Page 32 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

Aurelia

I t takes longer than I expect to wash and dress myself, even with Velda’s help, but once I am finally following the brown goblin down the dark corridors of what was once my home, I realize the purpose of the magic woven through my mother’s gown.

Though the garment should be heavy beneath the weight of so many gems, it is feather-light against my skin. Though it should be terribly impractical within the cold walls of what I now know is Umbra Castle, I am warm.

Velda’s voice seeps into my thoughts, carried on a delicate thread of Mind.

“You should have told me about your leg so we could clean it earlier,” she chides me for not the first time from wherever she now darts about unseen within the castle, desperately hunting for any sign of Bene, Brisa, and Glorana.

“What are we supposed to do if it festers?”

I draw in a deep breath, taking care to favor my right leg despite the weave of Mind Velda placed around my left to mask the worst of the pain. I’m fine , I think to myself, wondering if she can hear me as Bene did when our minds were linked.

In the silence that follows, I can only assume she cannot.

I turn my attention back to the goblin shuffling before me, his long arms dragging on the floor as he walks. With each step, quiet grunts and groans escape from him, as if even moving is a chore for his gnarled body.

Though I feel as if I should be afraid of him, it is hard to feel fear now that I see what a pitiful creature he truly is.

“What is your name?” I ask.

The creature draws to a pause before another set of double doors.

“My name?” he croaks, looking at me over a hunched shoulder.

Clawed hands push the strands of his oily hair—what hair he has left—from his face while he clearly thinks.

“Once I believe I was called Rowan, Therya’fey .

But now…” His features pinch as he turns back toward the doors.

“Now, I am called Grime when I am called anything at all.”

I frown down at him. “Why are you no longer called Rowan?”

Before he can answer me, the doors clatter open of their own accord with such force that they slam against the walls, revealing a dimly lit chamber filled to the brim with more goblins.

Goblins with fangs. Goblins with wings. Some hang from the chandelier like bats, their large, round eyes fixated on me.

Others crowd into the corners of the room, their heads craning to get a better look as I stand there, frozen in the doorway.

My heart hammers wildly against my ribs as, for a single moment, I fear Malice’s threat wasn’t empty at all. But then I spot him sitting at the end of the long table set for two that rests in the very center of the room. Lounging in a throne turned mere dining chair.

My mother’s throne. I know it instinctively for what it is the moment I see the flower-wreathed sun carved into the back of it.

“You have kept me waiting, Lady Aurelia,” Malice booms across that great distance. Though the dim light leaves his face in shadow, it is easy enough to hear the irritation in his voice. “And now our supper is cold.”

Steeling my resolve, I curl my hands into fists, grounding myself with the feel of my fingernails biting into my palms. For Bene . I journey into the lion’s den for Bene.

Rowan scuttles out of the way, allowing me to step into the room. I force any hint of a limp from my gait as I stride forward, making for the table.

“I do believe you are in my seat, Lord Malice,” I call back, earning a round of hoots from the goblins watching.

A thread of Fire arcs toward me—a single tongue of flame that laps the air in a wave of hungry heat.

Panic seizes my heart as I dive out of the way of its path and stumble into a wall of waiting goblins.

The creatures screech with surprise, their voices rasping discordantly in my ears.

Their gnarled bodies jostle against me, cold and clammy.

I swallow down my scream of horror and twitch away from them, refusing to let Malice see my fear.

“Forgive me,” he purrs as that thread of Fire veers back toward the table and skips down its length, lighting a line of candles along the way to illuminate the curve of his smile. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

Clenching my jaw, I cautiously approach the table once more.

Malice continues, “But as for the matter of who should be sitting where…” He slaps his left thigh in clear invitation. “You are welcome to share this one with me.”

“I would rather rot,” I hiss, surprising even myself with the venomous quality of my tone. If my goal is truly to weasel information out of him regarding where he is keeping Bene, as Velda and I agreed while I was preparing for this farce of a meal, I am already off to a terrible start.

