He cups my face, his blue eyes shining brightly. "I love you, Chryse."

  Who..?

  The room is murky and time crawls, each moment lasting a lifetime as the man whispers promises in my tingling ears. He doesn't quite touch me, but my skin hums with the feeling of closeness.

  Do I love this storm spirit?

  Do I know him?

  "Till death do us part."

  "I do." Do I? My heart pounds as his face draws near--and then it stops.

  He pulls away, licking the blade. Dark liquid oozes from my chest, sticky and hot.

  "Why?"

  The image fades and reforms. Now I hold the dagger to his heart, leaning close to watch the light leave his eyes. "How does it feel?" I don't need to ask when my own chest burns, a sword hilt telling me that I have been run through.

  I run down winding halls until I find Raziel in a study. "I've been killed!"

  "No you have not." He doesn't look up from the square checkered table, moving a metal piece and then a wood one from one box to another.

  "I was! I felt it. The blade was like," I try to show him how long and pointy it was, but the dragon doesn't care. "I'm cold! I've never been cold. I don't know what cold is." I shiver, remembering how it invaded my bones. "But I do now, and it's the worst. You were wrong, it's not an irrational fear at all."

  "Make yourself a fire."

  Looking around at all the books and paper and wooden furniture, it feels like a trap. If I do, he'll dry me out again.

  "It's irrational because you are easily capable of solving it." He moves several pieces of one type, and then the other. "It would be rational to fear water, or being buried underground."

  I look at the ceiling, but this study is on the second floor and gives the impression of a normal, above-water palace. Except for the watery scene in the one window, but that looks more like a painting than a glimpse into the world outside. Where does the light come from?

  He keeps moving pieces, but I cannot find rules in it. The dragons and leaders are distinctive, but many of the pieces are strange as well. Raziel, Air Dragon, likes art and chess.

  "Not at all. I find it tedious."

  Says the dragon that can watch a single minute pass for hours. "Then why--?"

  "Do any of us like it?" He looks toward the window, but the lake fish have no answer. "But if I am to leave here and meet with other dragons, I should prepare. My skills have oxidized."

  The grains in the paneled walls flow like a breeze around the room, seeming to tell a story, or mark an obsession. The floor has a pattern that mimics air currents, and the ceiling is painted like a cloudy sky. I would have thought more oxygen could only do him good.

  "Sit and tell me about it. You had a dream?"

  I join him at the table. "There is a painting of it, in the Cloud Palace. The murder of the first phoenix..." I press a hand to my heart. "It felt so real."

  "The memories are real. Chryse's death at the hands of the first thunderbird sparked the feud between them."

  So that was the thunderbird. "They killed each other. How did the clans become involved?"

  He pauses his game to look at my face, and through it into my mind. "Those are two separate memories. Vasia ensured that it would not be settled easily when she died avenging Chryse."

  From start to finish, the only clear images were his face and the weapons--"Ah, I see now. He had a dagger the first time, and a proper sword the second. We met as," I cough over 'lovers'. "And then he stabbed me, after saying so many honeyed words. Then we were enemies, and he had a few more wrinkles."

  "Fifteen years had passed."

  "Fifteen--!" But I knew that, I read that. Vasia was only fifteen when she died. "I can still feel it." I peek under my skinsuit, but I am unscarred.

  "Vasia took an army of fire elves with her, and the thunderbird had water elves to protect him. Theirs was the first battle, between Fire and Water Clans."

  Since it was the phoenix's fight, Air and Bird Clans had little choice. "Why didn't Storm Clan take the thunderbird's side?"

  "Ask them."

  Probably, every elf but the water sprites recognized that the thunderbird was to blame.

  "Ask, do not assume."

  I do not know chess well, but the pieces on the board are overwhelmingly of the same type. "Did you lose to yourself?"

  "Who else would I lose to?" A small puff of steam from his nostrils moves the remaining pieces back into their original positions, and I feel completely judged for my lack of knowledge in the game.

  Are all dragons so... The study has bookshelves with books ordered by size and color, and desks with smooth surfaces, but no paper and no ink. The lamps are decorative, without fire or electricity to provide light. Where does the light come from?

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Each phoenix is her own elf, and each dragon is unique. I am not judging your disinterest in this game."

  "Should I meditate on the millennia of enmity between the phoenix and the thunderbird of Water Clan?" It is nice to know, and not just believe, that they started it.

  A rumble in the dragon's throat is almost mirthful. "No need for that. You will have no trouble remembering the thunderbird, and his strengths and weaknesses. You would do better to avoid thinking of Water Clan at present, and focus on your own." He resets the chess board, giving me a chance to decline before starting a new game.

  It would not be fair to play with a mind reader. How do they play with each other?

  "Dragons' thoughts are unfathomable."

  No wonder the only weakness of one dragon is another.

  "Not quite." Raziel moves the chess pieces faster than he does anything else. "Our greatest weakness is the same as elves and humans--wanting what we cannot have."

  "Have you seen humans? What are they like?" I try to read his expression, but he just looks impatient with his own chess-playing.

  He moves a piece and doesn't release it. "You can see them too, in the mirrors." He moves it back, to a new place, and then back again.

  I do not need to know about humans. They never come to elfin lands, and we never go to theirs.

  "Humans and elves are best kept separate."

  "How come?"

  "Too similar and too different. The temptation to make comparisons would encourage jealousy and pride."

  They don't have magic, so that--

  "You fell fast." On the board, the wooden dragon loses to the metal leader.

