"Rides?" Anne and Meryn asked at the same time.
Amelia wiped her face with her napkin. "Kendrick can fly."
"Seriously?" Anne and Meryn asked in unison again.
Kendrick nodded and picked up his chair. "I picked it up somewhere." He sat down and placed his napkin in his lap.
Marshall remained standing, he stared at Kendrick as if he had never seen him before. "Who are you?" he asked in a raspy voice.
Kendrick shrugged. "I'm just a poor archivist from the Lower City."
Meryn gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.
Kendrick shook his head. "I should have known you'd figure it out first. What gave it away?"
"Your name. Beth and I are doing the census; of course, I paid close attention to the family histories of everyone in this house. Keelan's was the only one that came up with a dead end. I was going to ask you about it later but..." Meryn blinked. "Holy shit balls," she whispered softly.
"Oh, Gods!" Gavriel and Beth exclaimed at the same time.
Anne turned over everything in her mind. The one word that popped out at her from the jumbled mess of confusion swirling around her mind was, heika. It meant...
"Your Majesty," she whispered.
There was a look of pride in Kendrick's eyes when he looked down at her. "I knew you'd get it."
"Holy shit balls is right," Colton echoed.
"How?" Aiden asked, looking from Meryn to Kendrick then to Marshall.
"Your Majesty!" Marshall exclaimed and bowed so deep Anne thought he was going to fall forward.
Kendrick shook his head. "Please don't call me that."
Lily stood quickly and curtsied low beside her mate. "Your Majesty, please forgive us."
Ryuu swept in from the kitchen and looked around. He turned to Kendrick. "You finally told them?"
Kendrick grimaced. "Sort of."
Ryuu placed a bowl of soup in front of Lily then Marshall. "You may want to get up; he really doesn't like that." Ryuu refilled their water glasses and walked around the table to check on Meryn.
Marshall and Lily straightened then looked at Kendrick who motioned to their chairs. They sat down, looking completely dazed.
Aiden stared at Meryn. "How did you figure it out?"
Meryn smirked. "Their last name. Ashwood. He combined the names of the two loyal houses. Ash from Ashleigh and Wood from Ironwood, Ashwood. There are no documented births or deaths of anyone with that last name in any of our records."
Marshall stared at Kendrick. "Prince Julian?"
Kendrick nodded.
"Julian?" The question was echoed around the table.
Kendrick shot Anne an apologetic look before facing everyone. "My name is Julian Stormhart, son of Kiran and Celeste Stormhart of the witch's city of Storm Keep."
Meryn turned to Anne. "This definitely increases his rank."
"Meryn!" Aiden covered her mouth with his hand.
Kendrick winked at the small troublemaker.
"But you were lost to us, how? When?" Marshall stuttered.
Kendrick threaded his fingers together in front of him on the table and took a deep breath. "I never really fit in among the noble families. I didn't look like mother or father; the rumors the nobles allowed a young boy to overhear were hurtful. So, I left as soon as I was old enough. Father had mastered mind magic before I was born and was an expert dream walker. Even though I travelled all over the world, he would reach out to me at least once a month to see what I was up to."
Kendrick smiled at the memory. "For over a thousand years I trained with shamans, priests, monks, keepers of knowledge. I was in what is now called Japan when news of the Great War reached me. My father had kept all knowledge of the War from me to keep me out of the fighting. He insisted I stay away, so, of course I wanted to come home, but I was too late. When I finally returned home, a new city had been formed, a castle built, and my parents were missing." He took a deep breath.
"Since I had been gone so long, no one recognized me. I wandered around the city for days looking for clues to what happened. When I heard about the deaths of my father's most trusted and closest friends and their mates, I knew I had to leave the city. I traveled for weeks before my father reached out to me in my dreams. He said that they had been betrayed and could never return to the city. I argued and told him I would fight, but he said no. That it was impossible to fight an unknown enemy.
"I had no idea what he meant at the time. I was young and angry, but I did as my father ordered and I stayed away from Storm Keep. Over time, my parents were forgotten, and we settled into a peaceful life. I still travelled, and they built a tiny cabin in the woods."
His expression softened. "I think that the years they spent alone in that cabin were the happiest of my parents' lives. They weren't a king and a queen, they were simply Kiran and Celeste."
He shook his head. "Anyway, everything was peaceful until the twins were born. Father didn't realize how much power they were giving off. It made it easy for our enemies to find them. One night, during a dream visit, I finally was able to meet my baby brothers for the first time. Gods! They were so tiny and helpless, I fell in love the second I saw them." He swallowed hard. "Mother dropped out of the dream first, to put Kendrick to bed. Keelan stayed with my father since I was still playing with him. We heard a loud noise and a scream. I'll never forget the look on my father's face when he realized my mother had been killed." He squeezed his hands together tightly in front of him.