15. Ella

Chapter 15

Ella

Ella ran to the Varmin sector with the force of the wind driving her to a degree of speed she didn’t know she could reach with her human legs. Her breath heaved hysterically with every urgent stride. Wheezes burned her throat as she tore through the shredded asphalt of the Varmin sector, sketching anxious footprints on the unpaved path in her wake. Her pace faltered, abating to a jog that bled into an abrupt freeze of movement when she yanked open the door to the dragon-shifter dome and discovered it cleared of people.

All that remained was the aftermath of what the walls and floor implied had been a nasty, violent breakdown.

Blackened spots speckled what once was a spotless surface of pewter. The steel structure still sparkled with flames that had yet to be extinguished, the metal walls caving in, denting the dome so it was no longer spherical in shape but, rather, jagged and sunken in. Not just the vestiges of fire injured the interior make-up. A pathway comprised of crimson mosaics, which were really droplets of seething blood strung together in a potholed line, spilled across the terrain. Ella followed the trail, trepidation cloying her senses, filling her mouth with the sour taste of fear.

The stream of blood and flaked embers—some of which were dragon scales, the texture fried, charred leather—ran into the Canterna Thicket. The branches twisted and gnarled like grasping fingers above her head. Her pace quickened once more, breaking out into a full sprint when she recognized Laya’s silhouette amongst the flock of slender tree trunks, the young Primordial’s cries saturating the land.

“JARE!” Laya cried from her spot in the circle of Varmin children. “Please, stop!”

“Jarion!” Ella shouted, causing Laya to twirl around and stagger back, permitting Ella to see what the rest of the class of Primordials had gathered around. Jarion lay in the middle of the circle, a thrashing shell of a person, twigs minced and scorched beneath where he’d collapsed. Spasms quaked through his frail, lanky body. When he rolled onto his stomach, Ella could see that the material of his t-shirt had been ruptured down the middle due to the sharp edge of a dragon wing shattering through his flesh, striving to stretch towards the sun. When Jarion clenched the earth between desperate fingers and buried his face in the soil, expelling a monstrous scream while mustering all his strength to keep the wing from fully extending outward, instead of sound traveling out of his mouth, a cascade of flames escaped his parted lips and set the earth aflame.

“MOVE!” their instructor, Mr. Park, hollered to one of the students named Rubie Sullivan, who was in the direct line of fire.

Without a second thought, Ella raced between the terrified children and pounced on Rubie, thrusting the Varmin out of the way before the flames engulfed her. However, Ella’s own ankle didn’t make it out in time before the flames charged forward and wrapped around her calf, the sensation of her skin melting off reminiscent of what she imagined it felt like to have a bucket of acid thrown on top of her. The scream that left her body was a brutal outpouring that she felt dribble down through her veins to her toes, down to the leg that no longer possessed any sensation, the pain of dragon fire so ghastly that her body decided to slip into numbness to protect her mind against the horrific feeling.

“Ms. Rose!” Laya shrieked.

“I’m okay, Laya,” Ella croaked, crawling to Jarion on her elbows. Maybe approaching him was a dumb decision, given the display of power he’d just exhibited, but laying on the forest floor and drifting into her pain while this child descended towards the clutches of death was an even dumber choice in her eyes. “Jarion,” she whimpered, the young Primordial raising grief-stricken eyes, so engulfed by anguish that she couldn’t even see the green hue of his irises, the color blocked by a film of agony.

“Help me,” he cried, his voice cracking. Tiny cinders leaked down his chin along with his tears.

“I want to help you. Tell me how I can help you, Jarion.”

“Push my wing back in.” Ella hesitated. She glanced down at the embryonic wing working tirelessly to be birthed from Jarion’s back, staring up at her as if pleading with her to tug it the full way out. Ella wondered momentarily if Jarion’s dragon had emotions and thoughts of its own, if all Varmin shifter-forms did, and the dragon was experiencing its own layer of sorrow on top of Jarion’s.

“Jarion…” Ella tried to carefully construct her words to not further agitate him. “That isn’t going to help you. Resisting this is only going to make everything a million times worse. If your wing is begging to come out, you need to let it out, right now.”