Malice’s smile dies. With a twitch of his fingers, he uses a strand of Air to wrench back the chair on the opposite end of the table, pulling it out for me. “How disappointing,” he drawls, his tone once again cool. Detached.

My back rigid, I slip into the offered seat and study the plate before me. Gravy-soaked cuts of meat nestle alongside roasted root vegetables, making my stomach traitorously rumble.

For all of Malice’s talk of supper being cold, steam still rises from the dish.

“What is this?” I ask, trailing a cautious look about the room. I saw no wildlife as we were flying into the Shadow Lands. And I cannot imagine the dragon sitting across from me keeping livestock. Which could only mean—

“It’s not goblin if that is what you are truly asking,” Malice interjects before my mind can spiral further, earning a cackle from one such creature hanging from the chandelier. “It is venison.”

My skin prickles with the weight of so many eyes boring into me as I reach for the knife and fork resting next to the plate.

Is this all a trap? Some game Malice seeks to play with me?

I watch out of the corner of my eye, waiting until I see him take a bite before I finally relent and cut off a small piece for myself to try.

It is delicious.

“You know,” he observes, watching me as I chew, “you’re taking this all surprisingly well.”

“Am I?” I personally would not consider fainting, freezing in the face of danger, and allowing myself to be captured twice well , but what do I know?

Goodness, was that truly only yesterday?

I frown, looking back Malice’s way. “What day is it?”

He stares at me, his face utterly devoid of expression. Within the light cast by the candles and the dim chandelier hanging overhead, his face adopts a skeletal appearance—his eyes sunken, his cheeks hollow. “I brought you home this morning.”

A full day. I have already lost a full day. But hopefully, Velda is having more luck than I am at discovering where Bene is.

Even if I glean nothing from this conversation, I can still be a distraction.

Malice’s voice slices through my thoughts, drawing me back to the present. “Do you know what I think?”

“I get the feeling you are going to tell me whether I want to know or not,” I manage to utter before the candles atop the table flicker. One sputters out.

A slam reverberates through the room as the table shortens, drawing me that much closer to Malice, where he still sits, unmoving, unblinking, staring at me.

My fork clatters to my plate, forgotten, when the table shortens again.

And then again. And then again until there is only one candle between us.

Until his knees brush against mine beneath the table.

I flinch back, my heart racing, my breath hitching.

This is impossible. Malice cannot weave Earth. He cannot make and unmake.

It is only an illusion , I remind myself, trying to pierce through the veil of Mind that must be shimmering between us, making it seem like he is suddenly so near.

Too near.

“I think there is a part of you that revels in your newfound otherness. A part of you that delights in now knowing that you are special,” he whispers, his voice cast low—intimate within our new close quarters.

“Because I think, deep down, for all your pining after my nephew, you are more like me than him.”

I recoil from his words, my pride smarting. “I am nothing like you.”

A hint of a smile toys at the corner of his mouth as he tilts his head to the side. “Are you not?”

Suddenly, I am seeing double. My right eye still lies to me, showing me Malice as he wishes to be perceived—sitting near, leaning close. My left shows me the truth: that the table remains its normal length, that my captor still sits on the opposite side of the room.

“You see?” His voice unfurls against my ear in a warm caress of breath.

I shudder and try to swat his latest Air weave away. “Don’t do that.”

“You see me, Lady Aurelia,” he proclaims, abruptly shoving his chair back from the table and rising to his feet. “It has been many years since I last had to actually try .”

I gasp as the world tilts, as the floor dissolves beneath me, leaving me tumbling through darkness. The dimly lit chamber fades. The goblins melt away. Even Malice disappears.

Before I can catch my breath, I tumble into another world—a world of soft music and glittering lights.

A magical fae ball.

I spin in a slow circle, in awe as I drink in the sight of utter beauty before me.

