The biting cold tore at my flesh like a sharp knife, but I was so used to it by now that I barely noticed. My eyes fell open, taking in the world around me.

I had expected the same forest, the same absence of any hint of light.

Instead, I was in a garden. Early morning light shined through the leaves of a few nearby trees. I blinked and looked down, studying the shape and colors of all the different kinds of flowers planted in straight, narrow lines. They were perfect to a tee. There was a gravel path stretching up the length of the garden and leading to a nearby castle.

At first, I had assumed it was the castle we were all living in, but upon further inspection, I realized that it was bigger, newer, grander. It was completely devoid of the long tendrils of ivy that snaked up the side of Washington's castle. It didn't have any of the wear.

I stared at the palace in the distance for a moment before I turned around.

There was a gazebo sitting at the other end of the path, flowers lining the sides. The gentle crunch of my steps against the gravel filled my ears as I made my way down to where it was.

The garden, though beautiful, was surreal and somehow foreboding. Maybe it was due to how perfect everything seemed.

"Ahh. There you are."

I flinched back in surprise. There was movement in the gazebo, and I saw a man stand up and walk down the steps with all the regality and carefully practiced authoritativeness of a prince.

Or a king.

"You can understand me, correct?"

His words were direct and perfectly clear despite the distance between us. He could've been right in front of me and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

He smiled when I stepped away from him in surprise, my mouth falling open in pure disbelief. It wasn't mocking or taunting; his smile was rather pleasant.

"I should take that as a yes, then?"

I turned and ran as far away as I could. Funny, how in every dream I have now, I'm running. Even in a place that was peaceful for the most part, I was still running.

But I couldn't escape him.

He instantly appeared in front of me. I dug my heels into the gravel so that I wouldn't run into him.

"You don't have to run, you know," Fredericks said as he clucked his tongue. "We can be civil and talk about this like gentlemen, can't we? I promise I won't hurt you."

"Stay away from me," I hissed.

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Not when you have something I need."

"And what's that?"

"Well, we can communicate like this. It makes things much easier." He added emphasis to this by rolling his eyes up towards the perfectly blue sky devoid of any clouds.

"I don't want anything to do with you."

"You have questions though. Questions I can answer. And Thomas has questions too, I'm sure." He paused for a moment, bending down to pick a flower. Fredericks admired the flower as he continued, "I happened to notice that you took great interest in watching my men take down the dragon."

I tried to hide the rush of horror I felt racing through my body. He had seen us, or he had known we were there.

"I'm sure you want to know why I have it. Well, you aren't going to find the answers in any books. You're really just going to have to come find out for yourselves." He flashed me another pleasant smile and turned on his heel before walking down the path. He took a few steps before stopping and turning back to me. "Are you coming or what?"

Unwillingly, I found myself walking forwards until I was level with him. He smiled and continued his walk down the path, like we were friends catching up.

"I know you have a question, Alexander. I see it written on your face. I can tell by the way you hold yourself, by the glint in your eyes. You can go ahead and ask. People come to me all day with questions."

I had so many. It was just a matter of picking one. And that also begs the question why I trusted him. He was our enemy. My enemy. He took my memories.

"How did you meet Thomas?" The words fell out of my mouth before I knew they had even escaped in the first place.

If the king was surprised, he didn't show it. "Well, Thomas is the son of a lord and a lady. I am a king. Before this damn—excuse my language—rebellion, tension between each division was already rocky enough. Our parents simply decided that an agreement should be met."

He didn't have to explain what type of agreement it was for me to understand.

"It didn't work out so well, of course."

I kept my body closed off from him. I didn't want him to think I had let my guard down for even a moment.

"Are you cold, Alexander?"

The question surprised me. I hadn't expected him to notice the way I rubbed at my skin self-consciously, trying to warm myself up. And even if he did notice, I certainly wasn't anticipating him to care.

"Uh... yes."

"Hmm. My apologies of course. That's not a side effect I expected. I'd fix it if I could, but you must believe me when I say I don't know how."

"I don't want your pity."

"Alright," he returned casually. It didn't bother him whether I cared or not, and that's what set me off even more.

"Where are we even going?" I asked. It's not like I had much of a choice about following him either. My feet moved my body forward against my will.

"I want to show you the dragon."

"Why?"

"Because I know Thomas would die to see it." He chuckled to himself. "Perhaps quite literally!"

I thought nothing of the quip.

The peaceful outdoor garden molted away into the middle of a maze without any warning. My head darted up in terror at the confined space mostly because it was so sudden and unexpected.

