Forbidden

-Chapter Eight: The Guy On the Balcony-

It was strange for Lilith to be in the Asterian war room making decisions that usually Gwen and (sometimes) Ace would help advise her in since they knew more about the kingdoms alliance than Lilith did, but she saw it appropriate to tell the next king of Asterin in line how Findara works. It still surprised her that he had never stepped foot into Findara before, then again Ace wasn't allowed out of the castle up until 4-ish years ago. Lilith slowly began to explain everything to Jack as they waited on Zehra and Leo Percy to get to the war room, Vulpecula was nowhere to be found but Jack knew she would pick up the plan right away if they proceeded without her. She explained the levels of the kingdom, the class system, the Elites, and anything Jack just didn't know about. "Wow, that's so corrupted." Jack said looking at the small model of Findara. He couldn't believe everything Lilith was telling him. Hana and the other simply observed around the table having somewhat knowledge of the kingdom.

"Yeah, try living there." Lilith scoffed just as the doors opened revealing Zehra and Leo Percy.

"Lilith!" Zehra greeted as she walked up to the Findarian and gave her a hug while Leo Percy introduced himself to Hana. "How have you been? How is Malakai?"

"I'm doing amazing, but Malakai has been worrying too much lately. You know how he gets when I travel in and out of too many kingdoms throughout the week, but he said thank you for the small cakes again, we loved them!" Lilith said, making Zehra smile.

"Wait... you know her? The last time you mentioned Lilith you sounded like you didn't know her." Jack recalled as Zehra shrugged her shoulders.

"It's a rule of Ace's that we all like to follow, so up until this point I told Zehra to pretend she didn't know me. Other than that, Zehra and I have known each other for a long time now." Lilith said.

"What rule? Why is Findara so secretive about everything? What's going on in that place?!" Jack asked mildly concerned of what he was already getting into. Jack has talked to people who ran away from kingdoms who ally with Findara, but nothing they say equates to the horrors in Findara. That kingdom was on a whole different league of its own.

"Jack, calm down bud. You already have too much on your plate, try to process one thing at a time." Leo Percy stated calmly as Jack nodded his head.

"The rule of thumb around Ace is to not tell him everything. We don't know who to trust within the castle, let alone the kingdom, and sometimes if you turn in someone who plays the 'devil's advocate', you can receive financial compensation of 20 gold pieces... which is a lot. That's why everything is so secretive in Findara." Lilith responded leaving Jack a little fazed, but he understood.

"Wait what do you mean by devil's advocate?" Leo Percy asked as he brought a chair up for Zehra and himself to the table and sat down with the rest of the group.

"I'm going to state the obvious for a moment, but just hear me out. King Oliver and Prince Ace express both ends of the spectrum. Prince Ace believes that us; lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, witches, wizards, spirits, and so on, deserves equality and freedom to do what we will like a lot of people in this nation. On the other hand, King Oliver and his millions of followers believe that any of those people are literal devil's advocates and the only way to save them is burning their bodies to purify them to heaven. So, the devil's advocate thing goes both literally and metaphorically here." Lilith answered trying to clarify Findara. "Explaining Findara is not easy at all-"

"It's just a Fool's Paradise." Jack interrupted piecing everything together. "Wait so Prince Ace has to put up this façade of hating people like us just until he's king. That's why Ace doesn't want you to tell him anything, it's for your own safety. The less he knows the better. What the living earth, that's so messed up. Here I thought all Findarians were awful human beings."