Alight: Legacy of Flames Book 1 (Paperback)

The world ended on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon when Cori and I were haggling with a witch over the price of hair dye. If there’d been any precursors to the apocalypse whatsoever, neither of us noticed them. We were too busy trying to convince Magic Avenue’s stingiest merchant to sell us enough dye to compensate for the fact that my bright red curls were poking at the roots.

“C’mon Twill, don’t be a dick,” I said to the merchant. “You know for a fact that this was half the price two months ago.”

My sister and fellow dragon shifter, Coriander, propped her elbow up on the counter. “I remember, too. And the merchant around the corner is offering it for a third less than that.”

Twill scowled. “You got proof of that, runt?”

“What did you just call my sister?” 

I could have got out my claws to make him back down fast, but that would be unwise. Sure, most people in Magic Avenue knew we were dragon shifters, but that didn’t mean I needed to break the most basic rule of being one of us: don’t flaunt your power if you don’t want to end up dead in an alley. 

Besides, there was someone else in the shop, too. A man, maybe in his early twenties like me, who I was pretty sure I’d never seen before, hanging near the door with his hands in his pockets in a way that should have struck me as casual but somehow didn’t. Tousled chestnut hair, clean-shaven, a long coat that covered his body. Weird choice for a day as warm as this, but some of us were more cautious than others. As was habit, I tried to pin down his supernatural type. Not a shifter. Most of us were bigger, stronger, though Cori and I bucked the typical trend. Mages never came here. Nor necromancers either. Witch, then, and not a bad looking one either.

Strangers showed up in Magic Avenue decently often, drawn to London’s hidden supernatural haunts from all over the country. One reason Rhea didn’t like us coming here, but it was one of the few places in London we could mingle in the open and stretch our wings. Metaphorically, not literally… yet.

Twill ground his teeth, yanking my attention back to my sister. She wasn’t amused at the term of endearment either. “Yeah, I’ll take an extra ten percent off for that comment, thanks. Oh, and I’d like a healing spell for free.”

The merchant scoffed. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Language,” Cori said in a singsong voice, which caused him to unleash a further stream of expletives in response. I might have laughed—Rhea had given up on the idea of keeping a swear jar in the kitchen because we’d both wreck it in five minutes—but who the hell talked to a fourteen-year-old like that? 

“You gonna walk back that comment or would you like us to give you a reason to need a healing spell for yourself?” I enquired. “It’s hair dye, Twill, not the elixir of life. Be reasonable.”

Twill’s jaw set. “Pay full price or walk out with nothing. Final offer.”

It was then that I noticed the stranger was walking towards us. He was even cuter close up, and my dragon stirred with interest. 

“Is there a problem here?” He fixed Twill with an unblinking stare that actually made the merchant back off a little. Normally I preferred to fight my own battles, but the stranger added a third to our number and Twill apparently decided it wasn’t worth pursuing the issue.

“A third off,” he said, “and that’s my final offer.” 

“Deal.” Cori dug in her pocket for the cash while I surveyed the stranger out of the corner of my eye. He’d turned away, seemingly absorbed in the contents of the shelves.

“What’re you looking for?” I peered over his shoulder and read the label. “Gargoyle scale rot?” 

He swivelled to me, confirming that he’d been paying zero attention to what he’d been looking at. “Is that often a problem?” 

“You’d be surprised.” In a few words he’d confirmed he was no shifter, but I didn’t mind so much. Most cat or wolf shifters didn’t get along with dragons; something primitive in their nature reacted to being too close to a large predator and I didn’t need to deal with the drama. As for gargoyles, Rhea was one of few I’d met who wasn’t a territorial nuisance. 

Did he know what I was? Doubtful. At a glance, neither Cori nor I carried a trace of the reptilian beasts we’d one day be able to transform into whenever we wanted. Our auburn hair was more candle than furnace and our eyes were grey. My claws would come out when I was angry or scared, but that was a rarity. I’d spent the last year in anticipation of my first shift, though I didn’t admit so to Rhea. We were supposed to stay hidden, not crave open spaces to spread our wings and rain terror down on unsuspecting humans. Okay, that last part’s a joke. Modern dragons don’t spread destruction and fire. We’re too civilised for that.

Twill was still giving us the evil eye, so I beckoned to my sister to follow me. Cori slid the extra spell into her bag and shot me a wink, gauging the level of interest between myself and our would-be rescuer. She could be annoying sometimes, but I was happy to deal with her teenage antics if it meant getting to leave the house for something that wasn’t my minimum-wage bar job. Even at twenty-one, Rhea still watched me almost as closely as she did Cori. Which, I kind of understood, given how many people would happily hunt down a dragon to put their head on the wall as a trophy. 

