by Holly Hook
"Did you sister believe you?" I asked.
"I think so," Sven said. "That part worked, but I think she might tell Father."
"Why would she betray you like that?"
"Because she wants what I'm supposed to have."
"That seems like a bad way to do it," I said.
"She has no other way," Sven said. "You don't know what it's been like for us, growing up."
I didn't think it was a good time to ask about it since he was pulling out of the garage like he wanted to escape. My thoughts turned back to the office and the fact that there were a lot of things about the Wiglaf Society that even Sven didn't know. Secrets lied behind those closed doors and that scary security system. And Sven was dying to know what was behind them.
"So, what's this surprise you have?" I ask as he makes a turn to drive me out of town.
"You'll see," he said with his accent.
"Am I not going to like it?"
He hesitated. "I don't know."
The road stretched ahead. For the first time, I noticed how green Olivia was compared to the surrounding area. It was as if the deluge I'd caused had turned it into a temporary oasis. Outside of here, things were brown, with only the occasional emerald pigment present outside of the irrigated farms. Water Company juice sprayed all over a few other olive farms. My heart ached for them and my parents, who were waiting in the caves for me to go down there and get them.
But what could I do about that now?
If maturing meant embracing that anger and that monster inside, then I might end up hurting them, too. My fire magic had almost manifested when I argued with them before. It would be stronger after the worst happened.
Sven continued to drive until we reached the expressway. "I've been doing research on this area," he said, pressing buttons on the BMW's digital display. "I programmed the directions to a nice beach that isn't busy. There's a town called Stardew right on the coast."
"I've never gone to the coast," I said, tears welling in my eyes.
Sven looked at me, expression softening. His eyes looked like the summer sky. "Felicia, why are you crying?"
"I've gone nowhere." For the first time, I realized how tiny my world was. If I committed myself to the den, it would stay tiny for the foreseeable future. There was no way they'd want to move all that treasure every time they wanted to travel the world.
"Then you need to travel," Sven said.
"But once I mature, won't I be stuck in Olivia, helping to guard that hoard?"
"I don't know how it will work," he said.
"I'm supposed to be all valuable and from an ancient line," I said. "Whatever that means. Maybe my parents will keep me around so I can make it rain once a week and they can lower their water bill."
"But you should be able to leave," Sven said. "They've guarded the hoard without you for a long time. Sure, you might have to come back here and there, but no one should have the right to tell you where you'll live your life."
"But Slayers are about to find it," I say.
Sven screwed up his face as if thinking. The dying landscape flowed past, a mishmash of browns and yellows and dull greens. A computer-generated voice told us we'd have to drive forty-five miles before taking an exit.
"And you shouldn't have to be a Slayer if you don't want it," I said.
"For a long time, I thought I wanted it," he said. "It's what Father told me that all boys wanted and did. If I failed, I wouldn't be a man." He paused. "You wouldn't have liked the way I was before."
"There are other ways to be a man. Act. Women love actors." I pinched him on the arm, drawing a smile. "And you're great. Try out for movies where they need warriors. That adds a whole new layer of hotness. You'd look amazing with a sword and without your shirt."
Sven blushed. "You wouldn't bet jealous?"
"Well, maybe a little. And you still haven't told me what surprise you have."
"I'm not sure how it'll work since you're not mature yet," Sven said. "Slayers use the Gems in different ways. If cut right, they can reveal a dragon shifter's true form. If you wanted to see—"
"Whoa," I said, heart racing. "You're saying we can look under this human layer?" It was the first time I'd thought about this ordinary skin as a disguise or layer. Perhaps until now, it was more than that, but now I felt like this was just a mask for something terrifying. Something that wasn't me.
"Yes," Sven said. "It's up to you if you want to see or if you want me to see. I don't know how it will work with you since you're not mature."
"I've got to think about that," I said.
