Page 119 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
“And here I thought you would be an unwilling bride.” He reaches toward me with a single hand, trying to capture my fingers in his skeletal grasp. “But if you are so eager…”
My skin crawls. My breath hitches. I cannot bear the thought of him touching me. I am tired of men touching me without my permission.
Never again.
Without a word, I twirl away from him and forge deeper into the ballroom. He laughs again as if this is all a game, his gaze following me as I drift amongst the dancers.
“I see you have brought your personality tonight,” he calls out after me. “But you cannot elude me forever,na’drakira.”
As if to prove his point, he appears before me in the very next moment, blocking my way forward. I swallow my gasp of surprise and look away, feigning disinterest.
A woman utterly bored by his antics.
His gaze ticks downward, studying the floor by my feet. “Who removed your chains?” he asks, his tone casual enough, his expression equally bored. But I still plainly hear the unspoken threat lingering beneath. I taste the spark of his anger waiting to further ignite.
“I did,” I whisper, watching him sidelong. “I grew tired of them.”
A brief flicker of emotion plays across his sharp features. Annoyance? Amusement?
It is impossible to say.
“I suppose that means you’ve healed your leg, too,” he observes, his head canting to the side. I force myself to stand firm beneath his fresh scrutiny. “What a pity,” he exhales, as if in an attempt to be alluring.
The very idea twists my stomach. I want to flee from this man. I want to cast a cone of Air at him and send him shooting off into the night. But I cannot. Not yet.
First, I must play the part. The very part he has always secretly wanted me to play—
A woman after his twisted husk of a heart.
Twitching away from him, I sneer, “Youboreme.” My Mind weave snaps into place in the next moment, hiding my thoughts and the frenetic beating of my heart.
Malice recoils immediately, his eyebrows raising. “I beg your pardon?”
“All these cheap attempts at seduction,” I hiss, infusing as much venom into my voice as I can. “All theseridiculousillusions of yours.” I turn my back on him and scoff, as if the enormous ballroom yawning all around us is worthy of naught but my disdain. “Theyboreme.”
For the span of a breath, the illusion wavers. I catch a glimpse of Umbra Castle beyond, of large goblin eyes watching me from the shadows.
I blink, and the draconic ballroom returns. The air behind me shifts. Malice’s presence looms closer.
“I am the most powerful weaver in all of Drakara, girl,” he rasps, a warning edge seeping into every syllable. “Nothing I weave is everridiculous.”
“The most powerful weaver in all of Drakara?” I echo, my Mind weave masking the tremble in my voice. Here I stand, playing with fire. Taunting the beast. “And yet you live here.” I flick a glance over my shoulder, daring to meet Malice’s rust-red gaze. “Withgoblins.”
His lips peel back in a bestial snarl. “A means to an end. You know this.”
I slip away, my heart hammering in time with my brisk footsteps as I move to the very center of the room,passing through the dancers who now stand frozen. Forgotten. Marionettes with cut strings.
But still their false laughter remains. It echoes hollowly all around, making the hairs on my arms prickle. Beyond the stone archways, storm clouds billow across the night sky. A streak of lightning flashes. Malice’s voice slithers toward me from the encroaching shadows on my right:
“I see you still deny me your touch.”
My shoulders tense. My anger flares. “Because you are unworthy of it,” I shout as I spin to face the monster who cursed me when I was a mere child. Who cursed the man I love. Who set off a war that killed my mother and led my father to despair.
I no longer need to play a part.
My disdain roils off me in waves.
My hatred of all he has done is surely as plain to see as the glow thrumming beneath my skin.
