Chapter One （Again）
I sat up in bed, panting like I’d just been running for my life.
I patted my stomach, searching for a gaping wound.
All I found was my pajamas twisted around me.
When I pulled my hands away, I expected them to be covered in blood.
They were squeaky clean, not even a speck of red.
Wait, why did I think I was wounded in the first place?
I looked around the room, disoriented and confused, trying to recognize my surroundings. As soon as things came into focus, I realized it was my own bedroom. The same one I’d lived in for twelve years.
A knock on the door startled me and I jumped out of bed, reaching for my sword. Which wasn’t there. Why did I think it would be? I never slept with a sword near my bed.
“Trey?” Dad called. “Time for breakfast.”
Right, breakfast. Because I’d just woken up.
I dressed slowly, my thoughts chasing the dream I’d had last night. There’d been a man with moonlight hair and midnight eyes. Or was it midnight hair and starlit eyes? And there’d been a bloody fight … I couldn’t picture the location at all.
In a half-daze, I collided with the door on my way out of the room.
“Are you alright, Your Highness?” an unfamiliar guard asked.
“Yes, I’m fine, I …” My head ached like someone was merrily thumping a rock against my poor squishy brain. I hurried off before the guard could ask any other questions.
Dad had beaten me to the breakfast table, sitting on Father’s right, and they grinned at each other over their plates. They still flirted like giddy newlyweds all these years later.
I sat in my usual seat and stared blankly at my plate. Every inch of me felt displaced, like I no longer belonged here.
“Trey?”
Blinking, I looked up to find Father frowning at me in concern. “Huh?”
“Everything alright?”
“Yes, I just … have you ever had a really long dream that feels like it takes place over weeks, and when you wake up you’re like ‘wow, I will certainly remember every detail of that’, except you don’t?
Like, two seconds after you wake up, poof”—I flicked my fingers to demonstrate the word—“it’s gone. ”
My fathers exchanged worried looks. “No, can’t say that I have,” Dad replied.
“What do you remember?” Father asked as he sipped his coffee.
“There was someone … doing something … somewhere.”
“Very helpful,” Dad said.
I scowled at him. “I’m trying to remember, but it’s like everything was erased. Like it never happened.”
“Dreams are always kind of chaotic.”
The word ‘chaotic’ echoed in my mind, like it was the answer to a question I didn’t know I needed to ask.
“By the way, Trey.” Father’s expression grew serious, and he set his coffee down, giving me his full attention. “We need to discuss something with you after breakfast.”
I nodded along. “Right, the quest.”
They exchanged another concerned look. “What quest?”
“The quest to …” For a second, I had a glimpse of an ugly, twisted forest. The image was hazy, growing fainter as I tried to focus on it. “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
“Maybe this should wait.” Father leaned forward and pressed the back of his hand against my forehead. “Are you feverish?”
“I’m not feverish,” I said, but I leaned into his touch. It was nice in a way I couldn’t quite describe—like it’d been taken away from me and then unexpectedly given back. “Just groggy, I think.”
“If you’re sure.”
I nodded. “I’m sure. What did you want to talk about?”
“It’s a private state matter,” Father explained. “Not something to be discussed at the table.”
Since I didn’t want to stew in anticipation, I ate quickly, taking long gulps of coffee to help make the food go down faster. Then I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stood up. “Ready?”
Dad, who was only halfway through his meal, blinked up at me in surprise. “Eager to get this over with?”
“Yeah, I …” My brow furrowed as I tried to identify the root of my anxiety. The mess was such a tangle, I couldn’t separate the beginning from the end. “I need to know what’s happening. I think it’s important.”
“It is important,” Father confirmed, setting his napkin over his plate. He pushed away from the table. “Let’s move to my office.”
As I sat in the visitor’s chair in front of my father’s desk, I had an odd sense that I’d been here before. Of course I have—I’ve literally sat in this chair hundreds of times. Yet this felt different … more, specific. Like I was still chasing that dream.
“Trey,” Father began. Then he softened his voice and said, “Treasure. Your dad and I, well, you know the reason for our marriage.”
I nodded along. “You had to marry as a condition of the Kingdom Defense Spell.”
They both stared at me, mouths slightly open. “You know about that?” Dad asked, then turned his confusion on Father. “Did you tell him?”
Father shook his head. “How did you learn that?”
“I …” How do I know that? “I dreamed about it?”
“That is a little concerning,” Father said. “Something we might need to discuss with the Good Wizard.”
I frowned. “Did you not want me to know about it?”
“We do,” Dad said. “But it’s a little complicated. You see, because you’re adopted, we weren’t entirely sure you would qualify as ‘royalty’ for the spell.”
I stared at him for a long moment, feeling suddenly off balance, like we’d gone off script.
It took me a while to figure out that the confusing part of the sentence was the word ‘adopted.’ But I already knew that, so why is it confusing?
Though Father and I both had red hair, they’d adopted me after I’d shown up on the castle’s doorstep one day, cold, miserable, and confused.
I had some vague memories about where I’d come from, but nothing more than a few bright colors and a warm hearth.
There was an image of blond curly hair, but I couldn’t remember if it belonged to my mother or father.
Everything else was as foggy as the lingering dream.
Hopefully nothing was wrong with my head.
“So? Do I qualify?”
“We don’t know,” Dad said. “We tried to contact the Good Wizard to ask him, but he hasn’t replied to any of our letters.”
“Right now, we’re acting as if you do,” Father explained.
“Blood related or not, you’re our son. We raised you and we love you.
However, the spell requires sacrifice. You’ll either have to go on a dangerous quest or marry one of the candidates from the other kingdoms. The marriage condition worked out for your dad and I because we found love, but it could have easily ended in disaster if I’d married your Aunt Franny.
The Desolated Land’s safety would have come at the cost of our misery. ”
“We don’t want that for you,” Dad added. “We’ve done our best to prepare you for either option, but you have an easy way out.”
They both fell silent, allowing me to reach the conclusion on my own.
“You mean that I could use the fact that we aren’t blood related as an excuse not to participate.
” I started shaking my head before I even finished the sentence, knowing that would be the wrong choice.
“I don’t care if it’s a quest or a wedding.
Even if it doesn’t work—even if the spell is stupid enough to only consider blood relations family—I want to help defend the kingdom. ”
Both of my fathers pulled me into a hug, whispering words of affection and pride. I hugged them back tightly, worried it might be my last chance.
What I didn’t tell them was that there was a voice at the back of my mind, urging me to take the leap forward. To find out what—or who—waited at the end of the adventure.