Page 17 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

Benevolence

Thirteen Years Ago

A hollow ache thrummed in my chest as I circled the woods bordering her cottage, flying across farmlands and fields. Now too large to maneuver through the trees, I skimmed low to the ground, trying to remain unseen.

Just one more year—that was all the time I had left with Aurelia.

But it wasn’t enough. I needed more time. I was no closer to breaking the curse than I had been last year, and I wasn’t yet ready to say goodbye.

Would I ever be?

Frustration welled up inside me. Green threads of Earth shimmered before me. Silver threads of Mind. I could wield both, but neither was of any help to me in this.

Useless. My magic was useless. What was the point of being able to weave if I couldn’t even save myself from my accursed fate?

Please , I prayed for not the first time. Nor the last. Please show me what I must do.

But the Great Weaver was silent. His Aether did not bring me an answer to my plea. Not even the wind stirred as I winged right to the treeline of the woods behind Aurelia’s cottage and shifted into my human form.

I was alone with my thoughts. My resignation.

I had to tell her the truth. About everything—her mother, the prophecy, what she was, my uncle’s curse, and my inability to break it.

Perhaps I would even tell her that, in my mind, she would always be the rightful Queen of Drakara, just as her mother foretold. No matter what happened.

Perhaps I… I would even tell her how I felt about that last bit.

Naei . My pulse raced as I shook my head and forged off into the darkness of the woods. The satchel carrying her birthday present thumped against my side with each step.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t ruin our friendship with feelings I shouldn’t feel. I couldn’t ruin the last year we had left.

But I could certainly tell her the rest.

For once, I fidgeted while I walked, my fingers combing my hair smooth and adjusting the circlet resting on my brow. I felt ridiculous crunching through the underbrush in a court outfit rather than something practical. Something better suited for traipsing through the forest like a bandit.

But I had wanted to look my best for one of the most important moments of my life—confessing to my dearest friend that her entire life was a lie. That she wasn’t even from the human realm. That she was a Drakaran like me.

And that I was the reason she could never come home.

I smelled her before I saw her. Aurelia was already out here in the woods, waiting for me.

I walked all the faster, impatient to see her again. Were it my choice, I would see her every night. I would spend every day in her company. But I couldn’t risk it.

I couldn’t risk my father discovering that a Jewel still lived.

When I stepped out from between two trees and caught sight of her standing on the edge of the forest, her head bowed, my steps hitched to a pause. I frowned. Something was wrong.

“Aurelia?”

She whirled to face me, her hands rubbing beneath her eyes as if she had been crying.

“ Haiya , na’valraen. ” A smile curved her lips as she so sweetly named me her favorite—the sort of smile that always stopped my heart in its tracks. Except this time, it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

In the span of a single breath, I closed the distance between us.

“Drae sol wae?” I whispered, searching her face, even as she ducked her head and looked away from me. “What is wrong?”

My thoughts swiftly spiraled, exploring every possibility for why she was upset:

Her parents were ill.

I had said something wrong in my last letter.

Someone had hurt her.

My jaw clenched as her silence ticked on. I resisted the urge to weave, to send threads of Earth hunting for any hidden wounds on her body that required my healing. I couldn’t possibly betray her privacy like that. If she wanted me to heal her, she knew all she had to do was say.

Instead, I wove together threads of Mind and let them gently seep into her thoughts, where I whispered a simple plea: “Tell me?”

Her head snapped up. Her gaze met mine. The threat of fresh tears shimmered within her sky-blue eyes.

“There is… something I must tell you, Bene,” she admitted at last, her voice little more than a breath between us. “But I’m… I’m afraid to do so.”

The irony hit me hard, luring an abrupt laugh from my throat. When she frowned at me, clearly confused by my outburst, I hastily explained, “There is something I want to tell you, too. But I’m… afraid to do so.”

A watery smile curved her lips. “Why don’t you go first, then?”

I didn’t dare. I shook my head and insisted, “Oh, naei . You first.”

The silence dragged on between us. One moment. Two. Ten.

Finally, she blurted out, “I’m engaged.”

