The Princess of Trelian (26 page)

“Are you all right, Meg?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said. The fear in her mother’s eyes made her want to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “It wasn’t our fault. She did this to us. Jakl couldn’t help it.”

Her father came forward and hugged her tightly, making a valiant effort to pretend he didn’t notice the way Jakl refused to move and therefore made the mechanics of the hug a little awkward. “It’s all right. We just want you to be safe, that’s all. We’ll . . . figure out the rest somehow, don’t worry.”

Meg closed her eyes for a moment, losing herself in the comfort of her father’s strong arms. He hadn’t hugged her like that in a long time. Not even when she’d come back from Lourin. Perhaps especially not then. Neither of her parents had seemed inclined to want to hug her then.

A shout from Nan Vera made them all turn, and then Maurel was there, darting past everyone to throw her arms around Meg, too. It ended up being a bit of a mess of arms and Meg and dragon, but Meg didn’t mind one bit. This was good, having these important pieces of her family here around her. This helped her remember who she was, too.

Her father stepped back, picking up Maurel, and Meg repeated her wishes about staying outside for a bit longer. Serek murmured something to the king that she couldn’t hear, and her father nodded reluctantly and let himself be led back inside. The queen squeezed Meg’s hand once and then followed. Serek left, too, and Pela, and the guards, and everyone, except Calen.

“Can I stay out here with you?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes, please.”

They sat down in the damp, dew-covered grass. Meg leaned back against Jakl, and the dragon curled around her so that the tip of his nose was resting beside her lap. Calen arranged himself to face her. She saw Jakl’s tail twitch across to Calen and twine itself loosely around his body.
Yes,
she thought at him.
That’s right. Calen’s here with us, too. We’re not alone.

Jakl responded with a gentle reflection of her own feelings, and she finally felt the last of the anger and fear slip away into nothingness. They sat together that way for a long time. No one came out to bother them, and Calen never once seemed the slightest bit impatient to bring her inside.

They did go inside eventually. It was chilly out there in the field, and Meg was still only wearing her nightgown and boots. Jakl’s warm body helped, but not quite enough. And they had to go in and figure out what could be done to stop the dreams. This could not happen again.

Jakl did not want her to go, but he seemed to understand the necessity. She hugged him tightly around the neck one more time, and then she and Calen walked slowly back toward the castle. A guard posted at the door let them know that Serek and the king were waiting for them in Serek’s study.

When they got there, Anders opened the door and ushered them inside. Meg explained again what she thought had happened, repeating what she’d told Calen out in the field.

“He didn’t . . . no one else was hurt, were they?” Meg asked when she was through. She thought she would know if Jakl had harmed anyone, but with all the confusion inside them both, she wasn’t entirely sure.

“No one was hurt, Meg,” her father said. “Just frightened.”

“I’m sorry,” Meg said. “I should have told you what was happening. I just — you were already so uneasy about the dragon, and I — well, I was just afraid to tell you. I know it was wrong. Cowardly. I know I haven’t been behaving as I should be. I will do better, Father. I promise.”

“Don’t worry about any of that now, Meg,” he said. “Let’s just see what Mage Serek can do to help.” Meg couldn’t quite read her father’s expression. She suspected he wasn’t entirely sure how he was feeling right now, either. All of this was so confusing. For all of them.

She looked at Serek. “I should have let Calen tell you how bad it was getting, too. We shouldn’t have waited this long.”

“Yes, well,” Serek said, “let’s see what we can do, now that we know.”

“How is any of this even possible?” Calen asked abruptly. “Dragons are resistant to magic. Sen Eva shouldn’t be able to hurt Jakl.”

“We’ve been discussing that,” Serek said. “We think the problem is that she’s attacking Meg and, through her, the link, and since Meg is not protected in the same way Jakl is, she is vulnerable. And then Jakl becomes vulnerable, through her.”

“Oh,” Calen said. “I . . . guess that makes sense.”

