Page 29 of Rejected By Dragons

And my blood turns to ice in my veins.

Chapter Eight

EMBER

I drive and drive, the windows open and my hair blowing wild around my face. Beyond Wynrath Crest is a huge world. I saw it once, as a child. I'm heading back out into it with nowhere to go and no one I can rely on.

I blink back tears and blame them on the whipping wind, but I know better. I wish my mom and dad were here. I flash back to all the trips we took. Our nomadic lifestyle often lacked creature comforts, but we had love and laughter and the thrill of learning about all of dragonkind, and it was enough. So, so much more than enough.

After an hour or two, the descent through the mountains gives way to the sparse land beyond. My headlights cut a bright swath through the darkness. There's dry grass and brush to both sides of the road. Off in the distance, closer to the river, fields of corn and wheat grow, but the greenness of them is lost to the moonless night.

I let out a humorless chuckle through gritted teeth. I'm not missing much, not being able to take in the view. The Air Kingdom is more desert than anything else. The most powerful magic wielders of our kind manipulate the currents in the atmosphere to bring rain to the parts of the realm that need it. Everything else is left to turn to dust.

A chill settles into the air, out on the barren plains. I barrel on, my sights set on the border. It's an invisible barrier, imperceptible to all but the most sensitive of dragonkind. I brace myself, remembering the subtle shift in the air that I used to feel, crossing boundaries with my parents.

In the end, it's deeply anticlimactic. A ghost of a shiver ripples across my skin, a quicksilver flash of constriction in my chest and the faintest ripple in my vision.

And then it's done. The tears that spring to my eyes this time can't be held back. I'm officially homeless. If I try to cross back into Air Kingdom territory, it'll be at my own peril. The wards will alert the king's sentinels to my transgression. Only powerful magic could hide my presence, and without my dragon, I have no hope of tapping into such abilities.

I swab at my face, my other hand white-knuckling the wheel. There's so much loss to process. My chance at Emerging, my home, my family.

Storm. That treacherous, uptight, masochistic, doormat...asshole.

I shake my head fiercely. I can't process any of that right now.

Eventually, I'm far enough away from the border that I feel the surge of adrenaline leaving me. Exhausted, I look for a safe place to pull over.

At a little one-stoplight town, I use the restroom, then fill up my tank and buy some greasy convenience store food. It's tasteless on my tongue, but I need my strength, so I force myself to eat it anyway. Another mile down the road, there's an empty parking lot a decent ways away from the road. I park in the far corner of it, under a tree. When I turn off the engine and the lights, silent darkness descends around me.

All at once, the grief and rage I've been holding back slam into me with force. An ugly, rattling sob shakes my entire body. I give in to the sea swell of emotion, letting it carry me away. A dam breaks inside me. I cry and scream and try to let it all out, but it's too much. I miss Storm and Brynn. I miss my mom. Terrible as that shit hole of a town was, I miss knowing I had a place in this world.

What will become of me now?

I don't know, but after what seems like forever, the tears dry up. My chest heaves with shuddering breaths, my throat painful and raw. I've nowhere near cried myself out, but the crushing misery of it all seems to have reached an ebb. At least for now.

The best I can, I make myself comfortable, pushing back the seat and wadding up a sweatshirt to use as a pillow. Just in case, I stick the hunting knife I brought between the seat and the center console, within easy reach if I end up needing it.

I lean back and close my eyes, praying to the gods for the oblivion of sleep.

It takes a long, long time to come.

* * *

I wish I could say that I pick myself up gracefully. If I did, I'd be lying.

For days, I just sort of...wander. I drive for hours at a time, taking turns more or less at random. The tug I used to feel toward the south re-emerges, but it's weak. It's hard to hear your heart when it's been crushed under some asshole dragon's foot.

When my eyes start to cross, I find places to rest. There's not much to see out here in the middle of nowhere, and the world's biggest ball of twine doesn't exactly have a lot of appeal. Little towns have their little diversions, though.

I'm grateful as hell for local libraries, where I can borrow the Wi-Fi long enough to keep up with my coursework. The papers I write, camped out in my car overnight, are terrible, but they're good enough to earn passing marks, which is all I need. I'm tempted to give up and withdraw, but the tuition's already been paid for the term. Who knows when--or if--I'll be able to finish my degree, but at least I'll have a few more credits under my belt.

It's something to do, in any case. Otherwise, I feel like a zombie. Random crying jags hit me out of nowhere. I barely sleep.

I just keep thinking about how everything went wrong. The pain of what I've lost is too much to bear. The blankness of my future is somehow even worse.

My exhaustion only grows as time goes on. I'm constantly on high alert. Everyone knows that this is lawless territory. The neutral lands beyond the Air Kingdom's borders are crawling with low lives and rejects. I'm one of them now, but scum likes to prey on its own.

One night, trying to sleep in my car, I feel a clawing inside my chest. I snap to alertness at the hiss of my dragon, somewhere deep beneath my consciousness. Overhead, a shadow eclipses the silver sliver of the moon, and I suck in a breath and reach for my knife.

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