"When the baked goods come out, do you want another lesson on shifting?" I askedFifi.
"Yes!"
By the time the rolls and pies were out and cooling, the twins and my mother were more than ready for our extracurricular.
It wasn't a long hike. Thirty yards past the back deck, through a crescent of old laurel, and we were in a clearing built for dragons. The last leaves still clung to the birch, but most of the grass had gone dormant, thick and gold. The air here burned with energy. Ley lines, history, all the bone-deep reasons the Meyer land stayed in the family even if we had to move away sometimes.
Caden wanted out. I could barely keep him contained. He wanted to see Flora, Fifi's dragon, test her new wings.
Mere hustled to keep up, but she never complained. If curiosity was a superpower, Mere would fly before any dragon.
Fifi was nervous, twitchy, trying to style it as swagger but coming up short. Every time she glanced up, you could see the war behind her eyes, half-wild with excitement, half ready to bolt.
I tried to put her at ease. "The trick with flying? Don't overthink it. Your dragon already knows how. It's baked in, total instinct." I grinned. "You just have to trust her."
Fifi snorted, but her arms hugged her middle. "What if I crash?"
"Then you get up and try again. We heal very fast."
Mom watched this with mild amusement. She still wore her "perfect family matriarch" mask, but out here, she shed some of it. On our land, with the sun on her face, she was almost relaxed.
"Best to show her, I think," Mom declared. She didn't wait for a reply. The air shimmered, and in a blink, Lyra stood in her place. A white dragon, flawless, scales gleaming like pearls.
Lyra dipped her head to Fifi, a full show of respect. Then she unfurled her wings, translucent at the edges, catching every stray ray of gold. She launched herself up, smooth as silk, barely mussing the grass. She hung there, coasting on thermals nobody else could see. Then she did a lazy loop, a double spiral, and a textbook landing, soft as a dandelion.
Fifi's jaw dropped. "Holy crap."
Mere watched in delight.
I stretched my arms, letting the dragon bleed through. Caden had waited long enough. My skin rippled. Scales overtook it, bones stretching, every inch of me warping into what I really was. The shift came easy after all this time. Tash had seen it, the twins hadsurvived it, and nobody in this family was about to faint over a dragon.
I let Caden stretch, wings flaring. Jet-black, all obsidian, with a shine that sucked up light instead of bouncing it.
Fifi watched, mouth an O. She squared her shoulders, then, determined, let go.
Her shift came in pieces, not all at once. Copper flashed behind her lashes first, then in her hands, then everywhere. Skin melted to scales, arms thickening, back cracking, shirt vanishing as wings punched out. She teetered, but I braced her with my own scaled flank, steadying her with a rumble.
Flora, Fifi's dragon, was much smaller than me or Lyra, maybe four feet at the shoulder. Her wings glittered, fine and thin, but she had power. She flexed, shimmered, then clung to the ground, nervous.
Mere whooped. "You look awesome, Fifi!"
Flora snorted, a little puff of smoke, and tried to act cool. But her tail whipped the grass like she'd never used it before. She hadn't, not really.
We nudged her gently.Ready to fly, Flora?Caden asked her.
A second's hesitation, then she braced, wings arching. Instinct jumped the gap. One, two, threewingbeats, and she caught air. Not clean, not a pro, but she was airborne.
Lyra joined her, close enough to keep the kid from panicking. I let Caden take over, focusing on pure movement. If Flora drifted, I nudged her back in line. If she dropped, I matched her pace, never letting her fall further than she wanted.
Together, we circled the compound, always keeping within the boundary line. Caden liked the view. He liked the way Flora trusted her wings more with every loop.
Then, we noticed a flicker. A shimmer of metal in the trees, near the north border.
Caden went rigid. Two silver specks darted in and out of the blue. Drones, both sporting SkyArc's signature casing and with too many cameras. They hovered close, never crossing into my airspace, but the message was clear. They were here to watch.
Roast them. Scare the hell out of whoever was watching.Caden was not happy about this at all.
But Maeve and her mother's and grandmother's spells were sunk into our land, safeguards to prevent outsiders from seeing us as dragons. Maeve had told me that nowadays, we looked like bald eagles. The bird was large, flew fast, and protected.
