“Put ’er there, Sparky,” Brighty said as she lifted her hand toward the young photo’kine sitting across from her on the floor. The perfectly controlled white orb hovering between them vanished in a blink as the girl leaned forward and slapped her palm into Brighty’s, a self-conscious smile on her lips.
Oh, for magic’s sake, Brighty internally cursed as her chest warmed at the contact. Not this again.
She’d told herself she was done taking in strays. Ever since Rafe had abandoned them to fly directly into the path of constant danger, she’d been in a state of emotional upheaval, oscillating between worrying over his safety and ruing the day he’d been born. It was exhausting. Honestly, fighting dragons was less draining than this constant gnawing fear that came with caring about people. Brighty was over it.
And yet, when a girl with deep mocha feathers speckled with copper highlights walked into their guest cottage, her eagle wings too large for her gangly little frame, Brighty had taken one look into her pearlescent eyes and caved. The mark of a photo’kine was too obvious to ignore. Under Captain’s sharp, scrutinizing gaze, she’d mumbled a begrudging, “Fine,” and stomped across the room to welcome their newest recruit. That had been about a week and a half ago, and already the girl had needled her way into her heart.
What in magic’s name is happening to me?
She was hiding in the middle of a city full of powerful avians who loathed magic. She was living on an isle hovering fifteen thousand feet above the sea and ready to drop. She was pretty certain the world was in the process of ending. Now was not the time to turn soft.
“All right, all right,” she grumbled, her grouchy tone wiping the girl’s smile right off. That’s more like it. “It’s a start, but don’t get too cocky. You’re a long way from lighting a dragon’s ass on—”
“Language!” Captain interrupted.
Brighty jolted and glanced over her shoulder. The woman missed nothing. “Sorry, Cap.”
Honestly, she’d heard worse by the time she was five. Then again, not everyone grew up running wild along the docks of Da’Kin.
“How’s the training going?”
“Great!” Sparky chirped. Oh, the enthusiasm of youth.
Brighty frowned. “It’s going.”
“Let me see.”
“All right…” Brighty trailed off as she scanned the room. They’d painted the crystals black in this central atrium of the building to keep out any peeping eyes, so the magic glowed vividly despite the midday hour. Sparks of every color danced about the shadows as Pyro worked with her group of fire mages, and Leech his trio of earth mages, and Archer his two ferro’kines. Spout was no longer allowed in here with her buckets of water after she’d sprayed the entire room during a sneezing fit—twice! Her set of hydro’kines was relegated to their own space down the hall. No electro’kines had stepped forward, so Jolt was usually the one surveying the progress, though Captain must have taken over. Her air mages were huddled in the corner following Patch’s lead, just Brighty’s luck.
“There.”
She pointed to a glass lantern on the floor by Pyro and her fire mages. The wick wasn’t lit, and the container was a perfect test of control. Too much light and it would shatter. Too little and the glow would die out. Just enough and a wonderfully self-sustaining ball of energy should be able to live inside there for a few hours.
“Let’s see if you can set some mage light from a distance.”
The girl nodded and scrunched her face in concentration, every ounce of her tiny body straining with the effort. Brighty snorted softly because, magic help her, it was endearing. Captain caught her eye, a subtle questioning arch to her brow. Brighty wrinkled her nose and turned her focus to the beam of light racing across the room.
Too much.
Too much!
She winced before the glass even cracked, anticipating the explosion. When the lantern shattered, a blast of power cut through the air, so forceful it stole Brighty’s breath, and every mage in the room froze.
“I didn’t—” Sparky sputtered. “I mean, was that—”
“Shh!”
Brighty held up her finger, demanding silence as the magic simmered across the dark and a subtle golden sheen lit the room. Aethi’kine magic. Here. This was bad. This was—
The ground shook violently and Brighty stumbled to find her balance. Rustling feathers filled the silence as the avians around her used their wings to steady themselves. Archer and Jolt dropped to their knees. Captain took off running.
“Stay!” Brighty ordered her apprentice, then raced to follow, pushing through the door already closing behind Captain Rokaro. If she were anyone else, the shocking switch from darkness to full sun would have blinded her or stung her eyes, but light was her magic. A gasp escaped her lips just before the captain’s as the two of them took in the view through the crystals.
Dragons.
From their location at the edge of the city, the house had an uninterrupted view of the barren tundra beyond. Every other day, it had been filled with nothing but ice, rock, and clear, open skies. Now flames sparked on the horizon as six beastly bodies rushed toward them. In the mist, they never would have seen them coming. But up here where clouds were rare and the blue was endless, there was no mistaking the sight.
“The queen?” Brighty asked.
“It must be,” Captain confirmed, not glancing away from the danger soaring steadily closer. “They’re coming after her.”
Brighty tried to ignore the rapid thumping of her pulse as she asked her next question. “And Rafe?”
“I don’t—”
“Is that him?” Patch interrupted them in a deep voice.
Without turning, Brighty sensed the rest of the crew squeezing into the small corner bedroom, the shuffling of their boots and the whisper of their sighs easy to recognize, every sound unique and familiar. She squinted to get a better look at the dark spot flying just ahead of the dragons. Horror widened her eyes.
