Her eye ridges wiggled suggestively above her beautiful flame-colored eyes, and I jerked back in alarm. “Uh…no. No thank you, I mean! I am most flattered and humbled by your attention, but I am happy in my current situation.”
“Really?” The dragon god looked skeptical. Then she looked suspicious. “Well, if you’re not auditioning for a divinity upgrade, why did you call me?”
I shifted nervously. Was this some kind of trick question? My eyes darted to the still body of my father between the god’s flaming feet. I wouldn’t have thought she could miss him, but looking back over the last few minutes—which was easy since the mortal terror had etched every second into my brain—I realized the Spirit of Dragons had never actually looked down.
“With utmost respect, Great Dragon,” I said, speaking as slowly as I could to try and feel out if she was really confused or if this was a test I was failing. “I called on behalf of my father, the Great Yong of Korea.”
“Yong?” The spirit huffed. “That old stick-in-the-mud? Isn’t he—Oh!” She gave a little jump, looking down at last. “Well, what do you know? He is here! I didn’t even notice him.”
I boggled at her in disbelief. This was the Spirit of Dragons, right? I mean, she looked like a dragon made of fire, but she wasn’t acting like any dragon I’d ever met, and it didn’t seem possible that she wouldn’t know what was going on. Spirits were created by their domains. Just as the DFZ was the living embodiment of the city, the Spirit of Dragons drew her power from all the scheming snakes of the world. She should be the most dragony dragon that ever dragoned, and she should definitely know where all of her supplicants were at all times. The DFZ felt it when someone knocked over a trash can. How was it possible this spirit didn’t already know why I’d called her here? Had I screwed up and summoned some sort of party god by mistake?
While I was silently freaking out, the fiery dragon lowered her head to my father’s chest and breathed in deep. When she breathed out again, a cloud of smoke left her mouth in curling tendrils that hooked into my father’s body like claws. It was insanely creepy to watch, but at least it calmed my fears about the spirit’s identity. I’d been nearly burned alive by dragon fire enough times to know the stuff when I saw it, and that smoke was definitely draconic. It also didn’t look good, because when she breathed the smoke back in, the god shook her huge head.
“I understand now why I didn’t notice him,” she said, turning back to me. “His internal flame is so low it barely registers. He shouldn’t be alive, and yet somehow he is.” She tilted her head at me with new curiosity. “What did you say your name was?”
I hadn’t, but like hell was I telling her that. “I’m Opal Yong-ae.”
“Ah!” she said, her huge eyes burning brighter. “That explains it! You’re the Dragon’s Opal. I’ve heard about you.”
I winced instinctively. Nothing good usually followed a dragon recognizing me. Really, though, I felt as if she should already know all of this. Not to be cocky, but my dad’s mortal collecting habit was pretty famous, and it wasn’t as if there were that many dragons running around. Not to keep comparing, but the DFZ knew the full history of every brick and manhole cover in her city. How could this god not know such an obvious detail about one of her oldest and most established dragons?
“Don’t look at me like that,” the spirit said. “Just because I don’t bother learning all the petty details of my subjects’ lives doesn’t mean I’m slacking. Why should I learn about them? I’m their god. They should be trying to impress me.”
“I meant no offense,” I assured her, uncertain if she’d read the thought out of my mind or guessed what I was thinking the old-fashioned way. “It’s just…You’re very different from other spirits I’ve met.”
The god snorted. “I suppose you mean the DFZ. Of course we’re different! She’s a city, which means she’s a horrific busybody who constantly feels the need to control everything. Dragons, by contrast, are independent creatures, and they’re self-important enough without me puffing them up more by knowing their names when they call.” She turned up her nose with a snort. “If a dragon isn’t audacious enough to demand my attention, they don’t deserve it.”
I nodded, lowering my eyes. Well, at least that solved my doubts about who she was. This was most definitely the God of Dragons. I just hoped I hadn’t insulted her to the point where she no longer wanted to help.
“I see you are both wise and powerful,” I flattered, trying to get this conversation back on the “helping my dad” track rather than the “punish the uppity mortal” one. “I hope you can help me understand as well. You said my father is alive when he technically shouldn’t be. How is that possible?”
The dragon shrugged. “Not sure, but it’s probably because of you.”
“Me?” My eyes flew wide. “But I’m not a dragon!”
“I know,” she said testily. “That’s what makes it so odd.” She lowered her head to sniff at my dad’s chest again. “I don’t understand it myself, to be honest. There’s no way a fire that small should be able to support his body, or even keep itself alight, but it is.” She sniffed another time. “Fascinating.”
That wasn’t the word I’d use. “But how is it happening?” I demanded, forgetting myself in my rush to understand. “And what does it have to do with me?” Because if I was the reason my dad was alive, I needed to know how that worked and how I could do it harder.
The dragon god sighed at my questions and sat back on her flaming haunches. “How much do you know about dragon fire?”
“Nothing really,” I said, which wasn’t precisely true. My dad never told me anything about his magic, but I’d figured out a great deal on my own through observation and publicly available information. But while I was reasonably confident I could hold my own in the conversation, I’d never met a dragon who didn’t love showing off their knowledge, and I had a lot of ground to make up from my earlier blunders. “Please, great dragon,” I said sweetly. “Would you explain it to me?”
As I’d hoped, the Spirit of Dragons preened at the request. “Oh, you’re good,” she said, flicking a long claw to summon a torch-sized tongue of glittering orange-and-gold fire from her body. “Dragons don’t have souls like humans. Instead, we have this.” She extended her claws, holding out the glittering flame until it was all I could see. “Dragon fire is the font of our magic and the source of our life. It sparks before we hatch and grows with us as we age. That’s why ancient dragons are so much more powerful than young ones: the bigger the fire, the better the dragon.”
I nodded, remembering how much larger my father had been than his little sister.
“Fire is what makes a dragon a dragon,” the god went on, her voice grave. “This is critical to understand. Unlike humans, our bodies can recover from almost any injury, but if our fire goes out, we die. It is our life. That said, it is also still just fire. It can be smothered or doused just like a normal flame. It can also be stolen, which is precisely what White Snake was attempting to do to your father. She wanted to leapfrog her own abilities by eating Yong’s flame and adding his power to her own. That’s by far the easiest way to get a leg up if you’re small. But White Snake couldn’t eat Yong’s fire, because by the time she cornered him, his flame was already gone.”