Caspian and I sat in the small dining room, waiting for her.
"Charlotte seems nice," I said, absently. The food had already been brought out buffet style, and the smell was causing my stomach to jump. I'd not realized how hungry I was.
"She's very knowledgeable. Anything you want to know about Morpheus, she will be able to tell you."
"How do you know her?"I asked genuinely interested. She didn't seem like someone Caspian would spend time with.
"I spent some time in Urbis a few years back, and we met then. I liked the fact that she was different from the girls at The Forge."
"I remember you saying the same thing about me once." I grinned, picking up a carrot stick and taking a bite.
"You are nothing like Charlotte," he said. I didn't have time to question him on what he meant because Charlotte chose that moment to walk through the door. She'd changed into a pretty but understated pink dress, and her hair was now down. She was a bonny girl with a sweet face that had an innocence about it.
"This looks yummy," she stated, taking in the spread of food.
I watched her as she ate. She took little bites out of everything, almost like a squirrel would. Every time Caspian spoke, her eyes would dart over to him.
"Charlotte took a course in the Gods at Urbis University, but Morpheus was her specialty. She knows more about Morpheus than anyone," Caspian said. At this, Charlotte's face lit up like a beacon.
"Not really," she said, smiling shyly. "I'm sure there are other people who know more than I."
"I doubt it."
Charlotte positively beamed at his words.
"So," she said, talking to me. "Caspian tells me you want to know about Morpheus. He's already told me your situation."
"Do you think you'll be able to help me?" I asked.
"I'm not a mage. All I can do is tell you what I know."
"Which is a lot," said Caspian
"Which is a lot when it comes to Morpheus," she said.
I was eager to hear what she had to say. Anything that could help my mother.
Before she spoke, the door to the dining room opened. "Have you finished the competition yet?"
I looked to the door to where my father stood. His eyes bulged from lack of sleep, and his hair stuck up at all angles. He looked crazed.
"Not yet, Father, but..."
"I've just had a messenger from the Sentinel up at the castle again. I promised it to them yesterday."
"But Father..."
"But father, nothing. You promised me this morning that you'd get it done, and here I find you having a tea party. I'm going to bed. I've not slept for thirty-six hours straight. I need this done by the time the paper goes to press. They gave me a deadline of five o'clock."
Without another word, he slammed the door behind him as he left. A glance at the clock told me I had a little under two hours to come up with three parts to this stupid competition. If only he'd listened to me about Charlotte and why she was here, he would have slept more soundly, but I didn't have the heart to go running after him. If he was going to bed, it was kinder to leave him be.
"I should go and do what he wants. I've been putting it off," I explained. "I'm so sorry, Charlotte."
"Would you like me to help you?" Caspian asked.
"No. Why don't you take Charlotte for a tour of the castle grounds? The weather's cleared up a little."
"Oh , yes, please," she said, practically bouncing out of her seat."I'd love to."
I left them both with a smile on my face. Charlotte's crush on Caspian was obvious. Insane, but obvious. Her eyes barely left him the whole lunchtime. He, on the other hand, hardly looked at her at all.
I really hated the fact I had to wait to hear what she had to say about Morpheus. I don't know what scared me the most. My mother being in a coma, her being cursed, or her being locked in a dream realm by some crazy god, but if I knew what it was, it would bring me closer to being able to deal with it.
I went to the library expecting to find Remy there. It was quiet, but his books still lay on the floor where he'd left them. I picked them all up and shelved them, before opening the cabinet with the special books in it and pulling the one with the contest in it out.
After reading it for what felt like three hundred times, I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes. This was too hard.
I looked at the piece of paper I'd scribbled on earlier. The clay thing was a good idea, and the fighting seemed to be mandatory, whether I liked it or not.
I just needed a question that Caspian would never be able to answer, a question that Milo would jump on. Nothing too obvious. Not that it really mattered as I was planning on not being here anyway, but if it did get postponed and I did get forced to go through it at some later date.
And then it came to me. With a grin on my face, I wrote it down.
"What is the name of the Queen of Dragons?"
18th January
Charlotte was already sitting at the table when I came down for breakfast. She sat up in her chair and gave me a bright, breezy smile.
"I'm so glad you are here. One of your staff members woke me up and told me that breakfast was served, but I thought that I'd come to the wrong place when there was no one here."
"It will get very noisy soon. Just wait and see. I have three brothers who love food. In fact, I'd eat now before they come down and eat it all... Caspian thinks that my mother's curse is actually something to do with Morpheus," I said, trying to bring the subject around to the reason she was here.
"From what Caspian tells me, it possibly is the case. I'd have to see her, of course, but if it's like the curse she was under before, then I'd say Morpheus has a hand in it."
"How do you know Morpheus had anything to do with the curse before?" I asked. "A witch called Derillen performed the spell originally. I think it's Derillen again this time."
The door opened, and Caspian walked in.
"Azia thinks a lot of things," Caspian explained to Charlotte, "but she's very rarely correct."
Charlotte pushed his arm. "You are such a monster. Don't be so rude."
"Yeah, Caspian. Don't be so rude."
