Embracing The Inferno (Dragon Within #5)

by Kyra Dune

  "Who?" I rocked back on my heels and squinted, just barely making out Megara's shadowy form through the smoke. "Who is it you're trying to kill? The other dragons? All of them?" I let my voice soften. "It's not their fault, you know. They were taught to hate us. But we can teach them something different. We don’t have to be the monster under the bed. You can stop now."

  Don’t look at me like I'm stupid. I wasn't trying to talk her down. That was never going to happen and I knew it. I was only trying to buy myself a minute to catch my breath. Not that it was helping much. Everything was getting really hazy around the edges and it didn't feel too good to be kneeling there in a puddle of my own blood.

  "You think I haven't tried to stop?" Megara's bitter voice whipped sharply through the night. "You think I didn't try to have a life? I tried. But they wouldn't let me. They wouldn't leave me alone. You think you know pain because you've lost some parents you never knew and a few friends, but let me tell you something, little girl, you don’t know pain until you've held the bloody, broken, lifeless body of your own child in your arms. They took everything I ever had away from me. Someone has to pay for that."

  That gave me a moment's pause, I won’t lie. I'd always kind of figured she'd lost someone, even though she'd never come right out and said it. But I never thought it might have been her kid. "So you're just going to kill everybody who isn't a hybrid? How is that going to make anything better?"

  A slight shift in the air was all the warning I got before I was slammed face first into the gravel. I felt two of my ribs snap. And that was when I knew for sure I was going to die. Megara was going to win. It was all for nothing in the end. I couldn't stop her.

  Megara's footsteps echoed through my head. She stopped a few feet away. "I don't want to kill, you Abigail." And she actually sounded like she meant it. "We're the same, you and I. We could have done something great together. Could have changed the world. But you made your choice, and took away mine."

  She was right about one thing, I had made my choice. Since the day I first saw Zack standing there in the park, my life had spun out of my control. I had been forced into so many situations that I never would have put myself in. I had done things only because I was pushed into them. Not this time. Not this moment. Like I told Zack, this was my life, my choice. And if I was going to die anyway, then I was going to do it the hard way.

  I closed my eyes and dropped into that wooded area in my mind. I stood over the pond, staring into the impossibly blue water. And then I tapped my powers. Hard. I grabbed every bit of all that pain and anger I'd been trying so hard to bury and I let it all go. Air screamed through the trees, sending leaves flying. The pond turned black, the water bubbling and frothing.

  After Oregon, I swore I'd never touch those waters again. That I would never let myself fall that far. But if this was going to be the end, then at least I could die knowing I gave it everything I had. Closing my mental eyes, I dove into the pond.

  Warm water folded me up in a blanket of darkness. Then I saw light. Bright, white, burning light, everywhere. My physical eyes snapped open and the light was still there, shining from beneath my skin.

  The force field of air holding me to the ground shattered and I floated straight upwards into the sky. It was almost like Oregon. I had that same sensation of being outside and inside myself all at once. But something was different this time. The burning anger inside of me wasn't some wild, uncontrolled blaze. It was a heat fused into my bones, something that was part of me. Something I had under my complete control. It was the most perfect moment of my life. This was the thing I was born to be. The truth of me.

  Wind spun around me, joined by dancing flames, until I was floating in the center of a massive inferno. Megara kicked up a tornado of her own, rising in a funnel of wind before me.

  We spun into each other, sparks flashing as we crashed together, each of us trying to force our way into the other's space. It was a chaos of confusion and noise, yet I was perfectly calm. Perfectly centered. I knew exactly what I needed to do.

  Megara's power resisted me at first, the air like a tug on my mind. But I used my battle training to force it under my command. Her eyes widened as her tornado stopped moving. Frost formed inside of the funnel. I had a moment to see her breath puff with the chill before the ice hid her from me.

  I pushed, shoving her tornado away, forcing it to spin violently. Megara's shadow crossed the ice again and again as she bounced helplessly within. Lightning rimmed in flames flashed from the sky to strike through the tornado, shattering the ice. Again. And again. Every flash followed by an ear splitting boom.

  My head felt like a drum beating with every rapid thrum of my heart. Everything was gray. Everything was heat. But I couldn't stop. Not because I had no control, but because I knew if I stopped this would never end. And it had to end. It felt like I was coming apart inside, but it was okay. Everything was okay as long as this was over.

  One final jolt of lightning and then we were both falling. I hit the ground on my back and felt the impact in every bone in my body. Megara landed not far away, her body blackened and smoking. I think if I'd had any energy left to be sick, I probably would have, but I didn't. I barely had the energy to force the next breath through my lungs.

  My last thought was to wonder if my friends made it out okay. Then everything went black.

  EPILOGUE

  I know you've seen the video by now, everyone has. But it doesn't tell everything, now does it? I wasn't sure I could ever sit down and lay it all out like this, but I'm glad I did. Because the world needs to know exactly what happened, and I'm the only one who can tell it just like it was. It's my story, after all.

  Me and Zack? We're good. Solid. I don’t think he knows exactly what to do with himself now that there's no more fighting to be done, but I think he'll figure it out. Derek and Stephanie are happily waiting for their daughter to be born. I haven't seen them since that night, but I've talked to my brother on the phone lots of times. He asked me how I would feel if they named the baby Brandy Abigail and I just bawled. No surprise there, huh?

  Sam and Tony are in the wind, I guess. I haven't heard from them at all, though I did hear on the news about Tony escaping from the hospital. I guess they didn't want to deal with all the fall out.

  Jonah is right down the hall, so I get to hang out with him plenty. Probably way more than Zack likes, but that's too bad. He'll get over it.

  I got a letter from my grandmother the other day. A real shock, that was. I haven't quite decided if I'm going to let her be in my life. But you don’t really want to hear about all that, do you? You want to know about the rest of it. About what's going to happen next, right?

  All the news people know the government is kind of circling us, not quite sure how to handle this whole thing. But what you don’t know, what I'm not supposed to tell you in this little interview, is that they want me to be their liaison between them and the dragons here in the US.

  That's their word, liaison, not mine. It's too much a Brandy word for me. The regular dragons aren't too thrilled with the idea, but the renegades are. They've come crawling out of the wood works since this whole thing broke wide open. I'm glad for that, I really am. But my answer to both sides is going to be no.

  You look shocked. I don’t know why. Haven't I done my part already? Haven't I sacrificed enough? I think the answer is yes. So this is going to be my last interview. No more cameras. No more questions. I've said my bit, my truth, and now I'm done. Let somebody else figure out the rest.

  You want me to tell you where this goes next? Your guess is as good as mine. I changed the world, that's for sure, but whether or not it was for the better, I can't say. I know one thing and one thing only. I'm going home.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kyra Dune was born in Oklahoma, but spent most of her life travelling with her family. She is the author of more than two dozen fantasy novels, including: Shadow of the Dragon, Elfblood, and Firebrand. As a child, her favorite stories wer
e those that told of ordinary children being whisked away to magical lands. She has yet to find her own secret wardrobe or rabbit hole, but she hasn’t given up the search. You never know what might be waiting over the next rainbow.

  www.kyradune.weebly.com