Page 4 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

Benevolence

Sixteen Years Ago

I was being “foolhardy.” That is what Auntie Velda would have said if she knew what I was up to. And she would have been right.

But as I raced through the Door into the human world, flying low to the ground in hopes of avoiding detection, I didn’t think about that. I didn’t care.

I had one mission and one alone—seeing her again. The girl fated to be my Therya’kai .

But I had to be back before dawn. No one could know where I had gone. If Mother found out, she would be furious.

If Father found out, he would have Aurelia executed.

Aurelia .

Even the thought of her name was enough to send a trill of excitement dancing through me. What were the odds of me stumbling upon the last living Jewel?

Auntie Glorana would have known. She always knew those sorts of things.

But I hadn’t dared tell her—or Brisa or Velda for that matter—what I had found just outside Spindleton last year.

They would have fretted.

They would have warned me never to return.

Velda might have even tried to place a Mind weave on me to obscure my memory of just where the little cottage was, so I couldn’t find it again.

It was their duty as my Kavreth’vorar —my Wisdom-Bearers—to guide me in such matters, to help shape me into the king I was born to be, to protect me from all things until such a time as I could protect myself.

But I had to find the cottage again. I had to see her again.

It didn’t make sense. I should be avoiding her like the death sentence she was.

But there I was, desperate to be near her all the same.

My heart thundered against my rib cage as I carefully landed beneath the trees bordering her home. Journeying into the human world without the express permission of my father was forbidden. Breaking my promise of never and coming to see the very girl destined to destroy me was unwise.

But the words written in her last letter burned a hole in my heart, driving me onward.

Is it silly that I miss you? she had penned in her careful, swooping hand.

Naei . It wasn’t silly.

Even knowing what she was—even knowing the dark destiny hanging over our heads like an executioner’s blade—I missed her, too.

I shifted back into my human form just as I came upon the edge of the garden. The cottage looked just as I remembered it: the apple tree, the pink roses, the frayed lace curtains hanging in the windows. Those windows lay dark; the family within was probably long asleep.

Good . It was just after midnight, which meant it was officially her birthday. Our birthday.

And this time, I had brought a gift.

Leaping over the hedge, I crept closer to the little house and hunted for the scent that still haunted my dreams—that sweet, otherworldly aroma that clung to Aurelia like a perfume. It was faint now, only just barely perceptible.

I could only imagine how potent it would be when she came into her full power at eighteen.

My pulse raced all the faster as I tapped at her window. What if I woke her parents, too?

I had never done anything like this before. Sneaking out and visiting young ladies in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly a princely thing to do.

A sudden wave of guilt washed over me.

This was wrong. I knew this was wrong.

But for some reason I couldn’t explain, I simply had to see Aurelia again.

I couldn’t avoid it any more than I could avoid breathing.

When the curtain twitched aside to reveal her standing there with her golden hair rumpled and her sky-blue eyes bleary from sleep, my heart skipped a full beat. Especially when she looked at me like that—her eyes wide and her lips parted in a gasp of surprise.

I stepped backward as she eased open the window.

“Your Highness,” she whispered, leaning against the windowsill. “Is that truly you?”

Sweeping into a bow, I pulled the aetherbloom I had found last week atop the mountains bordering my home from my pocket.

It grew only in the highest places, and its petals were a perfect mirror of the heavens, swirled with streaks of blue and gold alongside silver freckles that sparkled like starlight.

“In the flesh,” I confirmed, holding out the lily for her to take. Threads of Earth carefully encased each petal, preserving the flower for all eternity. So long as I lived, it would never wilt.

Just like the rose she had gifted me last year.

“Soryn-velar, selira feyra.” Happy birthday, pretty fae.

Cheeks glowing pink, she carefully took the flower from me. When her fingers brushed mine, a strange warmth stirred in my chest.

“Oh, Your Highness… how beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Bene,” I quietly insisted, holding out a hand to help her step out into the night. “Please, call me Bene.”

But when she merely stared at my outstretched hand with open confusion rather than take it, a hint of uncertainty coursed through me. Perhaps she wasn’t as excited to see me as I was to see her. Perhaps she didn’t want to spend more time in my company.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “I thought… perhaps… you might like to fly tonight, Miss Weaver?”