We drove the rest of the way in silence. Sven turned on the radio to an alternative station. Someone sang about how love was scaring him. How fitting. At last, Sven pulled off an exit at the behest of the computer and into a small town full of tackle shops. Things were greener here as if kept alive by the nearby ocean.
I'd lived an hour from the coast all my life and had never seen it.
"I don't know how to swim," I said. "My parents never let me near the water. Am I weak to it?" It was a serious question.
"No," Sven said. "You're not weak to water. Your parents sound like they were being too protective. I can't believe how they made you live. I couldn't imagine staying in one place for my entire life."
"How many times have you moved?"
"Eight. Father's been chasing dens forever. This will be the first big one he's found if he manages to find it."
"Eight!" I cover my mouth with my hands. "Different countries each time, or no?"
"Only four times have we changed country," Sven said.
"Four!"
He drove us down the town's Main Street and towards the ocean. My jaw dropped at the sight. Sparkling water stretched out as far as I could see—and the world curved in the far distance. There was no way I could stop staring. A golden beach stretched out with a gravel border between the land and the sea.
Sven parked in a small lot. There was only one small family down the far side of the beach and some distant bathrooms with an ice cream vendor out front. A girl lying on a towel occupied the middle of the beach. It had been smart to come out here on a weekday versus a holiday. My parents wouldn't approve of me going so far from the only place I'd known, and that made this beach savory. But most of all, Sven's presence made it divine. I didn't deserve this amazing guy. Would he even want to be with me after I matured?
An intense need to know swept over me. "I want to see," I said right before opening the door to the car. "I want to do it here."
Sven nodded and swallowed as seagulls took off into flight. "Let's find a secluded spot."
Slipping his hand into mine, he searched the tree line for a shady area. We found one, a mound of sand underneath a pair of trees. I wanted to say something about how I owned no beach clothes, mostly to distract myself from what was to come, but the words wouldn't form. Curiosity was winning out.
The two of us sat. I still didn't know what Sven had planned. The trees above cast moving, gentle shadows on the sand like dark leopard spots. He stared out at the water for a long moment before reaching into his pocket and drawing out two flat, red lenses ringed in iron.
"Spectacles?" I asked.
Some craftsperson had cut two of the Gems into lenses and put them inside a pair of Victorian-era glasses, creating shades that everyone into the Gothic style would die for. Tasha had gone through a brief phase in her freshman year. These would make her lapse right back into it. She'd be the center of attention.
"We don't use them often. They'd attract too much attention," Sven said. "My great-grandmother crafted them for her husband decades ago. She was a talented jeweler. Many people who marry into the Society come from other wealthy and talented families."
"Well, if you walked down the street with those, a dragon shifter would notice," I said. "Heck, everyone would notice."
Sven looked down at them and I wondered if he'd put them on already, but he waited. "Do you want me to look first?" he asked.
; I swallowed. "Yes." Relief swept over me, unexpected. It felt good to not be lying to Sven for once, or not to deceive anyone, period. Well, I hadn't ever lied to him, but I had withheld the truth. That was just as bad. I had to work on this and letting him see me was a start.
Sven raised the spectacles to his face, eyes closed, and slipped them over his nose. A part of me wanted to run, but I breathed out and remained sitting on the sand, adorned with patches of sunlight.
He opened his eyes.
Sucked in a breath.
I held mine. The red lenses made his blue eyes appear almost black as they filtered out the light. His pupils widened. "Well," he said.
"Well, what?" I asked, heart in my throat. "Is it horrible?"
"These things sort of work," Sven said. "I bet that's because you're not mature. But...you can kind of see it." He took off the lenses and handed them over.
"Is it bad?"
"No," he said, curling his mouth into a smile. "It's not bad. I would say it's...breathtaking."
Heat that had nothing to do with fire magic rushed to my cheeks. Trembling, I raised the spectacles to my eyes and slipped them on.
