America

The first day of every month was always the day I dreaded being queen. It was always the day where we would have to face a group of criminals being brought before the crown and convict them. It was not dissimilar to the Convicting; it really was just on a less grand scale. It was an archaic tradition but there was no way for us to not do this. Some cases could only be sorted through Maxon's official word. The jurisdiction just made me feel estranged from my citizens though. It was like we weren't even the same species anymore. Who gave us the authority to convict these people to life in prison? The only person who hated it more than me was Maxon but that was probably because he'd been to a lifetime of these assemblies.

We were normally briefed on each case prior to the assembly but today we were ill prepared. Amber also was not joining us today like she had been for the last few months. As she rounded the halfway point of her pregnancy she was getting more lethargic and tired and Dr. Ashlar was still concerned over her blood pressure. For today it would just be Maxon and I against the world.

"I hate this," Maxon grumbled as he checked his tie and crown one last time. I pulled on his shoulder so that he would turn around and face me.

I straightened his tie for him and sighed. "I do too. But think of the good we could do. We could liberate someone from a terrible fate." That wasn't true though. Unlike when Clarkson was king, the criminals brought to us actually had committed crimes that warranted heavy sentences. And if a punishment was written in the law, we had to follow suit or it could jeopardize our legitimacy as rulers.

"And we could also ruin someone's life," he argued. "This isn't what I wanted to do as king, Mer. I wanted to make my citizens' lives better." We had the same conversation every time this day rolled around.

"But what are we supposed to do? Keep these people who are a potential danger to our citizens roaming free out on the streets? You know by now Max that we can't do the good without dealing with the bad," I reminded him. "And think of all the good we've done."

He sighed deeply and raised his hand to run it through his hair before remembering that it was styled with gel. "Black always drowns out white," he whispered cryptically.

"Or white always shines through black."

"I'm not sure I want Amber to have to do this. I didn't want you to have to do it, let alone our daughter."

I shrugged and hugged him tight. Sometimes proximity and touch was all we had. Sometimes all other words failed and we could only communicate like this. I just needed the warm, solid assurance of his body enveloping mine. He was thinner and not as toned as he had been when we first got married but he still smelled and felt like Maxon. He still felt impossibly warm, like he had absorbed the Angeles sun into his skin and smelled like a strange mix of pine, mint and some sort of natural musk. Those impossibly strong arms that had held me through some of the hardest times in my life were my true home. I never felt safer than when they were wrapped tight around me, my cheek just inches above his heart. And I knew he felt the same way with his own face resting against my hair.

"Okay, let's do this," he finally said and pulled away from me.

Over the years, the audience invited to the Convicting had dwindled and now only consisted of advisers and prestigious guards. They all waited patiently for us to sit down on our gaudy thrones to take their own seats. A musician from the Royal Opera sand the national anthem, a judge read opening statements and then the first criminal was brought before us.

There were seven people brought to us that day. The hardest one was a high school student who had brought his knife to school by accident. He was sincere when he said that he had forgotten to take it out of his backpack – which he used to hunt on the weekends – but it was just another instance where rules were rules. We had to expel him.

I watched the sun slowly dip behind the horizon through the windows, starting to get antsy from sitting for so long. I also started to worry about the kids. It was noon when we had seen them last and they had a talent for getting into trouble when they were left alone for too long. Shay would try his best to control them but if Khalil was adamant about doing something, his older brother would normally just go along to make sure no one got seriously hurt or arrested.

After seeing the last criminal, Aspen stepped up to the platform and whispered something in Maxon's ear that I couldn't catch. "Are you serious?" Maxon barked in a lethal whisper. I stiffened at his tone. Something bad had happened.

"It's been contained. They're on their way to your office now," Aspen said in a placid tone before backing away to his prior spot at the edge, ready to jump in front of us at the slightest hint of a threat. Maxon tensed up and I looked over at him, asking him with my eyes. He shook his head ever so slightly at me, signaling that he'd fill me in later.

The Convicting couldn't be over soon enough. When Maxon and I were finally behind closed doors he started talking. "Apparently a bonfire occurred in the woods and it got a little out of hand."

"Khalil?" I sighed.

"They were all there."

"All?" I repeated, thinking of how my pregnant daughter was supposed to be resting. Certainly not starting forest fires.