“I CAN’T!” he roared up at the sky, the sound mixing with Laya’s sobbing in the distance. Along with the declaration came another upwelling of flames from deep within his chest, and this time, Ella wasn’t fast enough to ensure everyone got out of dodge. Fire rippled through the ether, drizzling enraged sparks over all the children’s heads. Screams seemed to echo from both the children and the forest itself. The Varmin class dropped to their knees and covered their heads with their arms, crawling through the soil with their faces burrowed inside the loam, seeking protection from the blazing rain.

One unlucky classmate hadn’t yet moved to protect her face, the embers landing in the child’s eyes.

“Ariana!” Mr. Park yelled as the young Varmin girl’s nails clawed at her face in an attempt to clean the cinders off her eyes. “Ariana, don’t touch it. You’ll make it worse!”

“I CAN’T SEE!” she bawled.

Mr. Park finally reached her at the same moment the pain became too much for her body to withstand and she collapsed. Mr. Park caught her limp body before it hit the ground, scooping her up into his arms.

“Ari!” Jarion yelled when he realized what he’d done. “Ari, I’m sorry! I can’t…I can’t control it.”

“Get everyone out of here,” Ella ordered. Mr. Park actually heeded her instruction the first time and gathered all the students to leave. Ella glanced at Laya, the Varmin’s face smeared in tears. “That includes you.”

“I’m not leaving him!” she refused.

“I need you to go get Kellen right now.” The objection vanished from Laya’s eyes, replaced with something far more potent: a determination to fulfill this command, anything for her to feel useful.

Ella waited until she knew everyone had departed the Canterna Thicket safely before she focused once more on Jarion, who was currently stuffing soil into his mouth to keep his fire down.

“Jarion, please ,” she begged, not sure what else she could do except beg. She refused to grab his wing and pull it out herself, refused to make such a monumental choice for him, even if that was possibly the only thing that could save him. It needed to be his choice to free his wings. “Please don’t do this to yourself.”

“I hurt her,” he mumbled to himself over and over, leading Ella to wonder if he was even able to hear her right now, if he even knew she was sitting right next to him. “I hurt her, I hurt her, I hurt her!”

“Jarion—” The hand she reached out towards him rear-ended with a paroxysm of flames that erupted from his flesh, the force of the explosion launching Ella through the air into a nearby tree, her back smashing into the bulky timber. Ella plummeted to the ground, her muscles screaming from the collision with the tree, her body still anesthetized to deter her from really feeling the impact of the trauma.

She lifted her head at the exact moment Jarion rose off the ground, coated in fire from head to toe, the flames metamorphosing the pupils of his eyes into diminutive sparks, superseding the humanity within him. When he set his focus on Ella, it wasn’t the young Varmin looking back at her.

It was a blood-thirsty dragon who needed to sink its teeth into something. And it had just found a perfect meal in her.

Oh, fuck.

Kellen had been watching, thanks to the conduit connecting his mind and Noella’s, as Noella raced across campus to the Canterna Thicket. He’d viewed through her eyes as she found Jarion in the forest, had seen his brother writhing in the soil, throwing what little energy he had left towards fighting against the wing desperate to be unfettered from confinement. He’d seen his little sister begging Jarion to stop resisting, had seen his brother vomit a river of flames that would have killed that girl, had Noella not jumped on the student to knock the child out of the way, endangering herself in the process.

When Jarion’s fire struck Noella, the conduit Kellen had been looking through in her mind flooded with unbearable heat, prompting a partition of opaque red to build over his vision. The air within the channel grew too humid for him to stand without suffocating on wheezes. He was kicked out of her head.

When he tried to push through the haze to reenter, he met a wall of fire on the other side that refused him entry.

He tried speaking into her mind, hoping that even if he could no longer see through her eyes, his voice could still travel to her ears.

What’s happening? Is he okay?

I’m going to need you to answer me right fucking now, earthborn, or I’m coming to find you.

ROSE. Is he okay? Just tell me he’s okay.