  "So did you."

  "I only won against the shadow dragon once. Perhaps I should change pieces?" Raziel's wind retrieves a box from another desk, and he considers other colored pieces. "Elves are not better than humans, only different. And dragons are not better than elves, only different."

  He has ten different types--for ten clans?

  "Our domains are unrelated to you and yours. As they should be."

  Does he really believe that, when he holds sufficient influence over life and death to keep me from starving, and enough power over the air to keep water out of a dozen or more entrances he cannot even see? When we sit in a place that flows at a different pace from the rest of the world because of another of his kind, who isn't even present?

  "I didn't once. I saw myself as you do now: powerful, important, legendary. As the phoenix, you will face the same pressure, and the same temptation. That fight is one worth meditating on."

  I still only have fire magic and my own knowledge. Kyrillos was supposed to teach me about the phoenix's role in leading the clans, and to help me prepare, but what did I practice in the Fire Palace? How to be a good flare. How to use fire magic against a wisp--not easy--or against a water sprite or storm spirit--even harder. I studied the geography of clan land, and the locations of the palaces. Read about who the clan leaders are, who they were, and how their relationship with Fire Clan has been. Learned an account of clan history that forgot two clans' existences and refused to acknowledge Water as a former clan.

  I do not even know why we have never had conflicts with humans.

  "Their limitations. Their short lifespan, short attention spans, and general apathy towards climbing mountains and crossing seas."

  "That's all?"

  "It's enough." The dragon's wind swirls around me, but my hair is braided tightly to my scalp and my skinsuit sticks to my skin. "For the elves, there is the phoenix and the thunderbird."

  We are too busy killing each other to make new enemies.

  "That too."

  And dragons...each other?

  "Dragons cannot kill each other." On his chess board, the white wooden one does, defeating gray. "This game does not reflect reality. It was a gift."

  From a friend, or an enemy?

  He chuckles, remembering to protect the pieces but disturbing the books on the shelves. "Tell me about your friend."

  I take a moment to process his meaning. "Thalia? She has an owlish essence." We grew up in the same village, though her family lived with other feathers in their own little complex and did not mix often with flares.

  "Avian elves."

  "You're making that up."

  "It used to be common. How did you become friends?"

  We were so young, I don't even remember. She wasn't there, and then she was. Neither of us was particularly talkative or social. My memories of her are all of sitting together in random places, watching life happen around us. I sometimes told her what was happening in our village, and she sometimes described the Air Clan village below the mountain. And if my sisters spoke about me, she told me without telling me. 'They must be boring,' she would say. 'No interesting thoughts about themselves, needing to look to others to fill their minds.'

  "She has a better understanding of your sisters' cleverness than you."

  What happened to the dangers of not comparing? Does it not apply to dragons?

  "Perspective. You can learn from it."

  "She moved to an inland Air Clan town with her older brother after...And once a year on her birthday, she flew up to visit me. When I decided to steal the mantle, she helped."

  In the Fire Palace, my room was on the sixth floor. Thalia could easily fly up to sit in my window, but with five floors of flares loyal to Kyrillos or fond of my sisters, I could not easily leave without attracting attention.

  When Thalia visited, she always stayed for a week. This time, two days after her normal visit ended, she returned secretly. From my room to the gate nearest the path to the Cloud Palace, she played illusions of silence and stillness on her little lyre. Every guard looked blindly past us. While I got the mantle, she got a carriage for us. Without her music magic to accompany us through Fire Clan territory, I never could have left unnoticed.

  "Have fire elves no talents useful for such a situation?"

  "Against other flares? In a volcano?" I can easily picture throwing fireballs at each other like insults, wasting time and achieving nothing.

  "You could at least get rid of this chessboard for me." This time his breath scatters the pieces in all directions.

  That sounds like a trap, too. I reach for one as it passes, and it freezes for a moment before falling. I try to catch the air again, but it ignores me. Still, I feel a smile in my cheekbones. "I really am turning into the phoenix."

  "What do you know of avian elves?" Raziel does not look impressed by my tiny progress.

  Bird Clan is closest to Fire out of all the clans. "Most flare villages have feathers, and many flares live on the southern cliffs in Bird Clan territory." I thought I might go there, but Thalia said it would be too obvious of a choice. Since she is my only friend, it makes sense. "I've never been, and neither has Thalia, but I know that Bird Clan territory is in the south and their settlements are built on and around cliffs. They're also the most liked of the clans, and many feathers live in other territories. They have music magic..." My smile fades.

  Raziel looks up from gathering his chess pieces. "What is wrong?"

  "Do I need a musical instrument?" How come no one taught me anything? Surely some elf thought of it at least once in those ten years.

  -------

  Bird Clan Feathers (Avian Elves)

  Feathers are characterized by having feathery hair, beaked noses and sharp claws. Their skin tones and feathers are often neutral colors--black, white, gray, brown--but some varieties also have streaks of blue, green, red, purple, orange and yellow. Their eye color also varies widely. Colors and features have no bearing on individual strength and abilities.

  Every feather can shapeshift into a full bird form and use music magic to create illusions, hypnotize, and beguile. They can fly in either form and have strong vision and hearing.

  Bird Clan is the most well-liked by the other clans and the most peaceful. Even the Water Kingdom does not fight with them, though they share a small border. (Which is a shame, because Thalia's family proved when the sprites attacked our village that peaceful does not mean weak.)