I landed on a scaly surface and felt muscles moving beneath me. Instead of the large dragon the size of the cavern I had been expecting, Smog was about twice as tall as me, and ten times as wide, his wingspan a good twenty five feet across. I was directly between his wings, on his back.

He flew straight up, landing just outside of the pit, passing the huddle on the stairs. He nudged me towards a door and when I blasted it open, I found my staff. It was long and crooked, and made of black metal, like so much else. I grabbed it and warmth coursed through my body, filling me up. I hadn't realized I was hollow and empty until I was not.

Smog dropped back down, directly in front of the rag-tag group. "Let's get out of here. This is my friend Smog, and I got my stuff." I made a motion and Smog scooped them all up on his back. He flew up and deposited them on the main floor quickly. All that weight was no good for him. "I'm assuming you all have your own way out? Smog can't carry everyone."

To my great surprise, Smog shrank down to the size of a parakeet and perched on my shoulder, his beautiful reddish scales brushing my neck. I pounded my staff of the floor and the wind lifted me up high. I surveyed the area. "All clear-"

My mouth was covered with someone's hand. "Thought you could escape me that easily?" I bit father's hand and he backhanded me across the face. I tasted blood. "You get back in there!" He pointed at the hole and I shuddered.

"Never!" I shouted back, startling us both with my defiance. "I've been in there for years with a bunch of monsters, I've been going crazy! You can't tell me what to do anymore!" I flew back as he tried to slap me again. "Get out of my life!" I screamed, then flew straight up, making my own exit. I aimed with my staff and blasted away the dirt in my way, an avalanche of dust crumbling down beneath me as I tunneled out.

I came out into sunlight and almost had a heart track after centuries of darkness. I spotted a shadow and stood in the thin sliver of familiarity, letting my eyes gradually adjust to the light. My pupils shrank to pinpoints, and I took in my surroundings. I was in the woods, near a lake.

"Oh my god no," I breathed in a panic. I covered my face and arms with my cloak and stepped out into the sunlight. What I saw made me lose it. I started spinning in circles and pulling on my hair muttering "Nonononono," in a frenzy, a string of never ending 'no's. Smog smacked my ear with his wing and that upset my balance. I fell over onto my side and shook my head, my hair fisted in my hands, mouthing "No."

"Is it having a fit?" one of the intruders with a deep voice said, poking my stomach with a stick.

The lake, it was bringing it all back, and I curled into a ball as he poked me again, hugging my staff to my chest. The stick poked me in the temple and I grabbed it viciously, tearing it from their grip and coming to a kneeling position, one knee up and one on the ground. I held the stick over my knee. It was quite longer than I expected, and thicker, and heavier. "Poke me again," I said in a threatening voice, but the effect was ruined by my sore throat and the tears that were running down my face again, betraying me at the most inopportune moments. "If anyone even so much as touches me, I will break you. I need to be left alone right now."

The boy poked me in the shoulder with his finger, and I grabbed it so tightly my knuckles went white. "Do. You. Want. Me. To. Break. It?" I asked through gritted teeth. He tried to pull his finger away but I took satisfaction that he couldn't. "Next time I will." I released his finger and scooted back, the stick still in my hands along with my staff. I tossed the stick over my shoulder and drifted into a flashback, the world around me becoming dim and distant.

I waited. The moment was almost here. It was almost time for my greatest achievement yet. Father would be so proud.

There was a small cracking sound. There! Right there! A hairline fracture in the ice! The ice split more and shattered into a gaping hole, chunks of ice floating in it, and a body floated out of the water, rising higher and higher.

There was something scaly slapping against my face. I swatted it away. "Quit it Smog." He roared in my ear and leaves and branches fell on my face, the vibrations going through my body and the ground beneath my back. Wait, ground beneath my back? I had the flashback sitting up. When the roar stopped, I couldn't tell you, but my ear was ringing. I had never heard it in such close proximity before. I roared back and he flapped his wings, talons digging into my arm, as he almost blew backwards.

Hey, but I was awake now. There really were no words in the roars this time, it was just a scream to wake me up and a scream at him to shut up. I sat dizzily, blood trickling from his talons and down my shoulder. I felt his claws scrape on bone and shuddered, easing him onto my other shoulder. I felt my staff in my hand and leaned on it for support as I stood. I looked around. It seemed they had obeyed me and left me alone. I leaned against a tree and ignored the bronze lines spreading across the bark, focused on my cuffs. With them, my control over the wind was tentative, and it would be unpredictable. I also couldn't use my powers. The blasting in the dungeon had been a fluke, a moment of desperation. I examined my hands and saw the skin had split and peeled away in places, unable to emerge normally because of the cuffs.