Fuck it. Tell me YOU’RE okay.

Noella. Please. Answer me.

If she wasn’t answering, she either couldn’t hear him, or she couldn’t answer at all, for a multitude of conceivable reasons that made Kellen wish he could rip his skin off.

He knew he should get off his ass and go there, but for some reason he couldn’t begin to fathom, his legs refused to move. Noella’s demand to not follow her soaked his bones, keeping him restrained in his classroom. She’d given him an order, and while his mind revolted, his body refused to break the unconscious promise it had made her to listen.

A ghastly thought stained his heart: What if Jarion killed her?

Kellen couldn’t allow that thought to permeate his being because it made breathing impossible. If Jarion killed her, Kellen could do nothing to save him, not from Terminus or from himself. Jarion would be lost forever, whether he lived to see tomorrow or not, which depended on his dragon not killing him first.

Knowing his brother as well as he did, Kellen knew Jarion wouldn’t want to see tomorrow if he seriously hurt her.

She’s alive. She has to be. She has to be.

He found himself praying to Aros Cavalian, not just for the life of his brother, but for the life of the courageous human who’d leapt on that child, saving both Rubie and his brother from the guilt of her death.

Suddenly, Laya appeared in the entryway to his classroom. She choked on gasps, her cheeks sullied with dirt and tears, drawing strips of brown sludge down her face. She spoke no words, but she didn’t need to.

The horror in her eyes spoke volumes for her.

Kellen strode across the room and grabbed her hand. When they’d cleared the exit and were kissed by the wind outside, his wings broke free from his back, a mind of their own taking control of his body for him while his brain descended into panic. He hefted Laya into his arms and flew them to the Canterna Thicket, skimming the trees for a sign of Jarion and Noella. Through the clefts in the canopy of helical branches, he spotted a flash of yellow light, tinged blue at the edges, and bounded towards it, vaulting himself and Laya through the knotted twigs, splitting the boughs apart to make space for them to land. Laya squirmed out of his arms once they’d alit on the forest floor.

The sight before Kellen caused his jaw to drop.

First, his eyes drank in his brother. Jarion’s brown flesh had been consumed in flames, varnished in a crimson inferno that twisted in his hair and curled around his ears, appearing to not harm him. The ground around him had been scorched and razed apart, the charred soil reeking of smoke, coated in a blanket of crumbled ash. Across from him, withered on her knees, lay a crumpled version of Noella, her white sweater tarnished by blots of soot and smudges of her own blood, which spilled down from the gaping gash rending through her shoulder, the skin flayed from what must have been a pellet of fire chucked at her. The fact that she was still conscious, with the burn in her shoulder and the burn on her leg, was either due to adrenaline, the amulet around her neck from Headmistress Dyer, or sheer willpower that Kellen couldn’t help but be in awe of.

“Jare,” Kellen gasped, about to take a step forward before Noella threw out her hand to stop him.

“DON’T!” she cried, Kellen and Laya reeling back. “You’ll make it worse. I’ve got this.”

Laya wrapped her arms around Kellen’s arm, offering support while she equally sought support from him.

“Jarion,” Noella cooed in a cadence reminiscent of what he imagined velvet sounded like. “Take a step towards me. That’s all I’m asking. You don’t have to release your wings. I just need you to take a step forward. Okay? Can you do that for me?”

Jarion vibrated, flames lapping up to his chin, tickling the lips of his that were trembling. Laya squeezed Kellen’s arm as they watched their brother take a minuscule step forward, barely a full step, but the movement had Noella gasping with relief, her grey eyes shining with emergent tears.

“That’s good,” she prided, beckoning him closer with her hands. “Can you take another?”

The fire adorning him lashed out at the request, striking through the ether towards Noella. Kellen nearly shouted at her to move, but Noella dropped to her knees before the flames could swallow her. The inferno arrested over the tree behind her, lacerating through the bark to make the trunk teeter precariously.

“He’s going to hurt her,” Laya squeaked at Kellen’s side, chewing on her thumbnail. “We have to do something, Kell.”

