Chapter One: Levitate

Siannon released her hands and lay on her back as Asha glided out over the sea. Even through her heavy topcoat, she could feel the heat radiating upward through the dragon’s emerald green scales. She stared up into the clear blue sky and thought this must be what it feels to levitate. She felt no sense of gravity or motion, only the sensation of floating up into the sky, higher and higher into the atmosphere, breaking through into the darkness of space beyond the moon and the stars.

“Siannon,” Asha said, the voice in her mind as they had communicated for decades now. “We should return now. Your family is expecting you.”

Siannon thought to herself not in reply but out of her deepest sadness that she would like to roll off of Asha’s back and fall into the sea. The dragon would never permit this; she would catch her in her teeth and fly her to safety. Her rational mind knew that Macnylleth still needed her as kira, and her family cherished her above all, but her heart was still broken more than two years after Dylan’s death.

He contracted a cough and a fever in the winter, and in his typical fashion, dismissed it and went about his business as usual. The sickness worsened, and despite the best work of physicians and magicians, he passed away. His last words to Siannon were, “I’ll be waiting for you.” Her only thought since then was her desire to join him.