They spent their night at Eston's modest home, a few miles ahead. The traditional housing of these parts didn't have much to say, except for a lot of storage space to stock up piles of goods, rather small windows and big fire hearths, which were quite necessary. They houses were small and didn't rise for more than a couple of floors, probably for the fear of them toppling over due to wind. Eston's house in particular had a bad smell and the typical signs of being in disuse. The floor was covered with a layer of dust and the ceiling was covered with cobwebs. Any furniture Mel touched seemed to be falling apart. But that was the least of her worries.
Now that they were here, Mel was starting to wonder whether they really had any plans after all. Everything had been too fast for her to comprehend what was really happening. In a matter of a few days, they had crossed the country and ended up in a completely different land, but now she had no idea where to go. The map suggested one of the keys was here, but they had overlooked the fact that the area itself was much larger than they had imagined, and it seemed like a fool's errand to look around the entire city, let alone the whole forest, searching for what would probably be a small artifact.
Everyone was too sleepy to wake up early the next morning. Eventually, it was almost noon by the time everyone was at the table, and their next destination was already the hot topic of discussion.
'The key could be anywhere for all we know', Mel said, voicing her thoughts from the previous night. 'It is even possible that it could be buried right beneath where we are sitting'
'Well then, lets start digging!' Edward exclaimed.
'How big is this country', Stella asked, ignoring him.
'It is a big country' Edward replied, nodding his head. 'We cannot possibly go everywhere, just asking people if they had it'
'Now that I come to think of it, we have no idea what the keys look like either', Mel grumbled.
'I don't think the key would be just anywhere', Galahad said, leaning forward. Everybody turned to him. Te'ijal, who had been sitting with her back towards them, turned back in her chair.
'Yes', she said, nodding. 'We do not know what these keys really are. It seems unlikely that they are just pieces of metal'
'What do you mean?', Mel piped in.
'It's obvious, isn't it?' Galahad said. 'If the key was indeed just a piece of metal, it'd be too easy to forge, create a duplicate or get lost or molten for that matter'
'You don't want to block the entrance to Naylith just because some stupid king threw the key in his hearth', Te'ijal said. 'No, such objects are generally bewitched with ancient magic, of the type that is unheard of now. They posses powers, often those that would keep them in safe hands. And more than often, their definition of safe is ...'
'Powerful', Galahad completed. Everyone looked at him.
'So you mean the queen has the key?', Edward said slowly.
'It is possible', Galahad said. 'But again, it really depends. The powers of a ruler are limited, curbed by responsibilities to the people, further if they have a strong advisor. Such an object will seek power that is concentrated with one person. Moreover, I never said power meant ruling people'
'So what else do you call powerful', Edward said quickly.
'There are much greater things, young prince', Te'ijal said, making Edward go a bit red. 'Tell me, if you ruled, but I had the power to control your mind, then no matter whether I used this power or not, wouldn't I be more powerful?'
'That's not all', Galahad said. 'Even a different kind of power, say a strong magical affinity for some particular element or having glimpses into a different time would mean being equally powerful. As I said, this is not the conventional power that we are talking about here'
There was silence for a minute as everyone tried to imagine various other possibilities.
'But that doesn't help', Te'ijal said finally. 'We still need to start somewhere, and the queen seems like a good idea'
'And she won't see you', a voice said, making everybody jump. Mel scowled as Eston stepped ahead from the shadows.
'You were eavesdropping, you know that?' she said angrily.
'Further, I've discovered that the queen is not causing the bad weather', Eston said, ignoring her. Everyone leaned forward. 'In fact, the ruling queen apparently never even had the power to cause so much snow'
'So who?', Te'ijal said, surprising Mel, seeing her speak to Eston. 'And how do you know this?'
Eston chuckled mildly as she asked the second question.
'I have some really well placed sources, whom I had the opportunity of connecting to last night', he said. 'As it turns out, the queen won't see you because she is in deep sorrow. Her only daughter, princess Claria went missing some time ago. But that was not all. It all got worse when she was found a couple of months back'
He paused for a couple of seconds, creating a dead silence. Mel noticed, unlike Thais, everything got really quiet here, owing to the fact that there wasn't much activity happening outside.
'She was found at Elonaria, which is an ice castle not too far north from here. And she was asleep. Alive, but she wouldn't wake up. And nobody could move her from there. Everything was tried, but it was impossible to get her out of there. And so we fast forward to today, and she still sleeps there and the queen mourns'
'Why didn't this make the news then?', Edward said slowly. 'If I understand it right, many big news agencies from Thais have connections here. Surely I wouldn't have missed something so big'
Eston chuckled.
'There's more to Claria than just being the queen's daughter. She is rumored to have the powers of the family, and was all set to be the next ruler. And the queen has no other children, which makes her the last of the line. If the people come to know what has happened, it would inevitably lead to war, internally or otherwise. The queen wants to prevent any bloodshed, so everything was carried out under the highest possible secrecy. For anyone else, the princess is safely inside the castle and the weather is bad because she is angry at them'
'But all this still doesn't answer for the bad weather, does it?' Edward said. 'How can the princess be affecting the weather if she is asleep?'
'That is not how these things work', Eston said, shaking his head. 'You don't always control your magic; sometimes it just flows. For an example, a nightmare for the ruler of Istir would mean a thunderstorm'
Mel looked away, surprised at how powerful and strange things were. She never had imagined that people could ever be at the mercy of the whims and feelings of a single individual. Somehow, this was even scarier than the situation they were all in.
'There's only one thing we can do', Galahad said, getting up from his chair. 'If we are to talk to the queen or the princess, we first have to wake her up. I'm guessing a lot of our time henceforth would be spent traveling after all'
'We'll need a plan' Edward said. 'There'll be guards, traps that will be laid out for us'
'Not exactly' Eston said, shaking his head. 'Unless I'm very wrong, not more than a dozen people know about this, and half of them are sitting here. I'll be surprised if the queen herself is sitting with a spear guarding the gate.'
Everyone looked at him for a moment.
'Besides, she doesn't exactly need protection, considering that something might blow you off if you tried to harm her' he chuckled.
'What was this source you talked about?' Mel piped in. Eston chuckled again, clearly amused.
'You don't want to know' he said, vanishing out the doorway.
Surprised and suspicious, nobody said anything as they filed out of the small dining room, each chair creaking as they got up.