“Will I have to go to sleep again, for you to stop her?” Meg asked. That seemed like a very bad idea, but if it was the only way . . .

Serek and Anders exchanged a look. “We’ve been talking about that, too,” Serek said. “We do need you to be sleeping in order for the spell to work. But since we’ve done it once already, we think we can do it more quickly this time. You might only need to be asleep for a minute.”

“The trickier question is whether your link to the dragon is going to affect the spell somehow,” Anders said. “We don’t want to accidentally cause some other kind of trouble while trying to protect you from Sen Eva.”

“Wait,” Calen said. “How do you . . . ?”

“Serek explained about the link to me,” Anders said. He turned to Meg. “I understand it is very privileged information, Princess. I will keep your secret.”

“Unfortunately, Sen Eva seems to understand even more than we do about the link,” Serek said. “We know she realized there was some kind of connection between you and the dragon during the fight on the tower, but it seems she has since figured out a great deal more. Which we have to assume means Mage Krelig also knows about the link, and perhaps is the source of Sen Eva’s greater understanding.”

“Oh,” Meg said. “But . . . you’re still going to try, aren’t you? You have to try!”

“Yes,” Serek said. “But Calen is going to be conducting the main part of the spell.”

“What?” said Calen.

“You’re the only one of us who has any experience with the link,” Serek explained calmly. “You’ve used magic involving the link before.”

“But I didn’t know what I was doing! And I won’t now, either! I could hurt them —”

“He just needs to argue and tell us how dangerous it’s going to be first,” Meg broke in. “I’ve seen it before. Don’t worry — he’ll come around.”

“Meg!” Calen shouted, not sounding the least bit amused.

“You have to do this, Calen,” she told him. “You know you can, and you know that it will be even more dangerous not to try, so stop stalling and let’s just get it over with, all right?”

He stared at her, opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Oh, fine,” he said grumpily. He turned back to Serek. “What do I need to do?”

“It’s going to be the same spell you watched us perform on Wilem,” Serek said. “I’ll talk you through it as we go. Anders and I will be with you, but you’ll need to lead the way.”

Calen nodded, and Meg could see him leaving his objections behind and focusing on the task ahead. She trusted him to do this for her. He just needed a push sometimes — that was all.

Meg lay down on the floor in the center of the room. It seemed silly to march up to her bedroom, especially if she wasn’t going to be asleep for very long. Calen ran into his room for a moment and came back with a pillow, which he tucked gently under her head. She smiled up at him, and he gave her a quick smile in return. And then he was all business, as he and the two mages prepared to cast the spell.

“Ready?” Calen asked her when he and the mages had finished discussing the logistics among themselves.

“Yes.”

“All right. Anders is going to put you to sleep. And then . . . I don’t know how much you’ll be aware of. Wilem didn’t seem to know that we were there.”

She nodded understanding, and then Anders touched her forehead, and then everyone was gone. Or maybe she was gone. At some point, she became aware that she was dreaming again. Fear seized her instantly, and she struggled not to panic.
It won’t be like the last one,
she told herself.
Calen and the others are here with you, even if you can’t see them. They won’t let anything bad happen.

Still, she felt the familiar confused sense of fear. She was in the forest again, and lost again, and she could feel Jakl growing confused and afraid along with her.
It’s all right,
she thought at him.
Just hold on.
She didn’t know whether to reach for him or not. She should have asked Calen. Before she could decide, she felt Jakl reaching for her instead. She could feel him wanting to be as connected as possible. He didn’t feel angry, not yet. Just frightened.

And then she felt something else, a shadowy thing coming at her out of the darkness. Jakl screamed in recognition, and she realized this must be Sen Eva’s presence. She’d never seen it approaching before; it had always just been there, as soon as she was sleeping. Maybe Sen Eva had not expected her to go back to sleep again so soon. Meg tried to run from the shadow, but there was no place to run here. She felt Jakl latch on to her tightly, and she did the same to him.
I won’t let go,
she promised. But even as she said that, she felt something changing, felt her sense of him growing fainter.
No, no!
she cried out, or tried to, but she couldn’t seem to speak or move or do anything to stop what was happening. She felt anger blossoming inside her again, but she didn’t know if it was the dream or just her own real anger at Sen Eva for what she was doing to them. She clutched desperately at Jakl through the link; she could feel that he was terrified, but he kept slipping further away, even as the terror seemed to start shifting into something else.

