The Princess of Trelian (23 page)

Calen looked up at her sharply. “Wilem?”

“Yes. Not the same kind, though. His sound . . . well, I meant to tell you and Serek about them right away when you got back, but with everything else that happened I didn’t get the chance. Wilem thinks Sen Eva is sending his nightmares. You know, magically, somehow. He says the dreams are about him hurting people and running off to join her. About doing things he doesn’t want to do. He’s worried that he might be a danger to my family.”

“Of course he’s a danger,” Calen said. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking about?”

“No! No, of course not. Although I don’t think . . . he did tell me about the dreams voluntarily. Made the guards come find me so he could tell me directly, in fact.”

“You don’t think he could have had some hidden motive?”

“Well, it did occur to me,” she admitted. “Maybe he was trying to find out if I was having dreams, too. I almost . . . I didn’t quite tell him. But he may have guessed.”

“Hmm.” Calen fell silent, thinking. “I don’t like the sound of any of this. We need to tell Serek, definitely. As soon as possible.”

“Could we — could we not tell my parents? About my dreams? I told them about Wilem’s, but I just . . . didn’t want to tell them about mine.”

“What? Why not? Meg, it could be important!”

“I know,” she said. “I know! It’s just . . . they don’t know how to deal with the link, or the dragon, and they already look at me so differently. And they’re talking about the people not supporting me as the princess-heir because of Jakl, and I’m still trying to figure out how to make them have more confidence in me. . . . I don’t want to give them one more reason to think there’s something wrong with me.” She was horrified to realize she was close to tears. She hadn’t meant to talk about this.

“Meg, of course there’s nothing wrong with you. I’m sure they don’t think that!”

She shook her head. “You haven’t seen the way they look at me sometimes. Like I’m a stranger. Like they don’t know me at all.” Now she did start crying. She wiped angrily at her face, not looking up.

Calen reached over and took her hand. She squeezed it gratefully but still couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promise. I’ll figure out why all this is happening. And in the meantime, your parents . . . they’re just trying to adjust, Meg. You are different. You know that. But not in a bad way.” He laughed a little. “Hey, if I could get used to the new you, they will, too. You’ll see. They just didn’t have the same, um, close-up level of introduction that I did.”

She smiled a little at that, but it still hurt to think of how they looked at her. Especially today, when she got back. She’d thought they would be glad to see her. Angry, of course, but mostly happy that she had made it back all right and with such important information. At least now they knew about Sen Eva! But they’d been too incensed to acknowledge any amount of value in what she’d done. Meg knew she’d been wrong to go, but . . . she had still hoped her parents would appreciate the positive side, small as it was. And that their relief that she was all right would be . . . well, that it would be the most important thing to them. And it wasn’t. Clearly, it wasn’t at all.

She couldn’t help wondering if they secretly wished she just . . . weren’t here. If they wished she and Jakl could go off somewhere and not keep scaring all the loyal subjects and striking fear into neighboring kingdoms and generally complicating the lives of everyone around them.

And really, no matter what Calen said . . . there
was
something wrong with her. The way she was feeling lately, the anger, the slipping away from herself . . . The link kept changing her, making her feel so out of control, so different, changing her thoughts and feelings and influencing the way she acted, letting her put other people in danger. . . . There was something very wrong with her, indeed.

But she didn’t want to try to convince Calen of that. Not when he was the only one who believed in her.

The doors to the garden entrance opened, and a pair of kitchen boys came walking toward them. One was carrying a basket, the other a stoppered bottle and two cups.

“Princess?” the first one said, dipping his knees respectfully. “Miss Pela said you and Apprentice Calen missed dinner. She had us bring you out something to eat.” He frowned thoughtfully at the bench, then made little waving motions until Meg and Calen realized what he wanted and moved to make more space between them. The two boys quickly unpacked the contents of the basket on a little linen square and set out the bottle and cups, then bowed and retreated into the castle.

“Wow,” Calen said around a mouthful of food. “I think I like this lady-in-waiting of yours.”

Meg smiled. “Me, too.”

She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until the food was in front of her. Calen seemed to feel the same. Conversation lapsed as they both concentrated on filling their empty stomachs.

“So,” Meg said after a while, trying to pull herself out of her dark mood. Although Pela’s thoughtful little picnic had already done much to help with that. “Tell me about the Magistratum! Did it hurt, when you got your mark? What was it like? Did you have to let people watch?”

He told her the whole process, and she oohed and gasped in the right places, and she could tell he liked describing how much it had hurt and how he’d managed to endure it without doing anything embarrassing. The story got less fun when he told her about the attack at the marking ceremony, though. And less fun still when he told her about those other mages, the ones who took him away and locked him up and forced him to give them drops of his blood.

“Oh, Calen,” she said after he described trying to contact Serek and realizing he couldn’t do it. “That must have been awful. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“Me, too,” he said. “And I still don’t understand what they think I’m going to do. I wish they could at least be clear about what they think makes me a danger to the Magistratum. Then maybe I could do something about it.”

“Hey,” she said firmly. “You told me that Serek said you might just be involved in the danger, not the cause of it. Maybe you’ll be the one to stop the danger, whatever it is, and that’s how you’ll be involved! Don’t go taking everything those other mages said to heart. If Serek thinks they’re wrong, then so do I.”

“Anders is still on the fence,” Calen said, somewhat bitterly. “And even Serek . . . he’s not really sure that the other mages are wrong. He just didn’t want them to lock me up or — or do anything unpleasant to me while they were trying to figure it all out. But he also won’t tell me what he and Anders are doing to figure it out. Or even what they really know so far.”

He looked up at her, and his eyes were more angry than she’d ever seen them.

