Page 34 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

I stare in wonder at the purple threads glittering close at hand, waiting for me to wield them further. Air . I’m weaving Air.

Disbelief courses through me as the truth slams home.

I saved me.

“Fly, Therya’kai !” Velda screams, her voice piercing my awe. “Fly!”

I glance upward just in time to see Malice slick his wings and dive straight toward me.

His maw opens.

His fangs gleam in the moonlight.

Fire gathers in his throat.

Without thinking, without questioning, I wrap the Air around my waist and gather it into my hands. Twisting it like rope. Pulling it taut.

And then?

Then I let go.

An exhilarated scream rips from my throat as I shoot off into the sky like a loosed crossbow bolt, my mother’s gown fluttering around me, Malice’s Fire careening harmlessly past. The ground falls away, the Shadow Lands but a mere blur of darkness and decay far below.

But even in the darkness, there is so much beauty.

Magic courses all around me, crackling against my skin, filling my vision with wondrous color. I thought I knew these threads. They have been my constant companions for the past twelve years.

But now, I finally see them as they truly are:

A promise of life. Of great possibility.

The Great Weaver’s gift to the world.

A roar shatters the air behind me, driving me onward. Higher I rise and higher still, straight up into the heavens where everything sparkles like crushed diamonds. Where the breath in my lungs is cold and crisp.

Air brushes against me like star-dusted silk as I linger up here, far above the world, basking in the awesome power of all that the Great Weaver has made.

I no longer care about the black-scaled dragon surging toward me with every beat of his wings. I no longer care about the muted pain throbbing through my left leg.

For once in my life, I’m not afraid of what might come next.

I am simply… happy.

I am free.

Beneath me, Drakara unfurls—a sumptuous tapestry of forests and fields, valleys and mountains, and far off in the distance to the southeast, a shimmer of something. A something that hooks deep in my soul.

That calls me home.

? Come. ?

I will, I promise. I will come to the Living Waters.

But I need something first:

Na’theryn.

Malice’s voice oozes across the edge of my consciousness, oily and slick, as he draws near to my lofty resting place. “What did you do to me, wench?” A growl thunders from his throat as if to punctuate his words. “Why can I not touch you?”

A laugh bubbles up from deep inside me as I meet his draconic gaze, his crimson eyes split by reptilian slits ablaze with his fury. Monstrous. Unsettling.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I whisper aloud a split second before I release my hold on the Air keeping me there in the sky.

Before I tumble back toward the earth.

Back toward Bene.

Bene, I’m flying!

That is what I want to scream as I fall, as the wind tangles in my hair, as Umbra Castle rushes closer. If only my dragon king could see me now. We could fly together. We could dance in the Drakaran way.

Even though I am no dragon. Even though I have no wings.

I do not need wings.

“Velda!” I call out as I near the tower.

I gather the Air in tight and slip along it like a ship riding the waves, my eyes scouring the darkness for any flicker of silver. I need her to free Bene. She said it herself—we must work together.

But I no longer see her. I no longer see her anywhere.

“Velda!”

A blur of shadow flies toward me from my left and slams into me hard, sending me tumbling. Spinning. My hands scrabble for the glittering lavender threads of my weave, trying to pull them tight again. Panic spikes in my heart.

I need to get out of here.

Before I can, another shadow flits close and barrels into me, driving me away from the tower. Coarse, clammy skin makes me shudder. Clawed hands pawing at my mother’s gown turn my stomach.

“Stop!” I shout as more winged goblins descend and seize me about my arms, my legs, acting as living weights to pull me toward the ground.

No .

Swallowing down my rising fear, fighting to infuse more authority into my voice, I shout again, “I said stop !” But this time, they do not shrink back from me as Rowan and the other goblin did when I commanded them to do something.

This time, they ignore me completely as they drag me down to the weed-choked courtyard and pin me to the cold stones. Six goblins in total stare down at me with their too-large eyes as I thrash against their hold, their leathery wings flapping excitedly.

“Foolish woman,” Malice snarls, the thud of his boots against the flagstones the only warning I receive before he is there, looming over me. His eyes are once again emerald, but no less unsettling as he stares at me like he's trying to drill a hole through my skull.

I draw in a deep breath through my mouth, not wanting to fill my nose with the stink of goblin—and him . But before I can exhale, before I can use the Air to fling the whole lot of them off of me, Malice lifts his hand to reveal the sight of Velda there, imprisoned in a cage of Spirit.

“Which would you prefer?” he asks, cold and matter-of-fact. “That you do what you are about to do? Or that your little friend lives?”

Weakly, Velda whispers, “Do what you must, Therya’kai .”

The bars around her cage dissolve, leaving her tumbling into Malice’s palm. He grasps her by the wings and holds her aloft, dangling her over the goblins pinning me down. The monsters writhe with excitement at the prospect.

“Who is hungry for pixie?” His eyes meet mine, challenging me to call his bluff.

Except I know there is no bluff.

He means every word.

And now he has the perfect hostage to ensure I bend to his whims.

“No,” I whisper, horror and disgust warring for supremacy within my heart.

“What was that?” he taunts, giving Velda a little shake.

My heart seizes when one goblin leaps up and snaps at the air just beneath her feet.

“I said no!” I scream, the words booming from my throat on a thread of Air, sending the goblins shrieking and flinching away from me. At last, I am free once again—free enough to shove myself into a sitting position, at least.

But it makes no difference.

I can go nowhere so long as he has Velda.

A small smile flits across Malice’s lips—there and gone in the span of a single heartbeat. “Good,” he exhales, returning Velda to her Spirit cage. “I am glad we understand one another.”

But then his smile fades. Frozen fury takes its place.

“Ghoul! Grime!” he shouts, his voice cracking across the courtyard.

When the green-skinned goblin from earlier and Rowan shuffle forward, answering the call, he spears them with a displeased look.

“I want her back in her room and bound in chains,” Malice hisses, so steeped in his anger that I see the cracks now marring his confident facade.

The false king knows fear.

“Do you hear me?” he shouts at his minions. “She will have no food and no water until I say. She will remain bound until I say.” Turning his gaze upon me, he adds, dark and low, “You will learn to obey me if you ever wish to see the light of day again.”

A humorless smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. There are so many things I wish to say, but dare not. Not while he has Velda. Not while he may yet feed her to one of his goblin horde.

As if sensing my desire to speak, he leans a little closer, still without touching me. Still without invading my space.

“Tell me,” he whispers, his gaze flicking downward. “How is your leg?”

My mouth goes dry. “It’s fine,” I lie, but clearly not convincingly enough.

Pain returns to me in full force as, with a twitch of his fingers, Malice rips Velda’s Mind weave free from my wounded leg like a man ripping a bloodied bandage from a gaping wound. A cry escapes me unbidden, leaving Malice smiling like a cat that has cornered an injured bird.

“That’s what I thought.”