Meeting a real dragon cannot be worse than being betrayed by one's family.

  I accept his condition, and he steps into view slowly.

  It is not that he looks so different from a wisp, apart from the horns and the scales and the height, but air swirls around him with a dizzying chaos. I have to turn away to remember to breathe.

  "Oh." He tilts his head, studying me. The air pattern changes with his expression, mimicking his thoughtfulness by becoming slow and organized. "You have not accepted the mantle."

  "I have, I did." I stole it in the night.

  "When?"

  I look at my hand, but I have no way to count how long I have been here underwater. "Four days ago? A week?" It feels irrelevant standing before a real dragon. "When did you become a dragon?" That's not how it works, Alexia.

  "Yes, no. Always. You should not have left Cloud Palace so soon." He leans against the pillar and looks at the air around me. "You have only a faint aura of phoenix energy."

  I would rather be here, underwater, at risk of starvation, with only a mythical creature for company, than in the Cloud Palace. "Does it matter? I will become the phoenix wherever I am." I have no choice.

  "Does that seem wise?" His raised eyebrows induce feelings of inadequacy.

  I know what he does not say: that it is dangerous. I have power, and no strength to protect it. I had not realized how visible the mantle would be compared to the marks I was born with. "It is not common for the clans to attack the phoenix, surely?" I do not plan to approach any borders, and what difference does it make, with what my own clan had planned for me? "I know that I am an average flame and a poor excuse for a phoenix, but--" A passing breeze steals the words from my lips and leaves me breathless.

  "Who is not average? You waste effort on excuses." He returns the air with a careless wave, indifferent to my audible gasps. "The dangers for an unformed phoenix are not few. Does the thunderbird not fly? Does Water Clan not cross the water?"

  They would attack anyone. "Not really a 'clan', though, are they?" Unless he has been down here for a thousand years, since before the wars started, since before the enmity between the phoenix and the thunderbird began, and before the continent was divided by torrid rivers and the encroaching sea. "The thunderbird has not been seen in some decades." I look up from my thoughts and am amazed all over again. Doing nothing, he exudes power. The magic of the strongest flare is a far cry from that of the fire dragons of old. Were we like them once, millennia ago? Do I face the ancient ancestor of Air Clan?

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  "Dragons did not devolve into you."

  "That was an inside thought." I glare at him, but it is hard to hold while flinching. Mind reading is only one reason dragons were respected, admired, but not missed.

  "It is my nature to make corrections. You were created separately, and dragons devolved alone." His sigh creates a small tornado that loses shape as it spirals across the empty room.

  No wonder there are so few pieces of furniture, and all the decorations are part of the walls and floors. If it was not designed for him, then it was at least modified to suit the progenitor of windstorms.

  Will I be able to do that?

  "I have never seen the phoenix unfinished." While I was distracted, the dragon came close to examine me. The air around him vibrates against my skin like a living force.

  I am supposed to learn air magic, but no one said if it would just happen or if I needed to be taught. "Any advice?"

  They were not worried about that part of me becoming the phoenix.

  "Do not destroy your own people."

  The phoenix is supposed to lead the seven clans, but how can I call them my own when even Fire Clan... I take a deep breath, straightening my spine and letting my face brighten with fire. I am a flare; gloom does not suit me. "Of course--" I look up and forget everything.

  The dragons proximity is more suffocating than being in the heart of an active volcano, his gaze more sorrowful than the depths. "Even then. Even if they would sacrifice you."

  I can only nod as my eyes dry out.

  "You won't be strong enough to escape this prison until you are the phoenix."

  This beautiful palace?

  Of course it is--I am still only a flare, even if I have the marks and dream of being someone greater. What is more prison to fire than being trapped underwater? Until I gain the phoenix's other skills, a much smaller pool would suffice.

  "It is more than adjusting to new abilities. Knowledge is passed down also with the memories of past phoenixes.

  There have been eleven phoenixes, and most of them lived and died violently. "How do I start?" Do I have a choice?

  "You already have."

  ----------

  The phoenix:

  The phoenix first came to the elves a thousand years ago. Whether the first was born or transformed or simply appeared from nothing is not recorded. She led the ten clans, and after she died her mantle was preserved in the Cloud Palace to honor her memory. Shortly after she passed, rumors surfaced of an infant born with curious marks like flames across her back. The marks grew with the child, and one day her parents brought her to the Cloud Palace and found that she could pass the barriers and enter the portal to the sealed tower. She was the second to wear the mantle, and as she grew in strength she also came to resemble the first phoenix, her hair streaked with red and gold and flaming patterns across her skin.

  The phoenix has air, fire and music magic, as well as healing abilities and longevity (if not killed in battle). Each phoenix carries the memories of the prior phoenixes. The phoenix may be born to Air, Bird or Fire Clan. Including the first, there have been eleven phoenixes.

  I, Alexia Fire, am the twelfth phoenix.