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The answer took shape, formed into something solid, into rock. Grew into words that hardened into a single irrefutable truth.History was wrong.

Everything we knew. Everything we had been taught. All. Wrong.

Iwas wrong, trapped in this body, a cage from which I could not break, could not escape.

I vibrated, denial bubbling through me, pushing at the bars. I could not be that thing of lore and nightmare—ghost stories told to children so that they would behave and be home before dark.

Dragon. My horror mounted, the word a poison spreading, overtaking everything.

Dragon. Me.Killer.All one and the same.

I was a killer. I’d taken a life. Granted, Arkin had been on the verge of takingmylife, but I’d been the one to do the killing in the end. And with such terrifying and brutal ease. I’d smote him like I was blowing out a candle.

I didn’t know how long I spiraled through the air with these agonizing thoughts.

My hands were not hands. They were weapons: amber-hued fingers tipped with sharp talons, which clawed the wind as though seeking purchase. Talons. Not my only weapon, though. I worked my smoke-steeped mouth, tongue lifting, testing the roof, the sides of my cheeks, running over the tips of incisors sharp enough to nick my tongue. More deadly gifts at my disposal.

My lungs pulsed and crackled with embers as I looked up and out, as though the answer was there, salvation in the clouds. I tore through the drifting vapor, catching glimpses of mountain peaks far away, just the summits, rising like jagged pyramids of marbled black and white.The Crags. More awesome and terrifying than the bards ever conveyed. So big—even just these crests—that they could be seen from miles and miles away. My heart reacted, jumping, banging against my rib cage like an overexcited puppy, eager to reach its favorite person.

And that was its own brand of terror. The Crags should mean nothing to me. I should feel nothing at this sight of them.

I wrenched my gaze away and dropped down below the clouds, determined to look upon them no more.

I assessed the ground so very far below. Trees like dots. Lakes like mirrors. The swollen Vinda River a curling ribbon. Streams like blue veins in the earth. So much vibrant green. Panic swelled in me. How was I even doing this? How was I not crashing to the ground? Falling and slamming to earth and breaking into a million pieces?

Fell.He had been there. He had seen what I’d done to his man. I’d looked back and glimpsed him standing over Arkin’s body, those frost eyes blazing ice, looking up after me. He saw me. Well, he saw the dragon. He could not knowIwas the dragon. He would not leap to such a conclusion. Perhaps he would think me dead, killed by the dragon? Whatever the case, he was rid of me.

A sob worked its way up from my contracting and expanding lungs. They burned. Smoldered in my chest. The heat brought me no pain. Fire did not hurt me.

My gift. My curse.

I tore through the air without grace or direction or purpose. I’d fled in fear. The impulse to go, to run—no. To fly. It was an immediate response, reflexive, but there was nowhere to go. No place to flee, no refuge on the entirety of this planet safe for the likes of me. And yet I could not stay airborne forever. I gazed around wildly, looking for a place to land below.

Somehow I descended. I willed it and my body obeyed, muscles reacting and working, so that was something. I could command my movements. Perhaps there was hope that I could command myself to turn into a human again.

I lowered down, my legs lifting and tucking in close. My wings beat and churned the air into wind, generating great gusts. My body snagged on leaves, popped and cracked thick branches like they were twigs. I came down clumsily, the soles of my feet making contact a split second before my bent knees crashed to the ground. Grass and leaves crunched beneath my weight. I crumpled and folded in on myself, tail curving around my body as though seeking to shelter me.

A familiar sting pricked my eyes. It was the only thing familiar about any of this. A sob pushed up from inside my chest, but only more chuffing sounds escaped my mouth. Nothing intelligible. No words. Nothing human.

I leaned forward on my bent knees and stretched my arms before me, choking out wild, desperate sounds, clawing the ground, dirt and grit sliding beneath my talons. I looked down at those arms. At my skin... my scaled skin winking fire. Proof of what I was.

I dragged trembling fingers down my cheeks, my nails—talons—scoring my skin as though I could tear the flesh from my bones and find myself buried somewhere beneath, like a person trapped inside a cocoon.

The pressure I exerted should have done that. It should have drawn blood, but this skin was tough as armor. I would have to go deeper to inflict damage. Deeper to find me.

Turn. Go back.

I concentrated on the wish, willing it to happen, for me to change.Nothing. No transformation. I was still this creature with the taste of hellfire in my mouth and smoke in my nose.

Lifting my gaze, I looked around and marveled at the world. Everything was brighter. The greens greener. The browns lush and sparkling in a way I had never thought possible. Colors I had never seen before, never knew existed, seared my vision.

My ears perked up at the sound of burbling water running over smooth rock. I grabbed fistfuls of earth and crawled, dragging myself over ground toward the body of water, smelling it as much as I heard it. Muskiness and loam and sulfur filled my nostrils as I followed the scent.

The grass thinned away to rough rocks and pebbles that didn’t hurt at all even as my weight crunched against the sharpness. My long amber-hued fingers worked sinuously, seizing and pulling me along to the water’s edge. At the first cold lap, my skin contracted, greedily tasting the wetness.

My hands sank into the shallow depths, into sludge and shale. I leaned over the water, smooth as glass, and peered down, taking my first solid look at my reflection. The wide ridged nose. The teeth big and deadly like daggers in my mouth. My eyes had changed, too. Were more feline... the pupils dark, elongated slits along the sides of my face now.

Not my face. A dragon’s face.