Page 23 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

Benevolence

Now

“ T herya’kai !” Velda cries out when Aurelia’s eyes suddenly roll back in her head and her body crumples for a second time tonight. “What happened?”

“Move,” I gasp, shaking as I fling a cord of Air around Velda’s shield and toward Na’therya to scoop her up before her head can crack against the stone floor. “It must have been too much for her,” I lie through my teeth.

But I dare not let Velda know how close I came to being seduced by my Shade. How I let it distract me so thoroughly with those visions of kissing Aurelia it conjured into being.

Bitterness churns in my stomach.

I know better. The Shade always knows what we desire most. It lies to slip its foot through the door. And once we start to listen, it becomes all the easier for it to lead us down the dark path.

At least now, with Aurelia unconscious, only one of us must bear this pain.

And I will bear this for her until I can bear it no longer.

Friedemar’s noxious scent wafts toward me again, reminding me that he is drawing near. We have wasted too much time here already. He will be upon us any moment.

And somehow he has come to possess a Theryn’Crae —a Kingslayer. That Jewel-forged blade is one of the few that can kill a Dragon King. And I refuse to let him use it to kill me. Not until I have taken Aurelia from this place.

Not until she is safe.

“Come,” I urge Velda, my dear godmother, who stares at me with such concern as I stagger down the corridor toward the waiting door. My legs threaten to give out as I bind Aurelia in more strands of Air, keeping her afloat in front of me. A sheen of sweat mists my brow.

I cannot do this. I will not make it out before my Shade claims me.

Please , I pray, gritting my teeth, forcing myself onward one step at a time. Lend me Your strength.

The Aether is there. I feel it. I sense it. But my God doesn’t answer me.

Or perhaps He does, and I simply can’t hear Him over the rattle of my own frantic thoughts. Over the shameful tang of my fear.

I am out of time.

“Oh, Benevolence!” Friedemar’s voice echoes off the walls, ringing out in a singsong tone. “See how he flees from me! Is the great King of Drakara truly too afraid to fight back?”

Boots clatter behind me. Shouts. Friedemar is coming. I dare not look back.

I should leave now. I should get out while I still have my wits about me.

But I can’t leave just yet.

First, I must save Mira Weaver and… Reggie .

“Go!” I wrench open the door for Velda, revealing a narrow flight of steps leading downward, faintly illuminated by sputtering torches.

I let my auntie fly through first before I maneuver Aurelia’s limp form past the opening as well and dive through, slamming the door shut behind us.

A quick weave of Earth narrows the doorway, locking the door in place.

Perhaps that will slow Friedemar down.

Taking the steps two at a time, I send out twin threads of Mind toward Glorana and Brisa, hunting for them across the distance that separates us. When I find them, I breathe out a sigh of relief.

They live.

“I was delayed, but we are moving again,” I let them know. I do not expect an answer. Neither of them can wield Mind like Velda and I can.

But at least they will worry no longer.

I have never understood the human need for dungeons. When we finally make it to the bottom of the stairs and emerge into a dank room lined with small, iron-barred cells, I understand it even less.

A single guard stands watch over the two prisoners being held here—a guard who screams like a little boy when he sees me coming. Friedemar must have called away the rest when I arrived.

Or perhaps he always keeps his prisoners so poorly guarded.

“Go,” I snarl at the single guard left. “Run.”

There is nowhere to run, but he does not know that. On command, the man skitters off, falling all over himself in his haste to make for the staircase.

An older gentleman with a bruised countenance and a swollen left eye watches me through the bars of the cell. Casually, he observes, “That man you just chased off was holding the keys, you know.”

“You must be Reggie ,” I observe in kind before sending out a weave of Air to rip the cell door clean off its hinges. A horrific screech of metal later, it booms against the stone floor between us, the sound reverberating off the walls.

The man takes his sudden freedom in stride, choosing to study me with his one good eye rather than marvel at the fact that I just ripped his cell open. “Have we met?”

“Aurelia!” a woman who can be none other than her adoptive mother, Mira Weaver, cries out as she rushes from the dank cell, tears streaking her cheeks.

She hovers over my Jewel’s levitating form, fretting for all of a moment, before she spears me with her sharp hazel gaze. “What have you done to her?”

Of course, Mira would think the worst of me. Rightfully so in this instance. Unfairly in all others. Though we have never met before this moment, it is no secret to me that she has never approved of our friendship.

“She seems to have finally mastered the art of swooning on command,” Reggie comments as he, too, steps in close to inspect Aurelia’s form. Reginald Lockhart, Aurelia’s intended, as I gleaned from her thoughts when she opened her mind to me.

My inner dragon snarls in protest, a wave of jealousy crashing over me.

Ridiculous . I silence the beast in the next moment.

“She is well,” Velda reassures, ever the diplomat. Only I see the web of soothing Mind she weaves over the pair of humans. “All of the excitement seems to have just gotten the better of her.”

Mira frowns, clearly fighting against my godmother’s attempts to soothe her worries. “But… my daughter has never fainted a day in her life.”

Reggie smiles, falling prey to Velda’s magic without a moment’s hesitation. After a blink, he finally seems to notice the pixie affecting his mood. “My word! You’re one of the fae folk.”

A boom thunders in the near distance. Friedemar. He must be trying to bring down the door.

“Enough,” I snap, speaking over them all. “We need to leave. Now .” I pace the floor in a tight circle, studying the walls, the ceiling, trying to map out the necessary trajectory to fly us out of here.

This space is far too small for my shift. But we have no time to double back for a better exit point.

Velda’s brow furrows. “I believe Glorana would caution against jeopardizing the integrity of the palace’s foundation, Theryn’kai . Think of the civilians still inside these walls. The human servants.”

Velda is right. I must think of the innocent. My gaze slips toward Aurelia’s face, so serene in her forced slumber. I know she would want me to spare them, too.

My muscles tremble as I step forward and draw in threads of Earth, reinforcing the walls and ceiling of the dungeon, ensuring they are stable. Ensuring the entire structure will not collapse after I blast through the ancient stonework.

I work quickly, my breath turning ragged. Sweat pools beneath my clothing.

I have woven too much this evening already. Even with the power of the Corona, my strength is not infinite. Only the Great Weaver can make that claim.

But my job here is almost done. Soon, we will be free.

I no longer know what comes next. I no longer know how to best save Aurelia from Friedemar’s retribution. Where is safe for her now? I don’t even know if I will have the strength to fly home after this, to face Malice on the battlefield tomorrow, to save my people.

I have no answers.

But as I finally give in to my inner dragon, as I finally allow myself to shift in this too-small space despite Mira’s screams of terror and Reggie’s gasps of wonder, I surrender myself to my God.

My fate is in His hands, as it always has been since the day I was born.

Since the day I was cursed.

Since the day I met Na’therya in a garden filled with roses.

“Fly with me, selira feyra ,” I weave to Aurelia’s unconscious mind as I gather her, her mother, and her intended onto my back and fasten them tight with cords of Air. “One last time.”