Chapter 1
1
Everyone dreams of being special in some way. Not just to their mom and dad, but to the whole world.
We all believe we have something extra and unique hiding inside, just waiting to be let out. Something that’s going to make your friends proud to know you, and your enemies wish they’d picked on someone else.
At three-years-old, I was convinced I was royalty. A princess specifically. I spent a lot of time waiting on the beach for my real mom and dad to come get me. I assumed they’d sail up to our Florida home on a tall ship, somehow fitting in the canal behind our house. They’d wear heavy crowns and beg for me to come be their princess again.
Two years later, I wanted to be a superhero. Or at least the super sidekick to my older sister, Mavis, who already was special in all the ways. Beautiful. Fastest kid on the playground. Incredibly smart. Yeah, I wanted to be special, but I knew I wasn’t at Mavis’ level. Just being her sidekick was a goal.
The year I turned ten was a Winter Olympics year. I fell in love with ski jumping—a weird thing for a kid to attach themselves to, I know. My mom was way into the figure skating. She and Mavis would watch every second, picking apart costumes and coming up with their own scoring system (ranging from “Super Sucks” to “Super Does Not Suck”).
“Isn’t this cool, Edie?” Mavis had asked, as the endless train of beautiful girls in sparkly costumes kept going. “Way better than that skiing thing.”
“Slalom,” I’d corrected her. “And no, it’s not way better. My people fly.”
Mom had looked at me funny then, her eyebrows coming together.
“I told you raising them in Florida would make them strange,” she said to my dad, who looked away from the TV a little too slowly when one of the skating girls had a wardrobe malfunction.
“Huh?” he said. “What now?”
Mom threw a piece of popcorn at him. “Your daughter wants to fly, Daniel.”
“Well, I guess someone should teach her, then,” he said. “I mean, how hard can it be?”
As it turns out, it’s really hard. But I had to wait seven more years to discover that.
So there I was, a Florida kid who wants to be a ski jumper, with a really fast, really smart older sister.
“At least you’re not totally ugly,” Mavis said when I was fourteen, patting me on the head.
“But I’m not special,” I said, having finally come to the realization.
Except I was totally wrong.
There was something inside of me the whole time just waiting to get out.
And that something was a dragon.
That’s not a metaphor. I am an actual. Freaking. Dragon.
Well, not all the time. I’m a shifter. So sometimes I’m a dragon and sometimes I’m just normal seventeen-year-old Edie.
I gotta admit, being special—like hello I can fly and breathe fire type of special—is pretty cool. A little scary, but mostly cool. Let’s see one of those figure skaters try to barbecue a bad guy—with their mouth. And those ski jumpers? They come back down. I don’t have to. Not until I’m ready.
At the same time…I’ve lost a lot, too.
My grandma used to say, “There’s always a price to pay.” She’d usually say it while patting her belly after going overboard on Dad’s famous key lime pie.
My grandma is dead now. She and my dad both died on the same terrible day a year ago when a rogue wave hit her condo. Or news reported it as a rogue wave, but it turned out a monster killed them. This bad dude named Leviathan.
Levi’s the reason I came to Mount Olympus Academy—a school taught by actual gods. I wanted revenge. And I still do.
Now, with the whole dragon thing, getting revenge seems more possible than ever. But my teachers say I’m not ready yet. No combat missions are allowed until I officially graduate from the assassination class. We are allowed to go on reconnaissance and rescue missions, though.
And right now I’m getting ready to lead one. It’s not just any rescue mission. I’m going to get my mother.
On the same day my dad and grandma were killed, both my mom and sister went missing in Greece. The gods have finally tracked Mom down and after I sorta saved the whole school when monsters invaded our Spring Fling dance, they figured it’d be okay if I went out to get her.
I shake my head, trying not to think too much about the Spring Fling. I might have saved the day, but I toasted Ocypete—my flying instructor—doing it. Actually, she was more than just a teacher. I thought she was kind of a mentor too. Someone who might take me under her wing. Literally. But it turned out she’d been a double agent the whole time she was working at the school.
Even worse, she led the monsters who attacked the night of the dance. She tried to tell me that the gods aren’t the good guys, that they’re only using the school and the students as shields so that they don’t have to do their own fighting. But I wasn’t buying the monsters as the good guys.
Not when one of them killed my dad.
