Page 6

I have no idea how to stop the lightning sparking in wild arcs. It cracks past me and stings the edge of my wing. My dragon is drunk on the power, pushing for more. He wants me to pour every drop of it into the sky, and, damn it, so do I. This is what my ancestors carried. When a Stormscale called, storms came and kingdoms went down on their knees.

A bolt slams into my chest and blinds me with white light. Every muscle I have locks up. I can’t yell with my jaw clamped shut, but I can smell my own skin scorching. My wings quit. My dragon howls and throws everything he has at them. They stay dead weight, and I fall out of my storm with the sky spinning. Trees rush up at me while I hang paralyzed inside a body that won’t answer.

Mother Fate, don’t let me die before I ever get to touch Aya.

Then someone catches me. He locks his arms around my ribs and beats his wings to slow our fall. The jolt rips through my locked muscles. I blink through the pain at Valek’s face above mine. Of all the dragons in Ash Clan, it had to be him. He’s straining against my weight to keep us in the air. I can hear his heart hammering over the wind.

He comes down hard and carries me through the village. I can’t lift a finger to get him off me. Everything hurts. My chest feels torn open and put back together wrong. Each step he takes jars it again.

“Yes,” Valek says, “you do have a lot of Stormscale in you.”

I try to tell him where he can shove it and groan instead.

“But Stormscale turned on their people.” Valek keeps walking toward my parents’ cabin. “They cannot be anymore. That power you just felt? It’s the same power that nearly destroyed Wintermoon during the Great War. The same power that got your father’s entire clan executed.”

I’m too drained to do more than huff at every word of it, let alone argue or smoke at him. He’s dead wrong about my people. Stormscale wasn’t evil. They were out of their minds with grief. That isn’t the same thing.

“If I can’t be with Aya here,” I rasp, “then I’ll leave. I’ll take her somewhere else. Somewhere you can’t control us.”

Valek is quiet. He moves me in his arms until my head rests on his shoulder. Him being almost gentle with me is strange as hell.

“I know,” he says finally. “I’m figuring that out. Just bear with me, boy.”

The cabin door flies open. My mother stands there with her green wings out, ready to set fire to whoever did this to her son.

“Ezra!” She rushes at us, reaching for me. “What happened? What did you do to him?”

“He did it to himself,” Valek answers. His scent is tired and flat. “The boy has more Stormscale in him than any of us realized.”

My mother takes my weight from him and cradles me close. She’s trembling, and to her, I’m still a hatchling. I want to tell her I’m fine and only need sleep, but I can’t get a word out.

The last thing I see is my father stepping into the doorway behind her. There isn’t a trace of fear in his scent. It’s like he’s been waiting for this night since I hatched. I black out, and even in the dark, my dragon reaches for the storm.

2

AYA

My stomach growls before I open my eyes. I can smell the butter and vanilla in my mother’s pancakes from up in my room. Downstairs, my brothers are already squabbling.

“I won by a full second,” Amos brags. “Go ahead, cry about it.”

“You cheated!” Arlo fires back. “You shifted before we hit the clearing!”

Amos laughs at him. “It’s called instinct, Arlo. Maybe work on yours.”

I groan and consider smothering myself with my pillow. They’re teens now and still haven’t figured out how to have a conversation at a normal volume. Everything is a competition with my brothers, from who can run faster to who can hold their breath longer when they’re swimming in the lake behind our cabin. They came into this world fighting over who got born first, and they’ll probably die fighting over who gets to go last. I love them. I also fantasize about strangling them at least twice a day.

My father’s voice rumbles up from the kitchen. The boys go quiet for him before they start up again. I grin at the ceiling. Our cabin has sounded this way for as long as I can remember, with my brothers bickering over nothing while my parents try to keep the peace. It’s loud and crazy, but it’s home. I don’t want to think about leaving it behind.

I kick the blankets off. Sunlight hits the beams over my bed, where Uncle Kane carved a pack of wolves when I was a pup. They’re howling at a moon he tucked into the corner. I used to count them to fall asleep. Every cabin in House of Zorah has his work somewhere in it. I’ve always loved that.

I push the curtain aside to check on the village. Smoke rises from the chimneys that ring our clearing. Uncle Gabriel’s twins are outside causing trouble. Jonathan chases Jasmine around the fire pit while Aunt Olivia watches from her porch with a mug of coffee, too tired to step in. He tackles his sister into the grass, and Jasmine’s shriek of outrage sends birds scattering from the trees.

I snicker and head for the bathroom to pin my hair up so it won’t get wet. I have my mother’s dark waves and my father’s silver eyes. Everyone says I got his stubbornness and her temper too, and I can’t argue with them.

I spit, rinse, and turn on the shower. The water runs hot almost immediately. I strip down and step under the spray, where the heat pounds on my shoulders and steams up the bathroom. Today I have clinicals at the medical center. I’ll be working alongside Ezra’s mother.

I’m going to corner her and demand answers. I’ll be professional about it while I pretend I don’t want to shake her until she tells me where her son is hiding.