CHAPTER ONE
The air in the room was buzzing with a mixture of panic and exhilaration. More than half of the faces were shiny, a thin sheen of sweat draped over their electrified features like a set of dewy curtains; less than half of the faces were stony, impassive, and dry. Nina wondered if she looked nervous at all—her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her rib cage, but her hands were as steady as anyone else’s.
“We had four birthdays last week,” Joey said. His gaze ran around the circle of chairs as he spoke, stopping on each person as he said their name. “Anders Weber, Will Sanchez, Georgia Greer, and Nina Henry are all turning twenty-three.”
Two dozen people murmured their congratulations to Anders and Georgia, and a couple of people slapped Will on the back. A few eyes flashed to Nina, but no one did anything but smile and nod.
“Congratulations, and good luck! You’re about to become fully-fledged dragons. Your ceremonies are all coming up soon, and this will likely be the last time we see you in here.” The smile lines around Joey’s mouth deepened, and his dark eyes were shimmering with pride. “One more time around the quartz, okay?”
The group was quiet as they all gathered around the pale pink, softball-sized stone on the marble stand in the center of the room. There was a flurry of movement as they all joined hands; Nina couldn’t help but notice that both of the palms she gripped were sweaty, and it was hard not to cringe.
“Connect, feel your power,” Joey murmured. “Let it unfold inside you.”
A sphere of boiling energy made itself known in the center of Nina’s body, above her navel and below her breastbone. It was about the size of a marble; as she concentrated, it stretched itself out until it warmed every part of her torso, tendrils of heat snaking down her legs, through the sockets of her arms and up the graceful curve of her neck. Distantly, she could feel others doing the same. A few moments later, she felt a cooler energy graze hers, and another joined it not long after. Her hesitant spirit lifted, buoyant with happiness, as she absorbed the rush of bonding with her fellow dragons. The chunk of rose quartz glowed softly as the dragon shifters accessed the essence of their power and sent them out to mingle with the others’. She was cognizant, at the front of her mind, of part of her energy staying in the root of her body; as usual, another portion of her energy soared around the circle, brushing against the other dragons’ essence in turn as it moved.
Nina’s energy never came back empty after reaching out. Flashes of events and emotions seeped through her awareness, and before long she was building rough sketches of their minds and moods.
Carrie fought with Doug again; their baby is almost six months old. They weren’t ready for this.
Georgia feels bad about lying to Willow about having second thoughts.
Anders was staring at my tits again, and wonders if I’m free tonight, or if I’m busy being a stuck up bitch. (A stab of anger surfaced briefly before being tugged below the mosaic of thoughts and images.)
Soon, everything blurred together, and it began to fade away just as quickly. People began dropping their hands, and a few people let out the breaths they’d been holding as they made an effort to keep their energy from snapping back into themselves. Almost everyone was sweaty now, except Nina and Georgia. She didn’t want to look at Anders, but he had probably kept himself composed, as well. Fucking creep.
“Wonderful,” said Joey, his voice brimming with pride. “Awesome. Remember that if you’re having trouble projecting yourself, carry some serpentine on you, or even some ruby or fire agate. Serpentine is the best, but any one of those stones should help you connect with the root of your power and be able to boost your energy. They can also help protect you against unwanted energy attacks, and help even the weakest beings break hold of non-lethal energy holds.” He smiled. “But we’ll focus on the energy boost part.”
He nodded to everyone, and the group began to gather their things as they dissolved into chatter.
“Nina, will you hang back?”
She looked at Joey as she shrugged into her hoodie. “Sure.”
The group shot her curious looks as they filtered out of the church basement, though Anders’ lingering glance was more lewd than inquisitive. He walked very slowly and tried to maintain eye contact, but Nina turned her back to him.
Joey waited until the last person had closed the door before speaking. “So,” he said, eyes probing hers. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” she said immediately. “I’ve felt secure about my Reading for a while now.”
“I’m not surprised.” Joey put some papers into a glossy briefcase without bothering to organize the haphazard stack before closing it. “You’re definitely the most advanced at controlling your energy.”