I let Cori overtake us and fell into step with the stranger as we approached the shop’s exit. 

“You didn’t need to intervene,” I said to him, “but thanks.”

He opened the door to let Cori through first. “I don’t much like people who bully young girls.”

“I hope you meant my sister.”

“Obviously.” His gaze raked over me, and heat stirred inside me as my dragon side took notice. All shifters experienced that strange duality in which the animal took over our human mind when our primal instincts were engaged, and for whatever reason, mine had latched onto this guy. Probably because it’d been a long while since I’d got any action. “You’re here all day?”

“I could be.” Whoa there, dragon, settle down. “Though I’ve gotta drop off my sister at home first.”

“Like hell,” Cori said, like the helpful younger sister she was. “I’ll go torment Twill some more while you two ‘talk’.” She made quote marks with her fingers. 

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I didn’t get too many chances for casual hookups, and this was a screaming example of why. “You certainly won’t.”

“Then I’ll walk you both home,” he said easily, falling into pace with us as we reached the winding street.

“No, we live too far.” And I’d utterly lost control of the situation. “Tell you what, you go buy whatever it is you were looking for in there while you wait.”

“We won’t tell anyone if it’s something embarrassing,” Cori said, ever the helpful wingman. Or woman. “Like a spell to cure genital warts.”

Why, Cori? I suppressed a groan. 

He actually looked amused at her comment. “No, but given how that guy was acting, maybe that’s his problem.”

“Don’t make me think about Twill’s balls, thanks,” I muttered.

“Is that something you think about regularly?” said Cori, and I gave her a warning look. 

“Ignore her,” I said. “My sister is every bad stereotype you’ve heard about younger siblings. Unless you have them yourself?”

“No… it’s just me.” He looked mildly discomfited for a moment, as if he hadn’t intended to answer. Kept his cards close to his chest, this one. “I’ll wait at Argyle’s.” He named the pub at Magic Avenue’s entrance.

“You can finish talking about Twill’s—ow,” said Cori, as I poked her in the arm. “Hey! Rhea said not to go off alone with strangers.”

I flipped her off. Though she had a point. I didn’t know his name, nor what kind of supernatural he was. 

He tilted his head. “We don’t have to be strangers. Your name?”

“Ember.” When he wasn’t forthcoming, I added, “Yours?”

“Astor.” Again, he sounded a little surprised with himself for responding. “I’ll wait.”

“Won’t miss it.” I all but dragged Cori away before she could embarrass me any further. “Seriously? Did you have to?”

“Yes.” Cori grinned, skipping ahead to the boundary of Magic Avenue and the shimmering wards that separated us from the regular humans on the other side. “I’m going to treasure the image of the look on your face for the rest of my life.”

“It’ll be five minutes long, at this rate.” I stepped through the wards first and emerged onto the busy London street. Magic Avenue was sandwiched between streets near Charing Cross and walking through the wards into a busy throng of tourists was always mildly disorientating. I didn’t notice the strange light in the sky until a murmur ran through the crowded streets, several people pointing upward and gasping.

The sky above London burned an angry red like the inside of a flame. 

Next to me, Cori came to a bewildered halt. “Red sky at two in the afternoon… is that a thing now?”

The redness slipped away, leaving the sky the same slate-grey colour it had been before. I blinked a couple of times. “You saw that, too, right?”

I turned back to Magic Avenue in case the light had come from there, but I didn’t see any unusual brightness or flashes. The wards were as inscrutable as ever, and ordinary humans would only see a blank wall between a Thai restaurant and a shop that sold souvenirs plastered with the Union Jack. 

Right. We’re going home. I nodded to Cori. “Better go, before we attract trouble.”

“Trouble other than Twill’s balls?”

“Oi.” I nudged her in the side. “Seriously, though. Someone has a death wish. That light was too bright and unnatural to be anything but magical.”

And I didn’t want to be in the vicinity of the person responsible if I could help it.

As we joined the heaving crowd heading out of Trafalgar Square, my gaze snagged on a black-clad figure weaving amid the ordinary tourists and shoppers. Shit. A hunter.

It was by no means unusual to see a member of the Orion League walking out in broad daylight, but not near Magic Avenue. Not here. A trickle of fear ran down the back of my neck, and my heart began to beat faster as two more hunters joined the first, making their way purposefully through the crowd of ordinary humans. Cori and I didn’t stand out by any means, but their presence coupled with the strange red light set my nerves on edge.

Something’s wrong. I took Cori’s hand, as if we were little kids again, and she tugged back, indignant. “Ember, for god’s sake. I’m not five.”

