Chapter 1

“Dragon!” my sister Renata screamed from her perch in the treehouse. As children we’d played in it, but now we used it as a lookout post when we cast our magical spells to protect our fields.

I chanced a look away from the altar in the middle of the sacred circle. A green dragon. My heart lurched. Ever since I’d met Donovan when I was five, green dragons had held special significance for me. Even though they proved as fierce and unforgiving as the other colors, one green dragon’s kindness still resonated within me. I hated seeing green dragons flaming our crops.

Surely this dragon couldn’t be him. I’d never seen him flying above our fields on a mission of destruction. You could argue that all green dragons looked basically alike save for scars or size, but I knew I would recognize Donovan even though I hadn’t seen him in twenty years. He wouldn’t do this. I’d told him how much Grandmother had suffered when her long-ago lavender field had been torched. To this day, she’d never managed to recover all the magic that field once held.

My Aunt Eleanora tugged on my hand. “Stop staring and pay attention,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “We haven’t much time to finish the spell as it is.”

Guiltily, I transferred my focus to the altar. Upon it rested a silver athame, a green candle, and a bowl of incense smoldering on heated pebbles. The heavy scent of myrrh rose into the early morning air, helping us to cast our spell of protection around the field of mint and rosemary. In two weeks we would harvest. These herbs would be used in healing spells and for food flavoring. Most of this crop was destined for the king’s kitchen.

Unless the dragon got to the field before our spell took hold.

“Damn those dragons. They have a sixth sense about when our spells fade and need renewing.” Eleanora tightened her hold on my left hand, nearly crushing my fingers in her anger.

I wanted to tell her they wouldn’t be doing this if not for her, but I didn’t want to break her concentration. I stared at her profile. Beautiful and proud, she appeared younger than even I was at twenty-five. She’d been eating the tubers for twenty years.

I wouldn’t touch them. It was now tradition in my coven to begin eating the tubers at age twenty-one, but I couldn’t let down Donovan and the other dragons. The older I became, the more I realized we had stolen their magic. If I ate the tubers, I’d betray that little girl who gave away her best friend.

Mother said when I found my first gray hair or wrinkle, I’d soon change my tune. I stared at her across the circle. Her bright blonde hair gleamed in the sunlight. Although nearing fifty, she didn’t appear any older than twenty in this light. Same as my aunt.

Grandmother, too, could pass for my sister, yet her ninety-fifth birthday had come and gone two years ago.

She led the chanting as we moved widdershins around the altar.

“We rouse the sleeping goddess,” she cried in her powerful voice.

“Greet the dawn with us,” the rest of us responded.

“Wake now, and cast your protective gaze across our magical field.”

“Goddess, protect us,” we chanted.

“Keep harm away!” Grandmother cried.

“Goddess, guard us!” we spoke in unison.

Inside me, my slumbering magic snapped awake. A sickening sensation yanked at my bones. If not for Eleanora’s strong grip on my hand, I would have staggered and fallen to my knees. We mustn’t break the circle. If we let go of each other’s hands, the magic inside us would retreat and fall asleep. We hadn’t the time to wake it again.

The air shimmered before my eyes as the magic pulled free from inside us and rose into the air, where it would make an invisible dome over the field, protecting it from all outside influence. We, as witches, could pass through this barrier at will to bring the plants water and fertilizer, but nothing, not even rain, could pass through our magic.

Only it took time for our magic to blend and form, and the dragon’s wings beat so fast they blurred, bringing him closer. Too close. Flame burst from his open mouth as he swooped low.

“No!” Renata shrieked, rushing down the wooden ladder nailed to the tree’s trunk. What she thought she could do puzzled me. No one could stop a flaming dragon.

“Goddess, guard us!” we chanted, faster and faster, but my stomach knotted. Would our magic mesh in time, or would the dragon be triumphant?

The scent of myrrh faded beneath the smell of rosemary and mint—sweet at first, then souring as the leaves curled and burned to ash. Fire sprang from one plant to another as the dragon belched flame from one furrow to the next. His tail lashed as he maneuvered the turns.

“Curse you, dragon!” Eleanora raised a fist, her face twisted with rage.

My coven sisters groaned. Some sank to the dirt in defeat. Others wept. Grandmother, her mouth tight, watched the field burn, but said nothing.

Sick to my stomach, I took a faltering step, then another, toward the burning field. I didn’t have to worry about the flames spreading to the other fields. Protection spells still kept them safe. Only this field would burn today, but it was enough. The king would be livid. This was his crop, not ours.

As if in a daze, I walked to the edge of the field. Little flames sizzled near my bare toes. I could have been burned, but I didn’t move. I craned my neck to stare at the green dragon as he soared above me, heading back for the top of Zodiac Mountain.

As his shadow passed over me, he glanced beneath his wing and our gazes locked.

My breath choked me as I gasped. Jewel-like green eyes I’d know anywhere. No kindness gleamed from within them now—only contempt. Donovan, my dragon friend, was friend no longer.

His great wings beat as he flew farther and farther away. I sank to my knees in the soft dirt, smoke smothering me as tears dripped down my cheeks.

The divide between witch and dragon had never seemed wider. Funny how wrong people can be sometimes.