I stepped forward like an avenging angel and changed back to my human form. I raised Skuld’s shears over him, and he looked up at me in fear. “You’re the one who wanted to move beyond the physical sphere,” I reminded him. “Who said dreams don’t come true?” I watched terror fill his golden eyes; then I slit him in half, loosing the spell light that had filled his skin.
This time, there was no spell light for him to use to save himself.
Like the others, he deflated. Unlike the others, he made a low moan as he ceased to exist. The spell light that had filled him rose into the air, seeking to join more energy of its kind. Finding none, it winked out.
Like someone had flipped a switch.
I STOOD THERE, SHAKING IN the silence that stretched afterward. I was dimly aware of the crackle of blue light, the shimmer of the wolves and Bastians changing back to human form and the dragons doing the same. I stared at the empty shell that had been Trevor, incredulous that it was finally over.
The spell that had snared the normal kids was broken, as well. I heard the music start again—although it wasn’t Jared singing anymore—and the laughter of people flirting. I looked at Jared, who didn’t get up or wake up.
What had I done to him?
“Those would be mine,” Skuld said from beside me. She put out her hand for the shears. I was pretty astonished to be able to see her when I was awake, but she smiled and winked at me. “Good job.”
So I’d passed another test. I looked between her and the shears. “Thanks. I guess I don’t need them anymore.”
“No, you don’t.” She shoved them into the holster on her belt and tossed her braid over her shoulder. She then bent to pick up the pieces of the broken NightBlade. “I hate a mess,” she muttered, but I sensed there was more to it than that.
I didn’t much care. I dropped to my knees beside Jared, knowing that if the cost of destroying the NightBlade and eliminating the Mages was his death, it had been too high of a price. I couldn’t feel a pulse and his skin had become very pale.
I felt Nick behind me, the weight of his hand on my shoulder. I saw Isabelle kneel beside me and take my hand in hers. She was still pale and looked unsteady, and there were tears in her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Zoë,” she whispered.
“Maybe all Wyverns are doomed to lose at love,” I said. “Or to sacrifice for it.”
“No,” Isabelle said with such conviction that I wanted to believe her. She reached into her purse, always prepared, and pulled out her deck of tarot cards. She shuffled it once and then offered it to me.
Our gazes met.
I didn’t want to shuffle them. I didn’t want to touch them. I halfway didn’t believe they’d respond to me. But I reached over and I cut the deck, turning it over in my hand to show the card.
The Magician.
I looked at Isabelle. She smiled.
“Number one,” she said, indicating the Roman numeral at the top. “The prime mover, the card of artists and of people who make things happen by directing energy and resources.”
“People who make the future happen,” I said, remembering Jared’s ideas about that. “People who choose.”
Isabelle nodded and put the deck away. She straightened and stood beside Nick. I saw her slip her hand into his. I glanced up to meet her gaze and realized that she was wearing the necklace he’d had made for her.
The last Wyvern had made herself a future.
I’d make myself one, too.
I eased closer to Jared, realizing that we could have been in a little bubble of privacy. The dance went on around us, a tight circle of shifters and select humans and a spellsinger hiding Jared and me from view. Liam and Garrett were there, Meagan and Jessica, Isabelle and Nick, Derek and Kohana. They were my friends and they were all on my side.
Well, except Kohana. I was never sure about him.
He smiled at me, maybe guessing the direction of my thoughts.
“This one’s for you, Unktehila,” he murmured, then sang a trio of notes.
I saw the vivid green of his spellsong. It danced like a feather on the wind, then settled over Jared’s heart. I realized that Kohana was helping me, that he was repaying the debt between us.
Mostly I knew this because the dead Wakiya elder nodded with obvious satisfaction.
Meagan watched Kohana, listening to him with care. She then added her voice to his in a simple harmony, the two of them jamming softly together.
Meagan’s spellsong was red this time, and I liked how it twined with Kohana’s. The two threads of spell light wound together like plies of yarn or snakes on a caduceus or a DNA string.
Jessica improvised some scat. She didn’t make spell light but it sounded pretty.
I loved that they were trying to help me.
To help Jared.
That gave me hope.
The entwined spell light wound toward Jared, making a vortex over his heart. I felt as if it were showing me something. I put my hand into the middle of the swirling spell light, touching my finger to the eye of the hurricane.
And Jared’s heart pulsed hard beneath my fingertip.
He wasn’t dead. He was injured.
Maybe he was lost.
Maybe he just needed someone to call him back from wherever they had banished him.
I flattened my hand, putting my palm against his chest. My mouth was dry and I was nervous, uncertain. But I’d learned to fly without a manual and I’d learned to become the Wyvern without any instruction book.
I had my instincts to guide me, and they were pretty good.
On impulse, I touched my lips to his, keeping my hand flat against his chest. It was a sweet kiss, a chaste touch of my lips to his, but I exhaled a tiny breath against Jared’s mouth. I could feel it tingle as it crossed my lips, electrified by his proximity, maybe. When I sat back, it seemed that there was a glimmer of stardust sliding over his body.