"You love it!" he said, swiveling his eyes to me.
"I'd agree with you if you were right," I snapped back.
"Let's assume it's the same person doing this..." Charlotte said, steering us back to the original topic of conversation.
"It's not," butted in Caspian.
"We'll let's, for the sake of argument, say it is," Charlotte continued. "I don't know much about what happened to your mother back then. It's a little before my time. I was only five when she woke up. I did write about her in my dissertation, but I didn't cover much. My hypothesis was that Derillen had somehow become friendly with Morpheus, and Morpheus had closed the entrances to the dream world for your mother. Other people could enter and leave, but your mother was lost."
"You see, that's the part I don't understand. How come other people could come and go, and my mother couldn't. Why couldn't she go with them."
"it's not that simple. We all have our own exit and entrance. We get there through dreaming. If we didn't, we'd wake up after a nap in someone else's head. It is possible...nay, probable that your mother is seeing these other people. If you've dreamed about your mother, it's possible that you have actually seen her, but like most dreams, we wake up and forget straight away. Occasionally, we remember our dreams, but usually they are strange. That's the dream world. It is a strange place. Morpheus likes to confuse."
"So, if I dreamed about my mother, I could talk to her?"
Charlotte shrugged. "It's possible she will see you and be able to talk to you. You might have already even been speaking to her every night, but unless you remember the dream, you wouldn't even know it."
My mind was blown by the thought of it. If Charlotte's hypothesis was right, I could spend my nights speaking to any number of people and not even know. It was a strange thought and one that didn't sit well in my stomach. I grabbed a
sandwich and bit into it, chewing as I considered the implications of it.
"If you remember the story, your mother's curse was to kill her not to make her sleep. Derillen gave her the curse when she was a baby, but it didn't come into effect until she was seventeen years old. That gave your grandparents plenty of time to find other people of magic to stop the curse. The problem was that once a curse is given, only the original curse giver can break it."
I sat forward, intrigued. She knew more about my mother than I did. I'd not really been told this part of the story, just the bit about her waking up.
"Your mother was sent into hiding for the first part of her life, even though many people of magic told your grandfather that no amount of hiding could keep her from the curse. He didn't believe them, or he didn't want to believe them, so your mother barely saw her own parents throughout her childhood. Meanwhile, your grandfather hired every mage he could get his hands on. At one time, believe it or not, Draconis was the most magical kingdom, even beating out Enchantia, where most of the population is magic to some extent. "
She took a pause as she sipped on her tea. "There was almost an explosion of magic, but even then, they couldn't stop the curse, only lessen it. They made the curse so that if your mother pricked her finger, she would only fall asleep, not die."
"Which she did."
"Yes, but they made it so she would only fall asleep for one night. She was supposed to wake up the next day with nothing more wrong with her than a sore finger."
"How do you know all this?" I exclaimed.
"I told you. I used your mother's story as part of my dissertation. I spent four years studying Morpheus, and your mother's story is one of the more fascinating parts of my research."
"So where does he come in?"
"Well, " she said, clapping her hands together, "Derillen knew she had been beaten. The curse would still happen, but it would barely affect your mother at all. She was angry, but against so many people of magic, even she, with all her power, could do nothing. Nor dare she do any more curses with all the mages and fae looking after the young princess. But our Derillen was cunning. She knew a way around it. She somehow got to Morpheus, and between them, they cooked up the plan to close your mother's exit."
"How did she find Morpheus?" I asked.
Charlotte shrugged and rolled her eyes at the same time." That's where it gets difficult. I don't know how she found him. The gods don't live on the mortal realm. They do visit from time to time, but they spend most of the time wherever it is that gods live. There is no way to get there. Only the gods themselves can come and go. There have been many reports of people meeting the gods throughout the ages, but Morpheus is a slippery character. He is a master of disguise and can shift himself into any shape. I could be Morpheus, and you'd never know. Caspian could be him."
"I'd make a great god," he said, putting his hands behind his head.
Ignoring him, I asked Charlotte another question. "If he is so hard to find, how did Derillen do it?"
"I don't know. I've never been able to find out. She was a very powerful witch, which might have helped. Morpheus is drawn to power. If she went looking for him, there is a chance he heard about her and made himself known to her."
"Could we find him? I mean, is there a chance I could find him?"
She shrugged again? "I don't want to give you any false illusions. You will be very lucky if you do find him. Even then, you'll have to have something he wants in exchange. He won't open the portal to the dream world for just anybody."
"Is there a way for us to find this portal without him?"
"No," Charlotte answered, shaking her head. "It's not in a fixed place. Morpheus conjures it up when he wants to visit the dream world and when he's done, the portal disappears. It could be anywhere, and it's only open when he's in the mortal realm. If he decides to spend the next fifty years in the realm of the gods, we'll never be able to find him."
The whole thing seemed impossible, but there was no other hope for my mother. No medic or healer would be able to help her. It was either find the witch that cursed her or find Morpheus to unblock her way back. As I had no clue where to start finding either of them, the whole thing seemed pointless.
"So, I should give up."
"You do have more pressing matters," Caspian cut in. "Namely, your wedding to plan."
