The Dreamfarer

10

"What does that mean?" Mae demanded. She forgot entirely that she was supposed to be remaining calm and agreeable while with Dael. Her voice was getting progressively louder and more intense as it filled with the rage that has been welling up inside of her the entire day. "What did you do to Caleb?"

Dael frowned at her. "Maeve, get yourself under control," he chided.

"What did you do to him?" she screeched, leaping forward and baring her teeth like a wild animal. 

"I cast a simple curse on him," Dael responded, shrugging indifferently. "Once the sun's rays hit him, his weak human skin will begin to disintegrate until he is no more." A glint of malice appeared in his beetle eyes, making her skin crawl.

Mae threw her hands into her hair, grabbing handfuls of it as a sob ripped through her. "Take the curse off of him! Take it off!"

"You chose your path, Maeve, and now you must walk it! Set your past amongst humans behind you and prepare to become more than you ever dreamed!" Dael exclaimed. "We will continue traveling now, and I will hear no more about this human boy!"

His words were so much like Folco's from earlier that she was taken aback for a second. Then she remembered that Folco had been kind to her; he had been with Kroma for years, but he still turned on the warlock in order to tell Mae the truth. He even offered to protect her from Kroma's mind-probing.

Dael was another case altogether. He was evil in the highest degree. Caleb had been right; he did not care for her, not as a person. She was nothing to him but some sort of weapon, though she still didn't understand what he thought she was capable of.

She cursed internally. What were her options here? She could forget about Caleb and continue on until Folco found her at dawn - but no, that wasn't an option. She could never leave Caleb. He would never do that to her. He had followed Dael all the way from Swynborough just to throw himself at her father and give her a chance to get away.

She could try to break away from her father and find Caleb before the sun rose. Then she could warn him of the curse, and she could help him find a place to hide. Perhaps then Folco would still find her when the night was over, and maybe the warlocks would know of a way to remove Caleb's curse. Kroma might want her enough that she could demand that they cure Caleb before she agreed to join them.

It seemed like her best shot, but how on earth would she manage to escape from Dael? The only magic that she even knew about was Dreamfaring, and she did not have an ounce of control over that yet. Not to mention, she only knew how to travel while she was asleep, and it was doubtful that her father would allow her to rest again until they had covered another great distance.

She wished that she could contact Folco again. He knew so much more about their power than she did, and she was sure that he could think of a way for her to get out of this situation. Not to mention, he had been a comforting presence; a person who understood her in a way that nobody else ever could. He knew exactly what she went through when she Dreamfared, and he must have seen many similar wonders - and even terrors - she did. There was something almost intimate about the thought.

She was jerked back to reality as her father stomped out the fire and twirled around to grab her arm. She was tugged away from the camp, and soon she was forced to jog to keep up with Dael, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do.

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Mae wanted to continue thinking of ways that she could save her best friend, but it soon became clear that it was a hopeless endeavor. Dael had cast a spell a while ago that prevented her from moving more than a few feet away from him at any given time, so that he didn't have to continue tugging her along. She had no idea how to circumvent his magic.