Suddenly his eyes flew open, those gazillion shades of green nearly stopping my heart cold. He studied me, probably reading my thoughts, and I held his gaze, letting him look.
He must have liked whatever he saw.
“Hey, dragon girl,” he murmured, and his voice sounded rough. Then he smiled crookedly at me, the sight of that dimple making my own heart skip. “Would this be the happy ending?”
“Not quite,” I said with a grin. “I still owe you a ride.”
“You’re never going to deliver on that,” he teased, his eyes dancing.
“Get it in gear, Madison,” I retorted. “We’re going right now.”
I stood up and imperiously offered him my hand. He got to his feet under his own steam and visibly shook off something. The others hugged him or pumped his hand or thumped his back. He checked his guitar, then entrusted it to Nick, congratulated Meagan on her spellsinging, thanked Kohana.
Then he took my hand in his and smiled just for me.
“So, I was thinking, dragon girl,” he said, looking down at our hands.
“Always the better choice,” I teased him, and his grin widened.
“I kind of like this town.”
My heart leapt in anticipation as he glanced toward my friends.
“Since I don’t have a band anymore, would it cramp your style if I found a job in town?” He shrugged, avoiding my gaze. “Maybe hooked up with another band?” He looked me in the eye. “Met your dad?”
My heart stopped cold. “Wouldn’t cramp my style at all.”
“Good. Good.” He smiled, getting that wicked glint in his eyes, the one that made the world seem full of possibilities. He slid his arm around my shoulders. “Because the way I see it, I’ve got a couple of years to fill and this would be a good place to do it.”
This time when I smiled at him, he bent and kissed me. Hard. It was every bit as thrilling as the very first time.
And I had a feeling it always would be.
We turned as one and walked out of that cafeteria together as if we owned it.
And, you know, I
think we did.
YOU HAD TO GUESS THAT when the evening was all over, I had a dream.
I felt the snow landing on my face and heard the click of knitting needles. I rolled over to find the three Wyrd sisters busily at work, just as usual. Granny was knitting with superhuman speed, Urd was spinning wool for her so fast that her hands were a blur. The snowdrift that Granny—also known as Verdandi—had knit swelled over their knees like a protective blanket. Skuld was leaning back against the trunk of the tree, cleaning her nails with those massive shears. The tree was in full leaf above them, and the sky was full of stars.
(It made no sense that it was snowing when the sky was clear, but there you go. Dreams follow their own rules.)
I watched as Urd and Verdandi did as they had once before. There could have been a silent signal, for they both moved in the same instant without saying a word. They put aside their work and Urd reached for the bucket, the one she sent down the well. I knew that Verdandi would pull a ladle out from under the snowdrift and that they would water the great tree.
It was soothing to watch their quiet and efficient routine, so I settled back to doze. This was a mark that all was right with the world.
But this time, they surprised me. When Urd pulled the full bucket out of the well, she set it on the ground. A bit of water sloshed over the edge of the bucket; then the three sisters gathered around it to peer into its depths.
There was no ladle. I frowned and sat up to watch.
Skuld shoved her shears into that holster on her belt. She reached under the snowdrift and pulled out a handful of items that reminded me of sugar cookies or gingerbread cut into shapes. But these shapes were black.
They were the remains of the shattered NightBlade.
Urd chose one from the collection in Skuld’s hands and held it up. She blew on it, as if to remove the black dust, and I smelled ash.
But it stayed black, whatever it was.
It was shaped like a griffin.
Granny did get her ladle, and she filled it with water from the bucket. Instead of pouring it on the tree, she carefully poured it over the shape that Urd held in her hand. It seemed to be very important that Urd’s own bony fingertips weren’t touched by the water.
To my astonishment, the shape swelled. It rounded. It grew. And by the time Granny poured the third ladle of water over it, it had become a griffin that towered over the three sisters. It could have been a black sculpture, a griffin carved of dark marble.
All three sisters blew on the griffin, and the blackness that covered it fell away like soot.
It was beautiful. It had the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. Its coat was all in shades of gold and black, an elegant and beautiful creature. I could see the fur on its sides and the gleaming ebony of its nails. Its eyes were as dark as bittersweet chocolate. Its beak could have been made of hammered gold and it shone like the fierce weapon it was.
But its wings were astonishing. They shaded through every color of the rainbow: yellow at the tips, then orange and red and violet and blue, and green where they joined its body. Each feather glistened and each one was tipped in gold.
Then Skuld clapped her hands. My eyes nearly fell out of my head when the sculpture came to life. It could have thawed or awakened from a long sleep. The griffin flapped its wings; it stretched and let out a fearsome cry. That cry could curdle the blood of anyone. And those wings were even more stupendously beautiful when they were spread wide. Just when I thought nothing more weird could happen, it shimmered blue.
A familiar pale blue, a blue light that illuminated its perimeter and danced through its veins.
And the griffin shifted shape into a woman with long dark hair and elegant strength. She embraced the three sisters, then turned to face me. I saw the tears glisten in those beautiful dark eyes as she bowed low and touched her forehead to the ground before me.
