Sera to their rooms please,” Kiran commanded and Sebastian and the girls obeyed immediately. I fidgeted nervously, afraid to be alone with him. “Eden, I am going to speak to my father, I would like it if you joined me,” his voice had turned soft with his request, but the rage still emanated from him in waves of aggressive magic.

“Yes, of course I will,” I agreed, my voice still hoarse with fear.

“I’m going to ask you to stand beside me quietly, Eden. I need to speak with my father and it will do no good if you’re constantly interrupting or if you start a fight with him. Can you be silent?” he asked carefully. I bristled at his authoritative tone and then settled. I could feel his intent, his drive and he didn’t mean to demean me, just to control the situation as best as he could.

overwhelmed with emotion. Staying silent might be the hardest thing Kiran ever asked me to do. Kiran entered the room quickly behind me and then stood by my side.

Lucan glanced up at us, his face registered satisfaction. Then he turned his attention back to a Titan and an official-looking document. He held up a hand to Kiran asking him to wait a minute and I thought for a second Kiran would leap forward and attack his father like a rabid dog.

He stayed deathly still next to me, waiting on his father. His electricity raged in the air, making itself known by everybody. In that moment, he reminded me of his father, the way Lucan’s magic seemed to suffocate rooms and choke the breathable air out of my lungs. But something about his anger, his determined set of the jaw, the resolve in his eyes was different. As much as I wanted to hate Kiran for his betrayal, I looked at him now and trusted him instead. This was righteous anger. This was goodness. He was the opposite of his father.

Lucan finished with the Titan and turned his attention to Kiran. He nodded at him benevolently. “Kiran, welcome back. I’m glad your mission turned out successfully for you,” Lucan purred.

“Father, what is the meaning of all this? Where did all of these prisoners come from?” Kiran demanded negating the pleasantries.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lucan asked rhetorically. “This is called insurance, Son,” he finished bitingly.

“I told you, Eden was kidnapped. I told you that! She didn’t plan on running off anywhere, and she would never have left the castle if it weren’t for
your
man’s betrayal!” Kiran argued, his voice growing louder and harder to control the emotion behind it.

“You trust her too much, son,” Lucan growled. “How can you be certain this isn’t all part of her master plan? How can you be certain it wasn’t her idea to be kidnapped in the first place? And at the first sign of trouble, she abandoned her partnership and betrayed those whom she collaborated with in the first place? You cannot be sure! You cannot trust her!” Lucan shouted at Kiran, leaning forward on his golden throne.

“That isn’t the point!” Kiran’s voice rose to meet his father’s. “She is back, I got her back. There is no need to make our people suffer anymore!”

“You are wrong about that,” Lucan vowed softly. “
Our
people cannot be trusted any more than she can. Apparently everyone needs to be reminded of who they serve.”

“What are you saying? What do you mean everyone? Are you telling me that there are more than just Shape-shifters down there? Are you saying that you imprisoned others?” Kiran demanded, taking a step forward, his hand falling helplessly to his side.

“Kiran, they are plotting against us,” Lucan explained slowly, as if to a small child, “they want to take our throne…. Destroy our bloodline. They have forgotten what we’ve done for them, how we rule justly, fairly. They have listened to her, and they believe her lies. I did what had to be done,” he growled and turned his narrowed eyes on me.

“No, you’ve gone mad,” Kiran shook his head slowly in disagreement. “They haven’t forgotten, and they haven’t turned their backs on you! How could they? You have broken her! She bends to your every whim, at the very movement of your thumb! We all do, we all serve you. And yet you punish us. You lock us up and repress our magic because of this deranged paranoia!”

“How dare you lump yourself in with those…. With our subjects. You are a prince. You are a Kendrick. I have done nothing to you but offer you everything you want. I have made countless sacrifices on your behalf. I gave you her! I brought her to you; I put her in your possession. There is nothing I haven’t done for you. Don’t lower yourself to their standard because you are afraid of my wrath.” Lucan stood up slowly and enunciated every syllable carefully.

“Yes, Father, you have done all of that. You have given me what I wanted, everything except your trust,” Kiran finished sadly.

“What do you mean by that? Of course you have my trust! You are my son,” Lucan argued defensively, proudly.

“Then why don’t you trust me with her?” Kiran turned to me, but didn’t really look at me. “You say that you do, yet you imprison half the kingdom to insure her silence! She has promised to obey you; she has promised me, yet you do not trust that I can contain my own household!”

“I see your point,” Lucan conceded carefully. “Forgive me, Kiran. I had not looked at it like that.”

“So you will let them go?” Kiran asked cautiously, trying meticulously to hide his hope.

“Unfortunately, I can’t do that, you know that,” Lucan sat back down and smiled at his son as if seeing him for the first time. “But I will stop collecting them for now.”

“Thank you father,” Kiran bowed in gratitude.

