Page 24 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

Aurelia

Now

A peal of thunder snarls in the distance as I jolt awake. Clouds roll in, blotting out the moon, the stars. A raindrop strikes the bridge of my nose.

Confusion swells within me as the last vestiges of sleep depart my thoughts, leaving me painfully aware of my current situation—the wind whipping through my hair, the ground falling away beneath me, the lights of the palace swiftly fading.

I sit astride Bene’s back as we surge toward the heavens, his powerful wings cleaving the wind.

Threads of Air bind me to his form, keeping my seat secure.

Blessedly so, as in the next moment, he abruptly tucks his wings and dives, narrowly avoiding a large projectile—like an oversized crossbow bolt—that whistles past.

Behind me, a woman screams. Mama. I swivel about as best I can to face her ash-pale visage. When our gazes meet, tears mist her eyes.

“Aurelia,” she chokes out. “You’re all right. I thought that… dragon had done something to you.” She nearly spits the word as if that very dragon is not currently carrying us to safety.

Behind her sits Lord Reginald, who whoops with delight despite our clearly precarious situation. “Mira, calm down. We’re flying!”

Relief floods me at the sight of them both. Bene saved them. He didn’t have to, but he did.

For me.

And then it all comes rushing back. The corridor. Bene’s pain. His Shade. The prophecy. The curse. My birth mother, Liora. Queen of the Fae.

Every scrap of knowledge Bene has shared with me roars to the forefront of my mind, leaving me wincing in pain. Pressure throbs behind my right temple—a proper headache this time rather than my dragon king rifling through my thoughts.

My mind is on the verge of breaking, of unraveling completely, from trying to hold all the many pieces of a far larger puzzle I have been gifted.

I am not human. I am a Jewel. The last living Jewel.

The only Jewel left who can fulfill my birth mother’s prophecy.

I am Bene’s Therya’kai.

A disbelieving laugh bursts forth as I so easily embrace these truths rather than try to deny what I am. In the span of a single evening, my entire life has been flipped upside down. Should I not be violently shaking my head, refusing to believe that I am different?

But I have always known I was different, ever since my eighteenth birthday. Now at least I have a name for my strangeness. Now at least I know there was a reason for my suffering. Now at least I know I have a purpose. Something important I am supposed to do.

I don't have to marry Lord Reggie. I don't have to seek work as a governess. There is a prophecy . I am destined to be a queen. To help Bene.

Despite all the rest I still don't understand, despite the curse, there is still a strange sort of comfort in knowing all this.

Another projectile zips past, and Bene banks hard to the left to avoid it. This time, I am the one who screams. But it is not the storm that frightens me. Nor the oversized crossbow bolts trying to shoot us down.

It is the sensation of something wrong approaching us hard and fast from the east—a sensation that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Something is coming.

Something I do not want to meet.

Bene? I instinctively reach out to my dragon king’s mind to ask him what this is that I feel. But instead of the warm familiarity of his mental presence, I am met with only a steel wall. Solid. Impenetrable.

He has shut me out.

Lightning flashes through the clouds, illuminating the three pixies who flit alongside us, riding a current of Air woven from Brisa’s fingers. Their small faces are pinched with fear. With worry.

Do they feel what is coming, too?

Mama is speaking again, though her words are swallowed by the wind. The thunder. The rising patter of rain striking against Bene’s scales. I only catch a scrap of it.

“… Lord Reginald has some connections in Cindralune. We should be safe there. Perhaps they will even have some new medicines we might try.”

Cindralune? But the human kingdom to the north holds nothing for me.

“I can’t go to Cindralune, Mama,” I shout back.

I don’t need to see my mother’s face to feel her shock over the fact that I would dare not immediately agree to her latest plan.

But we see what came of her last—of my attending King Friedemar’s ball.

Even now, though he cannot reach me all the way up here, the thought of Briarhold’s king is enough to make my skin crawl.

But it wasn’t all bad, I suppose. If I hadn’t gone, Bene wouldn’t have come.

If I hadn’t gone, I never would have known who I am.

“Can’t?” my mother cries out over the storm, incredulous. Another bolt of lightning splinters the heavens as Bene veers to the right, circling something below. “And where else do you possibly intend to go?”

Brisa answers for me, loudly declaring, “She is the Therya’kai . Her place is in Drakara.”

Mama has no time to balk, nor to question the little pixie’s words. None of us do.

For Bene answers his fairy godmother with a rumbling snarl—a snarl that shakes me to my very core—before the threads of Air binding me to his back melt away, leaving me vulnerable to the elements.

Panic seizes me as my hands scrabble at his wet scales, hunting for purchase.

“Bene!” I scream, but it is too late.

Air races past, seeking to pitch me into the open sky. Behind me, my mother and Lord Reginald cry out.

No!

I freeze, fearing the worst, my heart leaping into my throat.

But when I catch sight of them floating away, gently carried through the rain by bubbles of Air that bear them downward toward the twinkling lights of Spindleton far below, I can breathe again.

They will be safe. They can retrieve my father and flee to Cindralune. I will find them one day. Later. After I do… this .

I fling my arms around my dragon king’s neck and squeeze tight, refusing to let go. I am exhausted. Confused. Frightened. I have been kidnapped. Held prisoner. Attacked .

But I do not care. None of that matters right at this moment.