And with those two words, time stopped.

My heart stopped with it.

Aurelia continued speaking, her words a breathless tumble of sound as she explained that her mother had arranged it all, that the young man in question was some Lord Thomas Harcourt, that she barely knew him. That she didn’t even like him.

But I could barely hear her over the sound of my blood rushing through my ears.

“Bene?”

The feel of her hand gently pressing against mine lured me back to the present.

I forced a smile to my lips and twitched away. “Congratulations.” That word was like ash in my mouth, but I said it anyway. “This is… such happy news.”

Her eyes searched my face in the darkness, a frown tugging at her own mouth. “You are not upset?”

I turned my back to her and paced deeper into the forest by several steps.

“ Naei ,” I lied as I walked, struggling to control my breathing.

But my inner dragon roared, rejecting everything she had just said.

Engaged to another? How could she be? She was my drakira .

My Therya’kai . My fingers twitched, eager for the change.

Eager for sharp claws over fingernails. I could find this Lord Harcourt.

I could make sure he knew the grave mistake he had made in daring to propose—

Naei . I needed to get a hold of myself. Aurelia and I were just friends. We had only ever been just friends.

In this moment, the prophecy didn’t matter. My feelings didn’t matter. Nothing mattered save for the fact that she now finally had a chance to be safe. To be happy. To be taken care of.

Forever.

No matter whether I broke the curse or not.

Drawing in a deep breath, I clasped my hands behind my back and swiveled around to face her again. “Why would I be?” I asked, smiling all the more brightly. “I’m so happy for you. A lord? Truly? What a… smart match.”

I vaguely recalled that strange phrase from the scant bits of time I had spent at the human court in Spindleton. But clearly, I had used it correctly, given the way Aurelia’s smile softened.

“It is a smart match, is it not?” She phrased it like a question, as if she weren’t quite sure herself.

Silence fell between us again.

After a prolonged moment, Aurelia took a tentative step closer. “Did you… not have something you wanted to tell me, too?”

My thoughts careened over one another. I racked my mind for what to say. I couldn’t possibly tell her everything now—not now that she was engaged. Not now that she had a chance at a normal existence.

She never had to know the death warrant looming over her head. She never had to know that her destiny as Queen of Drakara had been stolen from her by my scheming uncle when we were only three days old.

She could simply be… Lady Thomas Harcourt.

“ Vaei , of course.” My fingers scrabbled at the latch holding my satchel closed. From its interior, I retrieved a heavy leather tome, ancient and priceless. “I fear I must inform you that I stole this.”

Aurelia’s eyes flew wide. “What?” she gasped.

“It is true. I stole this from the royal library.” Carefully, I closed the distance between us again and held the heavy book out to her.

“I hope you’re not cross with me for breaking the law on your behalf, but you always seem so interested in Drakara’s history; I thought you might like a history book of your very own. ”

I forced another smile to my lips, doing my best to pretend to be happy.

No, I wanted to actually be happy. Engagement or no, this was still Aurelia.

It was still our birthday.

This was still our time together.

“Happy birthday,” I whispered as she finally took the ancient tome from me. She handled it as if it might fall apart at any moment.

But it wouldn’t. Not with Auntie Glorana’s threads of Earth carefully binding it together.

“Bene,” she breathed, her eyes twinkling with unbridled delight. “This is so wonderful.” But then her lips pursed as she considered me anew. “Can the Crown Prince of Drakara truly steal a book from the royal library, though?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I hastily reassured her. “Auntie Glorana will murder me if she realizes what I have done.”

Aurelia’s soft laughter was like a balm to my ears, my soul. This was what I lived for—her happiness. How she cherished all the small things. But despite my best efforts to simply… be happy for her, to rejoice like a proper friend at the news of her engagement, I couldn’t stop myself.

I had to ask. I had to know .

“So… when is the wedding?”

Some emotion flickered through her eyes, too fast for me to name. “Next year. After I turn eighteen.” Her smile thinned. “Lord Harcourt is a few years older than us, so he wanted to wait until I came of age.”

How generous of him .

