Page 57 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
“Stop!” the captain calls, a tremor in his voice. Almost reluctantly, he draws his sword. “In the name of the king!”
“NasolTheryn’kai,”Bene snarls back, anger edging the musical notes of his native tongue. Air whips outward, ripping the blade from the captain’s hand, sending it skittering across the floor. It skids to a halt before me.
I flinch and stop walking, hesitating, unsure what to do now that we are facing a small army alone.
Bene steps in close, the warmth of his nearness thrumming against my back.“Naei.”His voice skims across my consciousness. Politely, he avoids delving too deep this time.“You stop for no one.”
But then a twinge of pain arcs between us, sending a tremble tracing down my spine. I can sense it just as easily as I sense my own feelings—the agony writhing deep in my dragon king’s heart.
“Please,”he begs.“Velda’s mask on you is not as effective as I had hoped. We cannot linger here.”
Her mask?
Drawing in a deep breath, I lift my chin and step around the fallen sword. “You will stand aside and let us pass,” I inform the soldiers before us, fighting to keep the tremor from my voice.
The captain shrinks back but otherwise doesn’t move. “Forgive me, my lady, but I can’t.”
Please, I desperately think to myself.Please don’t hurt them.
But Bene clearly hears me all the same.“As you wish.”
Another scythe of Air slices down the corridor, racing toward the soldiers who scream in the face of the unnatural wind. But rather than rend them to pieces as the last did to the ice wall, thisscythe merely splits their number in half and sweeps them aside, like a parting curtain.
I gather the skirts of my now-ruined gown into my hands and hurry forward, trying not to run but still moving quickly. A fresh wave of anxiety roils through my stomach, driving me onward. Again, it feels as though there is a clock somewhere ticking away, tracking each second we have lost thus far, counting down to something truly terrible.
And I have no idea how much time is left.
I turn left—the direction I last saw Velda veer—and finally ask aloud, “Am I a Jewel?”
“Vaei,”Bene answers me without pause.
I swallow hard and push back my rising dread. Softer now, I ask, “Have you always known?”
“Vaei.”
Velda lingers just up ahead, flitting about before a heavy wooden door banded in iron. “Theryn’kai!” she calls, a frantic note in her voice. “They are through here!”
My hands curl into fists as I whisper, “And why did you never tell me?” Though time is of the essence, I still whirl about to face him, forcing him to look me in the eye when he explains to me why our friendship of seventeen years is built onlies.
But my breath catches in my throat as I find myself again staring up into crimson eyes rather than blue.
“Because,” Bene hisses aloud, something dark and dangerous writhing beneath that single word. I take an uncertain step backward when he lifts his right hand and points a finger at me. A finger now capped by a dragon’s claw rather than a man’s fingernail. “I wanted toprotect you.”
He nearly shouts those final two words in my face as a gossamer-light thread of Air unfurls toward me and pushes me backward, placing more distance between us.
“Bene!” Velda is between us in the next moment. “Bene, control yourself.”
“Your weave isn’t working,” he snarls back. “I can still smell her. I stillwanther.”
“Just try not to think about it—” she starts to suggest.
But he roars over her, “You ask a starving man to try not to think about a feast?”
“Benevolence Radiata, remember who you are,” Velda urges. “Do not let your Shade win. Do not letMalicewin. This is what he wants, not you.”
Exhaustion seeps into my bones as I watch the two of them. Their words make no sense. I feel like a woman who has been tossed into the deepest portion of a pond and is now expected to instinctively know how to swim.
Except I can’t swim.