Nina felt doubt stir inside her. He’s just saying that.
He looked up at her again. “But are you sure you don’t have any questions? Or concerns? Sometimes young dragons have odd dreams before their ceremonies, or bursts of weird power. It can be a problem.”
Nina’s forehead creased. “I don’t... think so.” She silently willed herself to stay calm.
Joe leaned over the desk. She saw, for the first time, that the whites of his eyes were colored a blushing pink. His breath was stale, and there was a faint smell of something sour underneath something sweet, as if he hadn’t bathed in a couple of days but put on deodorant anyway.
His tone was uncomfortably urgent as he spoke again. “No gaps in time? No unexplained bursts of emotion? Nothing?”
She resisted the urge to step away from him. It was nearly impossible. “Nothing, Joey. Why? Is something supposed to happen?” She knew that people who led their own hordes had access to the prophecies of the dragons they oversaw, and some of them even had the ability to look up older ones in the system. Joey’s behavior made her wonder if there was something horrible written in hers.
“Not necessarily,” Joey said, straightening. His voice returned to normal. “I’m sorry, Nina, I don’t mean to freak you out, I just want to make sure I’ve done my job.”
She relaxed and shoved her hands into the hoodie’s front pocket. “Oh. You’ve done your job very well, Joey. There’s nothing weird going on with me. I have a handle on all my powers. I can even project without any rose quartz.”
He widened his eyes. “Nice! Most people can’t do that until a year or so after their ceremony. They need that extra boost that getting connected to the horde adds.”
She shrugged. “It was a thing I developed under your tutelage, so, thanks.”
Joey beamed, all the tension draining from his stance. “No problem, Nina. Okay, you put my mind at ease. You can go now.”
As she left, the door nearly hit Anders in the face. His expression was a mixture of surprise and interest.
“Hey, Nina—”
“Why were you hovering outside the door?” she asked, struggling to hide her disgust.
The dragon energy in her reached for Anders—his was so powerful she couldn’t help but be drawn to it—but unlike the other dragons, he made her uneasy for reasons she couldn’t explain.
“Were you spying? Trying to get another look at my chest? Or were you trying to figure out if I was in trouble so you’d have something to take back to your buddies?”
His green eyes narrowed. Nina felt the air around them warm slightly; she’d stirred up his emotions, and his dragon energy was waking up, too.
Poor little boy. Can’t keep a lid on his hissy fit. Despite her anger, she was nervous, but she didn’t let him see it. She straightened her back as she continued.
“Tell Carrie she can just make shit up about me, I don’t care. Or pull from her own life, she has enough problems.” Nina’s own energy was swirling inside her, agitated. “I’m an adult. You guys are acting like high school students. Keep me out of it.”
Strangely, that seemed to pacify Anders. He was silent for a moment, and then a smile slowly took over his pointed face.
“Come on, Nina. I just wanted to see what you were doing tonight.”
“I’m busy,” she answered.
Nina didn’t wait for him to respond. Her shoulder banged against his as she walked past him, and she got a clearer taste of his emotions as his essence whipped out to graze hers—amused, and, infuriatingly, even more interested than he seemed before.
That’s probably the last time I’ll have to be that close to him. Thank God he lives in Costa Verde. As angry as she was, there was a very real sense of fear just underneath. Anders was strong, maybe stronger than her. Once your energy touched someone else’s, it didn’t stay just yours, and that could mean anything from picking up on their emotions to being consumed by them and having them drive your actions. Dragons could be incredibly subtle in their manipulation, and she didn’t want to find out what he might try with her when they were alone.
The sky was steely and spotted with dark, pepper-colored clouds as she drove home. She was a mile down the street when she realized her wipers had been on the whole time, turning her windshield into a glass canvas of abstract art, painted with globs of dirt and the iridescent guts of various flying insects. Her body was on autopilot while her mind was rooted in worry, and the sea of cars around her had slowed to a stop, giving her more time to become mired in doubt.
If he just wanted to check that he was doing his job, why didn’t he keep anyone else back?
Maybe you’re doing worse than you think. Maybe you’re weaker than you think.
