She emerged from shadows, dressed in her white gown. A girl of fourteen, she had long, dark hair and large gray eyes that he thought very beautiful.

"Tanin," she whispered. A haunted sound. The sound of old ghosts. A sound of old pain. Even then, Tanin knew that the sound—that soft utterance, that whisper of his name—would forever echo through his mind.

"Flee with me." He panted and reached out to her. "I must leave now. Flee with me to the mountains. We can marry in the wilderness. We can live together far from this place." The cries of the mob rose from the fields; they would be here soon. "I love you."

Ciana—his beloved, the girl he had kissed upon the hill just last night, the girl he had vowed to marry someday—stared at him silently, and something filled her eyes. Not love. Not fear. Slowly Tanin recognized it.

Disgust.

"You are a weredragon." She took a step back, and her father approached and placed an arm around her. "You . . . you are diseased." She shuddered. "I kissed you. I let you hold me." Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her voice rose to a hoarse cry. "Kill him, Father! Kill the creature!"

As her father reached for a knife, Tanin fled. He too wept. They waited outside—the mob of townsfolk, waving torches, firing arrows. Beyond them he saw his family: his wise grandfather, Eranor, a white dragon; his father, Jeid, a copper dragon blowing fire; his younger sister, Maev, a slim green dragon. They flew above the fields, arrows whistling around them, calling for him.

Tanin shifted.

He too became a dragon.

Arrows slammed into his scales, and one pierced his wing, and he flew.

They fled over the forest. They raced across the wilderness until they found a hidden cave and cowered, wounded, afraid, banished. And still Ciana's words echoed in his mind.

Tanin.

You are diseased.

Kill him, Father!

"I love you," he whispered, reaching out to her, seeking her through shadows and light. "I'm not a creature. I love you. I—"

"Stars above, Tanin! I love you too, but stop grabbing at me like a drunkard."

He opened his eyes.

He blinked.

His sister sat beside him, wrapped in furs—no longer the young girl from that day but a grown woman, her face a mask of fading bruises, her arms strong and her bottom lip thrust out in her permanent gesture of disdain.

Tanin looked around him, for a moment confused, but then remembered his location. Of course. They had been flying for three nights since leaving the escarpment, heading south toward the coast. Birches grew around him, their trunks dark in the sunset, their leaves deep red. The sun was only an orange sliver between the boles; soon it would be gone.

"I was dreaming." He sat up in his bed of leaves and fur pelts.