The Sand Queen ✅

Eighth

Time had never gone so slowly like after the ominous meeting with Morpheus.

Thanks to my sense to time, I dried up my tears just in time for the redness to vanish from my face.

Still, I got a couple of suspicious looks from Lucienne, who was recording everything interesting to a new book which wore the title 'A unique bond between a god and a mortal'.

Yeah. Straight to the point.

Not like Morpheus. Puzzlement could be clearly discovered in his icy orbs. He was trying to keep up eye contact what I tried with my very best to avoid.

Not to mention how tense his arms were as he stood behind me, directing my arms with his ones. It felt like two long slabs of concrete wanted to show my arms the right way of moving my hand. Once or twice his chest couldn't avoid touching my back, making him apologize and turn his gaze away from me.

"Okay, now try with opened eyes" he told me standing next to me, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

I gulped nervously. It went perfectly fine with closed eyes, Morpheus moving my hands so they do the spell in the correct rhythm.

Now doing it by myself, with opened eyes was a whole different story.

"You can do this, Addie!!" Matthew cheered me, bouncing happily next to Lucienne.

The woman nodded with a smile, telling me the same.

My eyes wandered nilly-willy toward Dream. To my surprise, an encouraging smile sneaked onto his thin lips, his voice more tender than usually. "You'll do fine, Addie. Remember what we learned. Remember that I'm here if anything goes wrong – no matter what happens. Remember the bond"

The bond.

Two simple words. Two words that enlightened the rest of the training, unlocking the good old times, as if the ominous scene hadn't even happened. It may sound weird, but he knew exactly how to cheer me up: reminding me of our friendship. What had happened had already happened, you cannot change the past. But we shouldn't let something so special like the bond of a god and a human go wasted.

Nor I wanted to loose my best friend because of some misunderstanding.

"Alright" I replied finally, a low-key smile forming on my lips. Turning my head and attention back to the task, I began casting the spell.

It was a simple teleportation magic. Not the most difficult, perfect for the very first spell – according to Morpheus, at least. He told me he had got ahead of me when meeting and speaking for the first time with the this spell, sparing the magical sand. It's supposed to be a spell only the god of dreams can use – but, since I pretty much had the same kind of magic and skills in a lower quantity, I was able to use it, too.

With more effort of course.

All I had to do is repeat a spell in an unknown, ancient language and concentrate on where to arrive. Which, to be honest with you, wasn't the easiest thing to do when you gotta concentrate on peonouncing the words right beside aiming at a location as well.

It didn't even go well for the first time, just as I expected.

My hair signaled me of chanting the spell correctly, glowing up with golden light. However, I concentrated too much on the perfect spelling, having no exact destination in mind.

"God damn it!" I sweared furiously, stamping the dirt below my feet.

"I'd rather give you a second chance before punishing the spell itself" Dream stated calmly.