Her mind summoned a memory of Carrie Breyer from a year before, when they were only a few weeks into their Emergence Ceremony Prep class.
“Wow. You didn’t go to school with other dragons?” Her brown eyes were painted with innocence, but her upturned mouth ruined the picture. “Oh. This is going to be so... challenging for you.”
Nina felt like she’d been stabbed with an ice pick. Almost everyone else had struggled to suppress a laugh. Georgia turned around and shot her a look she couldn't decipher, her curly black hair bouncing as she turned her head to face front again.
Doug had leaned over to Nina then. “You mean you didn’t have dragon history or anything?”
“I learned plenty of dragon history,” Nina said stiffly. “My adoptive parents taught me. They’re witches.”
The snickers couldn’t be suppressed this time.
Carrie smiled, but her tone was so vicious that it made her hostility clear. Her perfect teeth resembled two rows of tiny white razors.
“I’m sure they were perfectly adequate, guys. Don’t laugh.”
Nina had realized that Georgia had been trying to warn her with her furtive look. Georgia herself never rose to any of Carrie’s ill-disguised taunts.
Once, she wondered why Georgia or anyone else didn’t say anything back. One week Willow Charles, Georgia’s girlfriend, snapped at Carrie. The next week she mysteriously transferred to another horde two towns over.
Nina didn’t wonder anymore.
Seeing a twenty-two-year-old bully people as though she were still a teenager gunning for head cheerleader turned her stomach, but she steered clear of Carrie and her ilk instead of voicing her concerns. Carrie likely caught wind of some of it while they were projecting their energies, but it didn’t seem to bother her.
Don’t let her live in your head. Joey thinks you’re good at at least one thing, and that’s all that matters.
Her car slid down a side street and pointed toward the parking lot of her apartment building. Doubt began to needle deeper under her skin.
Maybe your social skills count in the Reading, though. We’re pack creatures. It’s probably going to come up. Why would they welcome me into the fold if I can’t even get along with my little horde here?
Nina managed to make it all the way upstairs and into her living room without breaking out of her thoughts. A loud bang snapped her out of her reverie; she looked into the kitchen, startled to find her best friend Rachel holding a large mixing bowl and a sticky spoon.
“Hey, hot shot,” she said cautiously. “Why do you look like you just got hit on the head?” She squinted behind the lenses of her glasses. “Did you get hit with something? I can never tell what’s going to happen in those meetings. Sometimes people come out looking so sick.”
Nina collapsed on their worn leather sofa. “No, I’m fine. Just nervous, I guess.”
“Pfft.” Rachel turned back to the bowl with a look of disbelief. “What do you have to be nervous about? Hasn’t Joey been heaping praise on you the last few months?”
“He has,” Nina said dully. “Tonight he pulled me aside, though. Asked me if I had any questions, or if anything weird was happening.”
Rachel turned to her so fast she hit herself in the face with her red ponytail. “And you told him about the dreams, right?”
Nina felt Rachel’s sharp brown eyes on the back of her head, willing her to speak. She couldn’t.
Bang. Rachel strode over to the couch sans mixing bowl, planting herself in front of Nina with her hands on her hips.
“Nina Henry. You woke me up every night for a week to cry about these nightmares, so sure it was related to your Emergence Ceremony, and then you don’t even bring it up to the one full-grown dragon whose job it is to help you figure this shit out?”
Nina glared back, defiant by default. “It’s not that simple, Rachel. I don’t know how to explain how detached I feel when it’s clear I didn’t grow up the right way. The dragon way. I can’t make myself ask things as easily as other people.”
“Bullshit.”
“Not about this stuff,” Nina clarified. She unraveled her black braid and ran her fingers through her wavy hair absentmindedly, the chasm of uncertainty in the pit of her stomach yawning wider every moment. “I know they say there are no stupid questions, but you should have seen their faces when I asked if we’d be able to read minds after the ceremony.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Well, will you?”
“No.” Nina waved her hand impatiently. “That’s a lost power. We have something like it, but it’s not exactly mind-reading. But everyone else knew it, and even Joey seemed a little patronizing as he explained.”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t understand why.”
