by Annie Bellet
“Wait,” he said, as softly as he could. “The unicorn?”
The wolf licked his lips and shook his head. “You don’t want to get involved. Get out. This ain’t a fight anybody can win, believe me.”
“Unicorn?” Harper said, more loudly than she should have.
Alek winced and brought a finger to his lips. She mouthed “sorry” at him.
“Go,” the wolf said, as though he had any say in the matter and it were their life he was sparing.
Which, Alek thought, was fair enough at this point. The wolf shifter could have raised the alarm, but was choosing not to. The less charitable voice inside whispered that it was because the moment the wolf called for help, he must know that Alek would kill him.
Alek nodded and reached for his tiger again. Warm fur enveloped him. He knew what he needed to know now. The wolf’s response had confirmed what Alek thought he’d seen. Samir had a unicorn. The wolf’s fear made it very likely the ritual was at hand. He jerked his head at Harper and she shifted, following him away from the clearing. They took a winding path back to their own camp, careful to leave as little trail as they could.
Alek looked up at the steel and smoke sky, and sent another silent call for his mate. Time was up. Soon, all too soon, it would be too late for Jade to save them.
I thought that I’d been training to take on Samir before, working with Alek and my friends to get stronger, gain more control of my magic. I’d thought wrong. Compared to Ash’s training, what I’d been doing before was more like a toddler waving a piece of grass around pretending it was a sword.
Ash made me use my magic. Dawn till dark and often into the night. But it wasn’t just the use of magic; it was the thinking he made me do behind it. We spent as much time talking as we did with him trying to think up new ways to throw magic at me.
“You have patterns you are comfortable with,” Ash said. “Things you fall back on, things that come more easily to you.”
“Is that bad?” I asked. I was too predictable, apparently. I leaned back in the grass and looked up at the moonless sky. There was a seductive peace to this place that I fought in my mind. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t tarry. I had to learn what I must and get back to my friends.
“It is, and it isn’t. Think of it like riding a horse. The more you do it, the less you have to think about the parts, about how to stay on the horse, how to communicate where to go.”
“Muscle memory,” I said. “That’s good, right?”
Ash chuckled. “It is, and it isn’t.”
“Gee, thanks.” I sat up and glared at him.
“It makes some things your go-to plan, and lets you do them quickly. It also means you are predictable. I know that no matter what I do, you will likely use a shield to ward off an attack and then try an offensive that is built on raw power, lightning or fire.”
“That’s not fair,” I said. “I’ve been trying different things. I nearly knocked you out of the sky with that cyclone I made.”
“Except you were too focused on it, so it made you slow. Practice it a hundred more times, and perhaps you can do it when the pressure is on.”
That spell had taken a lot out of me, especially multitasking to keep my defenses up and manipulate time around me in small ways to speed my body and reactions. I was glad that I could still do that, that I still had Tess’s memories to guide me. No more full on time travel, though. She’d been right about that. I felt way more powerful than I ever had, but I wasn’t stupid enough to try that shit again.
Though I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant stopping Samir from killing everyone. Again.
Hopefully it would never come to that.
“I don’t have time. Besides, when do I get to turn into a dragon? Then I can just eat him.” I grinned.
“You can’t,” Ash said.
“I can’t be a dragon?” I hoped I was misunderstanding him. He’d said I was a dragon. He’d said I could transform when I was ready. I felt pretty fucking ready.
“You can choose a dragon form here in the Veil,” Ash said, holding up a hand to stop my further protest. “But out there, in the mortal world, you will not be able to transform.”
“You were planning to tell me that when?” Okay. No dragon form. Damn. There went my brilliant plan of eating Samir, heart and all.
Ash sighed. His dark eyes glinted in the light shining out from the open cabin door. He was quiet for a long moment, something I was growing used to. My father liked to think things through. I’d learned not to interrupt. There was no point in being impatient with Ash. It was about as useful as wishing the tide would come in more quickly.
