The heady beat of the drums filled the cold night air. Eight young dragons knelt on the edge of the precipice, their faces in shadow and firelight flickering against their backs. They had held vigil since the late afternoon, since the sun had begun to sink through the bloody sky. Now, darkness had fallen, bringing with it a chill that turned their bare skin to gooseflesh. Girl and boy alike, they were naked except for swirls of mud, daubed on their chests like paint. Behind them, The Teeth stood watch, peaks stretching up to brush against the star-streaked sky. Before them, there was only a dizzying expanse of empty air and a world shrouded in darkness.

“The moon is rising,” someone said, voice clear and strong against the drumbeat.

Edin looked up; beside him, he could sense his nest-mates doing the same. His hands trembled where they clasped his knees. The ringed moon hung low on the horizon, half-hidden by clouds as it began its lazy ascent. As it rose, heavy and swollen, it would turn the black water of the lake below into shimmering glass. When the light touched the shore, it would be time.

It seemed as though half the clan had accompanied them up the mountainside for the ritual. They were clustered around the single fire, keeping warm and murmuring in low voices. Some of the younger men had brought the drums that kept away the silence of the night, playing tirelessly. The rhythm pulsed and throbbed like a heartbeat, reminding the young dragons that they were not alone. It might have even been calming if Edin was not feeling so skittish.

It had been fifteen summers since Edin and his nest-mates had been hatched in the shadow of the mountains. That night, all going well, they would take their first flight and conquer them. It was an important night for any young dragon of the earth clans, but Edin felt an added pressure. The year he and his nest-mates had been hatched had marked one of the clan’s most fruitful breeding seasons; out of ten eggs, eight had survived to hatch. This year, however, not one of the eggs had hatched and a dark mood had settled over the clan.

Edin remembered the scenes from the previous day: the bated breath; hot bodies pressed in tight around him; the smear of dirt on the nest-mother’s cheek as she dug in the warm earth below the fire pit; and the five eggs, pale and perfect and as cold as stone. A lump rose in his throat as he remembered the shared grief. High, broken cries swept the clan and there was desolation on faces usually so full of laughter. Even Kiel, his perpetually cheerful nest-mate, had been unable to find a smile.

It was a bad omen, some said. The circle of life had been broken.

After the sun had risen on a new day, one of the clan elders had taken Edin and his nest-mates aside. If the eight of them were successful in that night’s ritual, he had said, it would remind people of the good summers where their clan had flourished. It would not allow them to forget their loss – nothing could do that – but it would give the dragons of clan Shatterstone some hope.

Kiel had pledged that they would succeed. His voice was soon joined by the others: fire-haired Colt, uncharacteristically solemn; sweet-tempered Meli with a frown on her face; Nea and Liv, holding hands; Rune, his fists clenched tightly at his sides; and even timid, slender Bran, who looked positively frightened.

And, lastly, Edin himself – reluctantly.

Shivering, Edin closed his eyes as the fire spat and hissed. Some things were easier said than done, especially once sworn before witnesses.

“The moon has risen,” a voice said, and Edin opened his eyes again; his mouth felt dry. “It is almost time.”

Edin glanced down the line of his nest-mates, sudden panic fluttering in his chest. Would he still be able to look on these faces when the sun rose again?  Would they be able to keep their pledge and make the clan proud? He took a deep breath, trying to quell the rising urge to bolt.

Kiel knelt at his immediate left, straight, tall and unfazed, his eyes trained on the moonlit lake. It calmed Edin to look at him. Kiel was the first-hatched, the natural-born leader of their clutch. If Kiel was not worried, then there was nothing to worry about. As though he had read his mind, Kiel turned his head and grinned. His dark eyes glittered in the firelight, his feelings, as usual, plain on his face. He was practically glowing with anticipation. Edin managed a wobbly smile back, though he felt more nauseous than anything else.

As Kiel looked away again, the drumming ceased and an abrupt hush fell over the mountainside. The temporary calmness scattered, but Edin remained still, his face schooled into a mask of serenity.

You can do this, Edin.

There were soft footfalls behind them. Edin straightened his back, holding his head up high.

