Vanish (Firelight #2)(25)

Before we drop our robes, Tamra’s hand reaches out and squeezes mine. She looks so happy, so at peace with herself, that I know this is right. Me, here with the pride—it’s where I should be. In this moment, I can believe everything will be okay.

Leaving our robes behind, we shed our human layers, too.

The familiar pull begins in my chest as my human exterior melts away, fades, replaced with my thicker draki skin.

I tilt my face up to the night, feel my cheeks tightening, bones stretching and sharpening. My breathing changes, deepens, as my nose shifts, cartilage crackling as the ridges appear along the bridge. My limbs loosen, extend longer. This drag of my bones feels good, like a nice long stretch after being stuck in a car for endless hours.

My wings push out from behind me, and I sigh, reveling in their release. They unfurl with a whisper, slightly longer than the length of my back. I work them, let the wiry sheets of fiery gold test the air.

Far up in the sky, I note the sifting clouds, like smoke on the dark night. I can’t wait to cut through them, feel the vapor on my skin. I look down at my body; my skin glows like light through amber. My gaze drifts to my sister and my breath catches at the sight of her. She’s beautiful with her iridescent, silvery white skin—the moon to my sun.

“Ready?” I ask in our rumbling draki-speech, the only language I can speak in full manifest due to the changes in my vocal cords. But this is the first time Tamra can answer in the ancient language of our forefathers, true dragons.

Her eyes—enlarged irises and dark vertical pupils—stare back at me. “Yes,” she rumbles, and I know she’s been yearning for this all her life.

She launches smoothly from the earth. I push off with the balls of my feet into the damp air, letting Tamra creep higher so that I can watch, in awe at the sight of her: the silvery pearl of her draki skin; the gossamer wings that twinkle like sheets of glinting ice.

She glows like a white star against the dark night. Looking back, she calls, “C’mon, I thought you were fast. Show me!”

I smile wide, and wind rushes over me as I catch up to her in a soaring twirl. It seems forever since I’ve had this. Even without the taste of sun on my flesh, it’s a wonderful sensation to fly again.

Tamra moves cautiously, distrustful of her own ability, of the air currents roaring past us. We fall to the back of the group.

Others whip past us, their shouts lost on the roaring winds as they twirl in flashes of color: Az’s iridescent blue with its winks of pink; the glimmering bronze of my fellow earth draki. I spot Miram, her flesh a dull tan. The onyx among us are the hardest to detect, their iridescent black and purple flesh blend well into the night. Another reason why, historically, they’re our best fighters. No one sees them coming.

I slow down, identifying Corbin and Cassian, flying at incredible speeds through the night, wind whistling to a shrill pitch around them as they race in wild zigzags to some unknown finish line. They weave and dart around each other, just short of collision. I shake my head. Still the same idiot boys showing off for the pride . . . or, in this case, Tamra. Or you, a voice whispers in my head, but I quickly shove it back with a vicious swipe.

Tamra shouts again, “Jacinda! C’mon!”

I pull back my wings and surge forward, tempering my speed when I hear my sister’s wings slapping fiercely to keep up.

Side by side, we soar together. This is enough, I think. More than I ever dreamed. As everyone else leaves us behind, we don’t care. We laugh and spin in the wind, break through the vaporous night, moving and manipulating the air like a pair of children exploring the water of a swimming pool.

A childhood joy we’ve never felt. Before now.





Chapter 10

Why don’t you come back to the house? We can roast some root seeds and watch movies,” I suggest as Tamra and I walk back from the field. My body still tingles, awake and alive from our recent flight in a way that I haven’t felt since . . . I frown, forbidding the memory to intrude and ruin my new sense of peace.

“Sure,” she says.

I smile, thinking about all the late nights when Mom, Tamra, and I would squeeze onto the couch and watch movies—and then I remember how little I’ve seen Mom lately. She’s probably asleep, wiped out from her long shift. When I left her after dinner she mentioned she might go to bed after her shower.

“Maybe Mom can join us.”

“Yeah,” I hedge, “if she’s still awake.”

Tamra sends me a look. I know what she’s thinking: Mom always used to wait up for us if we were out doing anything. But that was before. Back when she felt she had some control over our world.

I open my mouth to explain the situation with Mom but stop . . . close my mouth and listen, peering into the waves of milky fog rolling around us, thicker than usual.

“Jacinda?”

“Something’s wrong,” I say quietly, holding up a hand.

Even though no alarm sounds on the air, something is off. The township is an eerie quiet. It’s still half an hour until curfew but no one is out walking except those of us returning from the flight field. They were having a jako tournament tonight at the rec center, but as we pass the center of town, the building is dark. The clink of gems used in the game can’t be heard. Nor can the usual shouts of defeat or victory when someone’s gem knocks another player’s gem off the board.