“The hunters don’t assemble like that unless they have a target.” I spoke in an undertone as we continued through the busy street, my heart jackhammering against my ribs. Maybe Rhea’s paranoia was rubbing off on me, but it was hard-earned. The hunters were highly trained in one task: killing any supernatural who crossed their path. With a reputation matched only by their body count, the methods they used were effective enough that even the gargoyles stayed the hell out of their territory. 

“Yeah, whoever just caused that fireworks display.” She waved a hand at the sky. “Not us.”

If someone had used a spell… then they’ve drawn the hunters right to them.

“Poor fuckers,” I murmured. 

“Language.”

I didn’t manage a smile. Shit, maybe Rhea’s paranoia really was rubbing off on me, but I’d generally only ever seen hunters from a distance, alone or in pairs. I’d never had cause to find out if the rumours that they carried guns laced with bullets that could kill even a dragon in a single shot were true. Rhea said so, and I believed her, even if her methods were a little medieval sometimes. I had bruises all over my arms from her latest training session. 

Maybe I’d need those lessons soon. This was the enemy against whom she’d trained me to fight for most of my life. Or the part of my life I could remember, thanks to whoever had stuck Cori and I on a train to London less than a decade prior and wiped our memories clean so that our enemies would never—no matter what level of torture they employed—be able to force us to lead them to our home.

The home of the dragon shifters.

I wasn’t sure I believed such a place even existed, but since the best efforts of a dozen witches had been unable to break the spell clouding my early memories, I’d been forced to concede defeat. The note I’d found in my pocket the day I’d arrived in London had led us to Rhea, who’d raised us both, and when I was old enough, I’d started working at a bar, scraping together every penny I could to pay for our eventual return home. Rhea flat-out refused to let us even start searching for the other dragons until we’d both attained a fully shifted form, but a cynical voice in the back of my head told me she was just trying to placate us. That she didn’t believe any other dragons existed either.

Some people would prefer it that way, I thought as I watched the last black-clad figure disappear around a corner. Nobody else gave them a second glance. The hunters were almost as accomplished at hiding themselves as the supernaturals they hunted, and London, with its tall buildings, tangled streets and communities old and new rubbing shoulders against one another, was the perfect hiding place. Hence our rule. Keep quiet, don’t draw their attention. Simple.

Until that day.

As Cori and I emerged from the side street, the sky split in two, reddish light exploding outward even brighter than the last time. Ribbons of lightning arced over the rooftops in a mesmerising dance that made me momentarily forget that everyone could see it. Humans, non-humans, supernaturals… hunters.

For a heartbeat, Cori and I stared, suspended, as though if neither of us moved, time would rewind and everything would make sense again.

Then a scream came from, followed by another. A chorus rose from the heart of the city, a sound of nightmares.

“Shit.” I seized Cori’s wrist again and this time she didn’t shake me off, nor did she comment on my language. The panicking crowd buffeted us on either side and when we neared the entrance to the Underground, a tidal wave of humans cut off our path.

“Where do we go?” Cori gasped out. “The tunnels?”

“And face whatever they’re running from?” Not that I had any better ideas. All the times we’d rehearsed for the moment when we had to flee for our lives, we’d been operating under the assumption that we’d be the only people on the run. Not the whole city. And running through the centre of London at rush hour was bad enough without adding an apocalypse on top. “All right—back to Magic Avenue.” 

I didn’t know where else to go, and Magic Avenue was at least a known element. We’d find allies there. 

A familiar scent caught my nostrils, distinct amid the general stench of human panic. My heart lifted as I recognised Rhea, her broad-shouldered frame easily parting the crowd, her stern face set. She must have followed us, and for once I didn’t mind her overprotectiveness. I also owed her for all the times she’d insisted upon Cori and me each carrying an emergency pack with enough supplies to last us a few days every time we left the house, because it meant we already had what we needed. Except access to the various escape routes through the Underground, not while our path was blocked by panicking humans fleeing in all directions. 

“What the hell is going on?” Cori gasped at Rhea. “What’s with the light display? Has a mage or witch gone rogue?”

“No, but it’s not the supernaturals we have to worry about,” Rhea said. “The Orion League will believe this is a sign of their prophesied war. Them against us.”

“That was a joke. Their propaganda. It wasn’t real.” Cori looked at me as if Rhea had a screw loose. “It’s not true. Is it?”

“No.” The hunters couldn’t possibly blame us for this mess.