You can do this.

“Kiel.” Armas, a village elder, had a deep, strong voice that made Edin’s bones shiver. “You were the first to hatch, so you must be the first to fly.”

Kiel was still for only a moment before he rose to his feet. Slowly, deliberately, he shuffled forwards until his toes touch the very edge of the cliff. He smiled, a flash of white teeth in the moonlight, as though he was smiling at the sky itself.

“I am a dragon of the earth clan of Shatterstone,” he said in a strong clear voice, reciting the words they had been learning for days. “I shed my childhood and, for this one night, I shed the human form that binds me to the earth. I embrace my true form and master the skies.”

As his voice trailed away, his skin seemed to shudder and shift in the firelight. Edin caught a glimpse of burnished bronze scales, and then Kiel took a step back and launched himself into the darkness. Someone – Bran, maybe – yelled his name. The shout echoed in the night for a moment, and then faded.

There was an agonising silence. Edin counted the heartbeats thudding in his ears. One, two, three. Cold sweat slid down the back of his neck. He wanted to look away, but he did not dare close his eyes.

Then, there was an ear-splitting roar that made the mountain tremble beneath him.

A dark rushing shape soared skyward. It spiralled above them, a beast rimmed with moonlight. Edin gasped and his mouth dropped open. Children were never allowed to accompany the clan to the ritual, so this was the first time he had seen an adult’s true form up close. Watching from the safety of the nest, he had never truly appreciated the sheer size of a shifted dragon. Kiel was about four times the size of a human man, with a wingspan that blotted out the moon.

Large enough to ride, Edin thought suddenly, remembering the tales the clan elders told of the human dragon riders of old, back when humans were not creatures to be feared.

As Kiel banked, his scales glimmered. They were a deep bronze colour, with hints of copper and flecks of vibrant gold. Edin wondered if they would be hot or cold to the touch; for one insane moment, he wanted to reach up and find out. Moonlight glinted off long white teeth, changing his mind. He must have made some involuntary movement, because he could have sworn he saw Kiel smile. Then Kiel banked again, turning away from his captive audience and climbing into the starry sky.

The clan watched just long enough to see him land safely in the silver waters of the lake. before Armas’s voice rang out again.

“Colt. Your turn.”

“Yes, elder.”

Edin looked to his right just in time to see Colt rise to his feet. Colt was the tallest and strongest of his nest-mates, and the only one to sport a fiery mane of red hair. There was no mistaking who his sire was, though it was taboo to speak of such things. A hatchling belonged to the clan; the blood that had created it was irrelevant. Edin had never spared a thought as to which hands had passed him onto the nest mother, nor did he care to. Yet, with Colt, it was impossible not to let the thought of parentage cross the mind. There was only one man with red hair in their clan. He was known as Bane, though no one knew if that was his real name, and he had come north from one of the southern earth clans on a pilgrimage of sorts. For one reason or another, he had never left, and soon he was accepted as one of them.

That Bane was Colt’s sire was a thought widely accepted but never spoken of.  The southern earth clans did things differently, Edin knew, with the hatchlings being raised by their life-givers for a number of years. Bane, though, when he had settled in the north, had accepted and respected the northern ways. He had never claimed Colt as his own, and never treated him with any special favouritism. Colt would have resented it. But…

Edin looked around and, sure enough, Bane was standing by the fire, his eyes on Colt’s back. A smile played on his lips, filled with quiet pride. Yes, Bane had never claimed Colt in words or by name, but he had claimed him in his heart.

Southerners are strange, Edin thought, as he turned away.

Colt murmured the words Kiel had spoken with such conviction, his soft voice carefully shaping each word. There was a tremor in his voice that Edin had never heard there before. He tried to offer him a reassuring smile, but Colt was not looking his way. There was a beat of silence after the last word had been spoken, and then Colt took deep, unsteady breath. A nervous step forward. His skin shifted like Kiel’s had done, displaying a ripple of gold.

Another beat, and he stepped into the empty air and disappeared.

The wait was no easier the second time around. Again, Edin tried to count his heartbeats, his hands balled into fists at his knees. Every beat throbbed in his ears, insistent, as though they were the only things in the world that mattered.

