Chapter 1
Do you have any idea where he’s been?”
In response to Reg’s question, Davyn looked at Ember. The young dragon hung in the brilliant blue sky, wings flapping slowly, waiting for his chance to play with Reg. His blue-green scales glinted in the sun.
Davyn rubbed his forehead, looking fatigued. He didn’t look good. Reg was used to the warlock being energetic and confident. He looked like a man in his prime, though Reg knew he was much older. Well-muscled, handsome, with a neatly trimmed goatee, he had always looked like he stepped out of a magazine for warlock fashion. Were there magazines for warlocks? Or cloak catalogs? The Warlock Wardrobe or Warlock Weekly, maybe?
But lately, Davyn had been pale and drawn. Reg didn’t think he was sleeping well. He had rescheduled a couple of their training sessions.
But when Ember had returned from wherever he had been the last couple of weeks, Reg had decided to go out to Davyn’s forest property to see him whether Davyn was able to do a firecasting lesson and practice session with her or not. He had agreed to meet, but he looked like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days.
It was a warm day with the tang of salt in the air. The kind of day that made Reg want to be outside, with the sun shining down on her through the swaying leaves of the trees surrounding Davyn’s house.
Reg grasped all of her red box-braids together in both hands and pushed them back behind her shoulders. She tightened the colorful fortune-teller scarf around the crown of her head and smoothed her long, colorful skirt.
Their session started slowly. Reg formed a ball of fire the size of a basketball between her hands, mimicking Davyn. It was the same exercise they always started a session with, but Davyn seemed distracted, like he didn’t know what to do next.
“I don’t have a clue where Ember has been.” Davyn shook his head. “It isn’t like he can tell me.”
Reg sent her thoughts to Ember, probing for information on where he had been during his long absence.
His return images streamed through her mind, but they were too swift and too many to focus on any one of them to figure out where he had been.
Ember was more interested in playing a game than he was in explaining his absence to her.
Reg heated up her fireball until it was white hot, and then launched it at the dragon like a cannon. Ember did a midair flip and caught it in his mouth, then let out a belch of purple flame.
Reg laughed at his antics. “Why purple?” she asked. “He did that for the first time right before he left. I didn’t know dragons could make different colors of fire. I thought it was all… yellow-orange-red. Regular fire colors.”
Davyn scratched the back of his neck, looking at Ember. “I’ll admit I haven’t seen or heard of such a thing before. But we know so little about dragons. They have always been few and far between, and I don’t know of any other verified sightings of dragons in decades.” He kept his voice low, as if Ember would not be able to hear him or understand what he was talking about if he talked quietly. “Ember may be the last of his kind.”
Reg felt a pang of sorrow over that. She really hoped that Ember wasn’t the last dragon in existence. That would be very sad for the world. And very sad for Ember, never to see another dragon in his lifetime. How long did dragons live? She hated to think of the possibility Ember could be alone for hundreds of years.
She’d been told that dragons were solitary creatures, not raised by a pack, but still, they didn’t live their entire lives without ever encountering another of their kind, or the species would never have survived.
Getting bored and impatient, Ember dive-bombed Reg, making her jump and shout out when he stopped his rapid dive only inches from her face.
“Oh, you are a menace!” Reg laughed, reaching out and scratching his neck and behind his ears. “Davyn and I have work to do, you know. I’ll still play with you, but you have to wait.”
Ember landed, folded his wings back, and stomped over to the porch. He lay down in front of the house, foreclaws folded, and covered his eyes with the tips of his wings, shutting Reg out. She shook her head at his adolescent moping and turned her attention back to Davyn.
“We should do this… unless you’re just not feeling up to it.” She pressed her lips together, wondering whether she should say anything, then went on. “You look like crap. I shouldn’t have gotten you out of bed.”
“I wasn’t in bed, but… yes, it’s been pretty rough lately. I feel like a zombie.”
“Because of Julian?”
“Because of… the situation with Julian,” Davyn corrected carefully. “It isn’t because of Julian himself. I mean, it’s not his fault the way things unfolded and that he feels the way he does.”
