Page 70 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
I should have been able to ease his burden.
« You are untrained in these matters. »
Anger suddenly wells within me—a conflagration I can’t stop.And where were you?I mentally shout at the Aether.You are his god.Where were you when Bene needed you most?
The answer comes immediately, blooming in my heart with a warmth so at odds with my own cold fury. Where I want to rage, the Aether is gentle. Where I want to hate the Great Weaver for letting Bene die, He is still loving.
« I am here. »
Boots thump against the wet ground, luring my attention upward. Friedemar is here. Friedemar, with his strange sword and his dark smile.
Instinctively, I hunch over Bene’s body. My arms wrap around his head and cradle him against my chest. I will let no one touch his body. I will let no one desecrate it.
Before the King of Briarhold can take another step, the stranger smoothly slinks between us. Friedemar blanches and shrinks back, his hand falling to the hilt of the magical sword sheathed at his hip.
“Lord Malice. You… you are here. At last.”
Malice. Bene’s uncle.
The one who cursed our fate. The one responsible for keeping Bene from me all these years. The one who made Bene suffer to the very end.
Hate sweeps through me like a rising tide as I glare up at the back of Malice’s head. I hope Friedemar kills him with that blade of his. I hope the Great Weaver strikes himdead.
Air wraps around Friedemar’s throat, lifting him clean off his feet. My hope turns to ash as I watch the King of Briarhold choke on nothing and claw at his neck, trying to pry the threads free.
Malice speaks—calm, cool. “You were supposed to contact me the moment you were aware of the Jewel. You were supposed to bind her for me. You were supposed to”—the threads tighten with a twitch of his fingers—“take careof Benevolence.”
Friedemar shudders but does not answer. His feet kick at empty air, fighting for purchase.
Just when his struggling slows, just when a final breath rattles from Friedemar’s lungs, Malice relents. The Air dissolves. Friedemar collapses to the ground, panting, whimpering.
“Please,” he begs. “Forgive me. Spare me. I meant no disrespect.”
Malice’s disgust audibly drips from his words when he whispers, “No. You merely meant to keep the Jewel for yourself. You who are not even worth the effort of killing. You who areunfit to carry aTheryn’Crae. You who are unfit to evenlookupon the last living Jewel.”
I tighten my hold on Bene’s form as Malice booms into the night, “From this moment forward, you will no longer be able to see the Jewel, nor hear the Jewel, nor smell the Jewel.” Threads of Mind and Spirit weave together, accompanying his words, wrapping around Friedemar’s body in flashes of silver and gold. “Even if she stands before you, she will not exist to your eyes. Even if she speaks to you, you will be deaf to her.”
Just as Malice’s weave pulls tight, snapping into place, just as he rips free from Friedemar’s waist the magic-wreathed sword, I feel something stir against my collarbone where Bene’s head rests. Something warm. Faint.
Breath.
A small flame of hope sputters back to life in my heart. Can it be? Is Bene… alive?
Or is it all in my head?
Swaths of Air suddenly wend about my torso, wrenching me away from my dragon king’s limp form, prying us apart. As if Malice has any right at all to touch me.
As if he has any right at all to separate me from myTheryn’kai.
“No!” I scream again, horrified when Bene, Brisa, and Glorana suddenly blink out of existence.
Gone.
They are simply…gone.
I have no strategy. No plan.
I am but a creature of desperate instinct, thrashing against Malice’s weave, fighting with every ounce of my strength. I scream like a woman possessed. I fight until my muscles give out. I struggle until the very moment Malice shifts into a great black dragon and captures me within his claws.
