He ordered for us again, a deliciously elegant dinner of filet mignon and roasted potatoes accompanied by bottles of wine and for dessert champagne and Crème Brule that he let me crack with a spoon. While we nibbled on our shared dessert, he seemed very reluctant to leave and so I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions that had been nagging at the back of my mind.
“Kiran?” I approached carefully. He shifted his eyes from watching the busy street outside and waited for me to continue. “Did you know my grandfather very well, I mean as a child?”
“Why do you ask?” he avoided my question with one of his own. I could feel his reserve; see the careful hesitation in his eyes as if he were waiting for me to start a fight.
“It's something that Ileana said to me. It's just that, I mean, I didn't know him at all growing up and I just wanted to know what kind of a man he was before I met him,” I explained, hoping to assure him it was mere curiosity pressing me to interrogate him and not malice or anger.
Kiran smiled sadly, and then answered, “I knew him very well; and he was much like a grandfather to me actually. After his peace treaty with father, after your parents disappeared, father installed him at Kingsley as the headmaster. But even still, he seemed to be a permanent fixture in our home. From what I understand after my own grandfather died, Amory stepped in to help my father run the kingdom until he understood things better. From everything I've heard they were very close until Delia disappeared and my father lost his mind,” Kiran smiled sadly, a cloud settled over his eyes for a brief moment but when he continued speaking it was replaced with true admiration, “For as long as I can remember Amory was a part of my life, he probably spent more time with me as a child than my father did. He would take me everywhere with him while he visited, to meetings, to trials, to public events. It used to drive my father mad, but he let Amory get away with it. I think he knew that in Amory's own way he was preparing me to be king one day. He talked to me for hours on every topic that faced my father, helping me come to my own conclusions on how I would deal with different situations. He would make me spend time with our people, promising me I would understand kingdom issues better if I understood our people better. He would take me for weeks at a time hiking and camping during the summer. He taught me how to fight.... how to hunt.....” Kiran trailed off and turned away from me, hiding the emotion that flooded his eyes. “You're so much like him, Eden. You have this thirst for life, this love of all things that radiated from him. You believe in everything and everyone means something, that everything has a unique purpose. I know my father thinks you get that from your human upbringing, but I know that it comes from Amory.”
I sat there stunned. It was very possible Kiran was closer to my grandfather than I was. He certainly knew him better than I did. I wanted to question him further, to demand an answer to his betrayal but I felt moved by his story and the perfection of the day and so I stayed silent.
After several more moments of silence, Kiran turned to me and I knew without a doubt that whatever he was about to tell me was the truth, “Eden, I never meant for Amory to die that night, you have to believe me. I loved him like a grandfather, maybe even more like a father, and if I would have known that my father was going to kill him, I would have fought to stop that. I would have done anything to stop that from happening. Honestly, I didn't think anything or anyone was capable of killing him. I was shocked by his death.... devastated. Please believe me,” Kiran insisted, his eyes big turquoise pools of sorrow. He reached across the table and took my hand in his. I felt his magic then, sincere and desperate, destroyed by his own loss.
“I believe you,” I whispered, hardly able to keep my composure.
“Will you forgive me?” he pressed. I watched his eyes want to look away, ashamed to even ask me for forgiveness, but he bravely kept them focused on me.
“Kiran, there is more to that night than Amory. There is more to your.... betrayal than the death of my grandfather. And I cannot forgive you for that night, or what has happened since,” I confessed. I broke the gaze, shifting my eyes to the uneaten dessert growing warm in the summer night.
“Of course there is,” he resigned, pulling his hand away from mine. “But if it means anything to you, I was naive, blinded by my love for you. I never meant to hurt you or take away your family. I was just trying to find a way for us to be together.”
“Trust me, I get all that. I was naive too,” when Kiran flinched, I continued quickly, “I mean about love. I know it was not even a year ago, but honestly it feels like a decade has gone by since I fell in love with you and I am not that same girl. I was just as blinded, just as..... immature. We fell in love too fast; it couldn't have all been real. Obviously, it ended worse than anyone could have ever imagined, and in the worst way possible, but we're both better off now, don't you think?”
“Eden,” Kiran sobered a little, the traces of remorse and regret replaced with cold honesty, “how are things better now? We're in the same position we were then only now we don't love each other.”
“But it's different now, I think we've both become different people.... better people. I was lost and painfully immature. I've grown. I know what I want now, and I didn't before. ” I explained carefully.
“And you want Jericho,” Kiran stated, misunderstanding my point.
“No, I mean yes, I am with Jericho, but what I mean is that I know where I stand in this war, I know where my place is. I belong with the Resistance. I belong fighting against your father.” I looked up at him then, so he could see the sincerity in my eyes and read the determined expression on my face.
“You're wrong about that,” Kiran countered and his face reflected the same honest sincerity that mine did. “Of course you're fighting on the right side of this whole thing, but you do not belong in some covert safe-house, running missions and taking orders. You belong in the palace, where you can interact with others and convince them they're wrong, that what they believe is wrong.”
I blushed at his belief in me. His words moved me, his complete sincerity that I could actually make a difference with others stirred my soul and I knew that he was right.