Page 3 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
Hisbirthday?
“It’s your birthday today, too?” I wondered aloud, marveling at the coincidence, before I latched back onto his wilder claim: that he was the Crown Prince of Drakara.
“Prove it,” I challenged him, a thrill running through me at my sudden boldness. What had come over me? “Prove to me that you’re a dragon, or I won’t believe you.”
The boy scoffed and looked around the garden while running a hand through his silvery hair. His eyes fixed on the open kitchenwindow for the span of a single heartbeat before he looked back my way and sighed.
“Very well. But you must promise me you won’t scream.”
Before I could promise anything at all, the air around him shimmered like waves of heat rippling off a forge, and his form wavered with it. Blue eyes shifted to gold. His limbs contorted. And where the silver-haired boy had stood, there was now a creature out of storybooks and dreams.
A dragon.
He was only the size of a small horse but utterly perfect all the same, with scales like polished pearls and wings that caught the sunlight and refracted it into a thousand iridescent colors. His eyes, though now golden, even retained a hint of their humanity with rounded pupils rather than the reptilian slits I had expected.
I didn’t scream. I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to. All I could do was stare in wonder.
I should have been afraid—everyone was afraid of dragons—but for some odd reason, I wasn’t. Staring into the molten gaze of the Crown Prince of Drakara, I felt utterly at peace.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered when I found my voice again.
The dragon rumbled. I took that to mean he was pleased with the compliment.
In the next moment, the boy stood before me again, a shy smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you, miss. You’re rather pretty, too.”
My heart skipped a full beat. A dragon thought I was pretty.
Theprinceof all the dragons thought I was pretty.
I cleared my throat and fidgeted, no longer sure what to do with my hands.
“Can you breathe fire, then?” I asked, if only to break the awkward silence growing between us. “Can you keep your wingseven when in your human form? Do you spend more time as a boy or a dragon back home in Drakara?”
Benevolence chuckled, his once again blue eyes dancing. “You ask a lot of questions for a girl whose name I don’t even know.”
“Oh!” Heat bloomed within my cheeks again as I dipped into a wobbly curtsy. “I’m Miss Weaver, Your Highness. Miss Aurelia Weaver.” Shyly, I added, “It’s my birthday today, too, actually. I’m thirteen.”
His smile died in an instant. “What did you say?”
I worked my too-dry mouth, wondering what I could possibly have said to offend him so suddenly. In my silence, he stared at me, his gaze burning, willing me to speak.
“Aurelia,” I breathed at last once my unruly tongue started working again. “I said my name is Aurelia Weaver and… and that it’s my birthday.”
A pair of voices suddenly called from somewhere beyond the trees. A man and a woman, both carrying the same strange accent as the prince before me.
“Benevolence!”
“Bene, na’velar, drah sol sha?”
He grabbed my hand and hissed, “Come. Quickly!”
Before I could react, he pulled me deeper into the garden, where the roses grew wild and tangled. Without a word, he shoved me behind a particularly dense section before swiveling to face me, his body blocking my sight of the forest beyond the hedge.
“What are we doing?” I whispered, confused by this latest strangeness. “What’s going on?”
“My father can’t know you’re here,” he explained, his voice little more than a whisper. For a moment, a hint of frustration flickered across his features. He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging on the strands. “Youshouldn’tbe here,selira feyra.”
“Why not?” I asked, widening my eyes. “It’smygarden.”