“Thank you, Wyvern,” she said, the words resonating in my thoughts like old-speak. She blew me a kiss, changed back to her griffin shape with a roar of delight, then launched herself into the air. She circled once over the great tree, dipped low in triumph, then gave that fearsome cry before she flew into the starry night.
“Always liked them,” Skuld mused with satisfaction. “Even if I did have to wrestle one once in a while over a choice morsel.”
“I’m glad they’re back,” Urd said.
Granny gestured with her ladle, returning her sisters’ attention to the business at hand. Urd chose another shape, a shape I now realized was a shadow, the shadow of one of each kind. The extinction of each kind of shifter had added to the NightBlade, strengthening it, creating new layers like mica that were made of shifter shadows. We’d broken the bonds that enchanted them, and the Wyrd sisters were setting all those kinds of shifters loose in the world again.
I watched the sisters work, my mind filling with questions and possibilities. How many kinds of shifters were there in total? How would we all get along? It looked like I’d be learning a lot from my dad about alliances and treaties.
I thought of the chart I’d made just days before and envisioned it becoming a massive spreadsheet. Did these other shifters live openly among humans or hide themselves? The Pyr were charged with defending the earth and its treasures, but what were the quests of all these other shifters? What could we shifters do together to make the world a better place? What would humans think of so many myths coming to life among them?
No doubt about it—the world had become a much more interesting place.
I’m ready for the adventure.
Are you?
Deborah Cooke has always been fascinated by dragons, although she has never understood why they have to be the bad guys. She has an honors degree in history with a focus on medieval studies and is an avid reader of medieval vernacular literature, fairy tales, and fantasy novels. Since 1992, Deborah has written more than forty romance novels under the names Deborah Cooke, Claire Cross, and Claire Delacroix.
Deborah makes her home in Canada with her husband. When she isn’t writing, she can be found knitting, sewing, or hunting for vintage patterns.
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Don’t miss the book that
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Flying Blind
Available now from
New American Library
There was a guy in my bedroom.
It was six in the morning and I didn’t know him.
I’m not much of a morning person, but that woke me up fast. I sat up and stared, my back pressed against the wall, sure my eyes had to be deceiving me. No matter how much I blinked, though, he was still there.
He seemed to think my reaction was funny.
He had dark hair and dark eyes, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt, just jeans—and he had one heck of a six-pack. His arms were folded across his chest and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
But he seemed insubstantial. I could see through him, right to the crowded bulletin board behind him.
Was he real?
I was going to try asking him, but he abruptly faded—faded and disappeared right before my eyes.
As if he’d been just an illusion. I jumped from the bed, then reached into that corner. My fingers passed through a chill, one cold enough to give me goose bumps. Then my hand landed on a pushpin holding a wad of drawings, and everything was perfectly normal.
Except for the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
I took a deep breath and looked around. My room was the pit it usually was. There were some snuffed candles on my desk and bookshelves, a whiff of incense lingering in the air, and the usual mess of discarded sweaters and books all over the floor.
No sign of that guy. If I hadn’t seen him, if I’d woken up two minutes later, I wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong at all.
I shuddered one last time and headed for the shower. Halfway there I wondered, had Meagan’s plan worked?
The visioning session had been my best friend’s idea. Her mom calls herself a holistic therapist, which makes my mom roll her eyes. I was skeptical, too, but didn’t have any better ideas. And Meagan, being the best friend ever, had really pulled out all the stops. She’d brought candles and mantras and incense for my room, and even though I’d felt silly, I’d followed her earnest instructions.
When the candles had burned down and she’d left—and my mom had shouted that I should open a window—I’d been pretty sure it hadn’t worked. Nothing seemed to have happened.
But now I didn’t know what to think. Who had that guy been? Where had he come from? And where had he gone?
Or had I just imagined him? I thought that if I was going to imagine a guy in my bedroom, it wouldn’t be one who thought I was funny when I wasn’t trying to be, never mind one who kind of creeped me out.
I’d have imagined Nick there.
In fact, I frequently did.
I heard my mom in the kitchen and my dad getting the newspaper and knew I had to get moving. I did my daily check in the bathroom, but nada. No boobs. No blood.
Four more zits.
At its core, then, the visioning session had failed.
I’m probably not the only fifteen-and-a-half-year-old girl who’d like to get the Puberty Show on the road. Even Meagan got her period last year, which was why she was trying to help. But my best friend didn’t know the half of it.
That was because of the Covenant. I couldn’t confide in Meagan because I’d had to swear to abide by the Covenant of our kind. I come from a long line of dragon shape shifters—Pyr, we call ourselves—and we pledge to not reveal our abilities to humans on a whim.
That would include Meagan.
The Covenant goes like this:
I, Zoë Sorensson, do solemnly pledge not to willfully reveal the truth of my shape-shifting abilities to humans. I understand that individuals may know me in dragon form or in human form, but I swear that I shall not permit humans to know me in both forms, or to allow them to witness my shifting between forms without appropriate assessment of risk. I understand also that there will be humans who come to know me in both forms over the course of my life—I pledge not to reveal myself without due consideration, to beguile those who inadvertently witness my abilities, and to supply the names of those humans whom I have entrusted with my truth to the leader of the Pyr, Erik Sorensson.