Lola Smith's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Lola climbed the curling stairs with the gray cloak clutched to her chest. Each step brightened as she passed. She did not know who waited at the top. A friend would teach her. A trap would end her. She kept climbing anyway, because staying home had already broken enough. The stairs opened into a round room. Diamond windows threw blue and pink light across the floor. In the center stood a dragon. He was old and green, with a long white beard and horns curved like her own tiny ones. He wore a robe stitched with glowing marks. His yellow eyes found her and did not blink. Lola's wings snapped tight against her back. Her right hand sparked. Fire crawled up her fingers before she could stop it. The dragon did not flinch. He watched the flame the way a farmer watches weather. "You leak," he said. "Three bloodlines. No teacher. I know." "Did you leave the cloak?" Lola asked. Her voice shook. "And the candle?" "Yes." "How did you know I was coming?" "This tower calls broken magic. You are broken magic." He said it plainly, without cruelty. "You came. Others did too, long ago." Lola's fire climbed higher. It touched her wrist and burned. She gasped and shook her hand, but the flame clung. Panic pushed more fire out. The room filled with heat. The dragon reached to a stand beside him. He lifted a slender wand wrapped in gold vines, its tip a pale crystal. He did not aim it at her. He held it out, handle first. "Take it," he said. "The tower drinks wild magic. The wand aims what is left. You cannot learn control with bare hands. Not yet." Lola stared at the wand. Trusting him could be the worst mistake of her life. But her hand was burning, and no one else had ever offered to help. She grabbed the wand. Warmth ran up her arm at once. The fire on her wrist thinned, then pulled toward the crystal tip and gathered there in a small, steady flame. It stopped spreading. It stopped hurting. For the first time, the fire went where she pointed. She let out a long breath. Tears blurred the blue light. "It listens," she whispered. "It obeys the hand that thinks," the dragon said. "You have a dragon's blood. I can teach that part. The demon and human parts I cannot." He paused. "You will need others for those." Lola lowered the wand. The flame shrank to nothing. She had come up these stairs sure she might die. Instead a stranger had handed her the first real control she had ever felt. "Who are you?" she asked. "Verdantus Sage-Scale," he said. "I taught your kind before. I stopped. I am starting again with you." Lola gripped the wand tight. She had found a teacher. But he could only teach one third of what she was, and the other two thirds still burned inside her.