Painted: 1.0.9

Chapter 9

That night, Kassi dreamt her way into Exspecto again. Soon after her arrival, Trissea found her.

"You've come just in time," Trissea said, smiling. "The rebellion is about to have a meeting."

"Oh?"

"Come with me." Trissea took Kassi's hand and they began walking down the hall. "I'm sure you'll be welcome."

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, then Kassi said, "I read over the prophesy again before I went to sleep, and I'm a bit confused on a few things." A bit confused was under exaggerating.

"Yes?"

"Well, first of all, how can my mother be the queen of Exspecto? She lives on Earth."

Trissea raised her eyebrows. "My theory is that she moves between worlds the same way you do."

"But why do you think we can do that?"

"I've been thinking about it a lot. The best answer I can come up with is that you can both move between worlds because of your royal blood."

Kassi nodded. "Okay. That would make sense." Although it didn't, really. This was still all very strange.

The turned a corner and the chatter of voices became vaguely audible from one of the doors up the hallway.

"The conference is up there." Trissea pointed to the doorway from which the noise was emitted.

"Wait, Trissea. I have one more question."

"Yes?" They were getting closer to the door, and Kassi felt her time for answers running out.

"The prophecy... I wasn't the only one in it. I'm supposed to have... a King."

"He's somewhere in Exspecto," she promised. "We just haven't found him yet."

"So he... he actually exists?"

"If you exist, then so must he."

Trissea and Kassi stood in front of the door to the conference room. Trissea reached out for the handle.

"Wait! I have more questions."

"Later," Trissea said. "Later."

The conference room was, to put matters simply, jam packed with people. And they were people Kassi had never seen before. They stood and chatted with their fellows in small groups. Immediately, Kassi made out the faces of Erko, Kiki and Luk from across the room. Luk left the group and pushed his way across the room towards her.

"Kassi!" he exclaimed, his grin wide. "It's so good to see you again."

"Hi." Kassi smiled. "Good to see you, too."

There was a moment of silence. When he kept looking at her, his head cocked to the side and his eyes smiling, Kassi blushed and looked away.

At last, he said, "Kiki and Erko are over there. I'm sure they'll be excited you're here. Come on!"

Luk reached out and linked arms with Kassi, then Trissea (Trissea exclaimed, "Oh!" as he did and both girls giggled). They paraded across the room, birthing a wide path among the other rebels.

"Kassi!" Kiki smiled. "You're just in time for our meeting."

Kassi nodded. "Good."

"Have you met Erko? He's a friend."

Erko cleared his throat and Kiki giggled in an uncharacteristically girly manner. "Actually, he's my boyfriend."

Kassi frowned. "Oh, ok. Yeah, I've met him." Somehow, she didn't place Kiki as the one who would have a boyfriend.

"Alright. Let's start," Kiki decided. She reached out and slapped her hand on the table. Immediately, the room quieted.

"We're going to start the conference," Kiki declared to the room. "Take your seats."

There was general hubbub around the room as the heavy marble chairs were moved back. Luk pulled out three chairs and gestured for Trissea and Kassi to sit next to him.

"Thanks," Kassi said and sat in between her two friends. She could feel Luk's eyes were on her again.

Kassi's attention was drawn to Kiki, who stood at the front of the room.

"Welcome, everyone," Kiki began. "When I look around this room at your faces, I see motivation; I see drive and hope. But while we toil to set our world—no, worlds—right, Sila hides behind the doors of her ruby palace, denying us all of our rights. She even denies us the mere privilege to speak our points to her."

Kassi's stomach was twisting. For her whole life, Sila had been someone she loved and cared about deeply. Now, she was the enemy.

"But she can't continue ignoring us; because now another player has entered our game." Kiki ran her tongue along her lips and smiled, relishing the moment. "You see, my friends, the prophecy is—at last—being fulfilled. Our long lost princess—our heroine—has come!"

Kassi pushed back her chair and stood. The echo of Kiki's words died, and the room fell to silence. No one dared to breathe. Kassi surveyed the faces in front of her.

Ever so slowly, they began to bow their heads.

"Please, there's no need to bow to me. Consider me as one of your own people," Kassi said.

A moment passed, then Erko spoke up, "What is your plan, Miss Fortis? Where do you want us to go from here?"

Guilt stabbed her stomach. All the respect they'd given her now made sense: they didn't just welcome her out of hospitality; they welcomed her because they expected to save their lives.

"I don't exactly have a plan," she admitted. The guilt stabbed deeper. Why did she feel like she was letting them down?

"You're going to have to corner Sila," someone said. "You need to convince her to meet with us. If you can at least get her to see us face to face, we can take if from there."

