But somehow, this time, it didn’t hurt me.
I thought of the strange dream I’d had, still back at the Academy—the dream that I was walking through The Fire unharmed, unafraid, with it lapping like friendly tongues against my skin.
I opened my eyes and saw everything through a wavering heat haze. What was happening to me? How could I stand here in the middle of what was essentially a blast furnace fueled by the flames of four huge dragons and not be burnt to a cinder?
I had an awful thought—maybe I was being burnt up but I couldn’t tell it because Ari was taking all the pain for me! I didn’t want that for him—didn’t want him to bear my anguish and torment just because he loved me so much.
I looked at him through the flickering wall of orange and yellow and red but his face didn’t appear to be contorted with pain. Instead, the expression I saw in his clear amber eyes was more like stunned shock—like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Which was his L’lorna being covered in fire and yet not burning or having any pain or sensation from the flames at all.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. My scars where The Fire had touched me before were itching, I realized. Especially the ones on my back. In fact, they were suddenly itching so badly I couldn’t stop myself from scratching them.
Looking down at myself, I started to scratch the pinkish-white twisted burn scars on my left forearm. I dug in with the nails of my right hand—which seemed sharper than usual for some reason—and pulled down.
I nearly screamed when a long strip of skin came right off.
But underneath, in the area where the skin of my forearm had been, wasn’t glistening muscle or white bone—instead, I saw something so strange I could hardly believe it.
I saw scales.
Beautiful bronze scales with a metallic pink tint to them. It reminded me of that color they call rose-gold, only darker and richer.
Mesmerized by my own apparent metamorphosis, I decided to scratch some more. But when I lifted my right hand, meaning to apply my nails to the skin of my left upper arm, I saw they were no longer nails at all.
They were talons.
Long, glistening talons like knifes at the ends of my fingers.
But my fingers didn’t look strictly human either.
What’s happening to me? What’s going on?
I had no answer but that awful itching persisted. Without thinking about it, I reached up to scratch my nose…
And found I had a long, sleek muzzle instead.
My hair was gone as well—replaced by a ridge of diamond-hard spines that started at the top of my head and ran in a ridge down my back.
And speaking of my back, the itching there was reaching a point where it was nearly unbearable.
I turned my head—finding that my neck was somehow longer now—so I was perfectly able to see my own back, which had been an impossibility before.
And what I saw astonished me.
My robe was burned away and my back was long and sleek and smooth—covered in the same bronze-rose scales I had seen on my forearm. There were two triangular patches on it where the scars had been that itched more than any other part of me.
I ducked my head down, intending to scratch the two spots with my fangs, when suddenly the former scars erupted at the same time and two long, shiny things came out of them.
I gasped in surprise, rearing my head back on my much-longer neck. The itching was gone but it had been replaced by an urge to flap.
It was such a strange urge that I almost didn’t understand it. But when I saw the long shiny things that had sprouted from my back expanding and spreading, I suddenly understood.
No wonder I wanted to flap—I now had wings!
Gorgeous wings, too, I saw. Their outsides were the same bronze color as the rest of my scales but the insides were a warm glowing rose-pink, deepening to magenta towards the edges. Experimentally, I flapped them and felt my body rise a little off the floor. I did it again and realized that the wind from my wings was blowing around the little toy action figures down on the ground below me.
Wait—action figures? These were men, I suddenly understood—the same men who had pushed me out into the middle of the room so the other Drakes could breathe flame on me. But they were tiny now—I could have picked them up in one taloned hand.
Or maybe they weren’t tiny—maybe I was huge. Had I grown?
I looked up at the beautiful stained-glass dome of the ceiling—the one showing the scarlet dragon breathing flames on the sky-blue background. It seemed much closer to my head than it had at the banquet that night. So close that I bet if I just flapped my wings a bit harder, I could reach it with very little effort.