The world turned red on the other side of a blink as I stared at the ocean first. My perspective hadn't changed—I was still a girl sitting on the beach with her boyfriend—but then I turned my gaze down at my arms. I splayed my fingers out on my jeans and I almost breathed a sigh of relief until I saw it.
My forearm skin wavered and something shimmered. Sucking in a breath, I looked away in shock and then back again. The shimmer returned like a desert mirage, wavering and fading and coming back again. Silver scales sparkled in the sun. Tan skin covered them again and retreated. I felt as if I were looking at pure magic. It didn't seem real.
"I'm silver," I said, words floating away on the breeze.
"I would say it's your color," Sven said. "You could have been brown or green. But you're too magical for that."
I continued to stare as the surf sent soothing noises our way. But then the shock wore off, and I took off the spectacles, handing them back to Sven. "I think that's enough," I said.
"It's overwhelming, I know," Sven said. "But maybe it won't be so bad once you mature, once you know what to expect."
I had glimpsed a tiny part of my future. Just a tiny part. There would be more to it. The terrified, animal section of my brain told me that and made my muscles tense. For a moment, I'd almost forgotten that Adler almost ate Sven. The silvery sight chased away the claws and sharp teeth and the fire. With beauty would come ugliness.
"You're okay?" I asked. "With this?"
Sven nodded. "Yes. I'm okay. Thank you for letting me look, Felicia. It's good to know we can trust each other. And I want peace between us. I don't want the Wiglaf Society to hunt dragons anymore. It's wrong. Once I figure out how, I'm going to find the treasure we stole and give it back. We can do that together. People like my father don't deserve to have it."
My stomach turned over again. Now that I was on a roll, I had to get the worst over with. I had to tell Sven about his cousin. "I want peace, too. And honesty. There's—"
Sven opened his arms, sliding across the sand as he wrapped me in his strong embrace. He pressed his lips to mine, hungry, and ran his hand through my air. I opened them, letting him taste me, as my heart raced and I grasped the back of his shirt, pulling him down to the cool sand. He chased every dark thought away with his lips, his magical lips and his electric touch.
"Are you sure Slayers don't have magic?" I asked once we came up for air. We were lying on our sides, facing each other. Gentle shadows undulated over his face and his amazing eyes. I reached out and placed my finger on the bridge of his nose, tracing it down.
Sven smiled. "What do you mean?"
I kept my finger on his nose. "Because you sure feel magical."
Mortification would have washed over me if I said that to anyone else in the universe. But Sven smiled, full of innocence. This amazing being couldn't have come from a Slayer family bent on killing me because of my species. It wasn't as if I had—
Never mind.
I had killed, but not on purpose. And after I matured, I might kill again. The dragons would want to use me and my ancient, rare magic to drive the Olsens out of town. Adler knew I might have info on their location.
What if I killed Sven's sister next?
"I don't think we have magic," Sven said, "other than some artifacts my ancestors took a long time ago. We shouldn't have done that. Now I know why treasure is important to dragons. The dragon that Wiglaf fought wouldn't have torched villages if no one had taken any of its hoard. I realize that now."
"It holds their magic," I tell him, taking my finger off his nose and resting my hand under my head. My elbow sank into the sand. "That's what Principal Adler told me. Eggs also take a thousand years to hatch, at least. She also said Olivia has the biggest hoard in the world. I guess dragons aren't as magical as they used to be because a lot of their treasure has vanished. Some are sterile now."
Sven's eyes widened. "I didn't know that. Until I met you, I thought all dragons were greedy and angry."
"You believed what your father told you."
He blushed. "Well, yes."
"How were you supposed to know any different?" I gave him a playful pinch on the arm. "The Society has been your universe all your life. Even if they haven't let you in yet."
"I don't want to join," Sven said, anger returning. "Now I see what it is, and it's a bunch of selfish people who only want money. And that's through killing and stealing. And they call the dragons the monsters. Dragons haven't even fought humans for hundreds of years. The last attack on a village was four hundred years ago."