“That’s not Rafe.”
“How do you—”
“There are three of them, look. It’s not Rafe. It’s those things.” Fire burned her veins, so hot for a second she was sure Pyro must have been playing a prank. But she wasn’t. The inferno came from within, a flood of panic.
“If he’s not there,” Jolt muttered slowly, “where is he?”
“With the queen, I’m sure,” Captain interjected, her normal authority frighteningly absent. “He must be.”
“What if he’s not?” Brighty gulped as a sick foreboding twisted her intestines in a knot worthy of the worst storm. Logically, she knew that she and Rafe were just friends. There was no cosmic connection tying them together. There was no thread of fate woven through their souls. And yet, in that moment, she just knew he was in trouble. She couldn’t explain it. The understanding came like a punch to the gut, stealing her breath. He was in trouble, and she had to help the only way she knew how. “We have to stop them.”
“Brighty.” Captain grabbed her arm, catching her before she even realized she was turning toward the door.
“Think about this,” Archer cut in, worry sharpening his normally carefree voice. “We’re in a city full of avians who despise mages. Even with our magic, they’re stronger and well trained, not to mention they currently outnumber us by, I don’t know, a thousand to one. You’d have to be crazy to—”
“Maybe I am,” she snapped and wrenched her arm free, taking a moment to meet the eyes of her crew. “Maybe I am crazy to think none of that will matter with a herd of dragons breathing down our necks. Maybe I am crazy to think they might fight with us rather than get burned alive. Maybe I am. But I’d rather be called crazy than a coward.”
“If the king and queen are here,” Captain interjected, her tone meant to soothe the tension, “they must have a plan—”
“Are you kidding me? This is Rafe we’re talking about. Of course he doesn’t have a bloody plan.”
“She’s got a point, Cap,” Pyro muttered.
Brighty spared a moment to look outside. The dragons had already closed half the distance between them. The creatures flew even faster. In a matter of minutes, they’d be here.
“We don’t have time for this.” She back to her crew. “We’ve spent our lives hunting dragons, and I, for one, am not about to stop now. Join me or don’t—I really don’t care. Those creatures will tear this city apart, and us with it. I won’t sit around and watch it happen when I can fight the bastards instead.”
With that, she tore through the stunned crew, not entirely sure when she’d become such an upstanding person, yet certain Rafe was somehow to blame. A hiss slid through her lips when she reached the outdoors. It was freezing, as she knew it would be, but with all this sunshine and clear skies, the frigid bite came as a shock every time. She never thought she’d long for the fog, but she did. At least down there upon the sea she didn’t have to listen to the incessant chattering of her own teeth.
A roar broke through her complaining. Brighty ran around the side of the building and skidded to a halt as six raging dragons barreled down on her. Archer was right. This was idiotic. This was crazy. What in magic’s name could one dragon-hunting crew and a team of novice mages do against this? What could she do out here by herself?
Dammit. I’ve got to try.
Bracing herself for what was to come, Brighty squared her shoulders and sent the most powerful beam she could gather across the vacant tundra. In an explosion of brilliant white, her magic and the dragons crashed together. Roars filled the air. Fire and light ricocheted across the sky. One of the creatures howled.
The black one, she thought, eying it through the radiant display. Of course. The one made of shadow.
Brighty homed in on the spot, shooting another blast of power at the creature. It jerked backward as her magic slammed into it, crippled by the light.
She didn’t relent.
The dragons soared closer. The ground shook as geo’kine magic painted the air green. The snow around her melted and condensed into a slithering tendril rearing to strike. She didn’t care. She kept her magic trained on the shadow creature, not letting up as it fought to escape her hold, body twitching within the center of her pure, unfiltered light. If she could just do this, if she could just stop one of them, maybe it would make a difference.
The group was a hundred feet away, then fifty, then twenty. One of the dragons arched its head, fire bubbling visibly at the back of its throat. Brighty winced.
This is going to hurt, she thought as flames barreled from its snout, the sound of its fury rattling her bones. This is why I told myself not to care about people. Caring makes you do crazy, idiotic, noble things that will only get you killed.
Yet she didn’t try to run.
She didn’t try to save herself.
She let her power flood out in waves, determined to fight until the very end, only turning away when the heat of the blaze was close enough to burn her skin.
The pain never came.
Red sparks flew past her face and caught the inferno before it struck. Then blue ones raced by, grappling with the shoot of water aimed at her torso. Then green. Then yellow. Then purple, until a rainbow lit the skies.
The shock must have been written on her face because Jolt ran over and nudged her with her hip. “You didn’t really think we’d let you die, did you?”
Sort of? Maybe?
“All right,” Captain shouted. “Pyro’kines on the dragons. Hydro’kines on the blue creature. Geo’kines on the green one. Brighty, I want you on the black one. Everyone else, do what you can to help. If you have wings, use them. If you’re under the age of eighteen, get the hell inside. And for the love of all the gods, someone find an alarm or a horn or something to alert the avian soldiers, because we can’t win this fight alone.”
They scattered, little more than a handful of ragtag sailors and two dozen novice mages with wings, but they were the queen’s army and they were all this world had left. So somehow, they’d bloody well find a way to save it.