Chapter 1

An egg.

A dragon egg, swathed in forest greens and earthly browns, the markings of a Teffré. Speckled with blooms of scarlet, the markings of something else.

Alone, at the foot of a mountain, hidden beneath the lip of a cave. No, not alone. A green dragon curled around it, but her eyes were focused elsewhere. She stared upward with eyes of shining amber, hopeful, awaiting.

Then it came. A flash of red. Another dragon. The look in the green dragon’s eyes faded, replaced by a light even brighter. She spoke, but the words were distorted, swallowed by the pulsing boom that obscured the clarity of their scales. Her eyes darted from the egg, to the red, to the sky beyond, her eyes gradually fading.

The red dragon was leaving, beating wings tipped with flame. The green Teffré in the cave gazed after him, hope now replaced with a resigned sadness. She called after him, and the word was strong enough to break through the pulse.

“Goodbye.”

The red flash vanished into light. The Teffré turned away, tail grasping the egg ever tighter, whispering soft words of comfort.

Then the cave’s dark swallowed her, and the red was back.

But not a flash of red scales, but the flicker of fire, burning red and amber as it seared across the earth. Blue met it, pale blue, the shimmer of ice.

A battle of fire and ice, waged on the earth.

Cold and heat hissed, not made to combine, to clash in this way. Blood pooled. A voice laughed. Screams tore through the air in response. The pulsing grew louder, shaking the world. It wouldn’t stop. It was growing worse. It wouldn’t stop, not until--

“Coquina!”

The word cut through the battle, shattering it, and suddenly sunlight pierced the world. It was too harsh, too bright. But it was real, and so she clung to it.

“Coquina!” the voice called again, heavy with concern, and she found she could breathe.

With a gasp, Coquina sucked in air, her throat dry and coarse. Her claws were straining, digging into the bark of branches beneath her. Her wings were flapping wildly as if fighting against a howling gale, but the only wind they met was that of their own creation.

She dropped her wings, pressing them into her sides. Her heart pounded, and her head took the full brunt of it, pulsing with rippling pains. Scrunching her snout, she tried to chase it away. Fire was still clawing its way through her skull.

Shifting her grip, she took a few more shaky breaths. Her lungs felt starved of oxygen. Had she not been breathing? Had the ice in her mind frozen everything within her?

She growled to herself. What was she even doing?

Bending her head downwards, she saw a collection of brown scales, pale as mountain rock, crouched at the base of the tree she clutched. “Coquina, what in Selen are you doing up there?”

The voice of a real dragon, not the strange ones from her mind. Her friend. Tidi.

The concern in Tidi’s voice now dragged with exasperation.

Forcing her claws to peel away from the branches, she spread her stiff wings and glided to the ground. Even the simple action seemed to make the world spin, tendrils of ice unfurling from the corners of her vision, and she shook her head firmly. When she reached the earth, she dug her claws into it, desperate to anchor herself in this version of the universe for good.

She knew she should be replying to Tidi, making some semblance of an explanation, but her body seemed more focused on simply breathing than forming words at the moment. Tidi fixed her with a stare, frustration and worry debating in her eyes.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked in a sigh. “You look like someone just tried to strangle you.”

Coquina felt like it, too. A very cold someone. Her scales were coated with a thin layer of imaginary frost.

Thankfully, her throat at least was beginning to feel like hers again, and she cleared it hurriedly. “Sorry. I… I’ve got a really bad headache.” An awful excuse -- her condition was clearly far worse than that -- but it wasn’t a lie.

Always prepared, Tidi flicked her brown tail, displaying the wooden container that hung there. “Hold on,” she said, her gaze downturned as she curled her tail around and reached out a claw to rummage through the bag. Coquina focused on the sounds, ordinary noise, and used them to chase away the final remnants of ice and fire.

It always ended the same way. Whatever she saw, it was always the same: flames tearing through the earth and battling a haze of chilling ice, dragons falling all around it. But this had to be the worst one yet. Even now, it still fought to drag her back down into the hissing war.