Page 5 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
His demeanor turned urgent again as he swiftly explained, “There is a fairy circle in the woods bordering your cottage, beneath the old oak. Leave your letter within it, and the fairy magic will do the rest.”
“But will you write back?” I asked, clinging to his hand to hold him in place for just a moment longer.
“Of course.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise,” he vowed.
The voices were very close now, and Benevolence released my hand and again turned to leave. But then he hesitated and looked back at me with an uncertainty that made him suddenly seem like just a boy, despite all his talk of dragons and princes.
“Do you promise to write me back when I write you back?” He sounded so vulnerable in that moment that I couldn’t help but smile.
“Yes!” Stroking the smooth, shiny skin of my freshly healed finger, I promised, “I’ll write every week.”
A smile broke across his face like the rising dawn. Clutching my rose against his chest as if it were the most precious gift in the world, he launched himself back over the hedge and disappeared into the woods as swiftly as he had first arrived.
Like the most wonderful dream.
The sort of dream from which I never hoped to wake.
Chapter 2
Benevolence
Now
Istroke the ring housed on my left hand—on my first finger rather than my third, where I wish it rested. It is a terribly simple piece of jewelry, woven from nothing more than golden hair and threads of Earth to preserve its shape always.
But it is also the most precious thing I own.
My councilors continue to talk around me, but it’s difficult to focus. To listen. It’s her thirtieth birthday today.Ourthirtieth birthday today.
I wonder if she’s yet visited the fairy circle. I wonder if my latest present was enough to make her smile. I would do anything to make her smile.
Anything beyond donning the Corona Ignis and opening the Door to see her again.
I don’t dare risk it.
To be in her presence now that she’s grown—now that she’s come into her power as a full-fledged Jewel—would spell tragedy for us both.
“Theryni, forgive me, but are you listening?”
Lord Justice’s voice slices through my thoughts, wrenching me back to the present. I meet his steel-hued eyes and arch my eyebrow. Justice is the commander of my armies, just as he was the commander of my father’s armies.
But his love for me grows thin.
Auntie Brisa bristles and flits forward in a blur of blue, threads of Fire, Air, and Water weaving together into a miniature storm that wreathes her form with arcs of lightning. “That isTheryn’kaito you, my lord.”
“Technically speaking,” Auntie Glorana interjects, green sparkles trailing from her wings, “Lord Justice is correct. Prince Benevolence will only be king once he takes up the Corona Ignis and is deemed worthy of wearing it.”
Auntie Velda remains hovering at my shoulder—as constant as the small moon that she resembles—and murmurs, “We all know why His Highness has not yet done so.”
The day grows late, afternoon bleeding into evening. Beyond the grand stone archways leading out into the open air, I spy many of my subjects winging through the skies far above the spires of our home. They are excited to celebrate my birthday tonight.
I never celebrate my birthday. But this year, Velda insisted. She probably thinks a night of revelry with my courtiers will be enough to take my mind off Aurelia.
She’s wrong.
