Page 47 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
Her fear. Her pain. Her desperate need.
With each beat of my heart, her magic sears through me and hooks deep—so vivid it steals my breath. I’ve never felt anything like it. Not even from Velda.
My chest swells with pride, with awe.
Even untrained, her power is unmatched. And even though she knows nothing of what she truly means to me, still I am the one she reaches for when she is in need.
Instinctively, my queen calls for me.
And I must answer.
But when the dark spires of Spindleton blot the horizon, the most intoxicating scent slams into me with such force that my wings skip a beat. My thoughts scatter like autumn leaves.
Aurelia.
Deep inside me, something stirs: thehungeragain.
The desire to consume, to possess, tohoard.
I want her. I need her. She was always meant to be mine—
A bell booms in the near distance, tolling out a warning. Heralding my approach for all of Spindleton to hear.
Through the bond, I taste Aurelia’s fear.
Through her eyes, I see the room where she is being held. I see Friedemar and a man I do not know, silhouetted in a dark doorway. I see the box the latter holds, threads of Spirit radiating from it like waves of heat.
I know what the box contains without even needing to see it opened.
Panic grips my heart. Fresh rage rips through me.
How? How has Friedemar come to possess such magic?
It cannot be.
But I see it with my own eyes.
Air surges beneath my wings. Faster. I fly faster—straight for the palace looming at the very center of Briarhold’s great city. Straight for the stone walls they think can possibly keep me from Aurelia.
Nothing can stop me. Not Spindleton’s gate. Not Friedemar’s pitiful soldiers. Not the arrows that shatter against my scales. Not the bell that tolls my approach.
Far below me, screams ring out into the night. The stench of human fear chokes my senses. But I barely notice.
As I approach the backside of the palace, all I see isher, sitting atop a balcony railing. Radiant. Wreathed in magic. Burning like a star guiding me home.
My eyes fixate on her and only her. I don’t want to look away. I never want to look away.
I can’t look away.
Not when she suddenly tumbles backward off the balcony.
Not when she falls.
“Naei!”That word tears from my throat—a roar that seeks to split the heavens.
She answers me with a scream. A wordless cry for help.
I don’t think.
