Traditionally, we’re assigned a flight partner. Someone we can’t separate from at any time. Immediately, I step up next to Tamra, stake my claim. Tonight, we’ll fly together.
I spot Az and feel a pinch in my heart when I notice she’s paired with Miram. She sees me, too, holds my stare. For a moment, I think she is going to come over, but then she looks away.
“She’ll come around,” Tamra says. “She’s afraid.”
“Afraid? Of what?”
“That she’s lost you.”
“But she’s the one avoiding me!”
“Yeah, but she’s in control of that. She can’t control you or anything else that’s happened. Not having any control over what matters in your life… well, that scares people.”
I shake my head with a smile. “When did you get so smart?”
She winks at me. “Hate to break it to you, but I’ve always been the smarter twin.”
I snort and give her a light punch on the shoulder even as an easy warmth sweeps through me. I still have Tamra. Maybe more than I ever did before. Maybe we’ll be like we used to be when we were little girls, before I manifested. We have common ground again. Standing beside Tamra, I think of Dad. How happy he would be if he could see us standing here now.
Feeling a swell of emotion, I look away. And that’s when I see Cassian. Instantly my lips tingle with memory.
He’s watching me with his intense purply dark gaze. I feel a surge of guilt. Here I am, standing beside my sister, reveling in our newfound closeness with the secret of my kiss with Cassian hovering unspoken between us.
“Hey, there’s Cassian!” Tamra waves him over cheerfully.
As Cassian heads our way, Corbin falls into step beside him. A look passes between the two cousins as they approach us. It’s not friendly, but then the two have never pretended to like each other. Corbin has never disguised the fact that he wants to be the pride’s next alpha, that he believes himself a better candidate. In that way, he reminds me a lot of Xander, Will’s cousin.
“So you both made it.” Cassian smiles and I know he understands just how special, how momentous this is for Tamra and me.
I say hello back, keeping my voice small, like it might make me less noticeable… make our kiss something forgettable, something that didn’t happen.
“Thought it would never stop raining,” Corbin says, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “I need to hit some wind.”
Tamra nods, looking like an eager child. “Yeah, me too,” she says as though she’s been doing this for years. I fight back my smile.
“Got a partner, yet, Cassian?” Corbin asks.
Cassian hesitates. “No.”
“Cool. You and me then.”
I frown, wondering when was the last time these two paired up during group flight. They’re so competitive….
I don’t ponder it for long because our flight master calls us to the center of the darkened field. Perimeter lights line the edge, there for when we land and when we play a night game of airball. Not that it’s necessary. Most of us have excellent night vision. I shoot Tamra a glance.
We stand in our pairs. When the signals are given, we will each drop our robes, manifest, and take off two at a time. Tamra and I wait behind Cassian and Corbin, but I don’t even look at them.
Shoulder to shoulder with my sister, I absorb the significance of this moment. Our first flight together. Dad always expected we would have this. It broke his heart when we never did.
We would listen raptly in our beds as he talked to us about flying, Mom smiling on indulgently, never getting it, never understanding his love for the sky and wind. As much as Dad loved her, he wanted us to be like him. At least in the way he loved to fly. And tonight we would.
Before we drop our robes, Tamra’s hand reaches out and squeezes mine. She looks so happy, so at peace with herself, that I know this is right. Me, here with the pride — it’s where I should be. In this moment, I can believe everything will be okay.
Leaving our robes behind, we shed our human layers, too.
The familiar pull begins in my chest as my human exterior melts away, fades, replaced with my thicker draki skin.
I tilt my face up to the night, feel my cheeks tightening, bones stretching and sharpening. My breathing changes, deepens, as my nose shifts, cartilage crackling as the ridges appear along the bridge. My limbs loosen, extend longer. This drag of my bones feels good, like a nice long stretch after being stuck in a car for endless hours.
My wings push out from behind me, and I sigh, reveling in their release. They unfurl with a whisper, slightly longer than the length of my back. I work them, let the wiry sheets of fiery gold test the air.
Far up in the sky, I note the sifting clouds, like smoke on the dark night. I can’t wait to cut through them, feel the vapor on my skin. I look down at my body; my skin glows like light through amber. My gaze drifts to my sister and my breath catches at the sight of her. She’s beautiful with her iridescent, silvery white skin — the moon to my sun.
“Ready?” I ask in our rumbling draki-speech, the only language I can speak in full manifest due to the changes in my vocal cords. But this is the first time Tamra can answer in the ancient language of our forefathers, true dragons.
Her eyes — enlarged irises and dark vertical pupils — stare back at me. “Yes,” she rumbles, and I know she’s been yearning for this all her life.
She launches smoothly from the earth. I push off with the balls of my feet into the damp air, letting Tamra creep higher so that I can watch, in awe at the sight of her: the silvery pearl of her draki skin; the gossamer wings that twinkle like sheets of glinting ice.
She glows like a white star against the dark night. Looking back, she calls, “C’mon, I thought you were fast. Show me!”
I smile wide, and wind rushes over me as I catch up to her in a soaring twirl. It seems forever since I’ve had this. Even without the taste of sun on my flesh, it’s a wonderful sensation to fly again.
Tamra moves cautiously, distrustful of her own ability, of the air currents roaring past us. We fall to the back of the group.
Others whip past us, their shouts lost on the roaring winds as they twirl in flashes of color: Az’s iridescent blue with its winks of pink; the glimmering bronze of my fellow earth draki. I spot Miram, her flesh a dull tan. The onyx among us are the hardest to detect, their iridescent black and purple flesh blend well into the night. Another reason why, historically, they’re our best fighters. No one sees them coming.
I slow down, identifying Corbin and Cassian, flying at incredible speeds through the night, wind whistling to a shrill pitch around them as they race in wild zigzags to some unknown finish line. They weave and dart around each other, just short of collision. I shake my head. Still the same idiot boys showing off for the pride… or, in this case, Tamra. Or
Tamra shouts again, “Jacinda! C’mon!”
I pull back my wings and surge forward, tempering my speed when I hear my sister’s wings slapping fiercely to keep up.
Side by side, we soar together. This is enough, I think. More than I ever dreamed. As everyone else leaves us behind, we don’t care. We laugh and spin in the wind, break through the vaporous night, moving and manipulating the air like a pair of children exploring the water of a swimming pool.
A childhood joy we’ve never felt. Before now.