You’re lucky. “Okay, imagine if you went to a magical instructor and asked if you needed to avoid water.”
“I wouldn’t,” Rachel said immediately. “That’s a myth, a result of needing more ways to make non-magical people believe they could kill or repel us easily. Mom and Dad explained that to me when I was—”
Nina watched the understanding dawn on Rachel’s face. Her adoptive sister turned around and sat on the couch with her, her gaze downcast.
“Okay. I get it,” she said quietly. “Yeah, you must have felt like a real dumbass.”
Nina burst out laughing. “For a while. But it made me stop asking questions. Instead I just work twice as hard at the practical stuff, and keep my nose in the history books. And go over anything Nat and Desmond can tell me.”
Rachel looked thoughtful. “I never really thought about how much you would... miss... by not having dragon parents. I guess my parents wouldn’t be super knowledgeable, would they? Your parents were so strict about adhering to the rules, they wouldn’t have shared much with outsiders.”
“They shared some,” Nina allowed. “They were best friends.”
Rachel smiled and looked at her. “Our families must have some kind of bond formed between them centuries ago. Dragons are so suspicious of non-dragons.”
“I think we can just sniff out good people,” Nina said warmly.
Rachel jumped up as a timer went off. “I have to go put the muffins in,” she said as she hurried off. “Then I want to hear about your last pre-ceremony meeting ever!”
It had been strange growing up without dragons for parents, but Nat, Desmond, and Rachel Olinda had been more than enough to help Nina grow up feeling safe and loved. She and Rachel spent summers at the community center the Olindas owned, formerly with her own parents; when Nina was old enough, they allowed her to explore the enormous underground cavern underneath the center itself, one that her parents had helped them build. They’d planned on starting their own horde and using the cavern as a meeting hall—and their home. Those plans had gone down the drain after the plane they were on lost its engines and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. Nina was three when they died. A few weeks later, she moved in with the Olindas.
What would have happened if they’d stuck around? Would I be less awkward, more social, more likable? Would I feel less broken? Or was I just made this way?
Rachel flopped next to her on the couch again. “Hey,” she said, noticing the introspective look on Nina’s face. “Thinking about your parents?”
She nodded, watching her sister through a thin veil of tears.
Rachel squeezed Nina’s hand. “My parents gush about them all the time, and from what I know, they’d be so proud of you. Honestly, Nina, you’re so much more than you think.”
Nina scoffed. “More what? Awkward? Annoying? Screwed?”
Rachel didn’t laugh. “Composed. Charming. Capable. More of a person, and more of a dragon. Just... more.” Her expression darkened. “More than that bitch Carrie, definitely.”
Nina laughed and brushed tears from her eyes, the weight on her chest lifting. “Man, I shouldn’t have told you about her. I think you hate her more than I do.”
“What are sisters for?” Rachel said softly.
Nina shifted in her seat. “Thank you, Rachel. For being here. You’re my best friend... probably my only friend.”
“You’ve got plenty of friends,” Rachel said sharply.
Nina shook her head and looked around at their walls, covered in pictures of her, their parents, and no one else. “None that are here for me like you.”
Her sister smiled. “Yeah, well, just remember you’re stronger than you think. And you’re more than you think. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Rachel’s expression turned fragile for a moment, but she shook her head and cleared it as she spoke again. “Whatever, I’d get jealous if you had another best friend, anyway.” She looked at her bare wrist, frowned, then raised her other arm to read the time on her digital watch. “We have half an hour before these muffins finish. Want to challenge the pizza place and see if we can a free deluxe?”
***
Nina lay awake until 2:00 AM, her eyes glued to the cold bars of moonlight slipping through her blinds. The day kept replaying in her head, and she felt raw from running through it so many times. When she willed herself to stop thinking about it, her mind instead turned to her parents and the one clear memory she had of them: a family beach trip they must have taken her on just weeks before they died.
