Perspectives

Chapter 21

Kalen could feel the weight of twelve pairs of eyes staring into him, judging his every motion. This was certainly worse than all other occasions he'd encountered of being the center of attention. This time he was going to be closely judged by the twelve most important people in the world. The fact that he was going to be talking about her didn't make matters any better.

The first to break the heavy silence was Duchess Magnussen, who looked absolutely disbelieving that Kalen could possess any information of such importance. "What could the boy possibly know that we wouldn't already?" She demanded. "No offense intended." She added, turning to address his parents rather than Kalen himself. 

"Perhaps we should let him speak in order to find out." Kalen heard someone put in, he shifted his gaze to see that it had been the Countess of Nevan. 

Countess Anders was a tall woman with warm copper brown skin and long black hair that even when curled as it was, reached down to her lower back. Kalen saw her to be fairly agreeable, and he appreciated her strong attitude that often countered Duchess Magnussen's.   

Duchess Magnussen's expression turned sour at the Countess' retort, but she remained silent. "Kalen, please step forward." Kalen almost jumped at Lord Rothgard's command. He swallowed down his growing anxiety as he stepped forward so that he stood between his mother and father's chairs at the table. "I want you to give your most thorough and complete explanation of the situation, everything you know." Rothgard ordered before lowering himself into his chair, leaving Kalen the only one standing among before the Sovereign Council.

Kalen had gone over what he was going to say about a hundred times in his head, he had laid out exactly how he wanted to explain to the highest of Amasis the inexplicable appearance of a human in his house. Kalen wasn't much one for nerves, and yet he was now beginning to feel entirely flustered. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his father staring at him expectantly. 

Kalen sucked in a short breath, hands clasped in front of himself formally, back straightened, eyes focused on the small crowd before him. Don't fuck this up.

"It was the evening before last at approximately 5:30 when I returned home from a day of meetings." Kalen began, his voice far steadier than he had been expecting. "I immediately went up to my bedroom where I prepared for a shower." Kalen could see some of the council members wearing disparaging looks on their faces, unamused with the seemingly pointless story being told. Kalen ignored them. "However, upon entering the bathroom I encountered something--or rather someone strange inside." Many eyebrows shot up at this, while others like Duchess Magnussen seemed increasingly skeptical. 

"Now who would you encounter in your personal bathroom?" Duke Magnussen scoffed, chuckling lightly at the thought. 

Holding back from glaring darkly at the Duke, Kalen continued on. "What I saw was a tiny figure on the counter, originally I thought someone had left some kind of doll or figurine there, but upon closer inspection I noticed signs of life." If he hadn't had everyone's full attention before, he did now. Everyone apart from Lord Rothgard stared at him incredulously, as though he had just said the most absurd thing in the world. 

"A-are you suggesting you found a human in your bathroom?" Count Anders questioned uncertainly. The Count was a well built man with light umber skin and a crop of short black hair atop his head. He was a serious man who Kalen knew to be highly cautious in his politics, however he had never come off as corrupt or immoral. 

"That's not possible." Viscountess Borden said disbelievingly. Viscountess Borden was a pale woman with light brown hair she wore gathered up in a loose bun behind her head beneath a large headpiece. Kalen knew the Viscountess best as a sharp businesswoman who tended to apply her business strategies to her political policies, she was quite similar to Duke Magnussen in that way, both had come from big business families--marrying into their positions as Sovereign Council members.