But it was his fault that he had acted the way he had. Julian was no friend of Reg’s. He was a bully. A damaged, mean, out-of-control wizard who could do a lot of harm if he took his anger out on other people.
His vendetta against Reg had terminated abruptly when he had found out about her siren ancestry. Being an investigator for the Department of Endangered Species, it was his sworn duty to protect Reg and the handful of other sirens who remained in the world. To give him his due, he had made no attempt to harm her since he had realized her heritage.
“Julian can’t blame you for the destruction of his mirror,” Reg pointed out. “You were not the one who shattered it. I was.”
“I was the one who asked you to come look at the enchanted mirror and investigate its origins.” Davyn shrugged tiredly. “And I helped come up with the plan for its destruction. I would have participated in actually smashing it into bits, if I had not been…” he searched for a word, mouth twisting in distaste, “seduced by it.”
“But you didn’t. And I know the reason you didn’t. You could see yourself and Julian happy together. You couldn’t bear to lose that vision.”
Davyn looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. It shouldn’t surprise him that she knew that. She was a psychic, after all. Even someone with no powers could probably have discerned that just by what Davyn had said about Julian and the mirror. It didn’t take a rocket scientist.
“I am afraid… that possibility is gone forever. And where Julian and I are going next… I don’t know. This has been pretty rough on our relationship. He’s… he’s not staying here right now. He’s gone away for a while. I don’t know whether he’ll come back.”
Chances were, Julian would at least return to retrieve the belongings he had left at Davyn’s house. Last Reg had seen, he had accumulated quite a lot of worldly goods that he had stored there. He was a pack rat. A hoarder, albeit a tidy one, from what Reg had seen.
She could see the pain that Davyn was in and felt bad for him. But she did not want Julian to return. Nothing would make her happier than to know that Julian would never distract her mentor again. But it was cruel to wish that when it would hurt Davyn so much.
The best she could hope for was for Davyn to find someone else. If Julian went away for a long trip, and while he was gone, someone else came into Davyn’s life, so that when Julian returned, they were both in a mental space where they were ready to end the relationship and go their separate ways.
Reg could only hope that would happen. And no, she wouldn’t set Davyn up with anyone. She had never understood what he saw in Julian; how would she know who else he would like?
“Well,” Davyn tried to refocus. He rekindled a fire between his hands, the previous ball of fire having dissipated into nothing. “We should get to work. If we are going to do this, let’s do it right.”
Chapter 2
Reg followed Davyn’s lead, kindling her fire and trying to match his in color, heat, and size. Every movement and change he made, she followed suit.
Davyn nodded his approval. His movement became more rhythmic and smooth as he relaxed and focused.
But his fire kept sparking, getting suddenly larger or smaller, or shooting off like lightning. Reg kept hers under control. It was as if their roles had changed. Usually, she was the one who had a hard time staying focused and keeping her mind off her own worries.
She tried to push heat into Davyn. Calming, healing heat. He needed help calming his body and his mind. His heart. Maybe if she could give him that extra little boost, he would be able to sleep tonight. Would be able to eat and to get himself back into shape again. She hated to see him so lost and disheveled.
“I’m fine, Reg,” Davyn murmured.
He could obviously feel her concern and the heat that she was using to heal him. Despite his words, he didn’t pull away. He didn’t tell her to stop.
Davyn didn’t have a lesson plan as he usually did. They went through a few of the usual exercises, but didn’t start anything new. There was no lecture, no new information or challenge. Just the exercises she had been doing for the last few months.
“You would be happy if Julian didn’t have a reason to come back to Black Sands,” Davyn commented.
Reg’s fire expanded rapidly, causing a shock wave that blasted them both in the face.
Luckily, the fact that they were both firecasters meant that it didn’t hurt either of them. Reg laughed, embarrassed. She was used to Davyn saying things to try to distract her, but she didn’t think that was why he had said it.
