Page 16 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

“Help!” I cry into the night. “Somebody! Anybody! Please .”

Warm summer air rushes over me as I stagger to the railing. It is a cloudless night. The moon is full. The stars glitter. But my gaze is all for the palace grounds that yawn far below, farther than I expected.

I would never survive the fall.

“No,” I whisper, sinking to my knees. I truly am trapped here.

I slump forward, my forehead finding purchase against the cool marble balusters supporting the railing. Through the spaces between them, I gaze out past the walls surrounding the palace, toward Spindleton proper.

Will Papa worry when we do not return home?

Will he even notice?

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes as I suck in a shuddering breath.

Will I ever even see my father again?

My fingers fumble beneath the neckline of my gown, pulling free Bene’s amulet. Beneath the moonlight, the pearly dragon scale encased in silver threads of Mind magic almost seems to glow.

I cradle it in my palm, but I don’t know what to do with it. When Bene first sent it to me by way of the fairy circle, he told me it would help mask my glow. He told me it would keep me safe.

Can it possibly help me now?

“Please,” I whisper to it, feeling ridiculous. “ Please , help me.”

Heart pounding, breath catching, I cling to the hope that something will happen.

That anything will happen.

But nothing does.

A wave of bitterness crashes over me, threatening to pull me under. I truly am alone in this. But I can’t give in to the despair of that realization. Not yet. I don’t know how long Friedemar intends to leave me alone.

But I don’t wish to be here when he comes back.

Magic floats all around me, calling to me with its kaleidoscopic gleam. The sight of it merely fills me with more bitterness.

Friedemar thinks I’m this… Jewel . He thinks I’m something powerful.

And then it hits me.

What if he’s right?

I swallow hard and stare at the heavens. Air. Water. Earth. Fire. Spirit. Mind. I see them, but I don’t know how to touch them. I never have.

But what if I did? What if I… could weave with them?

A hundred possibilities crash through my mind all at once, overwhelming in their scope. I could use Air to carry me down from the balcony. I could use Fire to burn this wretched palace to the ground and free my mother and Lord Reggie.

But as I clutch Bene’s scale in my hand, one thought stands out above all others: Bene .

I could use Mind to call to Bene.

A wisp of doubt immediately unfurls within my heart. What if he doesn’t come ? What if I waste these precious moments calling out to a man who may very well have lied to me all these years?

But in the next moment, I silence that doubt.

He will come for me. If he knows I’m in danger, he will come.

I reach out with my free hand, trying to touch the threads of Mind magic arcing across the sky, but they elude me like a mirage shimmering in the distance. The only strands close at hand are the ones wrapped around Bene’s amulet.

I study them. I try to understand how one would even begin to unravel the intricate knots visible in Bene’s weave. Feeling even more ridiculous with each passing moment, I try to breathe them in, remembering the warmth of Bene’s breath brushing my skin that time he wove Earth to heal me.

It doesn’t work.

Clenching my eyes shut, I try to drown out all else.

I fill my mind with only the image of the silver strands of Mind woven about the amulet I clutch against my chest. I imagine unraveling them.

I imagine weaving them into a cord. I imagine flinging them across Briarhold, all the way to the Door. Like a lifeline.

My very last.

“Bene, help me,” I exhale, imagining that I’m speaking those three words along the threads I still firmly see within my mind’s eye. I picture him standing on the other end of that connection the way I remember him as a boy.

His silver hair. His blue eyes. His easy smile.

As if from far away, I hear the key scrape in the lock.

Friedemar is back already?

My concentration wavers. My pulse surges.

“Bene,” I whisper again, more urgently this time. My voice cracks. My hands shake.

The door swings open.

Two shadows darken the threshold: Friedemar and a man I don’t know. The latter stares at me as if I am a wild animal and shifts his grip on the long, flat wooden box he is holding.

Even through the wood, golden threads of Spirit seep out, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Their voices float toward me—words I hear but don’t understand.

The stranger: “Should we not contact your… friend , Your Majesty? He will be terribly displeased when he learns we have kept news of this from him.”

Friedemar: “ If he learns of it, Horace. No, this stays between us for now. I simply need you to figure out what is wrong with her for me. She claims she cannot weave, but she is a Jewel. I know it. She can be nothing else.”

I force myself to my feet, refusing to face whatever Friedemar plans to subject me to next on my knees. The wind ruffles past, tugging at my hair, my gown.

I take a single step backward and immediately crash into the railing behind me. My clammy fingers twitch. I lose my grip on the amulet I still hold. It bounces off the railing and tumbles into the night before I can stop it. My last piece of Bene. My last hope.

Lost.

“No,” I whisper, hating how I nearly whimper the word.

Behind me, somewhere in the distance, a bell tolls. Deep. Hollow.

At the sound, Friedemar frowns.

? Jump, ? the voice abruptly whispers.

No warning. No explanation.

“What?” I gasp aloud, earning a queer look from the stranger still lurking in the doorway, clutching the box that makes my skin crawl.

The voice can’t be serious. It can’t truly want me to—

? Jump. ?

With trembling fingers, I clutch the railing behind me and ease myself up onto it in a seated position.

My heart thunders. My breath catches.

I will never survive this fall.

Friedemar’s eyes narrow. “What are you doing?”

When I do not answer, he hurries forward, toward the balcony. Toward me.

I flinch away and grip the railing all the tighter as my balance wavers. As I nearly topple backward into the night. I swallow down a scream, refusing to let Friedemar see my fear.

And suddenly, the Aether is there. Warm. Golden. It wraps around me and seeps into my soul, like the first rays of dawn.

? Be not afraid, for I am with you. ?

My pulse steadies. My grip on the railing loosens. Tears prick the corners of my eyes—tears of awe. Finally, I understand who is speaking to me: a god. Bene’s god.

The Great Weaver Himself.

But I still don’t understand. Why must I jump?

And yet, as Friedemar lunges toward me, I realize there’s no longer time to question. To doubt. Even not knowing what comes next, I choose it anyway—

The darkness. The unknown.

I choose to trust rather than wait until it is too late.

Because anything at all is surely better than the fate Friedemar has in store for me…

Even death.