“Kiran,” Lucan began again. “In the future, if I…. act out again, it is not for you to interfere. Not everything is about you son, and my actions are taken for a reason. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course Your Majesty,” Kiran nodded his head in humbled obedience.

“Good,” Lucan’s smile grew into a wider, wicked version of evil. I shuddered, next to Kiran, trying to hide myself in his shadow. “Anything else?”

“Yes, I am going to move Eden up to our apartment tonight, I don’t feel she is safe in the tower. Talbott will stay next door. I will feel she is safer that way,” Kiran commanded more than asked permission.

“And until Talbott returns?” Lucan raised an eyebrow.

“I will stay with her of course,” Kiran answered briskly. “The other thing,” he continued when it looked like Lucan would turn his attention from us, “Eden has chosen her attendant.”

“Yes? And who has the future queen chosen?” Lucan asked, his other eyebrow rising to meet the first one in the middle of his wrinkled forehead.

Since I didn’t remember choosing a maid, I was just as curious as Lucan.

“She chose the Shape-shifter, Lilly Mason,” Kiran explained. I nearly fell over at his boldness, hardly believing he would risk his father’s anger on such an outrageous request.

“And what makes you think I’ll agree to that?” Lucan scoffed. “Surely you know what kind of ridicule would emanate from the kingdom if they found out I let a Shape-shifter serve a princess in
my
castle.”

I wondered the same thing, but stayed silent per my promise beforehand. I felt very confused by Kiran tonight; my emotions spun violently in a turbulent tornado that threatened to knock me off my feet. Part of me believed I witnessed the real side of Kiran, the side that strove to please his father and saw me as nothing more than a trophy to be won. The other half of me argued that we just spent hours with my parents and he obviously didn’t hand them over to an army of Titan Guards waiting for them. In fact, it seemed as though they actually trusted him. They had to trust him or they never would have agreed to see me. On top of that, something about the scene I watched with his father didn’t seem genuine, didn’t seem real. He wasn’t as concerned with controlling me as he wanted his father to believe he was. And now he argued a case to have Lilly brought to live in the castle with me. Who was he, really?

“The kingdom won’t find out, because Eden won’t tell them. She has too much to lose, you have seen to that,” Kiran slowed his words to sound respectful, but to me it sounded more like a dig…. more confusion…. Kiran continued, “It won’t matter if there is a rumor anyway, Lilly will stay in the apartment and have very little reason to leave and with the dungeons full, nobody would believe they heard the story right. They would assume she was a prisoner here and nothing more,” Kiran laid out his case carefully, methodically, simultaneously contributing to Lucan’s deranged, greed-hungry pride and challenging his intelligence in a flattering way.

“You argue a convincing case,” Lucan nodded humbly to Kiran and then smiled. “Now, tell me the real reason.”

To my surprise, Kiran’s cheeks flamed red and with a little reluctance he obeyed, “I want someone as devoted to Eden as I am to be with her at all times. I cannot stand the idea of losing her again,” he looked down and cleared his throat emotionally so that I almost believed him before continuing, “And after what Eden has been through, I think it would be best for her…. emotionally, if she had someone close to her that she loves.”

“All right, I will allow it,” Lucan conceded before turning his attention to me, “but I hope you understand what is at risk. I shouldn’t have to say that if you step out of line just once, she will be the first to die.”

“I understand that,” I mumbled, suddenly fearing for Lilly’s life more than enjoying the idea of her coming here. “Your Majesty,” I added quickly.

“And she must stay out of sight!” Lucan commanded loudly as Kiran bowed and I curtsied awkwardly in response.

Then a Titan was there with another document and Lucan had all but forgotten about us. Kiran turned on his heel and I followed after him. He held the door open for me but didn’t look me in the eye. He hurried up the stairs and I ran to keep up with him wanting to ask him a million questions.

“Kiran, what if-“ I started.

“Not here,” he insisted quietly and kept up his steady pace to the top of the stairwell.

By the time we reached the apartment doors, I was out of breath and more exhausted than ever. I silently cursed the no elevator system in this ancient castle, and pushed magic through my veins to cover how out of shape I was. Apparently, I needed yoga in my very near future.

Kiran hesitated outside the double doors for a few moments, glancing between my feet and the stairwell. I wanted to ask him what on earth was going on, but he answered my question before I got the chance to ask it.

“It’s just that…. Well, this apartment is supposed to be for after the wedding, after the wedding you don’t even,” he paused and cleared his throat before clarifying, “
we
don’t even want to go through with. So you see, it comes with some certain…. I don’t know…. expectations,” he finished meekly.

“Oh, you’re worried that once we go inside those doors, I’m going to try to jump you?” I laughed, finding his idea of propriety suddenly hilarious. We had been living together for months, well technically just sharing a bedroom we never really shared at the same time…. But still, it wasn’t like the concept was shocking. And the room was called an apartment, so surely it would be big enough to find our own privacy in.