Page 9 of Dreams and Dragon Wings (Clean Fairytales for Adults #2)

My heart catches in my throat. I am on my feet in the next moment, reaching for the vision before me. I know her before her eyes lock with mine. I know her even though it has been twelve years since last I saw her face.

I would know her anywhere.

She is my first thought every morning.

My last thought every evening.

“Aurelia.” Her name is but a breath on my lips as I stare into eyes the color of the clearest summer sky and try not to weep. My hands reach for her; they try to cup her cheeks.

But my fingers pass straight through her.

“Naei,” I whisper, shaking my head. “She is my undoing. I am her death. She cannot be the key to saving Drakara.” I deny it hotly. “I will not endanger her now. Not after all these years of keeping her safe.”

The vision ripples, shifting.

“Bene,” the apparition of Aurelia before me gasps, pain seeping through each syllable, breaking my heart all over again. A tear escapes from the corner of her eye. “You promised you would come for me…”

Agony lances through my chest, white-hot. I blink away my own tears, fighting against them. “I’m sorry, selira feyra ,” I try to apologize, though words are not enough. They can never be enough.

But the rest of my words die on my tongue when golden threads of Spirit arc toward her from somewhere I cannot see. I have no time to warn her before they wrap around her beautiful throat and snap taut.

“ Naei! Na’therya! ” I scream, lashing out at the vision, trying to claw her free. I recognize the weave. It is forbidden magic—outlawed since the end of the first Jewel War. But it’s no use.

Helpless, I watch as the threads materialize into a golden collar attached to a chain. As they bind Aurelia to the wielder.

My inner dragon roars, desperate to be loosed, desperate to save his queen.

“What is this?” I shout, pacing in a tight circle around the vision before me as Aurelia cries out in pain while being wrenched to her knees, as if she is little more than a dog.

Who would dare ?

My body shakes. My muscles twitch. My soul screams.

All from a desire to shift, to take up the Corona, to rip open the Door and fly to her immediately.

“Is this a potential future?” I demand. “Or is this the present?”

It can’t possibly be the present. There are no magic wielders in Briarhold beyond her. There is no one there capable of binding her power to theirs.

There is no one there even capable of knowing what she truly is.

? There is Friedemar, ? the Aether reminds me.

I peel my lips back in a bestial snarl. “Friedemar is mere dragonkin. He cannot weave. He barely has enough blood to call himself kin .”

But the Aether is right. Friedemar would know what Aurelia is if he ever caught her scent, just as I knew the first time we met.

But how would he ever meet her?

Spindleton is five times the size of the Aerie. Aurelia is considered a disgraced woman in their pitiful human society. She would have no reason to be near their worthless king .

“And even if she did,” I reason aloud, “she knows better than to remove her amulet. It will keep her safe. It will mask her scent.”

My God takes mercy on me. The vision of Aurelia bound and in pain melts away.

But it is soon replaced by another vision entirely—by the sight of a beautiful lady in rose silk stepping out of a carriage, aided by a footman wearing blue and gold livery.

I forget how to breathe as I stare at her, glorious as she is. The sunset catches against her hair, lending it a fire-kissed sheen. But more importantly, it illuminates the pink diamonds sparkling about her throat where my amulet should be.

I know this vision is the present.

I don’t know how I do, but I do.

But still, I shake my head. Still, I whisper, “ Naei .”

Parchment crinkles against my fingers, and I look down to find myself now gripping a letter. One of Aurelia’s letters. I recognize her handwriting immediately.

With trembling fingers, I break the wax seal and unfold it.

By the light of the torches ringing the Corona Ignis, I read:

My Dearest Benevolence,

I fear this must be goodbye.

Tonight, King Friedemar is hosting a ball in the hopes of finding himself a wife, and I plan to attend. Though I grow older and more unwanted by Spindleton society every year, perhaps I might yet find some joy tonight in dancing again.

This will be my last letter. It would be cruel to force my future husband to compete with the ghost of a boy I once knew. But I will cherish our friendship always.

Goodbye, Bene.

I wish you well.

The letter slips from my fingers as the change comes upon me hot and fast. My skin melts away, shifting to hard scale. My bones twist. My body lengthens. All thoughts of war—of Malice—are scorched into nothing in the next moment as I stand before the Corona in my dragon form.

Aurelia is walking straight into death’s jaws, not even knowing the danger that awaits her.

A roar bursts from my chest, raw and primal. As if in reply, white-hot flames erupt around the Corona’s base, ringing the crown in fire. The long-dormant relic is awake.

Never before have I stood so close to the Corona Ignis. Not since my father still lived.

But back then, it was his to bear.

Now, it calls to me. It whispers. It tempts .

And as I stare into the depths of the flames, a hunger I have always feared sparks to life deep in my soul. The very hunger my uncle promised would consume me in the end.

A hunger born of my Shade.

Greed . It is every dragon’s burden to bear—that desire for more than we are given. The desire to conquer. To hoard. But for a Dragon King, the burden is magnified a hundredfold.

For only we are entrusted with power beyond all imagining.

For only we can bear the Corona Ignis.

Possibilities pulse all around me, as thick and endless as the threads of magic weaving through the air. They serenade me with their siren’s song. No magic would be beyond me if I only took up the Corona. If I only claimed it for my own.

With it, I could do anything . Before my uncle’s curse destroyed me completely.

? You must choose. ?

Those three words boom through my mind, tolling with all the finality of a death knell. But I already know what I must do before the Aether speaks. My choice was made for me long ago.

It was made for me seventeen years ago when a precious girl gifted me a single pink rose and bid me never to forget her.

As if any dragon could ever forget his drakira .

As if any man could ever forget the woman fated to be his undoing.