Ashes and Silver: Reborn to Save My Dragon Mate

Giana POV:

This night, at three o'clock in the morning, I was suddenly awakened from a nightmare.

I shoved the damp hair off my forehead and swung my legs over the edge of the mattress.

I couldn't wait until next week's session with Eva.

I couldn't endure another five days of watching him burn in my nightmares while waking up to this hollow silence.

I said to myself, "I will use the meditation basin once again. I will see him again! No matter what the cost might be!"

I need to see that blank section, and what happened to him!

"I can do it myself," I muttered, crossing to the wardrobe, pulling open the hidden lower drawer, and lifting out a velvet pouch.

Inside lay my wand—ten inches of polished elder wood—and a small, sealed glass vial containing three drops of memory-clarifying essence.

Moving quickly into the parlor, I set it down on the low wooden table and grabbed a silver platter.

"Engorgio," I tapped the rim with my wand.

The platter expanded, its edges curling upward until it formed a rough, shallow basin.

I uncorked the vial with my teeth, spitting the stopper onto the carpet, and let the iridescent oil slide into the silver.

"Aguamenti."

A thin stream of clear water pooled inside, mixing with the draft until a familiar, milky-silver fog began to crawl over the lip of the dish.

I raised the wand to my right temple.

"Focus," I commanded myself through chattering teeth. "The stands. The flame. The aftermath."

I flicked it into the silver basin.

The liquid instantly boiled, churning with frantic white ripples.

Without giving myself time to reconsider, I plunged my face beneath the surface.

The familiar sensation of weightless vertigo struck immediately, dropping me down through a storm of noise.

The roar of thousands of spectators hit me like a physical blow.

Banners of red, green, blue, and gold snapped in the high winds of the arena.

I stood on the tiered wooden benches of Blaze Spirit House.

To my left, my best friend, Collette, was jumping up and down, her hands cupped around her mouth as she screamed encouragement for the first school champion.

Past-me stood beside her, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, my gaze wandering completely away from the arena floor, scanning the high aerial boxes where the Avian students perched.

I was looking for Colin's white wings.

I was actively ignoring the boy who had spent half the night mending his defensive amulets.

I looked at my younger self and felt nothing but profound disgust.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the booming voice of the stadium announcer echoed across the stones. "Representing Wanling Magic School... from Abyssal House... Emmett Kowalski!"

A smattering of polite applause rippled through the higher stands, but around me, the Blaze Spirit students sneered.

"A destitute Dragonkin?" someone muttered two rows behind me. "Did the Headmaster draw his name from a scrap heap?"

I turned toward the sandy pit.

Emmett stepped out from the dark archway of the beast tunnel.

He looked impossibly slight against the towering cliff walls of the quarry arena.

His dark robes whipped around his thin ankles.

His silver dragon pupils were narrowed to razor slits against the daylight, his pale jaw locked in rigid concentration.

He didn't acknowledge the jeering from the Slytherin-like pureblood factions or the silence of his peers.

He raised his wand.

Chained to the center of the rocky crater was the Hungarian Horntail.

Its black scales glistened like wet coal, its barbed tail gouging trenches in the granite.

Between its massive talons rested the golden egg.

Emmett flicked his wand in short, sharp arcs, weaving illusions of mist and freezing the ground beneath the dragon's claws to slide it off balance.

It was brilliant.

He was seconds away from retrieving the prize.

Then the chain snapped.

A rogue flaw in the dwarven-forged iron gave way under the beast's thrashing.

With a deafening shriek of rage, the Horntail twisted away from the sand pit entirely, snapping its wings wide and launching itself toward the crowded spectator tiers.

Directly toward the Blaze Spirit benches.

Directly toward me.

The crowd dissolved into pandemonium.

Shield wards flared and shattered like brittle glass under the creature's immense aura.

Past-me froze, my boots rooted to the floorboards, eyes wide with incomprehension as a tidal wave of white flame gathered in the dragon's throat.

Emmett had the egg in reach.

All he had to do was seize it, cast a downward charm, and drop into the safety of the reinforced runner trench.

He didn't even look at the gold.

He cast the egg aside, his body blurring as he vaulted the stone barricade, throwing himself over past-me just as the sky turned white.

I felt the phantom agony of it tearing into my spectator form.

Emmett's back bowed under the impact of the firestorm.

His flesh blistered, the fabric of his worn green robes charring to gray ash in an instant.

His blood hissed on the scorched stones, boiling as it dripped from his lips onto my younger face.

"Giana..." he whispered, his body trembling with the strain of holding the weight of the collapsed timber off me. "Run..."

"No, no, no!" I wept, lunging for Emmett's frozen, bloodied shoulder. "Don't stop! Show me the end!"

A jagged crack echoed through the memory.

The air froze.

The flames stopped moving, turning into solid, jagged spikes of crimson glass.

The faces of the screaming students distorted, stretching into horrible, melted masks.

A deafening ping rang out.

The scene shattered into silver dust.

I was violently expelled from the vision, slammed back onto the hard parlor floorboards.

The silver platter had split cleanly down the center, its metal torn as if by claws.

The murky potion was spilling across the Persian rug, hissing softly as it ate into the wool.

The silence returned, heavier and colder than before.

"Nothing," I whispered to the empty dark. "I am still a coward. I still know nothing."