Chapter 4

He couldn't stop fidgeting with his collar. He hated the thing. It was a royal purple wrap around collar. Each collar represented a collar and a rank. He was just a ministral representative from a noble family. There to represent which parts he attributed the most. In this case would be his father's side. 35 ministers sat around the oval table in the council meeting room. The council room was a large translucent dome with opaque drawings of each of the kingdoms on it. The dome overlooked the city and gave citizens a view of the council room. It sat on the Eastern side of the palace nearby the public courtyard. The daily market sat next to it so that citizens could always know when there was a meeting. The dome worked in two ways. When there was a meeting, the dome went opaque outside and translucent inside. But when there was an important meeting which could affect the whole kingdom then the dome would remain translucent.

"It hate this collar." He muttered to himself.

"It's just a few minutes." Reuben mused.

"Don't lie to me. It always goes beyond that."

"Just unbutton the back and look ahead." Remi did just that.

"Better."

"Yes."

The room hushed as the commencement bell chimed through the room. They turned their attention to the end of the oval table. Leopold Belaris. The king of the court of Ashes. One of the founders of the court. Rumoured to be a child of the broken accords. A generation of mixed creatures born during the time of magical segregation. A dark time where any mixed breed was immediately killed out of fear for being more powerful than an original creature. He stood taller than an average warrior ice fae yet a shoulder smaller than a regular nymph. He wore the standard navy off shoulder cape everyone else at the table wore. The only difference was his collar. Each minister wore a collar indicating their rank and importance to the court. Royalty on both sides. Leopold's pearl white collar sparkled against marble skin contrasting with his fiery red hair and equally stunning coal black eyes. The only remnants of his volcanic nymph mother. He looked at each and every member of his court's faces. Making a mental count of who was there and who he'd have to personally summon later. When he was done he sat down and the meeting begun. Risso, a little girl about 9 looking, snapped her fingers and called attention to her. She was the court's messenger and the king's spokesperson. Everyone found it a little odd that his most trusted speaker was a child but no one could deny how good she was at rallying people behind her. And no one would ever suspect a child to be a spy. She stood on top of her chair, patted down her fluffy feather dress and gave the cutest smile Remi had ever seen. Risso's power dealt with reflection. She let everyone see what they wanted to see. He wasn't sure what everyone else was seeing but he saw an adorable little girl with big brown doe like eyes and dimples on both sides of her chubby cheeks.

"Good evening people of the court. I'll skip the formalities and get right to it. We're in some stressful times and in a precarious position. By now we all know that Hell has gone to war with itself. This war had been going on for at least two years now. No one has been affected until now. The revolution headed by Prince Malakai himself has leaked over into the surface worlds. Our worlds. The kingdoms, aside from us, are being forced to choose sides. Those that have not chosen or refuse to side with Malakai, are then his next target of fire. As usual we sit out of the conflict but this time we can't. The other kingdoms wish for us to join the fray. We declined as usual. But it seems we have become the target of Prince Malakai. In tonight's meeting we discuss plans on how to take this forward."

She turned around. The king held out his hand for her so that she could get down from the chair safely. Once she was in her chair and had her rainbow notebook ready, the king opened up the floor. Everyone muttered to each other around the table. Trying to come up with some sort of plan and verifying it before Leopold asked. Remi turned to Reuben. His friend had his eyes set to the table. Mist formed on his side of the table as it normally did when Reuben came up with a plan. Scribbles and words appeared and disappeared within the mist. He threw in different ideas, got rid of them and rearranged them. Remi would be impressed by his thinking process if he didn't have any worries of his own. The war was spilling into the mortal world. It may be small occurrences now but soon they won't be able to control it. Technology had changed drastically to the point that a smartphone would be able to expose the magical community. He'd hoped that the technological scientists in COA were doing as much research as they could with the effectiveness of smartphones. He didn't want to have his picture taken and see his scaled maroon skin and tailed self smiling back at him. That little trick he and his friends did with the fake film crew was enough to remove suspicion from normal humans. Yet Mbilu was not a regular human. She was obsessed with the supernatural and overly curious about all there is to the world. She questioned everything. From why reality tv became a thing to the purpose of religion. Had she been born 200 years ago, she'd be prosecuted and killed as a witch. Once she was hooked on to a topic, she'd research the living daylights out of it then confront the problem while simultaneously coming up with a solution. He had to figure out a way to keep the magic realms from her. If he couldn't do that then he'd have to get her hooked onto another topic. He'd probably have to fake the discovery of an ancient Celtic relic. No that was too much trouble, he thought to himself. Maybe he could release the original texts of religious bibles. What good would that do if everyone wouldn't believe them? He could change the statistics a bit and make it seem like the strange phenomenon came from Australia. That could work. Everyone knows Australia is filled with weird and strange creatures. At least no one knows it's where the princes of hell keep their surface pets.

"Remi." he snapped out his thoughts.

"Yeah." he turned to Reuben.

"Questions were asked." he whispered harshly.

"It's not like I have anything to say."

"At least focus."

"I am focused. Just on how to deal with the humans."

"So the princes of hell aren't a problem?"

"They can be dealt with but humans are an entirely different story."

"Mr Al Rashid and Mr Thorbjorn, anything you'd like to add to the table?" a quiet rumbling voice floated across the room.

"No, your majesty." Remi said at the same time Reuben said, "Actually we do have a problem."

Remi gave Reuben a look that screamed 'what are you doing?'. The look he returned said 'saving our butts'. Remi rolled his eyes and placed his focus on the feathers on his cape's hemline.

"You may proceed." Leopold's hushed yet rumbling voice hushed the murmurs from the rest of the ministers.

"Mr Al Rashid and I encountered a problem at the area we stay. Mr Al Rashid give him the details." Reuben threw Remi under the bus.

"Two weeks ago, there were rumours from university students that they'd spotted mer along the coastline. At first the rumours were bunked as they were drunk and high but the students at their institution are...creatives. And creatives tend to follow up anything that can give them inspiration. These students took videos of the incident and posted it all over social media. A few film students used the professional media equipment at their disposal and figured out that it wasn't movie magic and what they saw was real." Remi proceeded to explain to the court what their issue was.

"How did you two deal with this?"

"We faked a film set at the beach and made sure it was all on camera that it was fake but a few die hard students refused to believe it and analysed the footage. Through analysing the footage everything seemed too real to be true."

"Have any of you encountered any of these students?"

"No we haven't." Remi said at the same time Reuben replied, "Yes we have."

"At a house party by the beach." he quickly added.

"We managed to gain access to their campus and wiped the footage clean. We also made sure that nothing was saved to the cloud and all backups were wiped clean of the previous day's rendering."

"Well we thank you for averting a disaster -"

"That's not all, your majesty." Remi remembered the promise he made to the half mer.

"The other kingdoms have slowly been stealing and invading the homes of our people. Which is why the mer were spotted in the first place. They were swimming away from their invaders." he continued.

" Could we enquire that talks between the kingdoms are needed to avoid such a disaster like this?" Reuben asked.

"Yes that is a good idea. We'll draft up a list of representatives to have a meeting with the other kingdoms. Thank you Mr Thorbjorn and Mr Al Rashid for bringing up the problem." Leopold gave a small smile to the young duo.

"No problem." Remi replied.

"You're welcome." Reuben lightly punched Remi's arm.

Remi walked out of the council room with a weight on his chest. The king was aware of the problem. That was a good thing. It can be addressed and sorted. Yet when the spies and guards start probing around Cape Town, it won't be long before they find that they both personally knew who analysed the footage and where to find her.