Page 11 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
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—seeingheragain. The girl fated to be myTherya’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 ofmestumbling 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 myKavreth’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 Ihadto find the cottage again. I had to seeheragain.
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 ofneverand 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.Ourbirthday.
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 simplyhadto see Aurelia again.
