Page 52 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
Something terrible.
“We have to go,” Bene rasps, his gaze scouring my face as if desperately trying to commit it to memory. “It is not safe here.”
As if in punctuation to his words, the door leading out of our sitting room suddenly bursts inward, revealing a man’s silhouette—a silhouette I am swiftly becoming all too familiar with.
Friedemar.
My stomach churns at the very sight.
But I do not have to stare at him for long. Bene lunges between us in the next moment, blocking Friedemar from my view. Protecting me.
I peek around Bene’s shoulder as the King of Briarhold and at least a dozen of his soldiers stride into the room. Armor now wraps around Friedemar’s towering form. A sword that thrums with a strange, muted light hangs from his hip. Shafts of moonlight stream in through the broken window, illuminating his sneer.
But Friedemar’s cold gaze is for my dragon king and him alone when he declares, imperious, “You have something that belongs to me, Benevolence.”
“Naei.”
That word cracks through the air like thunder, just as surely as it echoes through my mind, shouted within my thoughts in the same breath it departs Bene’s throat.
With a growl, he continues,“Aurelia sol na’drakira. Shera sol Therya Drakara.”
The temperature within the room seems to drop by several degrees as Friedemar’s attention sweeps toward me.“Drakira?”he repeats, his tongue inelegantly butchering the musical Draconic word.
But where I don’t understand what it means, Friedemar clearly does. I see it in his face. In his disgust.
He speaks to me directly when he jeers, “I had heard rumors of your unfortunate reputation, my Jewel. But I didn’t realize you were so prolific, your conquests extended all the way to Drakara, too.”
Bene’s reaction is immediate. Visceral. While I am still reeling from the insult, my dragon king is drawing in threads of Fire toward himself. Breathing them in. Weaving them taut.
I realize his intentions a moment too late.
“Bene!” I scream, my hands grasping for the back of his cloak, fingers sinking into the fabric, trying to wrench him backward. The Bene I know would never do such a thing. He is kind. Good. He would neverkill.
But this Bene clearly would.
A fresh shield of Spirit snaps into place around me at the same moment flames flash into being, erupting from Bene’s palms and mouth in a rush of heat and light. Gouts of Fire that arc directly for Friedemar. For the armored men behind him.
More light blazes through my peripheral vision—twin globes, one green and one blue. They flit toward Friedemar’s troops as well, almost faster than I can track.
The soldiers scream and scatter. Confused. Panicked.
Only Friedemar stands firm, defiant in the face of Bene’s flames.
I flinch and turn away, unable to watch the boy I once knew murder a room full of men.
A strange hiss fills the air, followed by steam so thick I almost don’t see the silver butterfly gliding toward me. No, not a butterfly—a pixie.
An elegant pixie with gray hair and eyes, wearing silver robes and wreathed in moonlight. I know her at once, though I havenever met her before. Bene spoke often of his fairy godmothers in his letters to me.
She is Velda.
“Please forgive him his outburst,Therya’kai,”Velda whispers directly within my thoughts, those words gently imparted on a thread of Mind. She hovers close, bathing my cheek in the warmth of her small form.“The Corona weighs heavy. He is thinking with his feelings—his inner dragon—not his mind.”
Na’therya.
Therya’kai.
Therya Drakara.