Her father was reaching out to her with brawny arms covered in coarse black hair, eyes twinkling like the sea behind him. The wind was lifting the top of his hair, and his normally pale skin was starting to get pink under the hot sun. Her mother stood on the shoreline, waving at her with both arms, so that the sleeves of her bathing suit cover-up looked like the flap of bright pink wings instead of cotton cloth. The tide broke over the back of her nut-brown calves and covered her feet and ankles before shyly creeping back to merge with the waves again. In the memory, as she watched the motion of the water, she felt excitement slowly breaking through the layer of fear that was keeping her from joining her parents; finally, she leaped into her father’s arms, giggling as they raced toward her mother and the waves. Nina remembered being cradled between the two of them, and how they both smelled of sun and salt and something smoky and heated just below the surface; it was the best smell in the world to her, even now. Even though she hadn’t smelled it in twenty years.
How long after that did they die? How much longer did I have with them?
None of these questions mattered in the long run. It would never be enough time. It still hurt so much to think about that she went so far as to avoid saying their names aloud whenever she could. Even the Olindas didn’t seem to like talking about them. Beyond the handful of stories they told about when they were young and the photo album they would pull out, Nat and Desmond avoided mentioning Cheyenne and Jasper Henry unless Nina asked them directly—and she almost never did, fearing the incredible tension that sprung between them whenever she had a question.
At some point, Nina closed her eyes and began to dream. She could always tell when she was dreaming, and that was usually an advantage, because she could stop the dream at any time. Lately, though, it was different. She couldn’t stop this particular recurring dream, and knowing she was dreaming never made the terror she felt any less real.
She was standing knee-deep in a pile of jagged bones. Some of the bones were as small as her pinky finger, but most of them were as long as her arm and twice as wide. Nina felt a strange kinship to the bones; she had the urge to take them and bury them properly, but there was no time.
(Why am I rushing? The answer was never clear.)
She was naked, and every few steps brought the tip of a bone against her shin or ankles, slicing into her just deep enough to draw blood. Most of the bones either crumbled or exploded into dust as she moved past, and the powder was starting to collect on the soles of her feet. She couldn’t stop herself from moving forward—she couldn’t even slow down, though she tried the whole time. Her tightly muscled body was slick with sweat, and there was a very low, almost indiscernible rumble in the distance, like the sound of a massive dragon snoring. Dragons didn’t get as big as this one sounded—not anymore, anyway; but this was a dream, she remembered, so rules didn’t apply. She hoped, as she did every night for the last three months, that she wouldn’t wake it up.
There didn’t seem to be any walls around her, or maybe the place was so big she couldn’t see them. There was moonlight coming from somewhere, and most of its rays were pointed at a titanic throne a hundred yards ahead. It was a deep copper color; a set of intricate silver designs crawled up its back, showing a massive and oddly shaped tree. The tree had a trunk that split into two smaller trunks, both of which curved upward and exploded into a half-dome of branches and leaves, like a living mushroom cloud. The leaves of the tree were painted gold. As Nina drew closer, she saw a trail of rubies covering a slim section of the trunk, and it reminded her of a tiny river of blood. But trees don’t bleed.
She finally reached the back of the throne and looked up, craning her neck to see the top of it. It was at least eighty feet high, but her body urged her to grab hold of the rubies nearest to her and start pushing herself up the trunk of the odd tree. Nina was strong in real life, but Dream Nina had an unreal power that let her scale the throne in around five seconds. Her arms and legs moved in sync, and her hands seemed to stick to the cold metal, like a lizard climbing a chilly window. She was at the top of the throne in almost no time at all, and as soon as she raised her head over the top, the familiar feeling of dread started to choke her.
Don’t look over this time. Don’t look over.
Nina felt herself pull her body high enough to swing first one leg over the side, then the other. She was sitting on the chilly metal completely nude, her legs bleeding freely, droplets of blood falling from her shins as her heart started to beat wildly in her chest. She felt herself jump, felt the wind rush past her battered body as she fell toward the plush purple seat below. When she landed, the seat hardly moved, as if she weighed nothing in comparison to its intended owner.