I jumped, shocked by Sven's words. I hadn't known where he stood with the Wiglaf Society and I felt bad for tearing apart his world like this. "That's because it got them killed," I said, closing my eyes as a burst of fiery anger seethed through me. The air heated.
I had to get out of here.
“I think that's true,” Sven said. He reached out for me. Even though I had my eyes closed, I could feel the breeze from his movement, trying to cool me. He rested his hand on my shoulder. “It's not right. We made you defend yourselves. Yes, it's possible that dragons have done bad stuff, too, but now you're only trying to preserve what you have left.”
I stood, forcing my eyes open. “Sven, I have to go to the bathroom.” The anger built, not at him, but at the entire situation. “I'll be back soon.”
“I think I understand.”
The sand only made the heat inside worse as I stormed to the brick building. Next to it was the bored guy trying to sell ice cream from a stand. A generator hummed next to it, adding to the sensation inside.
What if I hurt Sven?
I hadn't meant to kill his cousin. Maybe the Wiglaf Society wanted us gone because we couldn't avoid hurting people. Sven had a point about us defending ourselves, but it seemed we were too good at it. The roof of the bathroom building shielded me from the sun as I left Sven under the trees to dwell in his growing storm of emotion. He helped bring me the truth. I did the same to him.
It took all my courage to eye myself in the mirror. My brown eyes remained that—the most boring shade on all the planet. No hint of red crept into them as they had Principal Adler's. Breathing out, I choked back a sob and gripped the handles of the sink. They were wet, and as I did, the trace water on them sizzled. I was making it boil away with my touch.
What if I had touched Sven like this?
“Tell him the truth,” I said after two long minutes. “Right now. March out there and tell him about the accident. He has to know. It's only fair.” My heart raced, but this had to get done. Sven deserved to know that perhaps his family wasn't just a bunch of heartless dragon poachers after treasure. He needed the whole story before he beat himself up.
Footfalls approached. I blinked and looked up from the sink, releasing the handles. Steam rose from them, but it was another girl running into the
bathroom with zero color in her cheeks. The lone sunbather. Her pupils widened in terror as she grabbed a stall door and stared at me. The look on her face froze me to the core, chasing away all the fire inside.
“Do not go out there,” she said. “Unless you want to die a horrible death, don't leave this building.”
Silence fell.
And then, a massive wing flapped and a low growl filled the atmosphere.
“What's that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“A dragon,” the girl said through her teeth. “A huge, purple dragon.”
Chapter Five
I bolted outside as the girl screamed at me to stay. I appreciated her concern, but Sven was out there.
Principal Adler had followed us or figured out where we were going.
But how?
Now she'd kill him out here in the open. Even a town nearby wouldn't stop her. She was getting reckless. I'd left Sven, and she'd taken the opportunity to close in.
One thing would force her to leave and that was me.
The hot sand grabbed at my feet as I ran for the trees. Dizzy terror overtook me. The bathroom was far from our spot.
Purple scales shimmered in the sun about a hundred feet away. Black spines stood up as the dragon crashed into the trees, getting stuck on branches while trying to get at prey in the vegetation. But Adler's bus-sized body snapped trunks like twigs. Black wings pressed against her body. She growled in a rage, kicking sand as she pressed forward. Her tail flicked, splashing the ocean. I was guessing Sven was still alive.
"Adler!" I shouted. "Get away from him!"
She paused.
And then she lifted her head from the trees, staring right at me. Her red, gemlike eyes locked on as she backed away, full of conflict.
"Leave him alone!" I shouted, bolting towards her. She'd have to back away from me to keep her vow. "He wants peace!"
Adler spread her wings and ducked her head back into the vegetation for a few seconds as if checking out Sven. She growled once more.
"Get back!"
I must have drawn close enough to force her to leave. Adler rose straight from the trees, wings flapping.