“Serek’s even suspending my lessons! And so now this big danger is coming that I’m going to be right in the middle of somehow, and I’m going to end up completely unprepared and unable to avoid it or fight back or defend myself because they won’t
teach
me anything.” He kicked at the ground with his foot. “I hate this. Everyone is afraid I’m going to do something terrible. And there’s nothing I can say or do to convince them it’s not true.”

“Who is Anders, anyway?” Meg asked. “How long have he and Serek known each other? And from where?”

“I don’t know. You know how Serek is about sharing personal information. And I didn’t have that many opportunities to talk to Anders alone. He’s kind of . . . odd. But he knows how to cast in ways that I’ve never seen before. I think he’s very smart, even though he acts a little . . .”

“Eccentric?” Meg suggested.

“Yeah. Maybe now that we’re not running for our lives, I can find out more about him and ask how he knows Serek. I got the feeling it was from a long time ago, somehow.”

“Just one more mystery we’ll need to figure out,” Meg said. “Although perhaps that one’s not quite at the top of the list.”

“Yeah,” Calen said again. “I guess it’s somewhere down below figuring out what Sen Eva is up to.”

“And what those mages think you’re going to do.”

“And what’s going on with Jakl, and your link.”

“And who attacked the Magistratum during your marking ceremony. And why.”

“And what’s causing those nightmares, for you and Wilem.”

They looked at each other grimly.

“I thought the Magistratum was going to take care of everything,” Meg said. “Weren’t they supposed to take care of everything? Weren’t you and Serek supposed to show up and tell them what happened, and then they’d just, you know, fix everything?”

Calen sighed. “That’s what I thought, too. But they can’t even agree on what the problems are, let alone what to do about them.”

“It’s all going to be okay somehow, though, isn’t it?” Meg asked. “Eventually?”

“Yes,” Calen said. He said it with such conviction that she couldn’t help but believe him.

“I’m really glad you’re back,” she said quietly.

“Me, too, Meg. Really glad.”

Then they sat there in the moonlight, being glad together, and didn’t say anything else for a long time.

M
EG NODDED AT THE GUARDS OUTSIDE
Wilem’s door. One of them turned and knocked loudly, calling, “The princess is here to see you!” Then they all waited for him to come and let them in.

Calen didn’t know why everyone was being so polite. Wilem was a criminal. They shouldn’t have to knock or ask permission to enter. He was a little worried that everyone was forgetting who Wilem was. What he’d done, or almost done. He would have thought Meg, at least, would never forget . . . but now he wasn’t so sure. She had seemed almost concerned about him, when she’d told Calen about the dreams.

The door opened. Wilem immediately stepped back, and one of the guards escorted him to a chair. Meg and Calen followed him inside. Once they were seated as well, Meg told the guards to close the door and wait outside.

“Are you sure, Your Highness?” one guard asked. He looked less than happy about the idea.

“Yes, we’ll be fine. I’ll call you if we need you.”

The guards retreated, closing the door.

“Good morning, Princess,” Wilem said respectfully. “Hello, Calen.”

“Good morning,” Meg said back.

Calen didn’t say anything. He studied Wilem across the small, low table that separated him from where Meg and Calen were seated. Wilem looked a bit different from how Calen remembered. Thinner, and he seemed tired.
Well, we’re all tired,
Calen thought, although actually that wasn’t quite true; he’d slept better last night than he had in what felt like weeks. He was glad he’d had the chance to rest and wash and change before coming here. Not that he cared what Wilem thought about him, of course. But it would have bothered him to be sitting here all rumpled and dirty while Wilem looked like he was ready to go off to some fancy dinner. He seemed rather better dressed than a prisoner ought to be, in Calen’s opinion.

“How have the dreams been?” Meg asked. Meg had told Calen that her own sleep had been free of nightmares last night, but she’d had such nights on occasion before; she didn’t seem to believe that meant they were going to stop for good.

“Worse,” Wilem said. “Last night — last night I woke up with my hand on the door.”

Meg looked worried at that. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I can’t remember,” Wilem said. At Calen’s contemptuous snort, he continued, “I swear. I wish I could. I know — I know it was not anything good.” He glanced at Calen. “I see that you have returned. I assume Mage Serek is back as well? Will the two of you be able to stop this somehow?”

“Maybe,” Calen said. “You’re certain they’re not just regular nightmares?”

Wilem shook his head. “They feel different. As if someone else is there, in the dream. Directing me, somehow. Princess Meglynne has certainly told you that I believe it to be my mother, trying to influence my actions.”

“Was last night the first time you woke up in the process of doing something?” Calen asked.

“Yes. Last night’s dream was stronger than any other so far. Everything felt more urgent, somehow.”

Calen shared a glance with Meg. That made sense. Sen Eva could be trying to advance her plans, whatever they were, more quickly now that she knew they knew she was up to something. Assuming the dreams really were her doing. And assuming Wilem wasn’t just lying.

Meg had told Calen more about the dreams she’d been having, too. Hers didn’t seem to involve anyone trying to get her to do things, though. They were just dark and confusing and full of intense emotions. She often felt like there was something she was supposed to do, but unlike in Wilem’s dreams, that was never clear. There was a sense of everything being wrong, especially in relation to Jakl. That worried Calen most of all. He did not like what Meg had been telling him about the link, or about Jakl’s strange behavior.

So if someone was sending the dreams to both of them, it seemed clear that there were different purposes to them.

“We’re going to talk to Serek next,” Meg said. “We’ll let you know what he wants to do.”

“You know where to find me,” Wilem said, half smiling. Meg seemed about to smile back, then stopped herself. Calen didn’t see what there was to smile about. He stood up, and Meg followed his lead.