“Rayna…” Kilven was no longer laughing but instead sounded concerned.
I ignored him and threw the lightning. It crackled through the air, loud and intense, a white light of danger. Then, it smashed into the ball, and instead of the ball absorbing it like I thought it would, there was a loud explosion. Thunder echoed around me as the ground shook. Debris shot through the air and, a moment later, rained down around us, pelting my body.
I gaped as I stared at where the target was, or at least where it should have been. Instead, there was a crater left. Even the ball next to it was affected, half of it missing.
“Holy fuck!” someone exclaimed.
I wasn’t sure who. I was too busy staring at the spot. I did that?
“I thought the balls were supposed to be able to absorb the attacks,” I whispered.
Aylia rested her hand on my shoulder. “They are.” I turned to her, noting the massive smile on her face. “And you’re the only one who has ever broken them. Not even Kilven could, no matter how hard he tried.”
“Hey! No reason to tell her that,” he said, sounding offended.
Aylia shrugged. “Only the truth. You spent weeks trying to destroy them and only got as far as leaving bigger scorch marks than all the others.”
“There’s absolutely nothing left,” someone called out. They were by the crater, staring at it with wide eyes and looking absolutely amazed.
Aylia leaned closer to me and whispered softly enough that even I had trouble hearing her. “This is why you are that prophecy. You are exactly who we think you are.”
6
Before I could really figure out what was going on, I was surrounded by a sea of white hair. People were talking over each other, patting me on the back, asking me questions I had no time to respond to, and overwhelming me so quickly that my head spun.
“Can we see more?
“Do that again?”
“How can you do that?”
“Are you really her? The girl of the prophecy?”
“Okay, give her space,” Kilven said. “You’re going to suffocate her at this point.”
That seemed to be the trick as people finally backed off and gave me space. They still stayed as close as they could. It felt like everyone on the training grounds had gathered all around, their excitement so palpable it was rubbed off on me. Their happiness made me feel warm and welcomed. I wasn’t seen as some kind of pariah; I wasn’t an outsider. Everyone was clearly accepting me.
“So you’re really her?” someone asked.
I focused on that, needing to find my footing in this chaos of exhilaration.
“Who?” I asked.
“The girl of prophecy, the one who it’s foretold will be so powerful that she’ll be able to fix the lands,” the woman said.
She looked older than me, in her mid-twenties at least, with her white hair pulled back in a braid that hung over her shoulder and down over her chest. Even as a braid, her hair was long, going to her waist.
“The one I told you about,” Aylia said to me, filling in the missing information. “About the Divine who had multiple dragon mates. She was that powerful.”
“Then hasn’t it come to pass? I can’t be some child prophecy person. That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“She isn’ttheprophecy though. She was only a glimpse of what could be,” Kilven said. “That rider proved to others that she could have two mates, that strength was out there. They buried it for a reason though.”
“Buried it?” It seemed they knew more than Aylia had led on at the Academy.
I glanced at her, and she seemed to understand what I was thinking. “I only know about what I told you,” she admitted. “There was a Divine with multiple mates. They were strong, and she had more powers than what we have.”
“She’s right. The Divine had two mates to be exact, and she proved to be stronger than most bonded dragons and Divines,” Kilven said. “But that’s all there is to it. The dragons buried that part of our history, scared of what it meant.”