"I still wonder about it," I said.
His brow furrowed, eyes searching my expression. "Wonder about what?"
"Whether you're the villain in my story."
~~~~~~~
Mara Monroe is at the center of a war she wanted no part in.
But with her new throne she fac...
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Bayard directed me to Gwendolyn, much to my dismay.
Our training began first thing the next day. Fortunately, she left behind the stick she used to use to force me to have better posture. Now that I was queen, I doubted she would've tried to smack me with the stick. But I didn't put it past her.
We were sitting in one of the rooms I used for tutoring with Bayard and Gwendolyn had an uncharacteristically solemn expression on her face.
"How do you know how to do this?" I asked. The incredulity must have been clear in my voice because she rolled her eyes.
"I know much more than manners, I assure you."
"Oh."
"Alright, your grace, can you explain your dreams?" she asked.
"No," I said immediately. She glanced up, arching a dark red eyebrow at the hastiness of my dismissal. A disapproving frown took over her face and I almost breathed a sigh of relief.
Disapproval was an emotion I recognized from Gwendolyn—not the weird scared expression she'd previously been wearing.
"If you don't describe the dreams I won't be able to tell you if you've experienced dream walking."
I bit my lip. "Well... okay. They feel like memories at first or like I'm really there. But the memories eventually shift into... conversations. When I wake up, I don't ever forget any of it."
Gwendolyn sucked in a sharp breath and that was the only validation I needed. It was really him in my dreams.
"I want to make them stop."
"Your grace," she began tentatively, "you need them to stop. If this person can get into your dreams then he can see the things in your head."
I froze. My trip to the winter court was rapidly approaching. If he could see me at the winter court then he'd know everything about our alliance, our plans, everything. He'd already been spying on me when I kept him close and now, even after I'd banished him, he still was capable of it.
"Teach me. Now." Then as an afterthought, "Please."
Gwendolyn almost chuckled. "There are those manners we spent so long on."
***
The training with Gwendolyn was just as exhausting as my training with Maddox and kept me busy until it was time to leave for the Winter court. The guards that accompanied me on this trip were tenfold the amount that accompanied me to my trip to the Autumn Court. For good reason too, I suppose.
We thought the Autumn court was our ally and they became our enemy. We always thought Winter was our enemy but now they may be an ally. Even so, I was more hesitant than I'd been the first time I traveled away from the Summer court. Bad experience the first time, I guess.
