The world was on fire.
Flames surrounded him, crackling in his ears, filling the air with heat and smoke. Coughing, the boy huddled in a corner the fire hadn’t reached yet, tears streaming painfully down his cheeks, burning his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. Everything was so hot; sweat poured off his small body and drenched his clothes. Gasping, he crawled toward an open closet on the far wall, wanting only to escape, to hide in the beckoning darkness and hope it all went away.
“Garret!”
A blurry form moved across his field of vision, and someone swept him off the floor. Instantly, he relaxed, burying his face in her neck as she clutched him tight. He was safe now. As long as she was here, he was safe.
“Hold on, baby,” she whispered above him, and he squeezed his eyes shut as she began to run. Heat pressed against his back and arms and scalded his bare legs, but he wasn’t afraid anymore. Somewhere close, he heard shouting and gunfire, but he didn’t care about that. Now that she had found him, everything would be okay.
A cool breeze hit his skin, and he peeked up from her shoulder. They had left the building; he could see it burning behind him, orange-and-red tongues of fire snapping overhead. The shooting and screaming got closer, and a couple people went rushing past them, toward the noise and the chaos. A deafening boom rocked the earth behind them, and he flinched.
“It’s okay,” she murmured, stroking his hair. He could feel her heartbeat, thudding rapidly against his chest as she staggered down the road. “It’s okay, Garret, we’re okay. We just have to find Daddy and—”
There was a roar above them. He looked up just as something huge and terrifying swooped down on black leathery wings, and the world cut out like a light.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we’re beginning our descent into Heathrow Airport. Please return to your seats and make sure your seat belts are securely fastened.”
As the captain’s voice drifted over the intercom, I opened my eyes and blinked as the plane came into focus. The aisle was dim, with only a few reading lights shining here and there. Outside the window, a faint pink glow had crept over the distant horizon, staining the clouds below it red. Most everyone was asleep, including the elderly woman in the seat beside mine. The engines droned in my ears as I yawned and shook my head. Had I dozed off? That wasn’t like me, even on a ten-hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean.
The remnants of a dream lingered in my mind, familiar and disturbing at the same time. Heat and smoke, fire and gunshots, a woman carrying me to safety, the roar of a dragon in my ears. I’d had this nightmare before; for years my sleep had been plagued with death and flames and, above all, dragons. The frequency of the nightmares had faded with time, but every so often, I’d be right back in that burning room as a four-year-old, a woman I no longer remembered carrying me to safety, the screams of dying men echoing all around us.
And my first glimpse of the monster I’d soon dedicate my whole life to fighting, descending on us with a roar. That was where the dream, and the memory, ended. How I’d escaped certain fiery death, no one really knew. The Order had told me I’d repressed that memory; that it wasn’t uncommon in children who’d experienced something traumatic. They’d said I didn’t speak for three days after they’d rescued me.
I supposed there were few things more traumatic than watching your mother die in the jaws of a dragon.
I leaned back in my seat and gazed out the window. Far, far below, I could see glimmers of light where a few hours ago there had been nothing but darkness. I’d be happy to get on the ground again, to be able to move around instead of sitting in a tiny cramped space surrounded by strangers. The woman beside me had talked nonstop at the beginning of the flight, saying I reminded her of her grandson, showing me pictures of her various family members, lamenting that they never visited anymore. When the pictures had run out, she’d started asking questions about me, how old was I, where were my parents, was I traveling overseas all by myself, until I put in earbuds and feigned sleep in self-defense. I’d heard her mutter “poor dear” before she’d dug a crossword book out of her purse and scribbled in silence until she dozed off. I’d been careful not to wake her while she slept and to appear engaged in other things when she was awake, on the long, long flight across the Atlantic.
The plane shuddered as it hit a patch of rough air, and the woman beside me muttered but didn’t open her eyes. Leaning my head against the window, I watched the lights scroll past hundreds of feet below. Do dragons ever fly this high? my tired mind wondered.
My thoughts drifted. Another dragon appeared in my head, crimson red instead of black, bright and cheerful instead of murderous. Pain flickered, and I shoved it away, willing myself to forget, to feel nothing. She was no longer part of my life; the girl with the quick smile and brilliant green eyes, who had made me feel things I’d never thought possible... I would never see her again. I didn’t hate her; I wasn’t even that angry. How could I be, when she had saved my life, when she had showed me so much, including how wrong the Order was? I’d spent my life slaughtering her kind, and she had responded by befriending me, saving me from execution and fighting at my side against Talon and St. George.
But she was a dragon, and when I’d finally confessed my feelings and confronted her about her own, she’d balked. Admitted she wasn’t sure if dragons could feel that way, that they weren’t supposed to feel human emotion. And that her pull toward Riley, a fellow dragon who’d set his sights on her, couldn’t be ignored any longer.
I’d realized then, how futile it was. Loving a dragon. It had been easy to overlook her true nature, to just see the girl. I’d never forgotten what she was, especially when she Shifted into her true form and I was reminded of how powerful, savage and dangerous dragons could be. But it was more complicated than that. Hovering in the back of my mind, constantly plaguing me, was the knowledge that, even if Ember could return my feelings, she would outlive me by hundreds of years. We had no future together; we were two different species, and there was a war raging on both sides that would stop at nothing to destroy us. Even if I could love both the girl and the dragon, what kind of life would I—a former soldier of St. George—be able to give her? I didn’t even have a future for myself.
Resolve settled over me. It was better that I’d left; now she could be with her own kind, as it should be. She was with Riley and his rogue dragons. Their lives would be dangerous, constantly running from Talon and St. George, but Ember was stubborn and resourceful, and Riley had been outsmarting both Talon and St. George for a long time. They didn’t need me. Ember Hill, the dragon I’d fallen in love with, would do just fine.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are