It’s powerful.
And I am powerful.
I ran past my mother and past Novi, and I flung myself off the cliff. Wind hit me, and I spread my arms as I felt myself plummet. My stomach leaped into my throat, and I wanted to scream, and when I did…it came out as a roar.
IFELT HUGE.
I felt amazing.
Scales ripped over my body as I swelled larger and larger. My legs thickened and bent, and I felt talons grow from my feet and hands. My back burst open, and wings extended on either side of me. My eyes widened until I felt I could see the whole world. Below me, the valley floor was rising fast—its glorious green so vivid to my new dragon eyes. I felt as if I could see every blade of grass as it bent in the wind. And the smells! I inhaled and breathed in a thousand scents of earth and water and trees and grass and the warm bodies of burrowing animals beneath the soil and the sea-tinged smell of birds that had flown far…
“Remember to fly!” Novi called, above me.
Startled, I spread my wings and flapped them.
Two dragons were waiting for me as I rose shakily higher: a small orange one and a beautiful green one. Novi and Mom. Wobbling in the air, I tried to steady myself in front of them.
“Ready for your flying lessons?” Mom asked. While she was in her dragon form, her voice sounded musical. It sang through the air. She flew on one side of me. Novi flew on the other. I wobbled.
“First, you must understand how wings work,” Mom instructed. “The lift—”
Novi swooped in front of me, drew in her wings, and spiraled. “You feel it. Trust your instincts.” Giggling, she zipped toward a cloud.
I followed her.
The wind felt like it was a part of me. My wings knew the wind like my feet knew the pavement. I felt it beneath me, and I turned so that it pushed me up. Extending my wings, I glided forward. Looking down, I felt my body tip with my head, and then I dove down.
“Good,” Novi said, matching me. “Don’t overthink it. That was always Worm’s mistake. Now, watch for—” A burst of wind caught the tip of my wing, and I flipped sideways, careening through the air. I yelped. “—cross winds,” she finished.
Steadying myself, I flapped my wings to catch up to her again.
Side by side, we flew up toward the clouds, bursting through them. I felt the misty droplets on my face. Opening my mouth, I tasted the mist, and it cooled my throat. We dove down, and my mother flew beside me.
I was so wrong,I thought—freewheeling down a mountain road on an earthbound bike was nothing like flying. This…this was amazing!
“You’re a natural!” Mom trumpeted with joy. “Oh, my daughter! Let’s fly!”
Circling above the river, we saw the unicorns running in a herd below us. Dipping down, I felt the tips of the trees brush my stomach, and then we were up again, circling the tips of mountains.
We flew until my wings ached and my eyes felt dry and my scales felt sandpapered from the wind, and then we landed in heaps on the cliff. And then suddenly I was laughing, and I didn’t know why. Just from the sheer happiness of it all.
I practiced for two days straight. Sometimes with Mom, sometimes with Novi, sometimes on my own. Fire, however, continued to elude me. I could make a spurt of fire, the same as I’d managed when I unlocked the vault, but I couldn’t sustain it.
“Um, that’s…a good start,” Novi said.
“It’s pathetic,” I replied.
“Maybe a little.”
Mom tried to give me advice filled with lots of tricks and techniques, but in the end, I had to practice by myself—all the advice and comments were making my flame smaller and smaller. And that was when I encountered Worm again. I was focusing on fire so much that I lost control of my flying, right above the burned bit of valley where he lived.
Veering, I crashed into a tree. “Ow.” Sideways, stuck in the branches, I looked down and saw Worm. He was sitting, half naked, on a rock, chewing on a green stick.
“You’re that girl, right? The newbie? You make a very big dragon. Guess you won’t be joining me here.” He let out a bitter laugh. “It figures. You’re here for a few days, and you’re a better wyvern than I’ll ever be. I’m here for a lifetime and can’t get anything right.” He kicked at a lump of char. “Congratulations. You’ll fit right in.”
Carefully, I tried to detangle my wings.
The branch broke, and I thumped onto the ground. I pictured myself in my human form, and soon I was shrinking. The world seemed to dull and flatten as my eyes resumed their normal shape. The tree seemed to grow. It was the weirdest sensation, as if my body had been replaced with Silly Putty. Swallowing a few times until my throat felt normal, I asked, “If you hate it so much, why don’t you leave?”