I saw a sharp stick and shoved it in the cuff, between my skin and the metal, and it burned to ashes like always. I sighed and stood straight again. The bronze lines on the tree faded. Smog blew miniature smoke rings from his nose and I rubbed a spot on his snout, below his eyes but above his nostrils. He churred and rubbed his tiny head against my finger.

I saw the lake again when I turned, but I kept my cool this time. I glared at it angrily. "Stupid lake, giving me flashbacks," I muttered, kicking the edge of the ice. It cracked with a sound like gunshot and I jumped back, a very undignified squeak coming from my mouth. I knocked a floating piece of ice with the straight end of my staff. "I hate winter," I grumbled. I remembered that the night I screwed up was freezing cold, therefore I hate the cold and winter and all that chiz. Blech. Also, my fingers get cold, and stiff, and then it hurts to bend them. And the cold was my constant companion in my cell. So yes, I dislike the cold.

"I take personal offense to that," the boy said from behind me. I didn't turn to look at him.

I snorted and made an irritated flicking motion at the ice with my hands, but I forgot about the enchantments and huffed. "I hate winter, I hate winter, I hate winter," I chanted in a high-pitched voice. "Winter is stupid, nobody likes winter-"

"Shut up!" the boy yelled.

I got the sense I was being threatened and dropped to the ground, scraping my chin. I rolled onto my back and then up to a knee, aiming my staff before remembering it was useless. I cursed and Smog roared loudly. The boy covered his ears and dropped his staff, which was slightly similar to mine, and I jumped for a tree branch thirty feet above me to try to escape.

The wind did the opposite, and instead of boosting me higher, it slammed me into a tree trunk so hard I saw moons. I groaned and slid down into a sitting position as the wind hit me and bashed the back of my head into the wood again. I tried to stand but I was knocked to the ground.

I gave up and just lay on my back, staring at the sky. "Damn you wind," I muttered. Thankfully, the sky was clouded over and everything was darker than usual, so I wasn't blinded. "Why won't you listen to me?"

The wind blew a large, flat rock into my cheek.

"Thank a lot, friend," I said sarcastically. "Good to know you care so much. I definitely know who I'll go to next time someone tries to kill me."

The wind dropped a tree branch on my stomach.

"Quit it already!" I cried out. "I didn't do anything wrong!"

Instead of hitting me with something else, it whistled through the empty tree branches. The sound was so melancholy and lonely...

"Oh," I said quietly, comprehension dawning on me. "I left you all alone. I'm sorry, I was stuck somewhere I couldn't get out of."

The wind brushed my cheek and whistled more.

I raised my hands and showed it the cuffs. "These stop me from talking to you fully," I said carefully, making sure it heard me clearly.

The wind raced through the trees, blowing snow sideways and pushing the branch off me. It tore at the shackles and chains furiously, but in the end, it didn't work.

"Thanks," I said. "But I've tried everything. Nothing will get them off unless he unlocks them." I let my wrists fall onto my stomach, and the added weight knocked some air out of my lungs. I crossed my arms over my torso and put my feet together, getting ready to go to sleep, looking like I was dead.

Smog started whining in my ear and I reluctantly sat up again. "What is it?" I whispered.

He whined in my ear again and I made out the meaning this time. There is someone watching us.

I jackknifed to my feet and got into a defensive position, covering my face with my hood. "Who's there?" I yelled. "Show yourself!" Smog hopped off my shoulder and blew white fire at a shadow. I spun and slammed my staff into the shadow, pinning the figure there. My fingers closed around the hooked part of my staff, ready to twist, the other hand near the straight part, which was pointed at their chest.

My bronze-colored cat-eyes, excellent for seeing in the dark, zoomed in on a face in the shadow, pinpointing certain immediately recognizable features.

"Father," I growled.

He smiled at me unnervingly. "Hello Bianca. I see you've found bodyguards. Well, once they find out who you are, they won't be too eager to help you, will they?"

The blood was roaring in my ears, or perhaps I was actually roaring in anger.

He raised his hand and a bright light was directed into my light-sensitive eyes, making me shriek in pain and fall, covering my eyes with my hands and trying to blink away the spots swimming across my vision. There was a searing pain in my leg and I howled. I blinked away the spots and looked at my leg. My staff was sticking out of it, the hidden blade deep in my leg.

I gasped in shock and pulled the knife out with a sickening shick, dropping it to the ground and forcing the sides of the hole together, crooning at it, singing to it, hoping for a spark, but there was nothing. Not even the slightest bit of magic went from my fingertips to the hole, nor were generated by the hole, and my tears weren't doing anything either. I gave up and twisted my staff again, the bronze blade covered in my own blood retracting silently.

[UNFINISHED CHAPTER]

[DISCONTINUED]

[UNEDITED]

[UP FOR ADOPTION]