A hot spear of jealousy pierced my heart—sharp and blinding. But in its wake bloomed something far more dangerous.

Hope .

I still had one year. One year to break the curse. One year to fly back to her, to tell her everything. Who she truly was. What she meant to me. What we were always meant to be, together .

Then, it could be her choice as it always should have been.

And if she chose me?

I would bring her home. I would crown her queen. My queen.

“Bene,” she whispered, drawing me back to the present. “I hope you won’t hate me, but I… I didn’t bring you a present this year.” She winced, looking sheepish. “I almost thought… you wouldn’t want to see me again after I told you about Lord Harcourt.”

I didn’t know whether to be amused or offended that she thought I could be so fickle.

I finally landed on amused and cracked another smile. “You know simply seeing you is the best present.”

Then a sudden thought struck me—something I could try for my next experiment in breaking the curse. But I needed something from her first.

I took a step closer and asked, “Might I have a lock of your hair?”

Her eyebrows raised. “My hair? Whatever for?”

I hesitated. I couldn’t exactly tell her that I intended to use it in a weave, to see if perhaps her essence was some sort of key I had been overlooking all along. After all, the curse concerned her, too.

Her tone turned teasing when I didn’t immediately answer. “Bene, are you having one of your rare cheeky moments again?”

“I am,” I blurted out, happy for an excuse. “I hope you will forgive me for it.”

Drawing in threads of Earth, I wove a small dagger for myself. Nothing fancy—purely functional. With the blade in hand, I stepped in even closer and wound my fingers through Aurelia’s golden hair.

My pulse quickened at the feel of the silken strands gliding against my skin. At the sight of them nearly shining in the moonlight. Perhaps I would make something for myself from what was left over after my experiment concluded.

A ring?

I snicked my knife through her hair, taking that small handful for my own.

“Bene,” Aurelia gasped, making me pause.

I met her eyes in the darkness, afraid she was angry at me for taking too much. But all I found in her gaze was a sorrow that threatened to drag me under. To drown me beneath the weight of my own buried despair.

“Are you taking my hair to remember me by?” she asked. “Is this your way of saying goodbye?”

I thinned my lips and unraveled the threads composing my knife, seeing it dissipate into thin air. “No. If I ever say goodbye to you, Aurelia Weaver, it will be with words. To your face. I will not steal away like a thief in the night.”

A watery smile curved her lips, though it was a fleeting thing. Sad. “But we will have to say goodbye next year, won’t we?”

I froze. How did she know about that?

Cautiously, I pressed, “Why would we?”

“Because of Lord Harcourt,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine he would… approve of our friendship.”

I breathed out a quiet sigh through my nose. Lord Harcourt again . “ Naei ,” I dryly agreed. “That would be a little too scandalous, even for us.”

Retrieving my handkerchief from my pocket with my free hand, I gently tucked the cut strands of her hair inside and wrapped them up before putting away the bundle.

When I next looked Aurelia’s way, tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Aurelia—” I began to ask, confused over what had upset her now.

But before I could finish the question, she flung herself into my arms and buried her face against my neck.

I forgot how to breathe. How to think.

For a full moment, my heart stopped beating.

“I don’t want to marry Lord Harcourt,” she choked out between sobs, her hot tears soaking the collar of my shirt.

“I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to be a lady and live in Spindleton.

Can I not go to Drakara with you? I can live in the woods with the pixies and the pegasi, and I won’t be any bother to anyone at all, I promise. ”

Breath returned to my lungs in a shaky inhale.

Aurelia was embracing me. She was clinging to me.

My eyes fluttered closed as I carefully wound my arms around her back, afraid of hurting her. A ridiculous fear. She was no delicate flower. She was a Jewel.

My hold on her tightened as my inner dragon roared again.

Protective. Possessive. Defiant.

I couldn’t give up yet.

“I will see what I can do,” I promised, murmuring the words against her hair. “Give me until our next birthday, and let me see what I can do.”

Don’t give up on me yet, Na’therya.

I still had one year left. One year to fix everything.

For her sake, I had to finally succeed.

No matter what.