Tremors shook the ground under our feet, as if something heavy had fallen from a high rooftop, again, again. A giant—it could only be a giant—walked down the street, its huge fists swinging at its sides. Each swing caught an unlucky human trying to flee, and the sickening crack of broken bones reached my sharp ears beneath the general clamour.

A screeching cry cut through, and a winged shape the size of a small car dove down, snatching a person in each of its clawed hands. Formed like a cross between a person and a twisted mockery of a bird, it had a coating of reddish-black feathers and its wings resembled more of a bat’s than a bird’s. As it emitted another high-pitched cry, a sizeable human of humans stopped mid-run, their gazes fixed on the descending monsters.

“What’s wrong with them?” Cori, like me, broke into a dead sprint, veering around a young human who stared at the sky with the rest. 

“Whatever magic those creatures are using, shifters are immune,” Rhea said over her shoulder. “Run, both of you—run.”

My stomach twisted, seeing those poor humans frozen into statues as nightmares descended upon them, but those claws could tear one of us apart as surely as a regular human. The sky above continued to boil, reddish clouds intermingling with a peculiar grey fog that seeped downward until it seemed like the grey clouds were touching the rooftops. We passed another station, but it was buried in rubble, a second giant tearing through the ruins with fearsome strength. More winged creatures dove at any surviving humans crawling from the wreckage, and Rhea swore softly. She grabbed one of my arms and one of Cori’s and dragged us down a side street, pushing open a manhole cover and all but shoving me inside.

I tumbled, too startled to scream, but the fall ended in a few heartbeats and my sturdy shifter feet scarcely felt the impact. When Cori came tumbling down, I caught her in my arms, staggering a little.

Rhea descended to join us, landing on swift feet and covering our backs.

“We can’t stay in here long,” she whispered. “Just long enough to work out our next move.”

“I thought,” Cori gasped, clutching a stitch in her side, “you said to worry about the hunters. Not… whatever that is.”

“Giants are fae.” And as far as I knew, none existed in this realm. Something had gone very, very wrong. “And I don’t know what the hell those birds were.”

“If the faeries attacked this realm…” Rhea trailed off. “It’s worse than anything we planned for.”

“No shit.” I thought. “We can’t use any of our escape routes if we can’t access the Underground, can we?”

Above, the manhole lid trembled. A burning scent reached me. My senses flared with a warning.

“I can get us to safety,” Rhea said. “Ready?” 

I nodded, my throat as dry as tarmac in a heatwave, my palms curled into damp fists around my knives. My claws pressed against my fingertips, ready to burst out if anything threatened my sister or my mentor.

“Ready,” croaked Cori.

Rhea opened the lid, and we all leapt out into thick smoke. The grey haze had descended even lower in the short time since we’d ducked for cover, and within the fog, I made out human-like figures, faint and indistinct.

“Ghosts,” whispered Rhea. “The dead are restless. Don’t go near them.”

“They can’t harm the living, can they?” Cori let out a yell as a cold, solid hand swiped at us both, snagging at my coat. The man was undoubtedly dead, but he’d touched me, and the chill that swept up my arm was as cold as the grave.

“The realms have been disturbed,” Rhea said. “Climb on my back, both of you.”

Both of us stared at her. “What?”

“This isn’t the time for secrecy,” said Rhea. “Faerie’s attacking this realm. We’re at war.”

Rhea shifted into her stone gargoyle form. The fearsome sight of her seven-foot-tall, winged frame sent any monsters in our path scurrying away from her curved stone-like claws, and her beaked face set the predator in me on edge. I pushed down that instinct and let Cori climb in front of me, my hands carefully guiding her between Rhea’s feathered wings. 

I’d never even flown in a plane before, but when Rhea left the ground, strong wings beating, a sense of familiarity seized me. As the buildings and roads dropped away, my senses surged in a way that felt as if I was reliving a long-buried memory.

A large black shape appeared ahead of us in the sky, and Rhea’s guttural gargoyle cry cut through the air as she dived. Not a minute too soon. Above, the sky was thick with black horses, fearsome beasts whose riders were wreathed in shadow. Encircling them were hounds the same size as Rhea’s gargoyle form or bigger, their dense shadows blanketing the rooftops.

Okay, escaping via the sky is impossible, too. I hung on with one hand and gripped Cori’s jacket with the other. She’d buried her head in Rhea’s feathers, whimpering in terror. I’d never heard that sound from her before, and it set my protective instincts ablaze. 

We landed on the road, Rhea’s clawed feet tearing at the tarmac. She’d landed next to another Underground station entrance, one with a collapsed roof. While everyone else gave the area a wide berth, we ran straight for the entrance. The glass doors had shattered, but we climbed through the ruin into the inside and continued past the broken-down entrance to a cafe. Rhea shifted back into her human form and came to a halt. 

