Page 94 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
“My darling,” dream Bene greets me as real Bene never would, breathless, exuberant. His face descends toward mine, warm lips brushing kisses against my brow, my cheeks. “You’re here. You’re truly here.”
I bask in the attention, choking on more sobs as he kisses away my every tear, as he carries me toward some grotesque tree with an oily black trunk and gangly limbs and settles beneath its boughs with me tucked in his lap.
At last, my mind gives me a good dream. Despite the horrific details, at least I am with my dragon king.
“Na’therya,” he whispers, holding me close, stroking his hands down my back in soothing caresses. “My beautiful, clever queen.”
My face nestles against his neck, trying to breathe him in. But all I smell is more decay.
“Are you well?” dream Bene asks, a note of worry threading through his voice. “Is he hurting you? Is Velda still with you? What is going on out there?”
Gently, he lifts my face back toward his, allowing me to see that his features are now twisted with despair. “I feel so helpless here,” he softly confesses. His fingers curve around my cheek, making me shiver beneath the brush of his thumb against my skin. “But I won’t stop trying to break free from this wretched prison. I won’t stop trying to come back to you. Not until I finally fade from this world.”
A tremulous smile curves my lips when I whisper back to him, “I flew, Bene.” Finally, I can tell him, even if it is only like this—a mere dream. “I almost made it to you, too, before Malice’s goblins caught me.”
The stroking of his thumb ceases. “You wove Air?”
I nod, fighting to control my excitement.
A smile brightens his face. “You wove! Oh, how wonderful you are.” He echoes those words from our childhood, plucking at my heartstrings. “But I always knew you could. And believing you can is the first step to weaving.”
Soft globes of light suddenly flicker in my peripheral vision, barely there. The voices from before float closer, bringing with them a barrage of questions:
“Where is Velda?”
“What is happening?”
“How are you here?”
Bene’s face contorts. “Can I not have a single moment of privacy?” he asks the floating lights before his attention returns to me, his mood now one of exasperation. “Even here it seems we cannot be alone.” He huffs out a breath. “If only it were as easy to slip about unseen now as it was when we were reckless children.”
I answer without thinking, “Oh, I have had plenty of dreams in which we were alone now that we are older.”
And suddenly, dream Bene is staring at me with such intensity that I forget how to breathe. His eyes smolder against mine. His hold on me tightens. For a single, heart-racing moment, I almost dare to believe he might be about to kiss me as he so often has in other dreams of mine.
But this time, my mind disappoints me.
This Bene merely draws in a shaky breath, clears his throat, and changes the subject. “What happened after the goblins caught you?”
My happiness slowly dies, smoldering away to ash as I explain, “Malice bound my ankles. I am confined to my room now. He allows me no food, only water. The goblins say he is punishing me… and he has Velda.”
The growl that erupts from my dragon king vibrates through my chest.
“I just… despise him so much,” I softly continue. “I cannot stand to be near him. I cannot stand to feel him looking at me. I hate what he did to you and your aunties.” Lifting my eyes to Bene’s own, I whisper, feeling lost, “But I feel like I need to… to be kinder to him all the same if I hope to ever leave my room again. Or he will continue to punish me until it is too late. But how can I possibly treat him with anything other than contempt?”
One of the other voices cuts in, crisp and matter-of-fact: “Hatred is a festering wound that only harms us rather thanthe person we hate. Malice will receive his judgment in the end. Hate his wickedness, if you must. Reject his attempts to feed your Shade. Guard your heart and mind against him. But we must not hate the person beneath the wickedness—the tortured soul that screams for redemption. The Great Weaver bids us to, as difficult as it may be, do our best to love him as we must love all our enemies.”
The other voice makes an audible sound of disgust. Even Bene rumbles with some unspoken thought. But he does not contradict the voice. He does not speak at all. He merely strokes his fingers through the tangled ends of my hair, dutifully trying to set the mussed strands to right.
“You act as if there is anything left to redeem, Glorana—”
“Well, that is not for me to decide, is it?”
What a strange dream.
“Bene,” I whisper, my hand lifting to cup his cheek.
He pauses in his attempts to finger-comb my hair and fixes me with his gloriously blue eyes again. “Yes, Na’therya?”
