Chapter 1 - Don't Look Down
"Don't do it, kid," a voice rumbled inside his skull, deep and vibrating like grinding granite.
Zephyr didn’t listen. He couldn't. His chalk-white claws dug into the razor edge of the obsidian peak, sulfur fumes burning his nostrils. Three thousand feet below, the jagged floor of the Ashlands looked like a shattered jawbone waiting to swallow him whole.
Behind him, towering like an active volcano wrapped in scales, his mother lay coiled. Ignis didn't shift an inch. Her eyes were twin slits of smoldering purple plasma, bored and ancient.
"You haven't grown your third wing-rib yet," she warned, not bothering to lift her snout from the volcanic shelf. "You hit a downward thermal, and you’re going to fold up like a dry leaf. Stay put. Eat your char-goat."
Zephyr let out a sharp, rebellious chitter. He was sick of scraps. He was sick of living in her shadow, choking on the smoke of kills she made with half a heartbeat’s effort. He wanted his own blood on the stones. He wanted his own roar to shake the sky. Right now, all he had was a chirp that sounded like a cracked flute.
"I’m ready," he barked, his juvenile mental voice cracking.
"You're an idiot," she replied flatly. "And you're small."
That did it.
Zephyr flared his translucent, paper-thin wings, kicked his back talons against the basalt shelf, and launched himself directly into the abyss.
The instant gravity grabbed him, terror blew through his veins like ice water. The wind didn't catch him; it slammed him like a freight train, ripping the air clean out of his chest. He spiraled violently, watching the sheer rock face spin sideways, gray sky and black stone trading places every half-second. He clamped his jaws shut, fighting the panic clawing up his throat.
Extend. Lock. Pitch up.
He forced his wing joints straight. The nylon-like skin stretched tight, snapping against the howling wind. The dive leveled out with a sickening jolt that made his ribs groan, banking him hard over the lower crags.
A manic, razor-sharp thrill hit him. He was doing it. He was cutting through the clouds, carving the sky with his own body. He looked back up over his shoulder to give the summit a smug flick of his tail.
May you like
He didn't see the jagged downdraft waiting off the cliff’s knee.
A blast of cold crosswind slapped his right wing from above, snapping the joint backward with a wet crack. Zephyr shrieked as his lift died instantly. The gray horizon vanished, replaced by an uncontrolled, terminal drop straight toward the canopy of petrified pine trees below.
