or something; the ley line had been a doorway of sorts. Despite the fact that she was talking to a freaking dragon, Donna had to admit that she preferred this absence of blood and thunder, away from the alchemists, demons, and fey clashing in the real Ironwood Forest.
Adrenaline made her heart race, and her vision narrowed until all she could see was the majestic creature in front of her. Donna concluded that she might really be losing it. She could handle almost anything: iron tattoos, alchemy, the existence of Faerie and all kinds of fey creatures, even demons. All of these things—and more—she could somehow adjust to. Her mind would stretch and stretch, like a rubber band put under the worst kind of pressure but which would eventually snap back into shape and let her move into her new understanding of reality. Each time that Donna’s world became just a little bigger, she had handled it.
But this? A … dragon?
She realized that she was sitting on mossy ground beside a stream. It was cold right where she had collapsed, but she didn’t care. She wondered if splashing water on her face would help.
The dragon moved again, shifting its wings and bringing down another tree in the process.
“Stop!” Donna cried. “You’re destroying things.”
The massive head swung toward her, lowering until the giant black eyes were almost on the same level as hers. It blinked. Donna could count its eyelashes, and she had to squash a hysterical urge to reach out to touch them to see if they were real.
The dragon’s snout puffed out a breath that blew Donna’s hair away from her face. It was like being caught in a hurricane, and reminded her of what had happened when she’d created the Stone. She got a strong whiff of burning wood and held her breath. Fire flickered around the beast’s cavernous nostrils. Donna thought she might pass out.
She figured that would be perfectly acceptable under the circumstances.
“You called me,” the dragon rumbled. Its voice still came from directly inside Donna’s head, taking her by surprise. “I am here.”
“I … I … ” She shook herself. Get a grip, Underwood.
“You called me.” The tone brooked no argument.
“I’m sorry,” Donna whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I believe that you did.” The dragon nodded its mighty head and waited.
What was it waiting for? In the part of her brain that hadn’t quite lost the plot, Donna knew that this was part of the process—the Blackening—and yet she hadn’t realized there would be an actual dragon.
Like, for real. She desperately wished that Xan and Navin could be here to share the moment, but she also realized that would be impossible. This was a moment for her, and her alone. Somehow she knew this was true.
Maybe it was some kind of vision, like the lucid dreams she had, when signs and portents seemed to flow through her the way the dragon’s wings flowed with their own inner light.
She forced herself back to her feet, her knees trembling but just about holding her upright. Time to take control of the situation. She glanced at the immense creature before her and stifled a burst of hysterical laughter. Control ?
The dragon settled back onto its mammoth hindquarters, folding its wings against its body and regarding her with an almost human expression of benevolence.
Donna cleared her throat. “How exactly did I call you?”
“You died. You came back.”
“Dying means someone can summon dragons?”
There was an awful trumpeting sound. Snorting and snuffling followed by a spurt of fire, which ignited a bush on the far side of the stream.
Donna realized that the dragon was laughing. At her. She stood taller. “Hey, I’m new at all this.”
“If you are so untrained, child, you should not be in possession of such power,” the dragon rumbled.
“I’m just doing the best I can. That’s all. Please … won’t you explain?”
“The ability to call the dragon has been sleeping inside you since your birth. You knew that much, yes?”
“No … I didn’t know anything about dragons. Not real ones, anyway.”
“You have the dragon spark in your soul. Why do you think the Demon King wants you so badly?”
“Dragon spark? You mean, the first matter?”
If dragons could shrug, Donna was sure that’s what it would have done. “If that is what you call it. The prima materia. Dragon spark. Names change. The nature of the power does not.”
“Does this mean that you’ll fight for us?” Donna asked, suddenly seeing things more clearly. “I think that’s what Maker wanted.”
“Maker?” the