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Prologue
Purple strobe lights and heavy bass pulsated throughout the room as Kaida moved her body with the music, her friends dancing around her. Laughter and joyous squeals were nearly drowned out by the thrum of the speakers as Kaida attempted to banish the thoughts of the impending stroke of midnight.
Since she awoke that morning, the question on everyone’s mind was, “what will Kaida’s dragon look like?” Every Dragon Shifter on their eighteenth name day would be able to shift into their dragon form for the first time after it emerged. It was now the twenty-second hour, and her dragon still had not emerged. For a moment, while she danced, Kaida thought she felt the prickling of the magic that accompanied the dragon as it connected with the soul. Her disappointment grew when she realized it was just the ashes from the sparklers her parents had set off reigning down onto her skin.
The music cut out just as a song ended, and the screeching from the microphone feedback made everyone growl or snarl as their sensitive hearing went haywire with the sound. Her father, Dracul, stood on the stage with her mother, Audra, at his side. Both wore clothes with dragon scale designs, her mother in a deep blue and her father in an emerald green that portrayed their own dragons’ scales. Audra’s jet-black hair hung around her shoulders in waves, and her blue eyes stared into Kaida’s. Kaida avoided her mother’s gaze but kept her eyes on her father. Dracul’s white hair was spiked, which Kaida had tried to tell him countless times, and was not something older dragons would do with their hair so that he would stop. The comments always fell on deaf ears, and he would sometimes dye the tips of his hair different colors just to annoy her. Thankfully, he did not do any color on this day.
“Attention! We want to thank you all for joining us in celebrating Kaida’s special name day!” The crowd immediately erupted into cheers. With one look from Dracul, everyone went silent. “As much as we all had fun during the festivities, we would like to spend the remainder of this day with our daughter as her dragon graces us with her presence!”
There was a collective groan with which Kaida joined in. She didn’t want the party to end, but there was no telling her father no. As her friends gave her hugs and told her that they would see her tomorrow, Kaida’s heart felt heavy. It took a while for everyone to say goodbye and leave, and Kaida found herself sitting on a chair at a table, picking at some hors d’oeuvres and a plate of cake that had not been eaten. The staff had already entered the hall and began to clean up as her parents made their way over to the table.
“Did you have a good time, Kaida?” Her mother asked as she brushed a strand of Kaida’s black and purple hair behind her ear.
“I did until you ended it.”
“We had to, Darling,” Dracul sternly stated. “It is coming up on midnight, and your dragon has still not emerged. That could be a sign of a very temperamental dragon. What kind of hosts would we be if we allowed your dragon to gobble up a few guests?”
Kaida rolled her eyes at her father’s poor excuse for a joke. “You just didn’t want an audience to see your daughter’s dragon never showing itself.”
“That’s not true. But that doesn’t matter! She will come. It’s just like a woman to arrive late.” Dracul attempted another joke.
This time Audra joined in with the eye-rolling. “Dear, lay off the jokes. You aren’t necessarily good at them.”
Kaida got up from the chair and walked back onto the dance floor. She was practically bouncing from the heightened nerves in her body. The only thing that felt right to do was dance. The music came back on as she swayed on the dance floor. It was like she could hear a clock ticking in her mind as she tried to distract herself from the fact that she felt nothing as she should while she waited for her dragon.
Dancing turned into pacing as the ticking inside of her mind grew louder. With each pacing minute, Kaida groaned, and her pacing increased. She had no idea how much time had passed… until she heard the gonging from the clock tower in the center of the town ringing in the twenty-fourth hour.
And her dragon never emerged from her soul.
One
Amonth had gone by, and Kaida remained locked in her room. She had never felt so abandoned and alone. No matter how hard she tried not to think about it, her mind would circle back to the fact that her dragon never came to her. Her mind ground against itself and came up with theory after theory about why she didn’t receive her dragon that night.
Maybe my dragon didn’t emerge because I don’t deserve to have one. It’s not like anyone else has gone through this.
Everybody else Kaida associated with had their dragons come forth without any incident, yet here she was a month past her eighteenth name day, and still, no dragon had emerged. She had no signs or signals that one would ever come. Kaida would find herself looking out the window of her room and watching the others in their dragon forms. They were all soaring through the clouds without a care in the world. She felt like she was missing out–that she would never truly come of age because of this setback.
And I am here having to watch them instead of joining them.
Kaida found herself unable to glance out the window after a few days without fearing she would see someone else flying by as their dragon. If anyone would see her and find out that she did not have her dragon…
I’d die of embarrassment!
Kaida did not allow anyone in her room. Food would be left outside her door during mealtimes, but she could only stare at it. She had no appetite, no matter what was before her. When she thought of food or eating, her stomach would twist into a knot, and she would feel overbearing feelings of nausea and anxiety. Her parents even sent up her favorite dishes, and she only brought them into her room for her to take them back out into the hallway untouched. Even the smells of foods she once found irresistible were now nauseating.
It had gotten hard for her to even look at herself in the mirror. All she could see was the failure to become a true Dragon Shifter. Her very own face became the embodiment of her own misery.
No Dragon… how am I supposed to face my friends if I don’t have a Dragon? I’ll be the laughingstock of the Dragon Kingdom.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
A powerful knock on her door violently brought her out of her thoughts. The only person she knew who would knock on her door like that was her father. She quietly croaked out the words “come in,” but she returned to staring out the window. Dracul walked in and beelined to her chair in the corner of the room.
“Angel, why are you sulking like this? The world isn’t going to end just because your dragon is taking a little longer to emerge.”
“How do we even know if she will ever come? Has this happened before?”
“Not to my knowledge, but that doesn’t mean anything! You aren’t some pitiful human or half-breed! You are a pure-blooded Dragon, Sweetheart. Your dragon will come. She is just taking her time.”