“If we touch him right now,” Kellen murmured, “we might make it worse.” Especially me, Kellen thought to himself.

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Noella avowed. It took Kellen a minute to realize she was speaking to Jarion’s dragon, not to Jarion. Jarion’s upper lip lifted in a snarl, smoke billowing from the sides of his mouth. “I know you want to be free. I want that for you too. I want to help both of you.”

“I’ve given him time,” a voice that didn’t sound like his brother—it was older, throatier, colder—boomed.

What the fuck?

Primordials were taught to believe that their Varmin forms emerged from within their souls, that their forms sharpened when they reached puberty and their own identities began to solidify. Kellen had never known a dragon to take on its own essence beyond the Varmin, but was it possible that his dragon had a spirit separate from him too, and he’d just never resisted it enough to find out? If he hadn’t accepted it so easily when his dragon first emerged, if he’d fought against the two becoming one, would his dragon have taken over in this way, becoming its own person?

“I’ve been patient,” Jarion’s dragon said. “I’ve waited for him to feel ready to combine us. He has wasted my gift of time.”

“You know him better than anyone,” Noella persuaded. “You know what he’s suffered. You know what he’s feeling inside. Don’t you want to help him? Don’t you want to see him free of that burden, not just for you, but for himself?”

Jarion—or rather, Jarion’s dragon—grimaced. “I did when I believed he would come to the right decision.”

“He still can. He’s not hopeless. If you give me a chance, I can help him sort through those emotions. I can help him come to a place where he can finally accept you.” The dragon shook his head.

“He has wasted the chance for us to be united.”

“ Please!” Laya screeched, drawing the dragon’s focus over to where she and Kellen stood. “Please don’t take my brother from me,” she wept. “He’s my best friend. I need him. Please.”

“I am truly sorry for your loss,” the dragon expressed, as if Jarion had already passed within him. The thought made Kellen nearly keel over. “It’s time for me to let him go and move on to another host.”

“Host?” Kellen spluttered. “What the fuck do you mean host?”

“Did you believe that your Varmin form was a piece of you ?” Jarion’s dragon chuckled. “Your dragon is not you. Your Varmin form chose to live inside you for your limited time in this universe. Varmin are centuries old. Older than your Gods. We don’t originally hail from Cavale. We come from the kingdom of Varminia, which no longer exists due to Aros Cavalian. Our king crossed him, so Aros cursed us to be dependent on the Primordials to survive. We must slip between the bones of different hosts or we’re unable to exist. Your brother is not my first host, and he certainly won’t be my last. It will not be difficult for me to find another. I’m sorry, but this is the way it has to be.”

“Kellen,” Laya wept, turning to her brother for guidance, for something.

Was there a way for Kellen to communicate with his dragon, if it could possibly help Jarion?

He didn’t know how, but he’d try.

Kellen leapt into the depths of his mind, searching for the link between himself and his dragon, an ever-present rope that tethered his brain to his core, where his dragon lay dormant. He’d never tried it before, but he spoke through the cord, sending a message down the line to his dragon.

Tell me what to do to help my brother.

At first, there was nothing. No answer. Kellen descended into despair, his throat congested with sobs, before all of a sudden, a guttural, masculine voice echoed through the chambers of his mind.

Trust Noella Rose, his dragon instructed. She’s the only one who will get through to him.

“Please, don’t do this,” Noella begged, threading her fingers together and raising them to stress her entreaty. “He’s so young. He has so much life ahead of him. You see how he’s wielded your fire. You chose him for a reason. He’s a strong host.”

“He could have been,” the dragon said, Kellen’s heart dropping into his stomach. “I wanted him to be.”

“He still could be,” Kellen growled, the chains over his impatience snapping in half. “If you decide to give up on him now, that’s your choice, and a dumb one at that. You won’t find a better host than him.”

Kilic, watch your tone, Noella hissed in his head. We don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with right now. If you provoke him, he might do irreparable damage to Jarion. Control yourself.

Listen to her, Kellen, his dragon reproached him.