And then suddenly something else was there, something bright and not-shadow, and it pushed at the darkness, forcing it back. The shadow’s hold on them loosened, and she felt Jakl’s presence flow back through to her in a wave of emotion, confused and angry but not yet out of control. The brightness seemed to move around her, leaving a trail of comfort and protection until she was surrounded by what felt like a wall of safety. The link flowed freely through that wall, but somehow she knew that nothing else would be able to penetrate it.

And then she was awake, staring up at a trio of concerned faces.

“Did it work?” she asked. “Was that you, Calen? The brightness? It was, wasn’t it?”

“Brightness?” he asked, moving back and helping her sit up. “What did you see?”

“I could see Sen Eva coming at us, or what I assume was her,” Meg said. “A dark shadow. And then there was something else, this brightness, and it made a wall that kept her out and away from us.” She could feel Jakl’s relief underscoring her own. He felt protected now, too.

“Huh,” Calen said. “Yeah, I guess that was me. Well, us. I didn’t know you’d be able to see us at all.”

“Fascinating!” Anders said, shaking his head in wonder. He was already headed toward Serek’s desk — looking for something to take notes on, Meg supposed. Her father stepped over from where he’d been standing, back out of the way. He looked back and forth between her and Serek.

“Did it work, then?” he asked. “Will that stop — stop whatever was happening?”

“Yes, I think so,” Serek said. “Although obviously you should let us know, Meg, if you feel anything out of the ordinary the next time you go to sleep.”

“I will,” she promised. She thought she might even be able to let herself try to sleep again tonight. Seeing that brightness, she felt safer than she’d expected to. She looked at Calen and was pleased to see that he looked rather proud of himself.

“Thank you,” she told him seriously.

“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling.

“Yes, well done, Calen,” Serek said. Meg caught Calen’s eyes widening at the praise, although he tried to hide it. She knew Serek rarely said anything so directly positive to his apprentice.

“Well,” the king said. “If we’re finished here for now, I think we should go upstairs and let your mother and Maurel know everything is all right. I suspect they are both waiting up for us, worried.”

“Oh, Pela, too, most likely,” Meg said, feeling guilty. For once, she wasn’t at all sorry that Pela’s room was so close to her own. Pela had been frightened, but not at all hysterical or useless. She’d been swift in running to get Calen when Meg told her to, without hesitating or asking pointless questions. She’d said she’d wanted to be helpful. Meg had to admit Pela was doing a good job of proving just how helpful she could be.

Calen stepped ahead to open the door for the king, and Meg followed her father into the hallway. She looked back and gave Calen one more grateful smile before they turned the corner and were out of sight.

“W
ELL,” ANDERS SAID ONCE MEG AND
her father had left, “never a dull moment in Trelian, eh?”

“Why is Sen Eva doing all of this?” Calen asked. “I mean, I understand that she’s trying to start that war for Mage Krelig. But why send nightmares to her own son? And why is she trying to — to do whatever she was trying to do to Meg’s link with Jakl?”

Serek sat on the edge of his desk. “There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” he said. “It’s possible she’s just trying to stir up as much confusion and trouble as she can. She may be trying to get revenge through Wilem, trying to compel him to attack those here in the castle whom she holds responsible for unraveling her scheme last time around. And Wilem himself seemed to think she was trying to get him to escape and join her. As for Meg . . . perhaps the more erratic the dragon’s behavior, the more likely Lourin will believe he is responsible for the attacks against them. Or that might be about revenge also; she might be trying to punish Meg for her part in what happened. Or there could be some completely different reason we’re not even considering.”