Bene is in pain. He needs me. And I refuse to let him bear this burden alone.

Bene, answer me , I shout down the thread of Mind still binding us.

The wall keeping me from his thoughts lowers just enough for him to growl back, “Your place is with Lord Reginald. With your family.”

Fresh agony ripples through that opening, small though it is. An agony that makes my breath catch. My head spin.

How can he still be so desperate to be rid of me even though he can surely sense that I do not care about the curse? That I am prepared to fight for our friendship?

I hook my feet behind the joints of his wings and dig my fingers under his scales as he twirls through the sky, trying to fling me off. My stomach lurches. Rain slicks my hair to my face, obscuring my vision.

“My place is with you!” I scream aloud, hanging on for dear life. The earth and the heavens swap places, tumbling one over the other in a sickening display.

Nausea grips me. “Stop trying to push me away, Bene! You are my friend! Let me help you!”

But I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I know what I am, but what does it mean?

What does it mean to be a Therya’kai ?

How does one be a Queen of Flame?

Suddenly, my perch on Bene’s back feels more secure. My fists now clutch a leather harness strapped around his shoulders and neck rather than mere scales. Beneath me rests a saddle with a deep seat and stirrups for my stocking-clad feet.

My dragon king roars in irritation; the sound booms in my ears, drowning out all else.

Righting himself, he flies into the wind, pelting me with more rain.

Glorana races alongside us, saying nothing.

But I somehow know I have her to thank for the aid.

I understand now why you lied to me! I shout across the bond, refusing to let him shut me out any longer. I am not angry with you.

That is a lie.

I am a little angry with you, I correct. But we can talk about it later. Right now, just… let me in. Tell me what to do to ease your pain, and I will do it. Let us try to break this curse together!

“Leave!” he half-snarls, half-sobs through the link. “Please, leave me be. Let me die with you remembering me as I was rather than as I am.”

His hurt, his fear—they are like twin daggers piercing my heart. I know the full extent of it without him having to say it. I can sense it just as surely as I can feel his pulse:

He wishes to die my hero rather than live even for a single moment as my villain.

My grip on Bene’s harness tightens even as my resolve wavers. Would that not be the loving thing to do? To honor his wishes? To let him die on his own terms?

Lightning cracks. Thunder booms. In the brief flash of light, I spot something in the near distance flying toward us fast. Something large. Something deadly.

Another dragon.

Long-dormant Jewel instincts awaken inside me and scream at me to flee. To let go. To allow Bene—or Brisa—to spirit me back down to Spindleton on a gust of Air. Dragons mean death. They know nothing but how to conquer and claim. This new one will be no different.

I can flee to Cindralune with my family. I can change my name. I can mask my glow. I can pretend as if I am nothing more than a mere human. As if I know nothing of my true identity.

I do not have to be the daughter of Liora—the last living Jewel.

I do not have to be the Therya Drakara .

I do not have to face whatever comes next.

Mere moments ago, I was comforted by my new identity.

But now that the doubts have begun, they do not stop, as if some dark part of my heart desperately wants me to choose the coward's path.

Selfishness.

How am I supposed to be this powerful Jewel, and yet I cannot weave? How can I help Bene if I cannot even defend myself? I cannot do anything .

Liora’s prophecy clearly wasn’t meant for me.

It was meant for some other Jewel.

A Jewel long since dead and buried.

“Go,” Bene whispers to me, his voice breaking even within my thoughts. Flattening his wings against his sides, he plummets back toward the earth, taking me with him.

I swallow down my scream as we approach Spindleton at record speed, narrowly avoiding another projectile that zips past. “You must go. Now. Before it is too late.”

His thoughts quiver, swiftly fracturing beneath the great burden he carries. Beneath the curse twisting his heart. Beneath the Shade whispering to his soul.

“Bene!” Velda calls out over the latest boom of thunder. “We must leave Spindleton! It is not safe for the people here!”

“Go!” he snarls, flinging his wings wide to slow our fall and draw us up short. More cords of Air whip around my waist, seeking to pry me from his back. “It will be a short fall. Thalra, Na’therya. Na velar sha. Tir’anor. We will be together again one day. At the Eternal Springs.”

A sob catches in my throat. My Draconic fails me. I can’t make sense of Bene’s parting words. Naei, I whisper across the bond. No, I can’t. Even though I so desperately want to run. Even though fresh waves of fear seek to choke me with every ragged breath I take.

I still can’t bear to leave him now. To let him shatter beneath this burden alone.

With an effort, I silence the fearful part of me. The part that wants nothing more than to be a coward and flee.

Seventeen years I have known Benevolence of House Radiata, and if I know one thing about him, it is this:

If our roles were reversed, he would never leave me to suffer. Not even if the stars fell from the heavens. Not even if the earth opened up and tried to swallow us whole. He would be there. The moment I needed him. The moment I called.

“ Naei !” I shout again, this time aloud. Tightening my grip on the harness, hunching my shoulders against the Air trying to rip me from his back, I will myself to be strong for him now. He has saved me once already this night.

I will stay with him, through whatever comes next.

In the hope I will be able to play whatever part my birth mother foresaw in her vision.

In the hope that I will now be able to save him.

“Na sol Therya’kai.”

A defiant roar splits the heavens in reply to my words. But it is not a roar that originates from my dragon. It comes from the other.

The one flying straight toward us.