Page 87 of Dragon Awakened

Amy screams, and I fling all the magic I have in her direction, but Sister Grace is staggering to the ground, clutching her arm. Sobs fall out of Amy as she tries to shelter Grace with her own body, two more dragons bearing down on them.

Freya's white dragon cuts through the sky, hurling the dragons attacking Amy and Grace out of the air. Jett is right behind her, protecting her flank, and I protect his, hurling a barrier of purple magic to cover him, but a spray of acidic smoke gets through, searing his wing, and he plummets from the sky.

Black fire, a voice whispers in my head.

All the tethers to my mates scream out at once, and my dragon is screaming, too.

Black fire.

The Shadows in my soul rise up into a wall of black and ruin, and I said that I was done with shying away from what I am. From who I am.

"The Shadow Queen's heir," I whisper, rising to my feet.

Twisting winds assail me from all sides, but my bracer burns with ebony flames, and I brush the assault back with a swing of my arm. Violet clouds of poison rush toward me through the gap in the battle field, and my dragon opens her mouth.

I pull in the Shadow magic and feel it penetrate my very heart. My eyes fall closed.

When I open them again, the Shadow energy is radiating through me. The sky is violet and black and the most brilliant, glimmering white.

Around me, the world is chaos. Malik takes another vicious blow to his flank, and Storm is staggering as his brother unleashes tempest after tempest. Rafe's scales boil with acid, and Jianyu's wings are shredding against the conflagration of winds and shadows and wrath. Our other friends aren't faring any better--our motley crew of dragons from all four corners of the world, flying against the dark sky in every color of dragonscale imaginable.

But in my head, it's quiet.

Black fire.

"Amy," I whisper, looking to the side.

And she's not my mate. I can't communicate telepathically right into her head. But she hears me all the same, looking over at me through the hail of crumbling stone and ash. She's clutching Grace close, tears streaming down her face.

I walk toward her, the world glowing white all around me. I hear the carnage; I feel my mates' pain with every lashing blow. Clouds of smoke and flame billow toward me on unnatural winds, but they don't touch me. My bracer glows with a blinding light.

I reach Amy and crouch down beside her. A chunk of melting rock hurtles toward me, but I deflect it with a thought.

"It's time," I tell her.

She grasps my meaning instantly. She shakes her head, letting go of Grace, who slumps, panting, to the side. "I don't have the magic for that--I scarcely have any magic at all."

"You do," I promise her, and I feel it. Extending my hand, I clasp her palm in mine. Hot magic flows through her veins, dark and twisty and light and powerful.

"No--I still have my dragon," she protests. "I can't--"

"You need your dragon." Her dragon is a part of her, just like all the different dragons twining through my lineage are a part of me.

And I've begged her. Implored her--told her to wait to excise that wild, most precious part of her. I've hinted and expressed my dismay at the idea that she could choose to remove it.

But I'm not begging or hinting now. Overwhelming certainty fills me with a confidence I never had before. The vivid heat of the Shadow Bracer on my arm only adds another layer of conviction to my heart.

"Black flames," I say aloud, and a shiver of darkness and light passes through me.

She said that the texts I stole described an Emergence Rite from the Shadow Dragon Kingdom, built of black flames cast by dragons and witches working together.

"I told you." Her tone rises, a hint of panic infusing it. "I don't have that kind of magic."

"You are that kind of magic." I clasp her hand more tightly, and the glow of my bracer burns my eyes. "You are every part of you, Amethyst."

I am every part of myself. Shadow, Fire, Stone, Water and Air.

She shakes her head again, but I'm not hearing it.

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