So NOW you decide to have an opinion, Kellen snapped at his dragon. Where the fuck have you been all this time?

Silence distended down the line. Then, pervading his ears, his dragon responded, I was waiting . For her.

“Let Jarion take control so I can talk to him,” Noella implored. “So I can help him. So I can help you.”

His brother’s eyes, devoured in flames and unrecognizable, scrutinized Noella with fervent wariness. Her gaze was soft in comparison to his hardness, a supple ocean of warmth and gentleness. Kellen had to give her credit where she deserved it, and she’d earned respect at the way she didn’t balk under the intense appraisal of a dragon who could end her life with a flick of his brother’s wrist.

“What can you, a human, offer him that would be useful?” the dragon questioned her.

“I can offer him acceptance,” she answered. “I can offer him a safe space for him to explore what he’s feeling without judgment. I can offer him support as he processes his past and comes to terms with what’s holding him back. I can teach him skills to help him regulate his emotions when they try to overwhelm him. What I can offer may seem insignificant to beings who value strength and power, but there is nothing trivial about kindness. There’s nothing small about empathy. I can promise you that I will use every tool in my arsenal to help him. To help both of you.”

Kellen and Laya stopped breathing as they waited for Jarion’s dragon to determine if her answer was satisfactory.

Noella appeared to have stopped breathing too.

Jarion’s dragon looked at Noella. “Do you really believe that you are the right person to help him?”

“I’m all there is,” she countered with a slight tremor heaving through the words, some of her resolve wavering.

The dragon narrowed its eyes in a scowl. “That’s not what I asked.”

“Regardless of what everyone else here thinks about me, I’m good at my job. I know I am.” Assurance once more powered her speech. “I know what I’m doing. Yes, I can help him. I can help you. Please, give me the chance to. Let me talk to him.” Jarion’s dragon scraped his eyes across Noella’s face.

“Very well,” he finally relented, Kellen exhaling the breath he’d been stashing in anticipation. The dragon tossed in, “Let’s see what you can do, earthborn,” before suddenly, the fire disappeared off Jarion’s flesh.

Jarion spluttered a gasp and fell to his knees, his soul unencumbered from wherever his dragon had stored it inside his own body.

“Jarion?” Noella called out. “Is that you?”

“What happened?” Jarion’s voice had returned to normal, to the young, guileless cadence of a twelve-year-old. Laya yelped a sob, then covered her hand over her mouth to keep the rest of her tears imprisoned. Jarion took note of Kellen and Laya’s presence, then looked back at Noella, the only person he remembered being there before he blacked out. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Your dragon took control of your body,” she explained. “You’re okay now. Everyone is okay.”

Jarion’s eyes widened in horror. “Did he release my wings?!”

“No. He didn’t.” Jarion’s hand flew to his chest, to where his heart was thrashing. His eyes then drifted over to the burn mark cleaved through Noella’s shoulder, which Kellen had completely forgotten about until Jarion brought attention to it.

“Did I do that?” Noella hesitated before she nodded, covering the wound with her hand to hide it from him. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Rose. I didn’t mean to,” he whimpered, fire filtering down his chin along with tears. The flames knew not to harm him, though, rolling off his flesh like beads of water.

“I know you didn’t,” Noella assured, “but if you don’t release your wings, Jarion, this will happen again. You will lose control of your dragon again, and not just with other people, but with yourself. You will die. You will die, Jarion, and I cannot let that happen. None of us here can let that happen. Please, please, release your wings. I will help you. We will help you, the people who care about you. Whatever you’re struggling with right now, we can manage it together, but you need to be here still for us to do that.” Kellen waited with bated breath for Jarion’s response.

He felt every mangled shard of his fractured heart when Jarion shook his head. “I can’t, Ms. Rose.”

“Then at least tell me why,” she pleaded, not yielding. “Tell us why. Help us understand so we can help you.”

“Please, Jare,” Laya interjected, her twin’s eyes swinging to meet her. “Please let us help you.”

