Everyone ate in a calm silence as none was loose enough to attempt to strike up a conversation with the King, after all, he looked as if he had a lot on his mind, which was obvious to see.
But Christina on the other hand remained warm and comely with the usual friendly smile on her face as she ate her food.
Amongst those present at the dinner were several members of the High Council, those with the highest ranks, Stella and Captious were also in attendance.
"Stella I hope you are doing well, you know with all the stress of what has gone on as of late" said Christina as she smiled and she looked at Stella whose attention was fully on her meal.
With the sudden question asked everyone turned to look at Stella who was sitting a seat away from Captious as there was someone sitting in the middle of them.
"I am doing well my Queen, thank you for asking, and how have you been doing?" replied Stella simply as she smiled.
"Fine, thank you" replied Christina as she took another bite from her meal.
"Chancellor it is rather odd that we rarely see Sapiens present at important events such as these" came the voice of a man who was sitting right across Stella and Stella knew immediately who was speaking, it was none other than Professor Reagan.
"Well it is true that he has been absent in most meetings as of late, but it is for a good reason for his absence" said Captious as he spoke up.
"And what could that be Captious?" asked Professor Reagan as he smiled and Stella frowned, she could see that he was obviously itching for trouble this evening, and he certainly wanted to make Sapiens look bad in front of the King and Queen.
"He has a right to his own privacy, besides, he wants to spend more time with his wife Elora at home... something that you might not understand Professor" said Stella obviously in a tone that she wanted this topic to be dismissed, meanwhile everyone else kept quiet but also kept their ears wide open.
They did not want to interfere in this matter, but they were very curious as to what the King would say about this.
Professor Reagan on the other hand had a huge frown on his face.
"Oh sorry to say Chancellor but you are certainly wrong, I have my wife nicely at home, I would also love nothing more than to spend more time with her at home" said Professor Reagan.
"But alas, I know that I have certain important duties that I cannot put off, what makes him so different from the rest of us that he has the right to forgo important meetings all in the name of spending time with his wife?" asked Professor Reagan.
"That to me sounds like nothing more than an excuse of laziness" said Professor Reagan.
"Watch your tone Professor Reagan, nothing gives you the right to speak in that manner of Sapiens" said Stella as she kept herself calm.
"I will not allow you speak ill of Sapiens while I am here" said Stella.
"Well that is highly nice of you Chancellor, let's just see what the King has to say about a trusted, usually devoted member of the Council leaving his official duties just to spend time with his wife?" asked Professor Reagan with a troublesome smile on his face before he turned to look at Albert with a serious one.
Albert on the other hand who had been silently listening to the conversation looked up to see all eyes on him, expectantly waiting for his response as he cleared his throat.
"There is nothing wrong with Sapiens taking some time off to spend with his wife, we all agree that it is very important to spend time with loved once, after all, I spend time with my Queen frequently" said Albert as he looked at Christina who smiled at him.
"And besides, you said it yourself Reagan, Sapiens is a highly devoted member of the Council, which means that of course he would not be leaving his important duties aside to suffer while he spends leisure time at home" said Albert as Reagan frowned, trying hard to hide the frown on his face as both Captious and Stella smiled knowingly at him.
"Enough with the trivial matters and now on to more important matters" said Albert.
"As we all know, this is a celebration of the defeat and sentencing of Azazel, which is a very memorable occasion" said Albert.
"After hundreds of years of one man tormenting our realm, he is finally caught and it is all thanks to the relentless hard work of this Council" said Albert as he smiled and Stella could not hide the look of pure displeasure blatant on her face.
"So a toast once more to celebration" said Albert with a smile as he raised his glass and the others did the same except for Captious and Stella who kept this hands on their cultlery.
Christina glanced at Stella, she could obviously see Stella's rage masked with displeasure, she was only waiting for her to speak up.
Stella could not take it any more, the laughs and cheers that belonged to neither of them irritated her.
"With all due respect your Majesty, what exactly is it that we are celebrating?" asked Stella as she could not hold herself any longer, and with her statement she became the center of attention once more.
"We are celebrating the defeat of Azazel of course" replied Albert as he looked at her, wondering what she was aiming at.
"Is that so?" asked Stella.
"Yes" replied Albert with a frown.
"It's just that I doubt that any of us are legible to celebrate something like this" said Stella.
"What in the cauldron are you saying Chancellor?" asked Reagan in annoyance as he looked at her.
