Dragonchild
Embla woke up shaking and afraid. The moon pushing into the small window of her bedroom threw the beams against the ceiling like the bones of a broken rib-cage. On her bedside table, the black dragon curled round the base of her clock, blinked. It was midnight. The same time she woke every night with aching arms, a sore head and her heart all jumpy. She'd had a nightmare. Another bad dream which sent her temperature soaring. A dream in which she breathed fire, and flew, and her shadow fell like a huge black crow over the sleeping land. She knew what her grandmother would say – it was what she said every morning.
"Growing pains, dear. They're only growing pains."
And Grandmother knew about things like that. As she knew about stars and stones, animals and plants, the Dragonfolk and their children. For Grandmother believed the Dragonfolk were more than old stories. They were Old Wisdom itself. People, half-human and half-dragon, who were in touch with the wild side of themselves, and through that the wild side of the world. Grandmother said the Dragonfolk had always lived round here. It was written into the geography of the land with names like Eight Mile Burn, Dragonsby and Cold Cinders Farm. And she swore that if you were brave enough to stand out in the open under a full moon, you’d see them clouding the sky.