Chapter 1: Flame

Flora woke up in a terrible dream. Her heart was pounding violently against her ribs, her breath shallow and hot in her throat. Her eyes snapped open in the dim light of her tiny bedroom, staring wide and unblinking at the plain white ceiling. For several seconds, her mind was still trapped inside that awful, chaotic nightmare. The air in her memory smelled of thick black smoke and burning ash. She could still hear the terrifying, wicked laughter of that cruel woman named Nessa Dark echoing in the back of her head, and the loud, earth-shaking roars of four giant dragons slicing through the sky. It felt so real. It felt more real than the four walls of her room, more real than the morning air slipping through the crack in her window. But as her vision cleared, the smoke and the screams slowly faded away. There was no fiery war outside. There were no collapsing castles or armies of dark mages. She was just in her bed. Flora slowly pulled herself up to sit against the headboard, running both hands over her face. Her palms felt uncomfortably hot, radiating an unnatural warmth that had nothing to do with the heavy blankets piled over her legs. She took a long, shaky breath, trying to push the images out of her thoughts. It was just a nightmare, she told herself silently, though she didn’t really believe it. It's just another stupid dream. Flora was an eighteen-year-old girl, and right now, she was in the middle of her final year of high school. For the past several years, she’s been living with her aunt in a small, crowded apartment building in New York. On the outside, her life looked completely normal to anyone who passed her on the street or sat next…