Tidi pulled out a shrivelled, yellow-tinged plant and tore a broad leaf from it. She tossed the leaf over. “Chew that.”

Coquina’s claw stretched out to catch it, but her reactions still jerked, her heart beating out of time with the world. The leaf fell to the floor. She quickly snapped it up in her teeth before any mocking comments could be cast her way.

The action of shredding it with her fangs helped her draw her focus away from her mind. Juices broke out in her jaw, and she couldn’t deny how effective they were at calming the painful pounding in her skull. Having a Medicor friend certainly had its benefits.

Yet in moments like these, it also had its drawbacks. Medicors were often armed with quick minds, memories that snatched up every detail, and Tidi was no exception. Not only could she recall the use of every medicinal plant she came across, but she also noticed every twitch of movement Coquina made.

Her eyes narrowed skeptically. “So you slipped away from Proeliar training, climbed a tree, went into some weird trance and stopped breathing all because of a headache?” She snorted a laugh. “Some headache that is. I hope it isn’t contagious.”

Coquina remained silent, still focused on chewing the leaf. If only Tidi would wait a few minutes and allow it to clear her head so she could think up an appropriate response.

Tidi sighed. “You can’t keep doing this, you know,” she said after a moment. “That’s the fourth time you’ve sneaked out now. The Subils are starting to notice.”

The leaf was dry on Coquina’s tongue now. Her head still ached, but the pulsing was beginning to ebb. She swallowed, and cast a sideways glance at her friend. “What do they care? They’re forced to go as much as we are.”

Shaking her head, Tidi sat, flexing her wings. The spikes at the end of her swishing tail tapped at the branches of the tree, tearing through the leaves. “I just don’t want them thinking you’re odd, that’s all. More than they already do,” she added, dipping her head at Coquina’s scales.

Coquina followed her gaze, looking down at the colour that spread across the leathery texture of her wings. Though she couldn’t twist her head to see it all, she knew that same shade spread from the tip of her tail to the scales that adorned her snout. The only exception were her spikes, glinting silver in the daylight. But even they were odd: unusually stunted, sparse on her head and almost vanishing entirely as they reached the centre of her back.

The white of untouched snow, her Mator called it. Brighter and paler than any other dragon in the clan, with not a touch of grey in sight. Her Mator called her scales beautiful, too, but she was wise enough now to know that they were far from that.

“You don’t think I’m odd, do you?” She’d asked the question of Tidi more times than she could count. The answer was always the same, and so was her smile.

“I know you’re odd.” Tidi’s eyes sparked, their blue mirroring the sky above. “But in the best possible way.”

Her smile lingered for a moment before falling. “I see the way some of them watch you, though. The things they whisper.”

So did Coquina. Even with more than ten years’ service to her clan, the stares still followed her. Some were merely curious - those who’d never seen her before and merely wondered why she was so different. Those she could brush away. But others stared with purpose. Their eyes narrowed, and hatred bloomed within them.

When their jaws parted to speak to those around them, they didn’t ask questions. They thought they already knew the answer.

“Selen’s daughter,” she muttered. Dragon of demons.

Tidi gave a heavy nod. “And stunts like this are just going to prove them right.” She rose to her feet, shaking out the spikes on her head. Long, ordinary spikes. “At least you don’t come out in the middle of the night and call to the moon.”

Coquina let herself laugh, trying to shake loose the tightness in her chest.

As Tidi flicked out her wings and launched herself into the sky, Coquina followed. The air twirled around her, sliding off her scales and slicing under her wings. The twin beams of the two suns bounced off her back, melting the last shards of ice from her mind. She squinted up at them, glad for their heat. Only recently had the Corisol, the second sun, made its annual reappearance, marking the end of the cold period of Hemï. Though Coquina wasn’t bothered by the cold, her recent dreams of ice had made her welcome the new heat all the more.

Ahead of her, Tidi spiralled, looping in the air, and she did the same. There was a moment when you flipped upside down in flight when the world seemed to spin out of control, and you were freefalling, no longer gripped by force and rules. More than ever, she needed that sensation today.