“I tell you things as you need them,” Ash said. “Focus. You have what you are good at. You are not unique in this.”
I started to ask what that meant and then closed my mouth. I had things I fell back on, things I did because they came more naturally. Shielding, throwing more elemental magic around, pulling ideas from the D&D spellbook and morphing them into my own thing. I was not a creature of finesse or subtlety, not like…
“D’oh!” I said. “Right. Samir has his habits, too.” I knew this, of course; I just hadn’t really thought it through. It was how I’d almost beaten him the first time. Using his weaknesses, his predictable desire to personally destroy me to get close to him.
I could have killed him then, even as my heart beat in his hand. It just would have cost everyone I loved. Too heavy a coin.
Saving them had still cost me too much. Steve. Max. Harper.
“Fight Samir,” Ash said gently. “Not yourself. What is he good at? What will he fall back to when the pressure is on him?”
I closed my eyes and made myself face my memories and all the sneaky emotional demons lurking there.
“He likes to make things,” I said. “He’s very good at objects, putting power into things. He uses people and his vast wealth, too. He doesn’t like to fight head-on unless he’s utterly sure of victory.”
“And when he is left no choice? When he fights face to face?”
I bit my lip as I wrapped my arms around my knees. In my mind, Wolf roused and growled, pacing the silver circle around my deepest memories.
“Exploding stones, weapons. That dagger, the Alpha and Omega, was originally his, though he only had one half, thank the Universe. He’ll always fight with back-up and weapons. He doesn’t believe in the concept of a fair fight.” I opened my eyes and looked at my father.
“We’ll practice your defense against objects, then.” Ash nodded to himself. “You’ll have to try to anticipate what he’ll do, where to get to him, perhaps remove his allies.”
I couldn’t decide if the tightness in my throat was from wanting to laugh or to cry.
“Fat chance,” I muttered. “He’s always one step ahead, at the least. Why can’t you come with me? He wouldn’t be able to predict you.”
I’d asked that question already, and I knew that Ash’s response wouldn’t change. But damn it would be so much easier with his help.
“Kiddo, you know I can’t. I’ve interfered enough. I shouldn’t even been in the mortal world. Every moment I spend there with my full power weakens the Seal.”
“I know, I know. Magic apocalypse bad. It still sucks. I don’t know if I can play his game, if I can beat him when he’s the one always calling all the shots.”
“Don’t like the game? Change the rules,” Ash said with a loose-shouldered shrug. “Be predictable, until you aren’t.”
“Know what would be unpredictable?” I said with a sly smile. “Turning into a fucking dragon.”
Ash laughed. “Irrepressible kid. Ain’t going to happen, not with the Seals in place, which is a damn good thing. But perhaps you are ready to pick a form here, and perhaps we can figure out a way for you to incorporate some of its strengths into your abilities outside the Veil.”
“Squee!” I said, jumping to my feet.
“Squee? Who says that?” Ash shook his head.
“Me, s
o focus. How do I turn into a dragon?” I was so ready I couldn’t even come up with a simile in my head for how ready I was.
“You have to pick a form first. Solidify it in your mind. Once you turn, you’ll only ever have the shape you pick, and your human one, of course.”
“Can it be any dragon?” Images flashed through my head, from Disney-style Maleficent to Ash’s own more Asian take, and everything between. I knew dragons. Like any proper nerd, I was obsessed with dragons.
“Doesn’t even have to be a dragon, if you really want something else. The more complex, the more difficult the transformation, however.”
“Wait, I could be like a wolf or a tiger or something?” I tipped my head sideways and made a face at him. “Where’s the point in that?”
“Dragon is a concept. A word given to our kind by mortals. It has no more meaning than why we call apples apples or think the sky is blue,” Ash said.
I held up a hand to forestall another long conversation on the nature of magic and what Ash called the Pattern. Apparently that was what I’d glimpsed in my poison-vision, or at least, from how Ash explained it, what my mind had interpreted the data to mean, because what I’d seen was the very foundation of the entire universe and the magic coursing through it.
