“Those are our leaders,” Novi said behind me. Her voice was a whisper. “Watch. They’ll show you what you need todo.”
I watched as the leaders flew with precision a series of complex maneuvers, weaving in and out among one another, flipping upside down and spiraling, then diving low to the ground and pulling up to skim the river. Everyone gasped, oohed, and aahed.
“Novi, I can’t do that!” I whispered.
She didn’t answer as the fire portion of the test began. Flying again in perfect formation, the seven dragons breathed fire along the river and then up. They danced in the air, breathing fire around them, so close to the other dragons that I realized I’d forgotten to breathe.
It was beautiful.
It was impossible.
I’m going to fail,I thought.
SEVEN AT A TIME,to match the leaders, the wyverns of Home leaped into the air, transformed, and flew. Sandwiched between Mom and Novi, I watched. I knew Worm was watching too from down at the base of the valley, and I wished he were allowed to be up here with us. It had to make it worse for him to be separated from the “successful” wyverns.
This was no more fair than the council passing judgment on my family.
I began to feel more than a little angry at the wyverns here, for making us go through this, for judging the exiles as if they had the same knowledge and experience as those who had been born and raised to do this. I began to feel angry on behalf of Worm; of Novi, who wasn’t allowed to help her brother; and of my mother, who had to worry aboutme.
I watched some plummet as they tried to fly. I saw others soar. None were as beautifully smooth as the leaders, but a few came close. Soon it would be the exiles’ turn.
Don’t get nervous,I told myself. I tried to hold on to my anger and my self-righteous pride. Just because they couldn’t fly or flame as well didn’t mean they didn’t deserve food and shelter. Maybe they were smart or funny. Or good at pottery or writing poems or interpretive dance. This was stupid.
I wanted to go home.
That’s where I belonged. Not here.
I wasn’t a wyvern from Home. I was Sky Hawkins from Aspen, Colorado, and screw this. “I’m not doing it,” I muttered. And then I said it louder, “I’m not doing it. I’m going home.Myhome.”
Novi grabbed my arm. “You go through the Door, and you’ll be burned to a crisp! Please, Sky, this is your world now, and you have to adjust. Focus on the Reckoning.”
Mom nodded. “I told you: there are no spells here to fight the beast.” She lightly touched my neck. “You need to forget about the Door and focus on flying and fire.”
Fire,I thought. “Maximus’s spell is just fire, isn’t it? He fights fire with fire.”
“Beast with beast, yes,” Mom said. “Sky, I can see where you’re going with this, and I don’t like it. Your fire is nowhere near strong enough or hot enough to fight a fire beast!”
An idea was forming, beautiful and simple, the best kind. I should have seen it sooner, but I’d gotten stuck thinking that the fire beasthadto be defeated by someone using a spell, which wasn’t true. It simply had to be defeated. “I can’t do it. But Worm can.”
Novi jolted, as if I’d poked her with a fork. “Worm? He can’t leave! This is his home!”
“He already said he wants to come,” I told her.
“He did?”
But I didn’t get a chance to respond, because it was suddenly time. Novi, Mom, and I, as well as four other exiles whose names I didn’t know, were pushed forward by a surge around us—prodded by one of the wyvern leaders. And then we were at the edge of the cliff.
“Any last advice?” I asked.
“Whatever you do,” Novi said, “don’t die!”
“That is not how you give a pep talk,” I told her. But before I could finish the sentence, she leaped from the cliff and transformed. A small orange dragon soared away from the crowd, and the exiles around us cheered. Next, another wyvern. He changed into a silver dragon with a long tail. And another, and another.
“You can do this,” Mom told me.
“I know,” I said, and I ran off the cliff.
My head was swirling with thoughts and worries: Was I right about Worm? Could his fire defeat a magical fire beast? His fire blazed hotter than any I’d ever seen. If he could fight the beast, could we escape the vault and the house? And then I pulled all these thoughts up into a mental fist and thrust them away for later.
