The hairs rose on the back of my neck. That was the second time he’d brought it up.
“How do you know that?” I demanded.
“I told you. A little birdie told me.”
“That’s not funny.”
Gaius smiled. “I’m not trying to be. It wasn’t that long ago that you told Cobalt you were going out on an adventure.”
My head swam. Gaius had been in our lives for as long as I could remember, so even if he wasn’t physically present for that conversation, he must’ve heard it from someone else.
“And that’s when you first met Poppy,” Gaius went on.
Hearing him say it out loud made me shudder, like I was abruptly wrenched back in time. I was so used to keeping it close to my chest that it felt uncanny to hear it from someone else’s perspective.
Since Gaius apparently knew so much, I had less reservations about filling in the gaps. Besides, it was somehow less challenging to talk to him about it than my own family. He was a trusted outsider, familiar but not intimate. And if I was ever going to work out how the fuck I felt about all this shit, maybe it’d help to lay it all on the table.
I steeled my nerves, took another cold gulp of soda, then sighed.
“Back then, nothing could touch me. I was a dragon with speed, grace, and power. I could go anywhere I wanted, do anything I wanted. I thought I was invincible. And then, three days into my flight, the hurricane hit.”
The sickly greenclouds should’ve been a warning. But by the time I realized my overconfidence, I was too late. The storm had caught me.
Rain that started as a drizzle transformed into a torrential downpour. Every stroke of my wings became a struggle. The rain doused my scales and kept getting in my mouth. My vision blurred from the relentless rivulets streaming down my face. The roiling waves beneath me were gray, as were the intimidating clouds above, and I couldn’t see the horizon past the aggressive sheets of rain. My sense of direction was utterly fucked.
I was totally and completely lost.
But I kept flying. I couldn’t do anything else except forge ahead, hoping desperately to find a break in the storm. The longer I flew into the gray vortex, the more tendrils of anxiety I felt creeping close to my heart. My chest grew tighter with every dragging minute.
WherewasI? If I was closer to home than I thought, could I still turn around and fly back?
But if Cobalt knew I’d chickened out during a storm, he might think I was childish, or worse, incompetent. I wanted to prove that I was capable of taking care of myself. A little rain wasn’t going to stop me.
Clutching my bag tight, I surged ahead with a ferocious cry. I was a dragon. I wouldn’t let the damned weather get the best of me.
I flew for what felt like hours, but in reality, it could’ve been minutes. My sense of time was screwed by the lack of change. Everything, everywhere was gray. Rain and wind, sky and sea. The only splash of color was the purple scales on my wings as they beat furiously against the elements.
Every muscle ached. My wings were exhausted, and my eyes stung from the whipping winds.
After what seemed like ages, the storm suddenly calmed. The torrential rain slowed to a drizzle. But still, I didn’t stop to rest. I was scared the hurricane would catch up and suck me back into its vortex.
I couldn’t stop.
Still breathing hard, I forced myself higher into the sky. Those wing beats were difficult, given my exhaustion, but the added height meant I could glide for a while—and maybe end up somewhere safe.
When I was high as I could go, I unfurled my wings as wide as possible, then tilted forward. Gravity cradled my body, pushing me forward without any extra effort.
I closed my eyes, just to rest for a while, and let fate take me where it would.
The next timeI opened my eyes, the world looked unfamiliar.
Stretched out before me was a vast, open domain of white. Everything was low to the ground—the snow, the rocks, even the gray-purple hills in the distance. Nothing seemed to rise higher than halfway to the massive blue sky.
The air smelled different, too. It was dry and cool, a far cry from the island’s humid heat. Cold blanketed everything. There were no potent aromas wafting from ostentatious flowers here. It was all snow, snow, and snow. Sometimes rocks. But mostly snow.
I lifted my head to the sun. Just like everything else in this land, it was shockingly low in the sky. Not quite as hot, either.
I grunted and stopped looking up. The muscles in my neck were stiff and sore. The more I moved, the deeper my body ached. I felt it in body parts I didn’t even knowcouldhurt.