Maxon nodded grimly and told me that they were all waiting for us in our study. They sat on adjacent couches, each looking more uneasy and guilty than the next. As soon as the doors shut behind us Shalom stood. "Mom, Dad, it's my fault. I was the one who set up the fire…"

"Shalom, Amber, Annie, why don't you three go get ready for bed?" Maxon said in a clipped voice. We knew who the real instigator was in all of this. They wordlessly stood up and left, leaving us with Win and Khalil. "So, please, tell me why you thought starting a fire in the middle of the woods was a good idea."

Khalil shook his head. "We just wanted to have fun and do something that we did as kids. Remember how we would always build fires and make s'mores as kids, Dad? We wanted to do something as a family."

"Why the sudden nostalgia?" I asked, frowning and crossing my arms.

"Because all we do anymore is go to summits and galas and we're sick of it," Win chimed in. "We just wanted to do something fun."

Maxon was unfazed by their sob story. "By starting a forest fire on palace grounds?"

"It wasn't a forest fire," I corrected him. I turned my back on Maxon and faced our kids. "For now you two should just go and have dinner in your rooms. We'll be around later to inform you of your punishments." They looked confused and even a little reluctant to leave but they eventually shuffled out.

"I wasn't done yet," Maxon snapped at me.

"You had said quite enough," I shot back. "Did you not hear what they were saying? They're upset with us and instead of punishing them we should do something about it."

Maxon shook his head and raked a hand through his short hair. "They could have done serious damage tonight. A fire on palace grounds? Not to mention how they risked the lives of their siblings and the guards who put the fire out!"

"But it's out and no one is hurt!" I wasn't scared to raise my voice against Maxon. He had his father's temper but I had never been afraid to fight back with Clarkson. "There are bigger problems here Max and we need to fix them now before they get any bigger. This is a time where our family has to be united. There's too much going on. If you're that concerned with the press, make sure your family is under control and won't make an ass out of you in public!"

"Do not speak to me like that!"

"I am your wife! I will speak to you however I want," I said defiantly.

He paced away from me, hands on his hips. The air in the room was still as if it was waiting for the explosion. It crackled with anticipation. But that explosion never came. Instead Maxon placed both of his hands flat on his desk and let out one long, strangled sob. I was so caught off guard by his sudden reaction that I didn't even move toward him. I just stared.

Finally I came to my senses though and approached him. "I'm so sorry America. I don't know what came over me," he whispered. I rubbed a hand over his back as I looped my other arm around his stomach and my hand rested on his hip.

I pressed my cheek against arm and shook my head. "It's been a long day. Besides, this kind of stuff comes with the territory of having five extremely privileged children. There are good days and there are awful days but at the end of every day, we're still a family."

"And I still love you," he said, turning to me. Tears were still glistening in his eyes.

"I love you too."

We stood in our study, pressed together tight for a long time. Finally he pulled away. "You know we still need to hand out some consequences though, right?"

I nodded. "Grounded?"

"Grounded."

"Two weeks?"

"One," he adjusted. "If they're upset, it's best not to provoke them. They do have a point, after all."

"So we'll talk to them tomorrow morning?"

Maxon nodded in agreement. "We'll let everyone simmer down and then talk about it calmly."

I smiled and pressed my lips against his chastely. "Sounds like a plan."

Amber

"Amber?" Shay called when he opened the door to the roof.

"Over here," I answered even though he knew exactly where I was sitting. This roof was our place and we always sat in the same spot when we came up here. It had the best view of Angeles along with a view overlooking a large portion of the gardens. We used to go up there when we were too young to go to parties and watch them, dreaming about the days when we could go.

He settled himself on the edge of the roof, swinging his legs over confidently and not even batting an eye at the fact that we were four stories above the ground. He'd always been incredibly coordinated and I guessed that it was that same confidence in motion that allowed him to do such daredevil maneuvers without shaking.

"I heard Mom and Dad shouting and came up here," I explained quickly.

"Should you be sitting up here?"

I rolled my eyes. "I need fresh air. Room to think." I paused, not knowing how to proceed but I decided to just come right out with it. "The baby kicked today."

"Really?" Shalom shifted so that he was facing me a bit more. "That's incredible AC."

"Incredibly scary," I added. "It just feels so real now, you know?"

He smiled bashfully and shook his head. "No, I don't really know."

I nudged him with my shoulder. "Dope."

"So Dad blew a gasket over the fire today, huh?"

"Dad could use some Xanax."

