Page 77 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
It feels as if the answer is obvious, but I hardly dare hope. Not after so many years of wishing Bene and I could be more. Not after so many years of Bene insisting that I am his dearest friend.
Surely, that can mean only one thing: he saved me because he loves me. As a friend.
And because I am fated to be his queen.
Velda misjudges my prolonged silence. “You should get some rest,” she softly urges. “We can speak more once you have slept.”
“No,” I say with more authority than I feel. “I can’t sleep now. I need you to teach me all I will need to know to escape this place. To find Bene. To save him.” My fingers twist in the ruined skirts of my gown, long since dried from the rain but ruined beyond all hope. “I must learn how to weave. I must…” I wet my lips. “I must learn what it means to be aTherya’kai.”
A small smile curves Velda’s lips as she drifts closer to me until her silvery form fills my vision. “It will be my honor to serve as yourKavreth’vor—your Wisdom-Bearer—and help you become the queen you were always meant to be.” She hesitates. “… After you have gotten some rest. Please. You will need your strength for what is to come next.”
She’s right. I know she’s right.
But guilt still oozes its way into my heart when I finally relent and lie back on the soft mattress. Something within my pocket crinkles.
“I will only sleep for a little while,” I concede as I reach into my pocket and pull forth the letter hidden within: Bene’s letter.
“You will sleep for as long as you need,” Velda counters.
“But…” I trail off, my fingers trembling as I unfold the old missive. Rain and river water have damaged it beyond repair, the words now blurred across the parchment so that I can no longer read them. Only Bene’s closing line and signature are still legible. But those, I know by heart.
Faithfully Yours, Bene.
My throat suddenly thick, I whisper, “… Bene needs us.”
“A man does not thirst to death in a single day.” My pixie companion sounds quite far away now when she solemnly adds, “We have, the Great Weaver willing, anywhere from three days to a week to find him and my sisters before we can assume the worst.”
Three days.
I have but three days to learn all that I need to learn, to escape Malice, to find Bene.
To save him.
“Velda?” I prompt as she pulls a blanket over me, gently tucking me in as Mama always used to do when I was younger. I roll to my side, Bene’s ruined letter resting against my cheek.
Strangely, it brings me comfort.
“Hmm?”
“What does…selira feyramean?”
“It means ‘pretty fae,’” Velda answers without a moment’s hesitation. “Why do you ask?”
Despite my current predicament, I still must resist the urge to laugh.
Bene always told me it meant “sweet friend.”
“No reason,” I mumble as sleep finally claims me, tugging me under into a tumultuous fever dream.
A dream filled with storm-choked skies, wilting roses, and thorny brambles that stretch as far as the eye can see.
Chapter 23
Benevolence
The sweet smell of decay chokes my senses, drowning out all else. It is so potent that I cannot even smell Aurelia’s intoxicating scent.
Aurelia.