“Fly?” That word was but a breath shared between us. She looked past my shoulder, as if searching for something. “You mean… on you ?” A worried frown tugged at her lips. “In my nightgown?”

I bit back a chuckle. Retracting my hand, I unclasped the cloak draped over my shoulders and passed it through the open window so she could wear it instead.

Moments later, we stole through the garden together until we reached the hedge. Once at that barrier, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and leapt over the living wall, taking her with me.

She gasped against my ear. “How can you do that?”

“I’m a dragon,” I reminded her, fighting hard to hide my smile. “Now, are you ready? I can’t stay too long, but we should still be able to skim about the countryside—plenty of time for you to tell me about all that is new with you.”

Her laughter sparkled forth, airy and bright.

“I have nothing left to tell! I wrote it all in my letter yesterday. And besides, I’d much rather hear more about Drakara.

” By the light of the moon, I watched her eyes glitter with excitement.

“Your life is so much more exciting than mine. Mother and Father didn’t even believe me when I told them about the fairy circle or that I’m friends with the Prince of Drakara. ”

“Well, I…” Lifting a hand, I rubbed the back of my neck. “I can’t exactly speak to you while I’m in my dragon form…” I trailed off as the full weight of her latter words slammed into me.

Stunned, I asked, “You told your parents about me?”

Surprise flashed across her face. “You can’t speak to me while in your dragon form?”

I took a step closer, my muscles tight, my tone tense. “Did you tell your parents about me, Miss Weaver?”

Her brow furrowed. Her gaze searched mine. For a brief moment, something almost like hurt danced through her eyes. Softly—almost so softly I couldn’t hear—she asked, “Did you not tell your parents about me?”

Naei , I wanted to say. Of course not. I would be signing her death warrant if I did.

Father wouldn’t want to have her executed. I knew that. It was easy enough to see that the second Jewel War still weighed heavily on his heart.

But he would have no choice. Fear still choked his heart when it came to my future.

But she didn’t know about any of that.

She couldn’t know about that.

I changed the subject, circling back to our previous topic. “Well, I can speak in my dragon form, vaei , just not the Common tongue. I can speak Draconic, but you wouldn’t”—I gestured helplessly—“understand me.”

“Oh…” Her disappointment was the most bitter thing I had ever tasted, though it was difficult to ascertain just what had caused it:

The fact that dragon mouths weren’t made for handling Common.

Or the fact that I clearly hadn’t told my parents about her.

Regardless, the moment it washed over me, I scoured my mind for a way to make her smile again. “But I can always study Mind magic for next time,” I hastily reassured her.

Inwardly, I groaned. Mind magic was the second most difficult to master, right after Spirit. But Auntie Velda would be pleased by my sudden interest in the subject.

Mind was her specialty.

“That way,” I explained, “I could speak directly into your thoughts while we flew together.”

“Mind magic?” Aurelia echoed. Delight and wonder immediately returned to her features, sealing my fate. There was no way I couldn’t learn Mind magic now. “How many types of magic are there?”

I blinked away my initial confusion. “There are six elements with which we can weave: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Mind, and Spirit. Then there is a seventh—Aether—but we do not weave with that. The Great Weaver gifted them to us all when He made the world.”

To my eyes, it was easy enough to see the barely-there threads of magic shimmering all around us within the dark forest—green for Earth, blue for Water, gold for Spirit, purple for Air, red for Fire, and silver for Mind.

Aether had no color. One did not see it; they simply knew it was there.

Sometimes it even whispered the Great Weaver’s wisdom to those who believed in Him.

It surprised me to learn Aurelia couldn’t see the others, though. She was a Jewel, after all.

But perhaps she would only see them when she came into her power at eighteen.

“We don’t believe in your Great Weaver,” she quietly—almost apologetically—informed me. “Only the Three-Faced God.”

“I know.” Humans often had strange notions about very obvious truths. “But that doesn’t make what I just said any less true.”

Eyebrows raising, she asked out of nowhere, “Is there no dark magic, then?”

I recoiled from the very idea. “Absolutely not. All that the Great Weaver makes is good.”

There was the Shade, of course, but that wasn’t magic . It was just the potential for darkness that existed in the hearts of all sentient beings—humans, dragons, or fae.