“ Please, my love,” Kellen beseeched, and when Jarion looked at Kellen, he erupted into sobs. “Talk to us. Don’t hold this in. Please.” Jarion’s restraint shattered under Kellen’s loving gaze.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he declared at no one in particular, threading his fingers in his hair.

“Do what? ” Noella asked, taking a step closer to Jarion, sensing something Kellen couldn’t.

“Live like this. Live. ” The universe emptied of all sound. Time came to a standstill and held its breath.

“Is that why you don’t want to release your wings?” Noella whispered. “Because you don’t want to live?”

Kellen smothered his hand over his mouth to keep the rush of bile mixed with fire from leaking off his tongue, clinging harder to Laya to stop himself from collapsing under the weight of his dismay.

He thought Jarion wouldn’t say anything else, but then, Jarion murmured, his bottom lip quivering so much that the words shook, “It hurts. To be in my head. To exist in my body. I can never…I can never be free of him, anywhere I go.” Kellen knew exactly who Jarion was talking about, but Noella didn’t.

“Who?” she asked. “Who can’t you be free of?” Jarion sucked in an unstable breath.

“The person who gave me those scars,” he answered, providing no further intel, not that Kellen or Laya needed it.

Not a day went by where the image of that man didn’t creep over Kellen’s eyes, forcing him to remember that disgusting piece of shit’s existence and what he did to the two most important people in his life. Not a day went by where Kellen didn’t work his fucking ass off to ensure that Ciaran Ates would never see the light of day outside a prison cell, a feat he hadn’t been able to accomplish with his own mother due to her status. While Ciaran was sentenced to six years in Terminus—not nearly enough time for what he’d done to the twins—Miya had only been sentenced two years. Kellen would give up his place in the afterlife and accept a lifetime in Terminus after his death if it prevented the twins’ father from ever being released, if the Gods would allow it.

Kellen’s fingers ached to wrap around Ciaran’s throat, an urge that scratched his fingers often, but stronger now than it had ever been before when watching his brother crumble before his very eyes.

“So it’s not that you want to escape your life, but just escape the feeling of being alive?” Noella asked to clarify.

Jarion weighed the question before he responded.

“What other escape is there?” he asked in the smallest voice, breaking the rest of Kellen’s sanity.

Laya buried her face in Kellen’s shoulder, wracked with sobs.

He wished he could offer her more than just a body to lean against, but in that moment, Kellen had nothing left to give her that his own misery hadn’t devoured inside him. There was nothing for either of them to do except stand there and listen to the hardship their brother had been bottling up inside him, gifting him that space to finally release it, no matter how painful it was for them to hear.

“Death would not be an escape, Jarion.” Noella’s voice sounded calm and patient. He didn’t know how she managed to control her own emotions. Kellen could barely hold himself together right now listening to this, trying to be a pillar of strength for his sister when everything inside him was disintegrating. Noella paused, then took another step towards Jarion. “Death would not be an escape, Jarion. It would just be an end. You want to escape these feelings because you want to experience something better than what you’re feeling right now. Death wouldn’t grant you that. Death would be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and I don’t say temporary to undermine your experience and how long you’ve suffered. I only mean that it is possible for you to feel something else. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it is possible. Death would prevent you from finding out what that is.”

The forest wept along with them, the wind rumbling a moan as Noella’s words dripped across the earth. Jarion dropped his head, shudders quaking through his shoulders in accompaniment of his tears, of the abject screams torrenting out of him like a waterfall of pent-up emotion.

Noella closed the remaining distance between them and lowered onto her knees in front of Jarion.

“Everything you’re holding in right now feels so much bigger because you’re keeping it in,” she told him, placing her hand on Jarion’s shoulder. “When you leave these feelings inside you with no outlet, they start to rot. They get infected over time. They take on a life of their own and plague every part of your being. You don’t have to live like this, Jarion. Death doesn’t have to be your only option. You deserve to experience more. The only way to do that though is to release your wings. Don’t give up now. Give yourself the chance to find out what else is out there.”

Noella lifted her hands to sluice the tears off Jarion’s face with her thumbs.

“I’m so scared,” Jarion croaked. “I’ve been pushing my wings down for so long. I don’t even think I can do it.”

