Page 23 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
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 tryto apologize, though words are not enough. They canneverbe 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 woulddare?
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 himselfkin.”
But the Aether is right. Friedemarwouldknow 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 worthlessking.
“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 knowthisvision 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,
