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I lashed out and swiped the water with an angry snarl, spraying droplets, ending my reflection. I only wished it was as simple to endthis... what I’d become, this impossible thing I could not be. I inched back, away from the water, as the ripples settled and the surface returned to glass. Collapsing on my side, I curled into a tight ball full of ragged, animal breaths. Smolder baked in my chest. I wrapped my arms around my knees, willing myself smaller, willing myself to return to me again.

I turned and rolled my face into the ground, tasting grit on my lips. Closing my eyes, I tried to form words, to speak my thoughts. Instead I could only mouth my pain and fear and longing voicelessly into the ether. Unintelligible sounds chuffed from my mouth.

This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. This is a bad dream. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

For a moment, my mind went gray, thoughts unspooling, rolling out and away. I forgot everything. Forgot where I was. Forgot what I was, which was a relief. A great gust of breath eased from my body. If I could, I would never remember again. I would stay in the gray.

I was back home in the City, in the palace, in the comfort of my bed, cozily ensconced in plump pillows, swallowed up by deep bedding, the coverlet tucked up to my chin. Soft sounds stirred on the air around me. The trill of birds outside my window. Voices. Footsteps. A maid’s distant song as she moved down the corridor. All of this as familiar to me as a well-trod path.

Safe. Comfortable. Again the royal whipping girl, secure in my role, content in my place... any secret longings for more, for something else, no longer a faint whisper in my heart, no longer an itch beneath my skin.

The gray was peace. Dappled light on grass. A morning breeze on the downy feathers of a bird. The clean wash of rain through a garden. If I breathed slowly and deeply enough, I could almost believe I was there. I could almost believe it was real.

It lasted only a moment. Then I remembered.

I was back in the present, in the sharp fangs of the woods.

And I remembered everything.

I WANTED TOhide and fold myself away like flower petals closing at the end of a day, preparing for the night. I wanted to stay stuck in night, hidden from the world, rather than remaining this creature. Rather than living in this monstrous form, capable of such damage and destruction. Only feared. Never loved. Alone.

I contemplated how I might do that.

How could I put an end to this wretched existence?

According to the bards, dragons lived a long time. They were not immortal, exactly, but close. They lived for centuries. It was impossible to wrap my head around that.Centuries.Close enoughto immortality for a mortal, and I was still thinking very much like one of those. Like a human. Frail. Brittle as a winter’s branch. Someone who had expected—hoped—to count birthdays well into the double digits.Neverthe triple digits.

Very little could kill them. Them? Us.Me.

That would never feel normal or right. Never slide off my mind and tongue with ease.

Typical weapons didn’t destroy a dragon. Obviously not fire. At least it would not harm me. That particular element was at the core of me now. It bubbled through my veins like oil beneath the earth’s skin.

My anguish was all edges and angles, sharp and pointed and digging. I lowered my head, panting, crying without tears for the girl I was, the girl lost. A dry sponge trying to wring out water. Not a drop fell. Dragons didn’t cry. A fact I never expected to know. Now I did. Now I knew.

“Oh. Hello there.”

My head snapped up at the voice, in this place where there should not be a voice. My gaze sharpened on the woman who stood a few feet away.Thora.

She blinked mildly, not appearing the slightest bit surprised or frightened, or any of the reactions one might show when coming face-to-face with a dragon.

She angled her head. “You look like you’re having a bad day.”

She spoke casually, unconcerned, like the sight of me was as normal and familiar as the shape of the back of her hand.

I opened my mouth, but her name did not emerge. Speech, human speech, eluded me still. I couldn’t manage it. The words lodged themselves in my throat like great rocks that could not be budged, rolling marbles in my mouth that could not escape.

I hung my head, burying my face in my strange hands—hands that felt like they belonged to something else. Something.

Why was Thora not afraid and running away?

Fell had said she was a witch. Perhaps that was why she was not afraid of dragons. Had she known what I was when she first saw me? Was that what her puzzling words signified?

Witches and dragons. Both magical creatures. They existed on the same plane.We.We existed on the same plane. A magical plane.

Thora stepped closer, unafraid. Then, incredibly, she squatted down so that her face was close to mine. “It’s you in there, isn’t it?” Her words whispered over my skin, as comforting as a balm. She peered at me, seeing me. I didn’t understand how, but she did.

I nodded.