Page 2 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)
Benevolence
Now
I stroke the ring housed on my left hand—on my first finger rather than my third, where I wish it rested. It is a terribly simple piece of jewelry, woven from nothing more than golden hair and threads of Earth to preserve its shape always.
But it is also the most precious thing I own.
My councilors continue to talk around me, but it’s difficult to focus. To listen. It’s her thirtieth birthday today. Our thirtieth birthday today.
I wonder if she’s yet visited the fairy circle. I wonder if my latest present was enough to make her smile. I would do anything to make her smile.
Anything beyond donning the Corona Ignis and opening the Door to see her again.
I don’t dare risk it.
To be in her presence now that she’s grown—now that she’s come into her power as a full-fledged Jewel—would spell tragedy for us both.
“ Theryni , forgive me, but are you listening?”
Lord Justice’s voice slices through my thoughts, wrenching me back to the present. I meet his steel-hued eyes and arch my eyebrow. Justice is the commander of my armies, just as he was the commander of my father’s armies.
But his love for me grows thin.
Auntie Brisa bristles and flits forward in a blur of blue, threads of Fire, Air, and Water weaving together into a miniature storm that wreathes her form with arcs of lightning. “That is Theryn’kai to you, my lord.”
“Technically speaking,” Auntie Glorana interjects, green sparkles trailing from her wings, “Lord Justice is correct. Prince Benevolence will only be king once he takes up the Corona Ignis and is deemed worthy of wearing it.”
Auntie Velda remains hovering at my shoulder—as constant as the small moon that she resembles—and murmurs, “We all know why His Highness has not yet done so.”
The day grows late, afternoon bleeding into evening. Beyond the grand stone archways leading out into the open air, I spy many of my subjects winging through the skies far above the spires of our home. They are excited to celebrate my birthday tonight.
I never celebrate my birthday. But this year, Velda insisted. She probably thinks a night of revelry with my courtiers will be enough to take my mind off Aurelia.
She’s wrong.
My gaze returns to the cavernous council chamber, to my three closest advisors beyond my fairy godmothers—these noble dragons who have stood by me even after the passing of my mother and father, even knowing what I am: a cursed prince.
They would leave me, though, if they knew the even darker truth I carry. The truth about my father’s death. But I can tell no one.
Only my aunties and Aurelia know the depth of my shame.
Lord Justice meets my gaze and frowns. “You are now thirty, Your Highness, and there are no Jewels left in the world. They were all eradicated during the second Jewel War when you were still a hatchling. Surely, the danger has long since passed.”
Lady Prudence—my spymaster—gently agrees, “It is time for you to become the Theryn Drakara you were always meant to be.” She gestures toward the map carved from stone that lies between us, indicating my uncle’s stronghold in the far north.
“We have received reports that Malice is now styling himself the Goblin King. His army grows stronger by the day.” Her tone sharpens when she reveals, “The border villages fear Malice’s army will soon strike. ”
Lord Mercy—my secretary and master of ceremonies—asks, “Must we wait until his horde is at the gates of the Aerie itself before you finally take up your father’s crown and stop this madness, Your Highness?”
I cease stroking the ring crafted from Aurelia’s hair and rise to my feet.
“ Naei .” That word rings from my lips with a conviction I don’t truly feel.
War is the last thing from my mind on today of all days. But my people don’t need a man in mourning for a Therya’kai —a Queen of Flame—who could have never been his. Nor a man haunted by his many failures.
They need their king.
The threads of Earth lending the stone map its shape shimmer in the air just above the sprawling landscape of Drakara—from the Door to the west to the Shadow Lands to the north where my uncle makes his home, to the Sea of Songs to the east, to my own fortress, the Aerie, in the south.
I unravel the threads above my uncle’s stronghold with a mere twitch of my fingers, turning the carefully carved depiction of Umbra Castle to motes of dust.
“Tonight,” I promise my councilors, “I will visit the Living Waters. I will seek the Great Weaver’s blessing. And if it is still His will that I become Drakara’s king, I will don the Corona Ignis.”