I noticed Charlotte slump as he mentioned the wedding.
"I've never met him, and believe me, I've looked. That's why I moved to Urbis in the first place. The sightings of him have always been there. He doesn't seem to travel to other kingdoms. If you are going to find him, Urbis is the place to be, but like I said, I've spent four years looking for him, and I've never met him...or at least I don't know that I have. There is a chance I met him and didn't know it."
She must have seen my crestfallen face.
"Look. You are prettier than I'll ever be, and that will give you the upper hand. He likes beautiful women."
She was putting herself down. She was pretty, just in an understated way. I watched as she slid her eyes to Caspian in the hope he'd contradict her on her level of beauty. Of course, he didn't. He was happy to talk about how clever she was, but he was blind to her. Idiot.
"I'm not sure I like the idea of you going to find him if that's the case," he said. "You are mine, and I'm not about to share you with some god."
Double idiot!
"I'm not yours," I reminded him, seeing the stricken look on Charlotte's face. "I've never been yours, and I'll never be yours."
"You will if I win the competition."
"If you'll excuse me." Charlotte stood up quickly, her face turned away from Caspian so he couldn't see her tears. "I've eaten a little too much. I think I should go lie down for a bit. Thank you for the food. It was lovely."
She dashed out of the door so quickly, I didn't have time to stop her.
"She barely ate anything," Caspian commented.
I glared at him. "You really are stupid, you know that?"
He sat up in his chair, giving me a what-did-I-do look.
I dashed out the door up to the room I'd had made up for Charlotte. I knocked on the door, but I could hear her sobbing quietly inside.
"It's me," I shouted through. A few seconds later, the door opened a crack. Before she had chance to speak, I said what I wanted to say.
"He's an ass. You know that, right?"
She opened the door a little more and let me come in.
"I'm sorry I ran like that. He's not the idiot. I am. I've been in love with him since the second I met him."
"I hate to break this to you, Charlotte, but he's easily the most awful person I've ever met."
"He doesn't think that about you," she said sadly, sitting back down on the bed.
"He's an obnoxious creep. Why on earth do you like him?"
"He's weird around you," she said. "He's not normally like this. Yeah, he's always been full of himself, but look how gorgeous he is. He's perfect."
Moving on...
"Weird how?" He was weird to me all the time, so I didn't know any different.
"He's not so cocky with you."
I laughed so hard I almost fell off the bed. "If this is him not being cocky, I'd hate to see him usually."
"He really likes you. The way he's acting is just for show. I've never seen him like this. He's always been cocky, but I've never seen him be rude before. I met him in my freshman year in a bar in Urbis. I was drawn to him right away. I'm not really a bar dweller, but I was out looking for Morpheus. As soon as Caspian walked in, he was surrounded by women trying to get his attention. I thought at the time he might be Morpheus. He has the same traits. Beautiful, confidant. When Caspian got annoyed at the constant attention-seeking, he slipped out the back. I followed him and let him hide in my apartment. "
"Uh, huh."
"It wasn't like that...okay, maybe it was. I was no better than those other girls, I wanted him just as much, but I guess I was cleverer."
"I st
ill can't get over him having a swarm of girls after him," I said.
"He's popular in Urbis... He's popular everywhere, really."
"Not around here, he's not."
She gave a wry smile. "I think you are the only girl that hasn't fallen for his charms, which is ironic, really."
"I'm yet to see any charms. He's tried to kill me twice."
"I doubt that. This is the first time I've seen him actually like someone."
She sounded sad. "I don't see what you are seeing. He treats me awfully. I admit he can be nice sometimes, but he usually messes it up."
"He wouldn't be this insistent on marrying you if he didn't want to."
"I thought he wanted to marry me because he wanted power."
Charlotte shook her head. "Do you even know who he is?"
Now it was my turn to shake my head. "What do you mean?"
"He is a member of the Urbis government. He's the president of magic and magical beings. Basically, any laws pertaining to magic have to be signed off by him before they can become laws. He might not be a member of royalty like you, but in some regards, he's already more powerful politically than you'll ever be."
My mind reeled with this new information. Caspian served in the Urbis government. Charlotte was right when she said he had a lot of power. Even my parents had told me he was powerful, but I thought they meant magically. The leaders of each kingdom were governed by the government in Urbis. Mostly, Urbis left the eleven kingdoms to their own devices, but sometimes, they waded in when they felt something wasn't being done right. He was giving up a lot to be here with me.
"It doesn't matter. I dislike the man so much that I opened up a competition to all the men in Draconis to marry me. It was either that or marry Caspian."
She giggled at this. "I bet that didn't go down too well."
"Not at all. He hates it, but tough. I don't want to marry him."
"I'd do anything to be like you. You really are beautiful. It's no wonder he likes you. I've known him for four years, and I don't think he's even noticed I'm a woman."
I looked down at my clothes. I was happiest in my scruffy clothes so I could go out and practice fighting, but Dahlia usually managed to make me half decent every morning, whether I liked it or not. Today, she'd put me in a pretty blouse and skirt combo. She'd even managed to do something with my hair.
Throne of Fury Page 5