Page 24 of Microburst

But then I spotted her. “Are you hurt? Is everyone okay?” I couldn’t hear her over everyone else when she tried to answer. The death glare I gave the media shut some of them up instantly. “I warned you to not behave like rabid animals. Do not make me burn you for an insult when I give a command when it’s an emergency.”

The shocked andscaredlooks on several of them would have been amusing under other circumstances. But at least they were quiet then.

The woman’s eyes were too wide. “I’m fine, Your Majesty.”

I blinked at her. “They told me… There’s not an emergency? The shop is okay?”

Her lower lip quivered. “You came racing here because you thought someone hurt my shop? Truly?”

I couldn’t get my mouth to work, and by then Belinda had caught up.

“You’re showing people you’re a good person,” she teased as she ruffled my hair. “A guard interrupted training saying youneededto talk to her, and to us women that means something urgent. You need things like air. Peoplewantto talk to the queen all of the time.”

I gestured to her like I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The shop owner chuckled. “Iwantedto talk to you and thank you again for what you said.” She handed a box through the gate to the guard. “And for your amazing idea. I added it to the menu. The Royal Treat box with a mix of nut butters and chocolates over our locally sourced dates. I wanted you to have the first one, Your Majesty.”

“Well, that’s worth interrupting your grueling run,” Belinda said as she took it. “Someone will have to check it first to make sure. You understand, child.”

The woman did, saying she was glad that people were taking my safety more seriously. Then she beamed at me. “I knew people were wrong about you. I’m so sorry you lost your parents, but you are the leader Thovudin needs, Queen Sagan. You came running here ready to go to battle for one citizen. I hope people start to see that and appreciate you.”

I managed to thank her, it was so nice of her to say, but also such a knife to my heart given what I’d learned from my own parents. Really, it was.

Life was just always such fun like that.

7

Ayao

Something changed with Sagan.

Something big.

Yes, she had a lot of reasons, and honestly it was more like watching the support beams or braces of a bridge cracking.

Lori. Kole. The media. The other candidates. Whatever happened at the Alpha meeting before we were allowed in.

But then something after was like… The final straw that broke the camel’s back or however that adage went.

My dragon noticed it that morning before I did. Something was different about her—almost in her aura even. I glanced around her and saw… I wasn’t sure. I was a spirit dragon, but we weren’t trained like we used to be and I hated that about our society.

I hated that I had powers that I had no idea how to use and people brushed off as no longer needed. Not just because of technology, but because they weren’t tangible like they didn’t matter because I couldn’t produce water or fire. Spirits couldn’t be seen, so what did they matter?

From what I knew it wasn’t like spirit dragons could ever talk to ghosts, so no one was ever really clear on what we did? I just saw colors a lot around people.

And Sagan’s were all different. Off.

Well, hers were always off from others, mixed in weird ways they shouldn’t be when I paid close attention to her and she looked directly at me. But this was different. This was… Intense didn’t quite cover it.

She didn’t seem so different when we were training. My mouth fell open when she took off. Not the sprints, I’d already seen that, but when she thought there was an emergency and the shop owner was in trouble—she was just fucking gone.

Could she like teleport?

Was that a thing?

I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t the only one who raced after her, and my dragon wasnothappy how many people were ahead of me. We were competitive, but also he cared if she was in danger more than he should have.

More than it being about our queen and the safety of our country.