Jayden had been spending a lot of his time in the dead world.
He didn't tell his friends, and he especially didn't want Elora to know about his excursions. Since they were able to free her from the tower, she spent the last seventeen years of her life in, things seemed different. She was no longer as spirited as she once was. The smiles she'd give them when she found them were few and far between, and the outburst like the one she had with Judah was becoming more and more frequent.
Jayden knew she was under a lot of pressure, but she was beginning to be controlling. And Jayden spent his whole life being controlled by one person. He didn't want to add another into the mix.
"You haven't heard anything about Selena?" asked Jayden.
His grandfather nodded and frowned. "I have not, Jay. There are spirits, I'm sure who knows something, but if they do, they've remained quiet. I haven't seen her here, though, so that means she's alive," He placed a strong hand on Jayden's shoulder and squeezed. "I'm sorry, son. We'll find her."
Jayden has had his grandfather searching around and asking fellow spirits news about Selena. He was technically ruler of the Dead World, and while the spirits here have to obey him, the evil ones have a way of being sneaky.
Unfortunately for Jayden, the evil ones are the most likely to know something.
"You don't have to say sorry," Jayden said. "You're doing more than enough. Unlike Elora, who barely even mentions the fact that she's gone."
Jayden felt a twinge of bitterness start to form in his chest at the mention of Elora. Since the battle in the Glorianna Castle, she's been a completely different person. She snaps at them, expects them to be the perfect politicians during the council meetings, and barely has any time to help train them with their powers.
He felt childish having these thoughts, but he couldn't help it. Elora reminded him of his dad with how she's been acting.
And that is not someone Jayden ever wants to be reminded of.
"She technically is your queen, son," his grandfather mentioned as they walked through the meadow. His grandfather was the main reason that Jayden frequented here. When his grandfather was alive, Jayden always went to him for advice. After he died, it felt like a part of Jayden left too.
"That doesn't mean she can talk to me however she wants," Jayden huffed. "We saved her. We didn't ask for any of this. We didn't ask for our friend to get kidnapped or to be placed on a council where the others were constantly belittling us for a choice that she made."
Jayden knew his outburst was silly. While he might not have grown up answering to a queen and being a part of a place ruled by one person, he sure knew the basics. He knew that what she said was how things were going to go. The choices she makes are final, and now that she doesn't need them to help get her out, she can make whatever choices she wants.
But she also needed to know that their lives weren't that of Glorianna anymore. Even before the Plague of Dread took over the realm and engulfed everything in its path, the world of castles and moats were nothing but fairy tales. Witches, wizards, and magical powers were things that he heard whispered out of his mom's mouth at bedtime growing up. Jayden still hasn't fully wrapped his head around the fact that there were things such as fairies and elves. Where does this stop? Dragons? Unicorns?
His grandfather let Jayden rant, and once he noticed a considerable pause, he stopped walking. His grandfather sat down in the grass that overlooked the vast meadow. A quiet stream glistened through the middle of it, and flowers with beautiful bright colors sprouted around the stream encasing all of the grassy planes. It was peaceful. Not a place Jayden would have ever associated with a place called the Dead World.
"You know," his grandpa said, looking out over the meadow. "whenever I face someone who went against me back in the day, I always had to ask myself a crucial question. Why are they acting this way? Is it malicious or stress-related?" his grandfather looked over at Jayden and gave him a knowing look. "The last thing I would do is ask what I could do to help them."
Jayden threw himself back onto the soft plush grass. His hands lay at his side as he picked at the strings on the ground. His grandpa lay next to him and chuckled. "I know you're right," said Jayden. "Elora is not bad. She's probably under an immense amount of stress, but you know, so are we. We've only known about this world for a short while. Our entire lives were uprooted, and our friend was taken somewhere, and we can't find her."
"Hmm," his grandpa hummed as he always did when deep in thought. "It sounds to me like there needs to be a little communication with her Majesty on how to handle the situation. You guys aren't kids anymore, and you're right to feel a little frustrated."
Jayden opened his mouth to respond when a jerking motioned yanked him back into reality. The peaceful and beautiful meadow that was once in front of him was now exchanged for his bedroom. Baseball posters and trophies all lined the walls of his room. On the edge of his bed sat his mother with a frightened expression. Her braided hair fell in cascade waves around her shoulders.
"Are you okay, son?" she asked. "I've been trying to wake you up for a long time."
"I'm good," Jayden yawned to try and sell that he was sleeping. "Dad just had me up early today."
"Are you feeling under the weather, baby?" asked his mother as she stood up. "I can get you some food. I'll let your dad know there's no more training tomorrow."
Before Jayden could say anything else, his mom walked out of the room and closed the door. He sat up in his bed and looked up at the sky, and mouthed "Thank you" to it. Staying with Elle after the school burned down a couple of weeks ago was a wake-up call to his parents. Or, at the very least, a wake-up call to his mom. When he came home, he had expected a chorus of anger and to be grounded until he graduated college, but instead, his parents sat him down and had an adult conversation with him.