"I could try," Kassi said.

From the head of the table, Kiki made a disagreeing noise and stood so fast that her chair nearly toppled over. "It's never going to work! We've tried to get an appointment with her in the past, but she doesn't want to see us--that should be obvious by now. We need a different approach."

"Oh, no. Not this again," Trissea said quietly, more to herself than anyone else.

"Kassi," Kiki continued. "What do you think about forcing our way into the palace?"

"We can't use violence! It sends the wrong message," Trissea said.

Kiki's head shot around towards Trissea. She said nothing, but gave a look that made Trissea wilt slightly in her dress.

Luk came to the rescue. "What if we didn't use force to get in? What if we snuck into Sila's quarters? Then she'd have to hear us out."

Kassi smiled to herself. Luk's decisive, calm nature was growing on her.

"Luk," Kiki hissed, her eyes narrowed. "Sila has made it quite clear that she doesn't want to meet with us."

"She'll have to, if we corner her."

Kiki slapped the table in exasperation. "She's not going to talk with us, nevertheless strike any kind of deal!"

This was driving Kassi insane. She couldn't continue hearing them talking like this about her mother. "She'll hear us out, Kiki; she's a good person. Maybe your requests for an audience just got lost or—"

"Got lost?" Kiki's face reached a color similar to Kassi's flaming hair. "We've sent her a dozen requests, letters, polls... and they all just happened to get lost? I don't think so."

"But—"

"You don't understand, Kassi. We've rebelled peacefully for years. We've done protests, petitions, speeches... but Sila refuses to see—to even acknowledge—any of it! We've been wasting our time, avoiding doing the things that will make a real impact. It's about time we did something Sila can't ignore. We're running out of options here."

"We may be running out," Luk put in. "But we haven't run out yet. Let's try one last time to peacefully get Sila to unfreeze Quis Locus. Let's sneak in to see her. She'll have to acknowledge us once we're standing right in front of her. If that doesn't work, you can get what you've been pushing for."

Trissea took in a sharp breath. Kassi could tell that a violent rebellion was the last thing Trissea wanted.

"Fine," Kiki said. "We can try this one last thing. But afterwards, we storm the palace. And anyone who stands in our way will be shown how powerful this rebellion really is."

"You're forgetting that those terms only apply if it doesn't work to sneak in to talk to Sila."

"Sure," Kiki agreed.

"Okay then." Luk clapped his hands. "Let's move on to some different matters. Elge, can I see the results from those polls we did last week?"

* * * * *

The meeting was fairly short. Afterwards, Erko and Kiki disappeared. Luk needed to work on some plans for their palace sneak-in, so Kassi and Trissea were once again left alone.

Trissea suggested they go for a walk. Kassi asked where they would possibly walk to, and it was revealed that there was a small, open space in the center of the rebellion headquarters. In this place, a small garden was kept. So the two of them set off to see this garden.

"It's quite beautiful," Trissea said wistfully. "I'm normally too busy to spend time in the garden, but when I do, I love it."

Soon, they reached the end of the corridor. Two glass door stood in front of them. Behind them, Kassi could see a couple of small trees that she assumed led into the gardens. Trissea reached out and turned the handle.

The garden was beautiful. It was a million different colors, all growing together. It was the smell of roses, honeysuckles, lemons, and peaches combined into one sweet scent. It was the sound of leaves rustling lightly in a summer breeze and the sound of little waterfalls flowing in an eternal cycle.

"This garden is meant to represent the rebellion's devotion to peacefulness," Trissea said and sat down on one of the small benches. Kassi seated herself on another one across from Trissea.

"But these days..." Trissea paused and sighed. She looked so perfect, sitting there in her light blue dress, running her fingers through her white-blonde hair. "These days, I feel like some of us have forgotten about how important that peacefulness is."

"Like Kiki?" Kassi asked. Trissea nodded in response.

"She never really believed in the whole peaceful protest thing. She went along with it anyway. But now her patience is running out. She wants to see a result from our rebellion, and she thinks that result will only come when we do something more powerful... something violent. The worst thing is, I'm starting to fear that she's right."

Kassi shook her head. "Doing something bigger is definitely a good idea. But violence... that can't be the answer."

"I know!" Trissea exclaimed.

Trissea and Kassi talked for a long time, like old friends. Trissea braided little blue flowers into Kassi's hair, and Kassi tried to do the same for Trissea, although her braid was rather sloppy.

Eventually, Kassi started feeling weak in the knees again. When she collapsed and disappeared into thin air, Trissea wished that Kassi could've dreamed a little longer.