We were in a more rectangular area, the walls much farther apart than a normal corridor. The hedges that made up the walls towered up to the sky. The ground was grass and dirt with no path indicating which way was the right way. I could see passageways crossing and overlapping in front of me, adding a whole new level of confusion to the whole mess.

In one corner of the chamber lazed the great figure of the dragon. My throat constricted when I saw the chains wrapped around its neck that were fastened to the wall, cutting off any means of the creature's escape. I swallowed with a growing horror. The message that the bonds conveyed were clear.

It belonged to the king.

Fredericks strolled over to it as if it were a giant dog and slid his hand against its snout. One of its beautiful white eyes shot open. The intelligence in its gaze made me feel even sicker at its captivity, but it made no move away from the king.

The great creature rose to its feet perfectly, as if it was trained to follow someone's order. Its great wings spread so that they were touching the sky. It looked like such an uncomfortable position, and certainly so wrong for a creature so majestic.

"This creature follows my every beck and call," the king purred, tracing his fingers across the dragon's scale.

"Why are you showing me this?"

The king smiled at me. His pleasant smile was the last thing that I saw before the world around me faded away into a bleak nothingness.

~•~

I shot up, head pounding, heart racing. It was a struggle to catch my breath. When I looked down, Thomas was still fast asleep, his lips slightly parted as he slumbered peacefully. A steady orange light shined through the window and danced on the carpeting, signaling the sun setting outside.

I hated to wake Thomas up, but I nudged him anyway. He didn't stir at first, but after a while of my continuous nudging, his eyes flickered open slowly.

This time, he shot out of bed faster than a bolt of lightning.

"Alexander!" he quickly exclaimed, eyes going wide. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to fall asleep, and I certainly did not mean to—"

"What are you talking about?" I asked, still dazed from my dream. "Oh. Forget about it, okay? We have a bigger problem."

Thomas sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at me questioningly. I tried not to pay any attention to the distance he had increased between us.

"You know how I have been having those awful nightmares?"

His jaw locked as he said that, and his eyes gained a glint that I could only describe as protectiveness. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. Shut up."

He withdrew slightly at that comment but didn't say anything.

"Anyway, this time was so different." I began to explain to him everything that happened.

Thomas seemed thoroughly puzzled by the end of my explanation. "And he just showed you the dragon?"

I knew it wasn't fair, but the dream still had me on edge, so I felt extremely annoyed at him. "Yes, Thomas."

His lips tightened together, but once more, he decided not to respond. I felt bad at the closed off expression he gained in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to... lash out at you." It was a poor excuse of an apology, and both of us knew it.

Thomas expressed his upset by drawing further away from me and staring at the blanket to avoid my gaze, tracing his finger across the woven patterns. "I think whatever it is is important," he said quietly. "He wouldn't just show you the dragon for no reason. Maybe we should tell the others." He paused, his mouth still open as if he wanted to say something more but didn't know how.

"I vote yes. That is a good thing that we should do." I sprinkled in as much playfulness as I could to try and lighten the mood as best as I could. And judging by the quick smile that flashed across his face, I didn't do to bad a job of it.

"Come on," Thomas said. He rose to his feet, his wings stretching out. I noticed in that moment how Thomas always wore them like a badge. "I don't think it would be very good for us if the king had that dragon for much longer."

"He also mentioned something about an agreement between your two families," I said, phrasing it as best as I could. Thomas stopped dead and straightened himself out, his usual telltale sign of not wanting to discuss something or feeling uncomfortable.

That pretty much confirmed my thoughts.

"And I was wondering—"

"We weren't actually... in love, okay? It wasn't a choice either of us got to make. You'll find that being royalty doesn't leave you with a lot of choices you do get to make. It was expected of us for the good of Perriterra and it didn't work out at all."

"Why not?"

"He killed my father." The way that Thomas had said it indicated that it was something he kept bottled up inside of him for a very long time. It seemed like the grief of that statement had slowly aged into anger and eventually hatred.

And I think I understood Thomas a little bit more.

I wanted to demand why he didn't tell me, but I wasn't an idiot. I saw the way he brought his hands up close to his face, examining the lines on his palm. He discreetly mouthed something to himself, but I could still see that he was repeating the same word over and over again. This was upsetting him, and I'm not an idiot, despite popular belief.

"Come on," I said, throwing myself off the bed and to my feet right beside him. I offered him my hand, and his own lowered as he accepted it. "Let's go tell the others."

~•~

I lowkey love the new update. It looks so much nicer now and so much cleaner too.