“Start with the one that tried to break out today. Don’t worry about the other right now. Just release one wing.”

Jarion spun around to glance at Kellen, then squeaked, “Kell? Can you help me?” Kellen lost it.

“Of course I will, Jare,” he bawled. Laya disentangled her arms from around him so Kellen could cross the forest and sink to his knees beside their brother, across from where Noella still kneeled.

He couldn’t fit all his gratitude for what Noella had done for Jarion into his eyes, into one measly expression. Noella simply nodded in acknowledgment of what she saw in Kellen’s face, then refocused on Jarion, on what was more important right now than accepting his appreciation. It forced him to do the same.

“Tell me what you want me to do, Jare,” Kellen requested his brother.

“I want you to pull the wing out,” Jarion entreated, fisting the soil with both hands. “I don’t think I can do it myself.”

“Do you want to hold my hand while Kellen pulls your wing out?” Noella asked him, proffering her hand.

Kellen’s whole world tilted when he heard her say Kellen and not Kilic. It felt like invisible hands shoved at the earth to slant the entire formation of Cavale, so the ecosphere mirrored the way his heart swayed almost drunkenly in his chest.

“Please,” Jarion agreed, looping his fingers through Noella’s, yanking Kellen out of the rose-colored daze she’d just put him in. Jarion peeked up at Kellen, then forced out, “Do it now,” squeezing his eyes shut.

Kellen plucked the tip of Jarion’s wing still poking out of his back and yanked on it with all his might, funneling the wing past Jarion’s human casing to meet the world beyond. Jarion crushed Noella’s hand while hollering an anguished cry, his tears fusing with the fire and smoke jetting down his face.

“You’re doing great, Jare,” Laya cheered as she hovered above them. Noella beamed at her with approval.

“It’s almost out,” Kellen assured him. “Just a little more.” He studied the design of Jarion’s wing, similar to his own in shape, but a different color. Where Kellen’s wings were black glazed in a golden sheen, outlined by wrinkled orange membrane that wrapped around the pointed bones comprising the edges, Jarion’s wing was completely red, with sharp talons at each tip. When Kellen felt resistance, he knew he’d drawn the wing out to its full breadth and released the end, scooting back in the soil to give Jarion room to adjust to the sensation.

“How does it feel to have the wing out?” Noella asked him.

“It hurts,” Jarion mewled, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Can you flex the wing?” Kellen asked. Jarion quickly shook his head. “That’s okay, buddy. You don’t have to move it right now. Just get used to what it feels like outside of your body. What you did today was amazing.” Noella nodded at Kellen with a tiny smirk, like that was the right thing to say.

Why did that simple gesture make Kellen’s legs feel like jelly?

“If you want to push it back in, go for it,” Noella allowed, which Jarion immediately heeded by swinging his right arm forward, demonstrating for the wing the direction he wanted it to move in. The wing rustled between the gust of wind prodding at the fragile membrane before it melted into Jarion’s back, disappearing beneath his brown flesh, the open wound stitching so there was no leftover remnant of the wing’s advent. Jarion sighed with relief when the wing was finally gone.

“You did so good, Jare,” Laya applauded tearfully.

“Well done, buddy,” Kellen decreed, resting his chin on his clasped hands, his fingers drenched in tears.

“I don’t want to do that again,” Jarion groaned, peeking over at Noella.

“I know,” she said, then added, “but you have to. We will do this together. You’re not alone in this, Jarion. Everyone here will help you through this.” Noella gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Hey. Guess what?”

Jarion blinked at her. “What?”

Noella grinned a kind smile, steeped in pure goodness, that cracked Kellen’s chest in half.

“You just took your first step towards something better. I’m so proud of you.” Tears gleaned on Jarion’s lashes, on Laya’s and Kellen’s, on the entire universe listening to Noella Rose.

There is a queen beneath that fragile flesh, Kellen’s dragon told him as Kellen watched Jarion choke out a strangled, pained, hysterical laugh, resting his cheek on Noella’s shoulder. It’s time for you to start treating her like one.