That magic-theory stuff made my head hurt. I couldn’t do anything with it, in the end, except the magic-using part. But thinking about it as a tapestry wasn’t useful. I preferred to stick with my feeling of magic, the sensation that it was more like water or electricity pulsing through my veins. I was no weaver. I couldn’t even knit.
“So you chose your dragon form?” I asked.
“No,” Ash said. “I was born that way. I took the form of my mother, as you took the form of your mother.”
Oh. That actually made some kind of sense. It was weird to think of him as having a mother. Weird to think I had a grandmother who was a dragon. I wanted to ask about her, but pushed the questions aside. Knowing about extended family wouldn’t help me defeat Samir.
“So this,” I said, waving my hand up and down to indicate his current human shape, “That’s the form you chose, the way I have to choose my alternate shape?”
“Yes. I look much like the first human I met who didn’t run from me in fear. He told great jokes and was very wise. Human form seemed useful in many ways, and I liked humans more than most of our kind. So when I chose a form, I modeled myself after him.”
“Good thing you didn’t get fascinated by a sheep, eh?”
“Funny,” he said. “It’s late. You should rest.”
“Take the bed for once,” I said. “I’m gonna grab a blanket and come back out here.” I had to think, and I wanted the dark and the quiet.
Ash, being Ash, seemed to understand this without needing clarification. I grabbed a blanket and went a little distance from the cabin. It wasn’t cold in this place, but the warmth of the blanket was still comforting and it kept the grass from poking me in the butt.
So I wouldn’t be able to transform outside the Veil. That was pretty disappointing. I’d gone my whole life so far without being anything but me, so I guessed I could get over it.
Still. I wanted to pick a form. To come fully into whatever I really was. I lay back in the grass and thought about my favorite dragon-y things.
Prismatic dragons were pretty boss. I mean, I could be epic level at this point, right? When adding a template, why go half-assed about it? But I didn’t really want to be a European type dragon. They seemed clunky, plus I was kind of not European. By that logic though, I wasn’t Asian either. But I had precedent for that, since my father had a more snakelike form. With that cool wolf-type head.
I definitely wanted something like that. Or… I laughed.
I could be a dragon-cat. Wolves, tigers… I loved those creatures. But with scales. I tried to imagine the look on Alek’s face if I turned into a winged, scaly tiger in front of him. Longing twisted in my heart. I missed his face, the scruff of his beard, the winter sky reflected in his pale eyes. He’d never see my dragon self.
Except he kind of had. I remembered what he said after I’d stopped the bomb and saved the alphas. He’d seen a dragon in that fire. We hadn’t talked about it after, about what kind of dragon it had been or what it had looked like. Did his perception matter? I wasn’t sure. It probably didn’t. Ash would likely tell me that Alek had seen what his brain could interpret, just as I had in the poison-vision.
My dragon body would be mine. Mine to decide. So why not a scaled, winged cat thing? I loved big cats; I loved purple and silver; I loved flying. Retractable claws seemed useful. I didn’t need to gesture or anything to cast spells so paws wouldn’t be an issue, and I would totally make sure I could breathe fire or something. That was important.
Not a tiger. Tigers were overdone. Also not exactly American. I wanted a dragon form that was part of me, part of where I was born, who I was. Lynx, maybe? But with a long tail. A tail seemed useful.
I realized that I could pretty much have just visualized Wolf, put a more catlike head on her, and stuck wings on, and been at nearly the place I was already. Maybe my subconscious was telling me something. Except definitely more scales. Definitely black, silver, and purple.
I was up most of the night visualizing my dragon self, putting details into the image in my mind. I hoped I hadn’t complicated it so much that I’d end up looking like a Dr. Seuss character instead of a badass.
Ash brought me bread slathered in honey and a cup of tea. We watched the sun rise together in silence.
“Ready?” he asked finally.
