Flint’s little body convulsed once, then twice, and then just unspooled. One moment, he was a compact blue-green baby dragon, the next he was a small, wiry human boy, pale and wearing basic cotton shorts and a tee. Apparently Kendra’s shifting spells had stretched to Flint. His hair was white-blond and stuck out in every direction, and his face was sharp, foxlike, but unmistakably that of a child.
He looked down at his own hands, opened and closed the fingers a few times, then let out a peal of laughter so unfiltered, so astonished, that the entire valley seemed to echo it.
“Ha! Look!” he shouted, and it took me a second to realize he was speaking, not just telepathizing. He stood up, wobbly, legs thin as reeds. “Look! I have toes!”
He stomped his feet on the stone, delighted, then ran in a tight circle before promptly tripping and face-planting into the mossy ground. He didn’t even cry. He just picked himself up, brushed dirt off his knees, and started poking his own face with both index fingers.
“Flint. You okay, kiddo?”I said, only the words were in my head like when I project my thoughts to Jax through our mating bond.
He nodded, teeth flashing. “I am like you now!”
He balled up his fists, flexed his arms, then tried to leap into the air. It was a valiant attempt, but the human body had none of the innate springs he’d relied on in dragon form. He flailed for balance, then just rolled with it and tumbled in a heap. When he looked up, his eyes were full of wet, happy tears.
Jax let out a rumble that was somewhere between a laugh and a cough. “Congratulations,” he said telepathically, the voice rough but unmistakably his. “You figured out how to shift.”
Adalinda watched the scene with a smile, eyes bright with pride.“The body chooses its own path.”
We stared at each other, breathing hard. In this world, the shift hadn’t just altered our bodies. It had shifted something deeper. I could feel the thoughts of the others, not like mind-reading but as an ambient pressure, a background music of wants and intentions. Jax was focused on the perimeter, on threats. Adalinda’s mind was luminous, filled with warmth and calculation. Flint’s thoughts pinged and sparkled.
I lowered my head to Flint, and he ran to me, wrapping his skinny, human arms around my scaled neck.
“Mama!” he shouted, grinning. “I’m so tall now!”
“You sure are.” My voice sounded weird, laced with a metallic overtone. I watched him, trying to memorize this moment. This was my first time seeing my kid discover himself for the first time, and it was perfect.
Flint spun, lost his balance, and reverted, without warning, back into his baby dragon form. The change was instant, almost anticlimactic, but he seemed to take it in stride. Now that he was a dragon again, his mind felt sharper than it had before, almost adult.
“I like both of my forms,”he projected, looking up at me with enormous, crystalline eyes.“But this is the best.”
Adalinda smiled lovingly at Flint.“You are learning quickly,”she said, her telepathic voice a velvet ribbon.“Most dragons need years to master the shift.”
Jax stilled beside me and scanned our surroundings.“We need to be ready for whatever lives here.”
As if on cue, the wind picked up, carrying with it the smell of smoke and something sweet. The vegetation in the valley rippled, shivering in sequence. The clouds above coalesced, stretching into long, menacing shapes. I felt it too, that hair-prickle of being watched.
“Something’s out there,” I said. Jax nodded, tail sweeping the ground in a slow, deliberate pattern.
Adalinda stretched her neck, eyes narrow.“We are not alone.”
Flint scampered up the side of my leg and perched on my back. He pressed his cheek to my neck.“It’s okay, Mama. We’re the scariest thing here.”
He might have been right, but I wasn’t about to take his word for it.
We moved as a unit down from the boulder, Adalinda taking point, Flint and I in the middle, while Jax protected our back. We surveyed the valley, waiting for whoever or whatever was watching up to show themselves.
4
HAILEY
I was scanningthe horizon for signs of threats when I saw them. Dragons. They flew with purpose. Two in the lead, a dozen more at a distance, their shadows slicing through the cloud cover and stretching monstrous against the teal valley floor.
Jax tensed beside me.
Adalinda let out a high, piercing call, nothing like human speech, everything like a siren. The two lead dragons altered course and began to descend, spiraling down with grace. They landed a stone’s throw away, then approached, tails held still, wings partially furled. It was a posture I recognized from childhood animal documentaries. The way wolves approach their alpha, acknowledging dominance without showing weakness.
The first dragon was like a living wedge of obsidian whose scales drank every drop of light. He moved with a precision that would have embarrassed the best Marine. Every step looked measured to the millimeter, head level, eyes unblinking. When he drew near, he bowed, a real, honest-to-God bow, lowering his massive head and neck until his jaw brushed the mossy rock.
The second dragon was the opposite in every visible way. Where the first was shadow, she was fire. Her scales flickered with orange and sunburst yellow, the colors shifting in slow motion like the surface of a living flame. She didn’t bow. She watched, but she did incline her head, a gesture that somehow managed to communicate both deference and judgment.
