Ancient Magic (Dragon's Gift: The Huntress #1)(3)

“We can find what we need with our dragon-sense,” said the green-eyed girl. “If we want it badly enough, it becomes treasure. Then we follow our sense to it.”

Was that how we were supposed to survive? Become hungry enough to find food and then steal it?

I looked down at my ragged dress and skinny body. The only thing I had of value was the necklace, and even that was probably almost worthless. It didn’t look like I had a lot of choice right now. If I had parents, I had no idea who they were or how to find them.

My throat tightened. Did I have a mom and dad? Where were they? I pushed through the pain in my mind, trying to remember. But nothing came. Just blinding agony. I slumped against the other girls.

“Are you okay?” one asked.

“Yes.” I pushed thoughts of parents away and focused on surviving. “If we use our dragon sense, we have to be careful.”

If we were caught, we would be thrown in the Prison for Magical Miscreants. It was a cold, dark, terrible place, I remembered that. A shiver ran over me. My own personal bogeyman. In the corner of my mind, it felt like someone had once threatened me with that prison, but when I poked at the memory, the blinding pain came again. Why didn’t I learn? I needed to quit poking at my personal past.

“We need names,” I said.

“Yes. I hate not having one,” said the dark-haired girl.

The green-eyed girl looked up at the sky. “I will be Phoenix. After the constellation. Call me Nix.”

I liked that. Naming ourselves for something bigger gave me hope. I looked up too. A cluster of bright stars caught my eye. I didn’t know what in my past had taught me the constellations, but I was grateful for it. “I’ll be Cassiopeia. Call me Cass.”

The green-eyed girl looked up and sighed. “You took the best ones.”

I giggled, the sound surprising me.

“I’ll take Delphinus,” she said finally. “But it’ll be Delphine. And you can call me Del.”

“Okay. Del and Nix.” They both looked so different. Panic gripped my throat as I realized that I didn’t know what I looked like. I pulled my hair around. Red. “We look nothing alike. I don’t think we’re related by blood, even though we’re all FireSouls.”

They were rare from what I remembered, but I didn’t recall the gift being genetic.

“We’re sisters now,” Nix said. “Because we’re all we’ve got. I don’t remember my parents.”

“Me neither.” Del sniffed back tears.

“We’ll find them.” I closed my eyes and focused on the idea of parents. I wanted them more than anything, so I should be able to find them.

But the magical string didn’t tie itself around my middle. I thought harder, reaching into my mind, pretending it was a book I could flip through.

Agony pierced my skull.

I retreated, gasping.

“I tried to find them,” I said. My parents were lost to me. My throat tightened and tears burned. “I don’t think I know enough about them. I could imagine food and find that. But people are harder, I think.”

“We’ll find them somehow,” Del said.

I nodded, trying to hope but finding it hard.

“We can only use our dragon sense to find food and other things we need,” I said. “No killing for other powers.” I didn’t want to be a murderer, no matter how much power it got me.

Nix nodded. “I don’t want to be a monster.”

“Me neither,” said Del.

“If another supernatural asks how we can find things, we say we are Seekers,” I said.

The green-eyed girl smiled. “That’s a good idea. Camouflage ourselves.”

“Exactly.” Seekers were a type of supernatural who could find things. As long as we didn’t kill and steal powers, we could use our ability to find treasure and just say that we were Seekers.

“Do we have other powers we can use?” Del asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. If it was about me directly, I couldn’t seem to remember. “FireSouls can be other types of supernaturals as well. You both feel magical to me.”

Nix closed her eyes. I felt her power surge against me like water lapping at my skin. The taste of vanilla burst on my tongue, and her flower scent filled my nose. Her hands began to glow. She cupped them in front of her.

Eventually, a small match appeared in her palms.

“You’re a conjurer,” I said as my power swelled within me.

“Not a very good one,” Nix said. “I wanted to conjure a fire for warmth.”

I listened with half an ear as the power in my chest grew. It felt like it was in response to hers, spurred on by what she had. I embraced it, though I didn’t understand it, and held my arms out. The magic pulsed within me, roaring to be released. I raised my palms to the sky and let it go.

An enormous fireball shot from my palms, throwing me back onto the ground as it roared into the sky. It burned away the tops of the trees and exploded into the night. Orange flames surged through the air, burning my skin.

Panic rose in my chest as I scrambled to my feet. We were trapped. Del and Nix looked at me with horrified eyes.

“I don’t know what happened!” I said. The sky above me continued to burn, though the forest around us was untouched. “People will see the flame! We have to hide!”