“Sorry,” she apologized, forming a ball of fire again and trying to focus on the exercise.
“It’s true,” Davyn persisted.
“Well, yeah. I’d be happy if he didn’t come back to Black Sands. But for me, not for you. I would be sad for you. I know you miss him and want to be able to make up with him again.” The fire again burst out of control, shooting straight up in the air this time, into the branches of the trees.
“Oh, no!” Reg swore. “Dang it, I’m sorry, I’ll put it out…” She tried to suppress the fire that had ignited in the branches.
There was a rush of wings, and in seconds, Ember was overhead, gathering the flames and consuming them.
He puffed out a stream of white smoke toward Reg and flew in a few loops to show off.
“Yes, you’re good,” Reg agreed. “Such a smart dragon.”
Davyn gazed up, watching Ember’s antics. “Why don’t you go ahead and play with him?” he sighed. “I haven’t had much energy to see that he gets the exercise he needs. And he’s missed you. It would do you both some good.”
Reg nodded. “Okay. But if there’s anything else you need from me…”
“No, there really isn’t. I just need to… get over it. I’m a grown man. A mature adult. I shouldn’t be pining over a relationship that was doomed to fail from the beginning. It was just a crush, and now… we will both go on with our lives.”
Reg winced. “That’s pretty harsh. You should be kinder to yourself.”
Davyn sighed. He shrugged and pulled his cloak tighter around him, though it was a warm day and he should have been sweating from the fire play. “I feel like an old man, Reg. I’ve never felt like that before.”
“You’re not sleeping. You’re losing weight. If you want to have energy and feel better physically, you need to take care of yourself. Do you want me to give you some more heat?” She pushed healing energy toward him. Davyn’s grip on his cloak loosened.
“You don’t need to do that,” he told her, but he didn’t move away or hold up his hand to stop her.
Eventually, Reg pulled back. She didn’t want to overdo it. She still needed to get home and to have enough energy to tackle her day.
“Please take care of yourself. Have a cup of coffee and something to eat. A muffin. A piece of toast. Anything.”
Davyn nodded and moved slowly into the house, not quite dragging his feet, but definitely looking worn and unwell.
Reg turned around to play with Ember. He flew in loops and sent her a mental picture. Himself and Reg in dragon form, flying together.
Reg hesitated, thinking about it. She had previously only transformed when an emergency situation had necessitated it. She didn’t know how difficult it would be to shift back and forth if the situation did not demand it.
But she’d never had trouble changing to her dragon form, or back. She knew her time with Ember was limited. Like a teenager, he was starting to separate and prepare for life as an adult. Each time he left, he stayed away longer. One day, he wouldn’t return. Reg had only a limited number of chances to fly with him.
“Well…”
Reg pictured herself flying with Ember, looping around each other. She remembered the feeling of the wind over her body as she flew, the almost painful joy and freedom of movement. Not earthbound. Weightless, like when she swam.
She gave her wings a powerful flap to lift off the ground. Ember flapped his wings to join her, exultant at the sight of another dragon.
Was this the only time Ember would see another of his kind? Reg wasn’t technically even of his kind; it was simply one of her siren forms. She wasn’t actually a dragon.
But she was close enough that Ember welcomed her companionship. They were, for a time, of one kind, equals, speaking and moving the same way. They flew and looped around each other like synchronized swimmers.
As they flew, Reg saw pictures. Maybe some of the same pictures he had sent her earlier, when she had asked him about his journey. A dragon’s eye perspective of flying over forests, sleeping in fields, exploring a river and a waterfall. She did not see any pictures of other dragons. But there was also no sign of angry villagers with pitchforks. Reg had worried from the time Ember was little that when people saw him, they would be incited to violence. He would never be safe from swords and spears and more modern, dangerous weapons. Whenever he was gone for a long period of time, she worried that he had run into practitioners who did not see the value of having a dragon around.
Or of non-magicals who, rather than seeing the impossible, constructed a vision of an airplane or missile that required serious countermeasures.
Maybe that was what had happened to all of the other dragons.
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