Alabaster marble gleams all around rather than the dark stone of Umbra Castle.

Pixies flit overhead, filling the air with the sound of their bright laughter.

Graceful elves with skin in soft, earthy hues dance together in time to the music, twirling like flower petals caught on a breeze.

A strong hand catches me around the waist and tugs me along, sweeping me into the steps of a stately waltz before I can stop it.

My heart skips a beat when I find myself staring up into the emerald eyes of Malice again. His free hand claims mine, keeping me fixed in place.

“How do you like this?” he whispers, the question but a mere breath shared between us.

I recoil from him yet again, detesting his nearness, his touch, struggling to escape. “I like it a good deal less now.”

His grip on me tightens. “Ah, but it is a test. Is it all false? Or is something here real?”

I tremble, my stomach roiling, as he shifts his hold on my waist, letting his hand drift further up my back. Until one of his fingers finally slips beneath the strands of beads draping my skin. Until, with the gentlest of touches, he strokes my bare flesh.

The touch is real. Though I cannot yet see through his illusion, I know that much.

Nausea washes over me.

I am going to be sick.

“Stop touching me,” I shout, prying myself from his arms. “Stop toying with me!”

Silver and gold threads of Mind and Spirit unravel around us, leaving the world flickering between glittering fae and cackling goblins. It is the raucous sound of the latter’s laughter that finally wrenches me back to the here and now, that finally grounds me in the present.

Malice looms over me, unsmiling, no longer on the opposite side of the room.

Just as I feared.

“And yet you have been toying with me since you first entered this room, Lady Aurelia,” he drawls, taking a single step closer.

“What?” Indignation rises to drown out my panic. I fall back, retreating toward the doors leading back out into the corridor, placing more distance between us again. “I have done nothing of the sort.”

His eyebrow arches. Ridiculously, he claims, “You flirt with me with nearly every other breath you take.”

I gape up at him, my jaw threatening to tumble all the way to the floor. “I would never .”

He speaks over me, completely ignoring my words. “And here I expected you to be rather meek after your performance last night.”

My danger sense spikes, screaming at me to run as Malice prowls closer by another step. But I don’t listen. I tense my muscles and root myself in place.

Bene , I remind myself. I must stay strong for Bene. I cannot keep fleeing. I must learn how to face this man. To beat him.

Lifting my chin, I suggest, “Give me a blade and I will show you how meek I can be.”

It is all a bluff. I have never wielded a weapon in my life. Not that it matters.

My threat clearly has the exact opposite effect from the one I intend.

Malice smiles, flashing his sharp canines. “Do not tempt me with a good time, my lady.”

And with those words, something within me snaps—my courage.

Without another thought, without another moment’s hesitation, I turn and run.

Out the doors. Into the hall.

As fast as my legs can carry me.

Shame seeps into my thoughts, blotting out all else as I fly down one corridor and then the next, already lost within these labyrinthine halls. Tears mist my vision, threatening to spill forth.

Is this how I intend to stay strong for Bene? By running like a frightened child?

My steps slow as, even through Velda’s weave, I feel the pain pulsing through my wounded left leg. I should not be straining it so. I stop running completely and lean against one of the windowsills.

Cold night air spills in through the broken glass, sweeping over me and bringing me back to myself. Swallowing hard, I blink back my tears before they have a chance to fall.

I will shed not a single tear for Malice, the false king.

He is not worth the effort.

Leaning my forehead against the stone wall, I blearily gaze out upon the lifeless landscape of the Shadow Lands. What am I supposed to do now?

As if in answer, a silver light flashes in the distance, drawing my gaze.

“ Therya’kai !” Velda’s voice suddenly explodes within my mind. “Come quickly! I’ve found them!”

My heart races as I push myself from the wall, hardly daring to hope this nightmare might soon be over. But just as the first flicker of doubt passes through my mind, Velda’s voice comes again.

So excited, so sure, she confidently declares:

“I’ve found Bene!”