A group of figures waited near the entrance to the Underground. All wore black, their faces masked, and each carried a single gleaming black gun. 

The Orion League. Hunters. Here. 

Rhea and I both snatched Cori’s arms and pulled her out of their line of vision, behind a collapsed roof beam. They hadn’t seen us, but it’d been a close call. 

The hunters knew the supernaturals were trying to escape through the tunnels and had assembled to head us off. As opposed to, you know, fighting the actual enemy attacking us all. 

The first bullet whistled past, and my breath stopped in my chest. It struck another gargoyle shifter who’d tried to make a run for the ticket barriers square in the chest. The shifter crumpled in an instant, uttering a single choked noise, and the utter stillness that followed made Cori turn her face to my chest, shaking with a silent sob.

I stared, numb. The rumours were true. A single bullet could bring down a shifter no matter where it struck, and if every one of them had dozens readied to kill…

We’d never make it into the tunnels. We had to turn back.

Another bullet struck a piece of broken roof beam nearby, piercing straight through wood and metal. From behind, three wolf shifters ran out of hiding. My stomach lurched. Two of the wolves were smaller than average. Children.

“Stop!” Cori’s cry was muffled when Rhea pressed a clawed hand over her mouth, and the third wolf—the mother—roared at the others to run.

Too late. Two shots rang out, and two small, furred bodies fell to the ground. A second roar echoed from the mother wolf, cut off in a choking sound. 

Then the hunters moved forward, fanning out as if they’d rehearsed the formation a thousand times. Locking onto their next opponent.

Us.

Rhea seized my shoulder, hissed in my ear—“Get Cori into the tunnel. Run.” 

Before her words sank in, she’d thrown herself out of hiding and launched into flight, turning into her gargoyle form again. Talons lashed out at the hunters, breaking their formation, ripping through flesh and bone.

One of them pointed a gun straight at Cori and me. I shoved her to the ground, throwing myself over her body. Protective rage exploded inside me; red scales spread from my elbows to my wrists, ending in curved claws sharp enough to rip out a hunter’s throat.

I lifted my head in time to see Rhea fall, to hear the echo of bullets in the empty station. Rhea’s eyes met mine as she fell, her last word reverberating in my head: run.

“Bastards!” Cori screamed and lunged forward, but I grabbed the back of her jacket, my claws snagging in the fabric.

“No. We have to run—we’re outnumbered.”

Tears tracked down my face as I pulled Cori through the gap Rhea had created when she’d drawn the hunters away from the Underground entrance. She’d died to give us a fighting chance, but the thunder of footsteps on the tunnel floor told me that the hunters wouldn’t easily give up the chase. When I reached the stairs down to the platforms, I lifted Cori in my arms and leapt. My strong shifter form absorbed the impact, and I placed Cori’s feet on the ground and launched into a run. The hunters might be trained to fight us, but they weren’t superhuman themselves. They couldn’t fly. 

We just had to make it to the hidden panel in the wall. 

I rounded a corner, pushing down the scream building in my chest like a fireball intent on being unleashed. My breath burned my lungs. My legs screamed. 

That was when lone a hunter appeared in the tunnel ahead of us.

I skidded to a halt, snatching at the back of Cori’s jacket. Too late. He’d seen us—and unlike his buddies upstairs, he wasn’t wearing a mask over his face. 

I knew him.

“You,” he whispered, pointing the gun at both of us.

It was him.

The guy from the market. Astor.

Shock and revulsion froze me to the spot.

He’s a hunter. He was hunting us all along. 

I moved in front of Cori as he lifted the gun. At least my death would win her a few seconds—

The pounding footsteps in the tunnel halted, telling me the other hunters had caught up. Trapping us between him and them.

A bullet fired, and the fireball building in my chest exploded. Wings burst into life behind my shoulder blades, and my body extended, scales rising to the surface of my skin as the bullet harmlessly skimmed beneath my wing.

A torrent of fire roared from my mouth, and the hunters fled in its wake. Flames licked at the walls, scorching hot, lapping at their heels.

Cori. I whipped my head around to face the man who’d shot at me—who’d deceived me—but he’d vanished along with the rest. Bastard. Bastard. 

I screamed, a wordless howl of pure anger and grief, but the space was too tight to fly in pursuit. As I made to run, a scream hit me like a slap. “Ember!”

Cori. I couldn’t leave her. The hunters had gone. They’d got away, but my vision began to blur, telling me I’d pushed too far.

My legs gave way, collapsing into human ones again, and the fire inside me died to ashes.