The words are like ash in my mouth. For twelve years, I have avoided returning to that holy place. But I can avoid it no longer.
But my councilors are right.
It is past time I claimed my throne.
Brisa whips about to face me. “What?” she gasps.
Within my thoughts, Velda asks on a thread of Mind meant for me alone, “Are you sure, Bene?”
Earth magic is the only one that comes naturally to me. I cannot wield Fire like my father, nor Air and Water like my mother. But with Earth, I can do many things.
I can shape. I can unmake. I can mend.
Only through years of hard work and careful study can I wield a bit of Mind, too.
“ Vaei ,” I weave back, though my eyes remain on Lord Justice, Lady Prudence, and Lord Mercy rather than the pixie hovering at my side. “It is time I returned.”
Lord Justice breathes out a sigh of palpable relief, saying nothing.
Lord Mercy, however, is already on his feet. He claps his hands together once. “At last! I will make arrangements for your coronation right away. We can simply make it a part of your birthday celebration tonight.”
My jaw tightens at the thought.
“ Naei ,” I snap with more force than is necessary.
Lord Mercy takes a single step backward, clearly offended.
I huff out a breath through my nose and temper my tone into something more measured. “There will be no coronation, my lord. I will be alone in the Vault of Kings when I take up the Corona Ignis, just in case the worst should happen.”
The worst in this case would be the Corona Ignis rejecting me, deeming me unfit because of the role I played in my father’s death. But my councilors don’t know that. No doubt, they think I am speaking of my curse.
For once, I’m not.
Brisa scowls at me. “You can’t be serious.”
Glorana adjusts her spectacles. “I do believe he is.”
“And what about Aurelia?” Velda weaves to me, carefully imparting the words directly to my thoughts. “She should be with you when you take up the Corona Ignis, Bene. She is your Therya’kai . It is her destiny to share the burden of the Corona alongside you.”
“That destiny was stolen from us thirty years ago,” I weave back, fighting to keep the pain that knifes through my heart from showing on my face. “Do you think I don’t want Na’therya with me when I become king? Of course, I want her here. I want her with me always.”
But what I want doesn’t matter. The curse still hangs over both our heads. The danger to Aurelia is too great. I dare not be near her, not now that we are both grown.
Especially not once I don the Corona Ignis and set my uncle’s vile curse in motion.
“And besides,” I snarl across the mental link, “I would need to possess the power of the Corona first to be strong enough to open the Door. It would be impossible to bring Aurelia here before then.”
Carefully, Velda suggests, “My sisters and I could attempt to open the Door in your place—”
“ Naei . There is no point.” My mind has been made for weeks now. This is the way it must be. “The moment I don the Corona Ignis, I intend to use its power to destroy the Door.”
Velda’s soft gray eyes bore into the side of my face.
I stare straight ahead, refusing to meet her gaze. “Lord Justice, prepare our troops. Tonight, if it is the Great Weaver’s will, we will declare war on the Shadow Lands.”
The older dragon leans forward, his excitement crackling through the air between us. “And tomorrow, Your Highness?”
“Tomorrow,” I echo as my gaze lowers to the map—to the Door, to the rolling countryside of the human kingdom of Briarhold beyond. To the walls of the sprawling capital city of Spindleton that now house the last living Jewel. Na’therya .
The woman I can never see again.
“Tomorrow, we fly,” I rasp, ignoring the growing ache gnawing at my heart.
As a boy, I wasn’t strong enough to break the curse. Even as a mere man, I’m not strong enough to save Aurelia from a life spent exiled from her homeland, never knowing what she truly is. What she was born to be.
But as a king ?
I will finally have the strength to do what needs to be done before the madness consumes me—the strength to defeat my uncle once and for all. The strength to save Drakara from his growing darkness.
And the strength to tear asunder the Door between worlds, to ensure I cannot fulfill my uncle’s curse.
To ensure I can never kill the woman I love.