The Dawn of Dae (Dae Portals Book 1) by Trillian Anderson Page A

their mouths. Those few I had sent to the dean, figuring they were too much of a risk to send back onto the streets in disappointment. Dae who functioned as cigarette lighters didn’t exactly frighten me—or anyone else, for that matter.
    Claudia, however, was in a class entirely her own, and the line of waiting dae recoiled from her as she stood, enveloped in flames of her own making. One figure didn’t budge, not even an inch, and his stillness drew my eye away from Claudia’s demonstration.
    I should have known Rob would show up. At least he wasn’t Kenneth, who would have tried to interfere again. I didn’t know what the dae’s game was, but the sight of him made my blood boil. Like the others, his attention was focused on Claudia. Why was he among those seeking elevation? He looked—and acted—the part of the elite already.
    The subtle widening of his eyes warned me something was wrong, and I jerked my attention back to Claudia in time to watch her burst into a pillar of flame. Heat washed over me, and over the crackling roar of the fire, someone screamed.

Chapter Eight

    Paper had a relatively low ignition point, and Kenneth’s list of names reached it in the time it took me to slap my hand on the laptop’s lid, slam it closed, and snatch the device up to save it. I fell off my chair, twisted around, and rolled, cradling the machine and its precious information before coming to a halt on one knee. I tensed and turned towards Claudia.
    Claudia burned, and dancing in the heart of her flames, she laughed. The fire swirled in a vortex around her.
    From my crouch, I got a good look at her legs; her clothes had, for the most part, remained intact, but her shoes smoked, and black streaks leeched into the blue-white fires surrounding her body and darkened the yellow and orange of the twister stretching upward.
    Claudia’s sneakers melted, revealing her pale skin beneath. Gray streaks appeared on the tops of her feet, and over the roar of the fire, there was a faint crackle.
    The gray darkened to charcoal, and a webbing of lines shot up her legs. Lost in her jubilation, the woman didn’t notice the way her skin cracked. Instead of flesh, bone, and blood, molten stone flowed beneath her skin, and beginning with her feet, it oozed out to immolate anything it touched.
    Swaying to some rhythm only she heard, Claudia danced, and her conflagration burned all the brighter, its heat tightening my skin.
    “You might want to move,” Rob announced.
    Enthralled with the way Claudia burned, I hadn’t noticed his approach, let alone him standing over me. Part of me agreed with him; the heat hurt, but I couldn’t force myself to rise.
    If I even blinked, the moment would end, and Claudia’s joy and passion radiated from her and her fire.
    Rob grabbed hold of my elbow, pulled me to my feet, and hauled me away. “You really don’t want to be too close.”
    My body moved of its own volition. My attention remained fixed on Claudia.
    In the heart of her fire, she had turned black with cracks of blue-white, perfect flames spilling out of her. She no longer laughed. A gust of wind, cold on my agitated skin, drew a hiss out of me. My face ached the worst, having been caught in the full brunt of her display without any protection from my clothes.
    “Miss Daegberht,” Rob snapped, giving my arm a shake. I flinched as his grip tightened on me. “I do not like when my property is damaged.”
    His words cut through the fog in my head, and my irritation burned hotter than the dae. I turned on him, jerking my arm in an effort to free myself from his grasp. He sidestepped, putting himself between me and Claudia, and when I could no longer see her, I trembled. I scrambled away from Rob, and he pursued me several steps without releasing my arm.
    “That should be far enough.”
    He let me go and stood aside. I clutched my aching arm to my chest. I hurt, but it was the pain of a sunburn, not the itching sear of an allergic reaction. I’d