“Reach for your toes,” I said to Evie.
“I’m reaching,” she said.
It was fine that my sister didn’t bend far enough into the stretch. I smiled anyway, willing this to be our perfect morning together. I made the effort because I knew I was a distracted sister at best. A do-not-contact sister at worst.
My recent offers of “together time” were for repairing the rift that had developed over the previous year. Evie had always tolerated my secret time with my mentor growing up, but I pushed past her goodwill with my last mistake.
Every time I got her alone, I readied myself to clear the air, start again with her, explain what happened with her ex. She gave me the perfect opening when she said she wanted to get into better shape to keep up with her husband. I thought her shifter genetics did just fine, but I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to be with her and show her something useful. I went through a few basic stretches with her and enjoyed the warming air, the call of the stones beneath us. She told me about her flying lessons, and I attempted to keep her focused on what we were here to do.
“Ward wants to practice twice a week, but I comeback from those things completely exhausted. I don’t even have wings most of the time, and they hurt. I need something like this to get my stamina up. He insists that if we just fuck more, I will have all the stamina I need. Mags. I never thought I would say this, but if he sexes me any more, I’m going to keel over.”
“Now you just sound like a quitter.” I teased her, and she laughed.
I basked in that warmth for as long as I could, listening to her chatter about her Mate. My sister was the most generous person alive. It showed every time she turned away while I defended her against any town biddy who wanted to comment on her weight; her need for solitude. Or the many, many rude jokes about her virginity she pretended not to hear, and I raged over.
So I wasn’t jealous that she had found her perfect match. The prickle in my chest didn’t matter at all. I had plenty of lovers, an abundance of sex - all of it fast and furious and reaching for something. Kind of like what happened with Noth, but not like that at all. I had to stop thinking about that. This was Evie’s time. Time for us to connect. For me to listen. For her to stress me the fuck out.
“Rotate your knee outward.” I showed her with my knee, slowly turning it to the side.
“I don't turn that way,” she replied, face in her arm.
“You can. Just shake out your leg and tryagain.”
She bent her leg like a psycho. I reached for my patience.
“Not like that,” I said.
Evie was going to rupture a joint doing that, and I didn’t want her hurt.
She slumped into a pile with a loud huff. “I don't want to play the ‘you’re doing it wrong game’ today, Mags.”
“I just want you to get the most out of this. You can stretch deeper if you turn your knee correctly.” I bent in half, touching the ground with my forehead to show her. When Evie collapsed into her collections, I burst out into the world. Burning away pound after pound of flesh with my anger and these exercises.
“Easy for you to do.” Her voice vibrated.
“Yeah, because I'm doing it right.” I wanted it to be a joke, but her tone struck at my anxiety, and it came out brittle.
“Well, I guess I do everything wrong.”
I threw up my hands. “Not everything!”
Evie screeched and launched herself off the woven mat. “Jackass. I think you have a death-wish.”
Her shift into a dragon was awe-inspiring. I had spent years trying to learn the witchcraft that called to me without success. No one had to know I was jealous she found her magic so easily. I called myself a witch, but nobody believed me. I couldn’t blame them. Though my mentor gave me access to a long line of women who hid in the Harrowlands over hundreds of generations, still I onlysparked minor magic with a sigil, and had to use crystals to amplify a minor healing. And I was pretty fantastic at sex. That wasn’t magic though; that was just men being stupid.
Her claws came down around me. She wasn't wrong about the death-wish thing. It would be easier than voicing the things between us. Certainly easier than turning back time to when we kind of understood each other. Two chubby girls with indifferent parents against a town of gossips.
I yelled for her husband and used all my strength to keep her talons from crushing my chest. How did it always end up like this? Now that Evie shifted into a dragon, I didn't want to inspire her ire. The fight was never about what was right before us, but about what was behind us. I deserved death by dragon if for nothing else than I would never make up for the fact I slept with her ex. Ultimately, the circumstances didn't matter. I was a horrible sister.
We lived with this thing between us for too long. It had its own magical force now. One that had Evie and me orbiting each other with a sinkhole between us. One that was tearing me apart. Maybe she tried to forgive me, but I couldn’t forgive myself. I hated the utter disappointment I saw on my sister's face every time she looked at me. Just when I resolved I was an adult and I would be the one to repair this, the words crowded behind my teeth, and she took shelter in her gigantichusband. I didn't know what to do or how to make it right.
Said gigantic husband strode out onto the keep’s parapet. The stones strained under Evie’s weight.
“Mate?! You’re shaking the entire castle,” he said as he stepped around her splayed claws. Ward was a good enough man to spell a bit of space over me so I didn’t actually die at my sister’s hands.
Evie looked down at him and snorted out a puff of light. They were mind-talking to each other. Again, not jealous. Who wanted someone to know you that deeply? To be with you always? I dropped men like hot rolls for that very reason. Certainly not because I never really found what I was looking for in a guy or in bed.
Evie reared back, and my life flashed before my eyes until she snapped Ward into her jaws and leapt off the ledge of the parapet and into the morning sky.