“I’m scared I’ll fuck this up and look crazy,” I admitted.
Ash laughed and stood up. He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing abs that rivaled Alek’s. That fact that he was my father made it super awkward.
“You think I visualized this human body exactly? I didn’t care about muscles or even symmetry or being attractive to the humans. You build the picture as the base, your magic will take care of the rest. That’s why it is best to keep things simple. Let the power flow. Let the pattern fit where it wants to go.”
“Got it,” I said. “You can put your shirt back on.”
He did, hiding a smile as he looked down at the buttons.
“Take the image of what you want. Fix it in your mind until there is nothing else, until it feels as real as the grass under your feet, as the air coming in and going out of your lungs. Then let the magic flow and don’t fight it.”
Sounded simple enough. Which scared me. Simple and magic meant disaster sometimes, in my experience.
I walked some distance away from Ash and closed my eyes. I pushed away everything, every worry, every aching muscle. In my head I pictured my lynx dragon. Head like a cat’s, but with scales. Ears tufted with soft black fur. Whiskers, because they seemed useful. Big black wings with deep purple scales, and a long, scaly tail that ended in its own tuft of fur. A compact, strong body with purple-and-silver-tipped scales shimmering along its length. Perfect scales, armor against anything that might try to hurt me. I built my dragon to be fast, strong, and to keep me safe.
Air in, air out. Just me and the dragon. I pulled on my magic, letting it spill through me unchecked. I was caught up in the onslaught, filled until I felt I would burst. I waited to burst, to transform, but the magic swelled and then ebbed.
Nothing. I opened my eyes and turned to look back at Ash. I had failed.
Except my gaze met a scaled back and a large pair of folded black wings. And Ash seemed much smaller than he had before. I twisted fully around and reared back, looking down at myself. Paws! Retractable claws and purple paws. I unfurled my wings with barely a thought and beat them. Magic swelled through me again and I soared into the air. I didn’t need the wings to fly, but after a couple of scary dives, I found a way to use them to help stabilize and change direction with greater agility. My tail helped with that also, just like I’d envisioned. I turned huge circles above Ash, my keen eyes making out his shit-eating grin as he w
atched me soar and spin.
I raised my head to the heavens and opened my jaw, roaring purple flames out into the sky. Screw that weak human body, I thought. I wanted to stay this way and never turn back. Nothing could touch me, not up here, not with my armor. I would be safe forever.
Safe, but alone.
Reality reasserted itself and pulled me back toward the field and Ash. I couldn’t soar forever. Not if I wanted to save my friends. I saw my choices laid out before me like the Pattern that Ash spoke of. I could stay in the Veil, stay a dragon-cat, be safe from the Samirs of the world.
Or I could go back to the imperfect Jade, the me I was born with instead of the me I’d chosen.
I dropped heavily to the ground and let instinct put me back into my body. Tears stung my eyes as I became human again. It was hard to let go, but I had shit to do and an evil ex to kill. I couldn’t fight him as a dragon, so I had to resume my training as a human.
Some things are simple after all.
“I thought I’d have to go up and drag you back down in a few days,” Ash said. “You could spend more time in your other form if you want.” He was still half smiling, but his eyes looked sad.
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s glorious, but I can’t fight Samir like that. Besides, pretty sure that form would suck at videogames,” I added, trying to smile.
“True,” Ash said. “You chose a beautiful dragon-cat thing, though. It’s very you. I’m so proud.” He reached out like he was going to ruffle my hair and I stepped out of range.
“Ack, no. Don’t get all weepy parental on me now. We gotta get back to you trying to kill me the way Samir will.”
“As you wish,” Ash said.
I followed him back to the cabin, wondering if the prison he’d been in had The Princess Bride on Netflix, too.
Days and nights blended into each other. Ash made exploding stones explode at me. He even made a rope that cut. On one of his shopping trips he brought back a duffel bag full of guns. I resisted asking where those had come from. Probably safer not to know.