The rumbling was louder now; she could feel the sound waves jostling her bones as she stared at the front of the throne, thinking don’t turn around don’t turn around don’t turn around—
But she turned around, like always.
In front of her was something that had once been alive and part of something else. It looked vaguely like the midsection of any number of animals—tough, rectangular, filled with organs—but now it mostly resembled a pile of raw, shredded steak with a broken spine bisecting the meat. Bits of leathery red skin were visible in some places, and it was the only other indication that it had ever belonged to a larger, living thing. The smell of blood crept into her mouth and throat, teasing the bile from her stomach until she had to hold her breath to avoid vomiting.
The mess wasn’t the worse part. The worst part was the still-beating heart, thudding wetly next to what looked like a deflated lung, chugging along even though its reason for pumping had long since abandoned it. The heart was as long as her own body. Nina’s fear reached its apex. She stopped trying to hold herself back and started trying to look somewhere else—anywhere other than at the giant beating heart.
It was no use. Her legs took one step forward, buckled, and brought her body to its knees. A plume of steam issued from somewhere up ahead, and she felt the air around her start to crackle and heat. The snoring had stopped.
Nina’s hands reached out to touch the heart, and she was (as always) appalled at how much she loved the squelch of the tender muscle beneath her hold. It started to beat faster, like it was frightened, and a frisson of excitement took hold of her.
I need this, she thought in the dream. I need this to bring everything together.
(The meaning of this thought was never clear, she realized.)
The ground was starting to shake, and there were a series of what sounded like small explosions audible in the distance—the footsteps of a gargantuan beast coming to see who was trying to claim its kill.
Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.
Dream Nina was salivating. Her hands plunged into the heart’s muscle, and a river of pungent black blood ran over her wrists. A roar split the air, the force of it blowing her straight black hair away from her face as she readied herself.
Don’t.
Dream Nina buried her face in the heart and began to eat voraciously. She was screaming and crying at the same time she swallowed the stringy flesh, and she knew that the dragon would get here before she finished. There was no way to outrun it. Nina wanted to, but Dream Nina didn’t. Dream Nina had an insatiable blood lust and enough rage to move mountains.
She could hear the ceiling shaking as the dragon got closer, and her body was vibrating with fear. She was in the middle of the heart, consuming as much of it as she could before she faced the beast. Dream Nina felt wild and unstoppable as she pulled back from the heart, gasping, eyes probing the darkness for the arrival of her challenger. Any minute now, it would come and send a torrent of fire straight at her, and when it did, she’d be ready.
You won’t, she thought desperately.
She would. Dream Nina knew she would.
Dream Nina stood and tensed her muscles, standing in a fighting position as the beast got closer. She could see a ghostly outline in the mugginess ahead of the throne, and the shape of a head the size of a school bus. She bounced on her feet like a boxer in a ring.
Come on, run!
Before the dragon emerged into the light, it sent a jet of fire at her, the column of flame twisting in midair and exploding outward to singe the atmosphere around her. Before it hit her, it sapped the air from her lungs, and she had a moment of panic before the searing pain consumed her senses. She couldn’t see, but she could hear Dream Nina laughing. Or was she screaming?
I am screaming.
Nina sat up straight in her bed, covered in sweat and shaking like a leaf in the wind. She clapped her hand over her mouth and looked toward her door, wondering if she’d woken Rachel. There was no noise from her room, only the soft tick of the grandfather clock outside her door and the low hum of her humidifier.
Holy shit. I felt it burn me that time. That’s never happened.
Nina got up and changed her sweat-soaked sheets, feeling like a bedwetter. The dream should be less terrifying by now, after months of having it, but it never lost its punch. Should I have told Joey?
No, she answered herself immediately. You freak out about every little dragon-related thing. This isn’t important. Just pre-ceremony nerves, and the realization that you’re reaching the end of an era. You’re about to become a real dragon. Don’t make them doubt you.
Nina tried to console herself as she got back in bed, but her mind wouldn’t settle down. She found herself wishing that she had woken Rachel up.
As she finally drifted back to sleep, she changed her mind. She wished her parents were still alive—then she wouldn’t need to bother Rachel in the first place.