"I am saying none of us sitting here at this table were responsible for the defeat of Azazel" said Stella in concealed fury as everyone was silent, getting a whiff of where she was going with this.
"But the person who is... is none other than Annie Grey and her friends" said Stella.
"Now is neither the time or the place to speak about this Chancellor" said Reagan as other agreed with him murmuring in agreement.
"You call me Chancellor, and that is who I am, I am free to say whatever I want, you a mere professor should be silent when those in more power than you are speaking" said Stella as she shunned Reagan immediately which left him in utter rage as he turned to look at Albert for some sort of retribution to which the latter remained silent as his attention was on Stella.
"Forgive me for my outrage my King, but I cannot continue taking the glory that belongs to someone else, while I sit here feeling guilt, I would have tried to talk to you sooner but I was never given the chance" said Stella as she looked at Albert.
"I am aware, you may continue, tell me exactly what you mean by your statement" said Albert as everyone else was not ignorant enough to not feel the hint of hostility in his tone.
"My King, we sit here, eating and drinking, celebrating the fall of a man that we did not cause to fall" said Stella as Captious nodded and Albert did not miss that little gesture at all.
"I take it that you feel the same way Captious?" asked Albert as he looked at Captious.
"With all due respect, yes my King, I also believe that it is wrong for us to be celebrating while the true heroes remain my great niece Annie and her friends Maddie and Matt, including the Prince my King" replied Captious.
"My King, we are here celebrating while the true heroes get no praise at all" said Stella.
"We are all old, concealing our grey hairs, and yet we were not able to defeat the man that posed a threat to our Realm" said Stella.
"Instead, we left the job of an adult and gave it to a child, this should not be so" said Stella in a tone of remorse.
"What happened to the values of the Council? What happened to protecting every witch regardless of magic, or power or hate?? All those values were disregarded when Annie came into the picture, and I am not just saying that because I am fond of her but because it is the truth" said Stella.
"My King, I know you believe it is the truth as well" said Stella as everyone remained silent feeling guilty on the inside for the truth in Stella's words.
"You say that we disregarded the values of the Council, but that is not so" said Albert as Christina looked at him.
"Did I not authorize the Palace being used as a place for Annie and her people to stay in? Did I not give you full autonomy over the Cauldron to use in your aid? Did I not give you the clearance and funds to set up camp in Kadama regardless of the unfavourable outcome?" asked Albert.
"You did my King, there is no doubt about that, however, let us not lie, my King all you did should have not been so" said Stella.
"Giving power to a mere Chancellor in a matter that concerned not only out Realm, but other Realms as well" said Stella.
"In the fight against evil, you should be the one recognized and not me" said Stella as Christina nodded, agreeing with that.
"My King, my great niece and her friend were left on their own, with no direct protection from the Realm, if anything was to happen to them, or if they failed, no one would care, it would just be another story" said Captious.
"My King, in Kadama, the true seriousness of the situation was brought to light" said Stella.
"When Azazel attacked and Annie and her family separated from my protection, I saw how wrong this whole thing was" said Stella.
"The poor girl was left on her own to deal with dangerous man, in order to save her close friend she used a revive spell which left her powerless and weak for months" said Stella sadly.
"And still yet, with the knowledge that no one would defeat Azazel but her, she rose up and journeyed to Caligo with her friends, she got her powers back, she returned ready to make sure that Azazel would be defeated for good this time" said Stella.
"She and her friends, mere teenagers singlehandedly defeated a tyrant whom has plagued us for years, and even though she challenged him in a mindset of killing him, she only weakened him" said Stella.
"Let us be honest, we are all parents here, mother's fathers, grandparents, aunties and uncles, tell me, would we ever expose our children to such horror? Horror of killing another human being, regardless of if he is evil or not" said Stella as she looked at everyone who avoided her gaze.
"I guess not" said Stella.
"Those teenagers are braver than any of us all combined" said Stella.
"I am sure that we are all aware of Azazel's right hand woman Selene who is worse than him in every way" said Stella.
"Well it is evident that if not for the intervention of Maddie and the Prince, she would have aided Azazel and he might have escaped yet again" said Stella.
"And Matt, the vampire hybrid as you all like to call him, he was the one who I trusted most to look after the rogues that were captured, of which only one escaped, which he was not able to subdue" said Stella seriously.
"The four of them are the true heroes, they were the ones who worked together seamlessly to defeat Azazel completely, if anything we should be the one commending them, not us commending ourselves for nothing we did" said Stella as she kept quiet, signaling that she was done finally speaking.