Shalom smiled again, this time just slightly. He looked at the ground and I knew that even if he wasn't saying it, he was agreeing with me. "Honestly, I don't know how he doesn't lose his cool more often. The shit we put him through and it's a miracle he hasn't disowned us."

"You mean the pranks?"

"Or his eldest son becoming a ballerina."

"Or eloping."

"Or the pot."

"Or his heir becoming a widow and getting pregnant in the same breath." We shared a long look that conveyed a lot more than just the memories we had shared. "I think he's just scared to become like his own father. And he loves us a lot."

Shay shrugged. "Mom really evens him out. She gets him, somehow." He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. "I always thought that's how Shel and I were. And I think we still are that way but after the whole Halloween debacle our relationship will never be the same. Don't ever sleep with someone unless you're absolutely ready."

"You're telling me! I'm the one that's pregnant," I joked. Then I sobered as a certain young man crept into my thoughts. "Kile gets it."

"Kile, huh? Haven't heard you talk about him with that voice in years."

I shrank away in mock defense. "What voice?"

"You know, that birds-twittering-stars-in-your-eyes kind of voice."

"He's really nice," I defended.

Shalom nodded. "Oh, I know he's really nice. But just because he's nice doesn't mean he'll wait around forever."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Before I didn't mind talking about my boy problems with my twin but now I was starting to get a little provoked. I was not in the mood to have this conversation again.

"Kile's the kind of guy who is sure with what he wants. The reverse side of that though is that when he knows he isn't going to get what he wants, he's quick to move on and never look back. You don't want to get stuck in his rearview."

I sighed and looked away from him. His gaze was going straight through me, reading every thought going through my head like it was the morning newspaper. Finally I asked what I had been fearing all along. "What if I lose him? I can't go through that again."

"But isn't it worth it for you to have him for whatever time you can? Isn't it worth it for your baby to have a father figure?"

I shook my head. "Not if she'll have to lose him later on."

Shay was quiet. I could practically hear his mind whirring at one hundred miles per hour as he thought of different responses to give me. Finally he simply settled on saying, "She?"

"It's just a guess."

"And sometimes you have to just risk all of that in order to find the happiness you're due to have eventually," he added.

Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes and I blinked them back, not wanting to cry anymore. It felt like all I was doing lately was crying. "Thanks Shay." He shrugged like it was nothing. "I don't deserve to have such a great brother to hang around and kick my butt."

"If I recall correctly, I did kick you out of the womb, big sis," he joked.

"Please, you were just being lazy." I couldn't help but laugh. This was just one of those things I loved about Shay. It probably came with the territory of having a twin but he knew me well enough to be able to cheer me up in a matter of seconds.

He put his arm around my shoulders and held me close to his side. "Is the baby kicking right now?"

"Yeah," I breathed out.

"Can I feel?"

I lifted my chin to look up at him, looking to see if he was actually being serious about this. But he did look genuinely interested. So I took his hand and placed it down close to my right hip where I had been feeling the baby kick a lot recently. "You probably can't feel it quite yet since it's still small."

He frowned and after I felt the baby kick a couple times without him reacting at all I guessed that I had been right and that he couldn't feel it. He pulled back, looking slightly disappointed. "I wish I could feel it."

"Just a few more weeks," I promised, patting his knee. "Now c'mon old man, you look about ready to pass out from exhaustion." He quickly leapt to his feet and offered me his hand, not letting go until after I had both feet firmly planted on the roof. But even then, I didn't let go. I held on to it fast and he picked up on my need for company, following me into my room and curling up in my bed next to me.

America

Mary entered our study, our lunches on a cart she was wheeling in front of her. "Lunch, Your Majesties," she announced cheerily. I smiled thankfully, feeling my stomach rumble with hunger.

"Thank goodness. I can feel my stomach eating itself, I'm so hungry," Maxon seconded. We'd had a long morning of disciplining Win and Khalil and getting work done. We had spent the majority of it behind our computers with Maxon's music playing softly in the background, exchanging news.

Mary left the sandwich on my desk and I bit into it greedily. My phone rang loudly just as Maxon sat down across from me, tearing into his own lunch. "Just when we get a break," he sighed, picking up the phone for me since my mouth was full.

I waited patiently for him to pass the phone to me but he never did. Instead his face fell in despair and I put my sandwich down, waiting for the news. He hung up slowly, as if he couldn't tell whether what he had just heard was real or not.

"What is it?" I asked.

"America…your mom is in the infirmary."