One, two, three, four, five.

He’ll be here by ten.

Six, seven, eight.

He has to be.

Nine.

Please.

Ten.

“He didn’t make it,” someone said, voice strained. Several other voices murmured in agreement. “What do we do?”

When Armas spoke, his voice was calm and firm. “We carry on with the ritual. We will retrieve him in the morning and return his body to the earth.”

“No!” It took a few moments for Edin to realise that the voice was his own, but, even then, the words continued to spill out of him. “You can’t! He can’t be dead, he just can’t!”

Hot tears splashed down his cheeks, but he did not care. Beside him, Bran was as white as a ghost, whilst Meli and Liv attempted to comfort a sobbing Nea. To his right, Rune had actually leapt to his feet in anger.

“There must be a chance – ” Rune started, but he fell silent as Armas raised a hand.

“These things happen, but the ritual must go on.” Armas shook his head, but he spoke with a warmth that belied his cold words. “Edin, Rune, all of you… it is hard to lose a nest-mate, I know. It’s hard for all of us to lose Co- to lose someone in this way. The last time this happened was… was ten years ago.”                                                  

Though Edin had been young, he remembered the dark shroud they had carried back from the mountain. He remembered the stagnant grief that had hung over the clan in the days to come. Most of all, he remembered the way all of his questions had been met by the same cold, stony silence.

He bowed his head and did not speak.

A heavy silence reigned for several long moments. Rune sank back to his knees, looking wretched. Edin’s heart felt irreparably broken; it was not thudding insistently in his ears any more. In fact, he could not hear it at all. First the eggs, now Colt. Perhaps the gods truly were sending them an omen, a harbinger of bad things to come. Shaking his head to clear it, Edin reached across the gap to touch Rune’s knee, and was rewarded with a curt, thankful nod. He looked for Bane, but the older man had disappeared.

“Edin, are you ready to fly?” Armas’s voice sounded abnormally loud in the darkness.

Edin’s stomach twisted, but he forced himself to nod. There was no other choice; the ritual had to go on, as Armas had said. He would either fall to his death, or shift into his true form in time.

Besides, Colt would’ve wanted it that way, he thought, but then, Would he truly? I don’t know.

He got to his feet, trying to ignore the eyes at his back. Were they expecting him to fail too?

The last time Edin had been in his true form was when he was barely three summers old. He could not remember the incident, but he had been regaled with the story so many times he liked to think he could. He had sneezed whilst playing out in the garden with Kiel and Rune, and suddenly a tiny dragon was sitting in a pile of clothes. Though everyone who told him the story professed to find the whole thing highly amusing, Edin had been chastised so severely that he had never even been tempted to try to change again.

The danger of humans is too great, the nest-mother had said. We can’t let them know we exist.

Edin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Exhaled. He would have to get over this barrier if he wanted to shift, if he did not want to end up like Colt.

Don’t think about him now, he told himself, screwing his eyes shut tight to stop the tears from falling. Later, when this is over.

“I – I am a dragon of the earth clan of Shatterstone,” he said softly, stumbling slightly over the words. “I shed my childhood and – and, for this one night, I shed the human form that binds me to the earth. I – I embrace my true form and master the skies.”

He did not allow himself to think further, or to even take a breath. One moment, there was solid rock under his feet and the next there was nothing but air.

Please don’t let me die.

His stomach leapt into his throat as he started to fall. For a moment, all he wanted to do was scream, but then, something else took over.

Instinct.

I am a dragon of the earth clan of Shatterstone.

His bones stretched and popped, sliding and shifting with hard cracks that resonated through his skull. Two sudden stabs of pain split open his back as wings sprouted forth, unfurling eagerly as though they were always meant to be there.

I shed my childhood and, for this one night, I shed the human form that binds me to the earth.

His jaw elongated, new teeth bursting through as old ones moved aside. His skin was on fire, as though he had jumped straight into too-hot water. It bubbled and seethed, becoming ridged, hard and scaly.

The ground was rushing towards him.

I embrace my true form and master the skies.

Edin spread his wings and flew.