Page 84 of Dreams and Dragon Wings
Though I feel as if I should be afraid of him, it is hard to feel fear now that I see what a pitiful creature he truly is.
“What is your name?” I ask.
The creature draws to a pause before another set of double doors. “My name?” he croaks, looking at me over a hunched shoulder. Clawed hands push the strands of his oily hair—what hair he has left—from his face while he clearly thinks. “Once I believe I was called Rowan,Therya’fey. But now…” His features pinch as he turns back toward the doors. “Now, I am called Grime when I am called anything at all.”
I frown down at him. “Why are you no longer called Rowan?”
Before he can answer me, the doors clatter open of their own accord with such force that they slam against the walls, revealing a dimly lit chamber filled to the brim with more goblins. Goblins with fangs. Goblins with wings. Some hang from the chandelier like bats, their large, round eyes fixated on me. Others crowd into the corners of the room, their heads craning to get a better look as I stand there, frozen in the doorway.
My heart hammers wildly against my ribs as, for a single moment, I fear Malice’s threat wasn’t empty at all. But then I spot him sitting at the end of the long table set for two that restsin the very center of the room. Lounging in a throne turned mere dining chair.
My mother’s throne. I know it instinctively for what it is the moment I see the flower-wreathed sun carved into the back of it.
“You have kept me waiting, Lady Aurelia,” Malice booms across that great distance. Though the dim light leaves his face in shadow, it is easy enough to hear the irritation in his voice. “And now our supper is cold.”
Steeling my resolve, I curl my hands into fists, grounding myself with the feel of my fingernails biting into my palms.For Bene. I journey into the lion’s den for Bene.
Rowan scuttles out of the way, allowing me to step into the room. I force any hint of a limp from my gait as I stride forward, making for the table.
“I do believe you are in my seat, Lord Malice,” I call back, earning a round of hoots from the goblins watching.
A thread of Fire arcs toward me—a single tongue of flame that laps the air in a wave of hungry heat. Panic seizes my heart as I dive out of the way of its path and stumble into a wall of waiting goblins. The creatures screech with surprise, their voices rasping discordantly in my ears. Their gnarled bodies jostle against me, cold and clammy.
I swallow down my scream of horror and twitch away from them, refusing to let Malice see my fear.
“Forgive me,” he purrs as that thread of Fire veers back toward the table and skips down its length, lighting a line of candles along the way to illuminate the curve of his smile. “I did not mean to frighten you.”
Clenching my jaw, I cautiously approach the table once more.
Malice continues, “But as for the matter of who should be sitting where…” He slaps his left thigh in clear invitation. “You are welcome to share this one with me.”
“I would rather rot,” I hiss, surprising even myself with the venomous quality of my tone. If my goal is truly to weasel information out of him regarding where he is keeping Bene, as Velda and I agreed while I was preparing for this farce of a meal, I am already off to a terrible start.
Malice’s smile dies. With a twitch of his fingers, he uses a strand of Air to wrench back the chair on the opposite end of the table, pulling it out for me. “How disappointing,” he drawls, his tone once again cool. Detached.
My back rigid, I slip into the offered seat and study the plate before me. Gravy-soaked cuts of meat nestle alongside roasted root vegetables, making my stomach traitorously rumble.
For all of Malice’s talk of supper being cold, steam still rises from the dish.
“What is this?” I ask, trailing a cautious look about the room. I saw no wildlife as we were flying into the Shadow Lands. And I cannot imagine the dragon sitting across from me keeping livestock. Which could only mean—
“It’s notgoblinif that is what you are truly asking,” Malice interjects before my mind can spiral further, earning a cackle from one such creature hanging from the chandelier. “It is venison.”
My skin prickles with the weight of so many eyes boring into me as I reach for the knife and fork resting next to the plate. Is this all a trap? Some game Malice seeks to play with me? I watch out of the corner of my eye, waiting until I see him take a bite before I finally relent and cut off a small piece for myself to try.
It is delicious.
“You know,” he observes, watching me as I chew, “you’re taking this all surprisingly well.”
“Am I?” I personally would not consider fainting, freezing in the face of danger, and allowing myself to be captured twicewell, but what do I know?
Goodness, was that truly only yesterday?
I frown, looking back Malice’s way. “What day is it?”
He stares at me, his face utterly devoid of expression. Within the light cast by the candles and the dim chandelier hanging overhead, his face adopts a skeletal appearance—his eyes sunken, his cheeks hollow. “I brought you home this morning.”
A full day. I have already lost a full day. But hopefully, Velda is having more luck than I am at discovering where Bene is.
