The Dragon's Princess

8.

We took our seats and within the next five minutes the last handful of people had shuffled in and food was starting to be served. Salads were placed in front of everyone followed by the roasted Cornish hens, green beans, and small potatoes. The wine was poured and glasses of water were filled immediately after. Everyone waited until all the staff had cleared the room to start eating. As everyone's forks and knives were picked up so was the conversation. I could hear people's chatter and a lot of them were still raving about the Enchanted Forest.

"They all loved the tour." Mother said to the three of us. "Blaire you did amazing with explaining everything and answering questions. Katalin, I was very impressed with your power today."

"Thank you, mother." Was all I could bring myself to say.

"I'm just glad that it seems like everyone learned something," Blaire responded.

Throughout dinner, I didn't say much. I was too busy focused on the strings that connected my soul to his. I noticed that they already felt stronger than they did two days ago. They felt like they were elastic bands, easily stretched out but begging for us to become closer together to release the tension. I glanced over at him a few times, he glanced back. Unspoken words hung between us, but they would enter the world as soon as the night fell upon us. Tomorrow was the second to last day of Royals Week and happened to be a free day, so I didn't have to worry about getting up early. It was a great thing because it meant that I could stay up all night getting to know Amadeus. Before I could do that though Indigo and Blaire were going to join us so we could get more information about the soul unbinding spell. Thinking about all the possibilities of what would happen tonight mixed my anxiety and excitement both of which created a swarm of butterflies in my stomach.

Time seemed to go slowly but eventually, dinner was over and the dishes were being plucked from the table. Once again, no one moved until all the staff had left the room. Amadeus and his group were among the first to leave while my group and I stuck around until everyone else had left. We were slow in making our way back up to my room, but once we were there we didn't go to sleep. We all sat on my bed waited for everyone to settle down and drift off to dreamland. It made me feel like a child, waiting for everyone to go to sleep so I could sneak around the palace doing whatever I wanted.

I closed my eyes and honed in on everyone's energy. I bounced from room to room, person to person checking to see if their energies had become stable and at rest. I held Indigo's hand and she gave me complete access to her witchy energy, so I didn't have to worry about anything. This went on for about an hour until I was sure that everyone was resting. Even then I didn't want to risk walking the halls, so I teleported all three of us there.

Amadeus was already waiting there for us and as soon as we appeared, he put up the protection ward around the room. He walked over to me and pulled me into a hug which I happily returned. When we pulled away from each other and sat down in the window seat, Indigo was smiling like an idiot at us.

"You two are adorable." She said when she saw us staring.

"Stop fangirling." Blaire laughed. "We have work to do."

"Okay, okay." She said. "I did some digging and spoke to my grandma about these types of spells and it isn't an easy thing to do or even start. Since it's a personal spell it requires very personal items from each of you, my grandma said that it's easier if they have an actual piece of you to ensure the best results. From there the spell has to be done very precisely, the timing and quantities have to be exactly right, or it won't work. It's a gradual spell so it won't all hit you at once, from what I could find the whole thing takes about a week if you're lucky."

"What about the risks?" Blaire asked before anyone else could.

"You two have opened the connection and you're working on making it stronger so it's more dangerous for you. It won't be something that will affect your connection until the end and chances are it will hit Katalin the hardest because she isn't as strong. Spells like these are a bit different because you can also control who it will hit harder based on the number of ingredients which is another reason why you have to be careful about it. If it is successful it will feel like a piece of you is being shoved out of you and it is extremely painful because of the force and shock of it happening. If your connection is strong enough, your souls will try to hold onto one another which can make it even more painful. It's something that will be fatal to at least one of you if you let your connection get that strong."