Page 1 of I Dream of Dragons

PROLOGUE

I loved a boy once. Gray-eyed. Golden-haired. With a big smile and a bright light in his gaze.

He’d come down to the river shore every day and hold my hand as we watched the colorful dragons dance against the sky.

One day, he said, “Some souls cross the veil between the worlds before death when their purpose is greater than their own life. I’d go through death for you, to find you wherever you are. And if this world hurts you, I’d tear it down for you. I’d break the sky to pieces and carry you away, take you someplace where we could be together.”

“We could be together now,” I said. “Right here.”

Everything had felt light and bright then. Everything had seemed possible.

“We…” He faltered. “We can’t. This won’t last. Trust me. I can’t…”

“Mars. What’s wrong?” I nudged him but he said nothing. So I tried to tease him. “I don’t know you well. How can I trust you?”

He thumped his chest with one hand and grinned. “Friend. Trust.”

I snickered. “I see.”

“You do know me,” he said. “Have known me for months now. I didn’t just fall out of the sky.”

“Of course not.”

I imagine him streaking across the metal firmament, bright as a falling star, like the sparkling debris falling from time to time when the Eosphors shuffle across the sky. A star. Yet human.

Or so I thought.

“You could feed me,” he’d suggest. “Check that I’m human. Some of that pie your mother baked for you would do fine as a test.”

I would laugh. My mom never cooked, and he knew that. He knew I was a princess from the top of the hill, albeit from an old family whose only riches comprised the old palace and the quiet time we spent as a family during meals.

“I don’t need to feed you to know that.”

“I’m hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

“As a sign of goodwill, then. For a friend.”

“Just a friend?”

Gods, I was coy. I flirted. I was almost a woman by then, and he was almost a man, tall, lanky, the muscles in his arms defined, his jaw square and starting to darken with stubble.

He brought me out of my shell, out of the old library in which I liked to spend my days, reading and losing myself in the pages of crumbling books. Suddenly, to my parents’ shock, I craved to be outdoors, running through meadows to reach the riverside where I knew I’d often find him.

“One day I’ll put my mark on you, Little Thorn,” he’d say, smiling, “and you will put yours on me. We’ll taste each other’s blood, and seal our love. We won’t need to exchange vows. You will know, and I will know, that this was meant to be. Thatwewere meant to be. Together.”

He’d ensnared my heart. It was his to do with as he willed. A poor orphan boy dreaming of dragons, and a broke princess dreaming of love. Could we be together? Nothing seemed impossible back then.

Like I said, I thought he was human. As it turns out, he was something else entirely.

A fae and a prince.

Now a king.

Back then, I never knew. He never said. I still wonder how he hid his true nature. There was so much I didn’t know, so much I couldn’t imagine.

How everything could change in the blink of an eye. How I could lose my reason of living and all that brought me joy.