Would she enjoy that? Never having to sleep again? It would certainly help her get more things done during the day. And some of the things she didn’t need to work on, but would just enjoy doing. Like painting again. It had been her way to relieve stress since she’d been turned.
Going down to the kitchen, she was glad to see it was just Duncan in the big room with her. There was a tray of sandwiches on the table, as well as several kinds of fruit in two smaller bowls. She picked up a piece of cantaloupe and ate it while he poured the two of them something to drink.
“You’re going to need to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables now if this is what that power surge coming from you was. Also, you’re not going to like this, but you can’t just squeeze more into your day. You have to temper this being awake all the time with just as much rest as you were getting before. Otherwise, you’ll burn yourself out.” She told him she’d not seen him resting. “Ah, but I do. When you’re asleep, I take my downtime. I learned the hard way about burning myself out. I was going so much I never knew if I was coming or going. My days blended together, and I went a little nuts. Not a little nuts, but big time. I wasn’t finishing projects. I began to see things that weren’t there. Several times I thought I was being stalked when it was only my mind playing tricks on me because it was exhausted from trying to keep up with me. You’ll figure it out, or it will incapacitate you for a long time. But you’ll only do that the one time. It’s that hard on you.”
She remembered then when they’d all been working on getting the village moved to New Town. Dante had been going and going until she simply collapsed one day. After that day, she was weak and out of sorts. It never occurred to her until now that Dante hadn’t been resting, but working throughout the night when the rest of them did take some downtime. Jude asked Duncan if he knew if his mother had slept.
“I don’t know for sure. But there were times when she’d come to see me, and I’d have to be awakened. Back then, when I was younger, I did sleep. After Mom died, I never had the need for it.” Jude told him she’d be careful. She also told him the story about his mom. “I’d like for you to do that when you think of something. I didn’t know her the way you and the other birds did. I knew her as my mom and not the queen she was. I’ll even tell you all things she said to me about you. It was never anything but praise. Sometimes she’d tell me how one of you, mostly Mercy, would get on her about this or that. While she didn’t like it, I think she respected all of you for loving her enough to make sure she was safe.”
“Thank you for that. I have plenty of stories about her I could tell you. I thought of something else just now. Your mother was already dead when we destroyed the castle.” Duncan looked at her, his face filled with hope. “I know she took a poison before she summoned us to destroy all while she was in it. We didn’t want to, but she told us, and we knew she was right—that if this king were to make it here, she’d be dead anyway. She knew as well as we did, he wasn’t going to keep her around. He only wanted the castle and the lands and people here. I believe she also knew that Mercy, in her grief, would destroy the ship he was coming here in.”
“Mom didn’t tell me that part in her letters to me, about where she died first. She only explained to me why it had to be done. And how. If the castle was destroyed, then no one would think anything of looking for her people. With her dead inside, it would look as if she was set upon and had died defending it.” Jude nodded. “The people being gone too would have made it look as if they’d been taken captive and were more than likely all dead too. I need to know these things. All the information about her. This was a good story, Jude, and it cleared my heart of thinking of her suffering, even a little when the walls came down. Thank you for this.”
“It’s my pleasure, Duncan.” She ate some of the sandwich but did prefer the fruit. As a bird, she didn’t really get much in the way of fresh fruit as she did as a human. “Something else I want you to know about your mom. She wasn’t perfect, not even close. Dante made a great many mistakes when she was queen. She also was stubborn as hell about things. But she would admit, readily, when she was wrong and would say she was sorry right away. Nor did Dante hold a grudge. You should know too, when she was right about a plan or project, it was epic. And she’d make sure we celebrated those victories very well.”
“I knew that about her. She was never one to say she told you so either.” Jude told him that was right. “Thank you again, Jude. I wish there were more pictures of the two of us sometimes. I understood the reasoning behind her hiding me away. What I have trouble with is how she was able to keep her pregnancy so quiet.”
“She used magic, I would imagine. She had a great deal of it. Dante could make a