"We know that you're under a lot of pressure," his mom had said. "We want you to come to us, son. We want you to experience this home as your safe place."
Training grew lesser. He could have more freedoms, but his dad still insisted that they trained four of the seven days a week. Friday, Saturday, and Sundays were Jayden's days off. While it wasn't exactly a prison break, he was at least on probation.
The doorbell rang, and Jayden turned over in his bed and put his pillow over his head. He resisted the urge to let out a groan. He wanted to go back to the Dead World and finish the conversation with his grandfather, but soon he heard a familiar voice in the hall.
"Thanks, Ms. Moore!" called Asher Kidd. "I'll be sure to remind him!"
Had you told Jayden a couple of months ago that he and Asher would become friends, he would have laughed. The two could not have been more different. Asher was a stoner, a partier, a womanizer even. Jayden was a star athlete. The one with the career in his mind, and he had the plan to get there.
Moments later, Asher walked into the room and strode to Jayden's desk chair. He spun around on the swivel and threw his feet up on the dark stained wood. "Your mom wanted me to remind you that school is online, so even if you're sick, she expects you up in the morning."
Jayden rolled his eyes and threw one of the pillows from his bed at Asher. Asher caught the pillow, put it behind his head, and leaned back in the chair. "So, any news from your grandpa?"
It was Asher's idea to use his grandfather to gather any information about Selena. Judah was too messed up to think rationally, and Elle was off in her own world dealing with the guilt of having feelings for Judah. She claimed that it was a brief lapse of judgment and that she's snapped back into reality, but Jayden knew the truth. He saw the way she hugged him today at the council. He saw the look on her face as he collapsed into her chest.
"Sadly not," Jayden said. They might have a weird friendship, but Jayden was still peeved at Asher. He was still dealing with the betrayal of Asher essentially trying to trade them for the safety of his girlfriend, Chantel. Jayden understood why Asher did it. The girl did nothing to get dragged up into this other than hook up with the wrong guy. However, that didn't mean that Jayden had to like Asher's choice.
"Well then, maybe we will find something out soon."
The two boys sat in silence. It wasn't comfortable, but it also wasn't uncomfortable. Jayden could tell Asher wanted to say something, they had never really talked about the betrayal, and while they couldn't find the words to speak on it, the conversation only loomed over them. It reminded Jayden of two friends who got together but just sat on their phones the whole night.
Jayden was sick of it. Division was what got them into this mess in the first place. An ancient spell separated the guardians of a sacred world that none of them really had a say in. Their powers worked well on their own, but Jayden had seen what they could do when they were unified. They trapped Deidre in her own mental prison!
The link was still there, but the longer they sat in discomfort with each other, it began to weaken. They were already the laugh of the MCA. They didn't need to add more insult to injury.
"So," Asher said, trying to fill the void. "I promised Chantel that I would meet up with her tonight. I better get going."
"Wait," Jayden said.
Asher turned, and from the look on his face, Jayden could tell Asher knew what he was about to say. He shook his head and held his hands up defensively. "Look, dude," Asher said. "Can't we pretend like this never happened? We can go back to normal-"
"That's not how this works, Asher," Jayden interrupted. "You betrayed us. As honorable as your intentions were, you put the power of the Dominions and your friends' lives at stake. That's not something we can sweep under the rug."
A look of shame crossed Asher's face, and his eyes welled. A single tear fell over the brim of his eye and cascaded down his cheek. Asher quickly wiped it away, and Jayden did him the favor of pretending not to notice. Asher's heavy breaths filled the room, and he closed his eyes to try and stop himself from this emotional reaction.
"I'm sorry."
It's funny how two words can say so much. Jayden could tell Asher was genuine by the conviction he heard in his voice. He didn't need Asher to give a surplus of reasons. He just needed him to know that as his teammate, as his friend, the betrayal hurt him. Asher and Jayden exchanged a silent look of understanding that from this moment on, the incident wouldn't be spoken of once Asher left the room.
"Talk to us next time," Jayden said. "We are in this together."
Asher looked down at the floor, and when he looked up, he flashed Jayden one of his famously charming grins. "So superstar," he gested as he walked back over the desk and sat down in the chair again. "What was up with Judah today?! Is the dude on a bender. If he shows up to one of those fancy meetings drunk, we are going to get our asses handed to us by a fairy."
"Then Elora," Jayden said. He felt the tension in the room disappear as things between him and Asher began to fade back into normalcy. "She's been in a mood lately."
"Freaking hell," Asher chuckled. "I know! She needs to get lai-"
"Don't finish that sentence," Jayden laughed.
Asher and Jayden might have been unconventional friends, but now that they were living in an unconventional world, maybe the friendship between them makes sense. The two boys sat in the bedroom and exchanged jokes for a long time. After everything going on, Jayden felt relaxed for the first time since Selena was kidnapped.