Chapter 27: Dragon Fire

I ran.

Everyone ran, down the hill in the dark, but wolves are fast and I was not.

Bram caught up with me in six strides and grabbed my hand.

"The slope is two miles," he said. "Even carrying you, I won't make it before the roof comes down."

"Then let go of my hand."

"Mira."

"I have a way down," I said, "and I've been afraid of it my whole life."

He looked at me, and he did not say be careful.

He let go.

I stood in the open grass with the fire reflected in every pair of eyes on the hill.

For eleven years I had kept my warmth small.

I had held it in my palms in class, and at the cliffs, and in the cell.

I opened my hands.

It came up through my feet, and my skin split along the gold lines.

I heard Posy shout my name.

I felt my spine lengthen and my arms stretch out into something wide.

My clothes burned away clean, with no smell.

When I opened my eyes the whole hill was small, and everyone on it was looking up at me.

I was the size of the old stone circle.

My scales were the color of a banked coal, and my wings, when I shook them out, blotted out the red moon.

There was no pain.

There was only a huge, quiet rightness, as if I had been standing hunched in a doorway all my life and had finally walked out.

I looked down for Bram.

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