• "You must be tired now," Jok said. Jana nodded.
    "Go back to the inn and get some rest," Jok said. "We will send for you again in the near future."
    Gihan and Jana rose and left the cafe, heading for the inn they were staying at. Once there, Jana went to her room, which was next to Gihan's, and closed the door. She dressed for bed, then crawled under the covers and closed her eyes. As she lay there, she let her mind wander back to her childhood days.
    Jana was the youngest of four children, with one sister and two brothers. Her parents were middle age. Her two brothers, Evon and Joel, were very protective of her and her sister, Jany. No matter where she was, Jana knew she could always count on her brothers being able to find her should she run into trouble. At first, she thought nothing of the fact that her brothers could always find her, even if she was hiding from them. Now, as she recalled all the times they had saved her from older children, she realized that they, too, may have had the same abilities she now had.
    When her sister was twenty and her brothers in their teens, their parents disappeared unexpectedly. Jana was ten when Jany told her the news. At first, Jana didn't worry, because her parents had disappeared before, but never for very long. As the days turned into weeks with no word from her parents, Jana knew something was wrong. Her parents would never just leave their children and not contact them somehow, unless they were unable to contact them. After their parents disappearance, Jany raised her three younger siblings as best she could, but it was difficult. Without their father's guidance, Evon and Joel were constantly getting into trouble. More than once, Jany had to take them out of school because they would get into fights with some of the other boys. To avoid this, she finally stopped making them go to school.
    Jana had it the hardest of all of them. While her brothers were busy getting into fights, she was getting bullied by older children. Without her brothers' protection, she retreated into herself to get away from the taunts and cruel jokes. It got so bad that not even Jany could get through to her at times. Finally, four years after their parents left, Jany moved all four of them to another town, in an attempt to start over. This worked for a while, but eventually Evon and Joel started getting into more trouble than before. They seemed unable to cope with the loss of their parents, and it seemed fighting was the only way they could effectively express their anger.
    Jana was glad for the move, because it meant that she might have a chance to make some new friends. This, however, was not to be. On her first day at her new school. Jana sat down beside a boy her age. Almost immediately, he got up and moved to another seat, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he did so. Jana was surprised and hurt by his actions, and the rest of the day went from bad to worse. Every time she would approach the boy, he would move away from her. She was finally able to ask him what was wrong, and his answer was not what she expected.
    "I'm sorry, but every time you come near me, I smell something really weird," he said.
    "I take a bath every night!" Jana said.
    "Just don't come near me," the boy said, moving away again. Jana let him go, fighting back tears. Just then, two other boys approached Jana.
    "Don't mind him," said the taller of the two. "He's said that about others."
    "Do you two smell anything weird?" she asked. They shook their heads.
    "Would you like to sit with us at lunch?" asked the shorter boy. Jana nodded.
    "I'd like that very much," she said.
    "Follow us," said the taller boy, as he turned and started walking. The shorter boy walked beside Jana as the three of them went to the cafeteria for lunch. Jana got her food and followed the boys to a small table in a corner. As they ate, the boys introduced themselves as cousins. They talked with Jana, and for the first time she could remember, she felt accepted. Thus, her friendship with Luke and Jona was born.
    Through out the next six years, Luke and Jona became Jana's best friends. They were the ones she could always count on to help her struggle through the rest of her school years. They were always around when she needed someone to talk to.
    One day when Jana was twenty, she was walking through an alley with Luke and Jona when a gang of boys attacked them. The gang had been harassing her and her friends for two years now. Jana was furious. There was no reason for this attack, and she knew she had to do something to stop them.
    She didn't know what happened next. One minute, she was standing with her friends, and the next, two of the gang were lying motionless in the alley. One of the boys had long, deep gashes on his right arm, and the other looked like he'd been struck by lightning. She turned to her friends and saw fear in their eyes.
    "What are you looking at me like that for?" she asked.
    "You have no idea what just happened, do you?" Luke asked. She shook her head.
    "Look at Jak," Jona said, and Jana obeyed.
    "What did that?" she asked.
    "You did, Jana," Jona said.
    "How would I have done that?" she asked, confused.
    "You turned into a monster," Luke said.
    "What do you mean?" she asked. "What kind of monster?"
    "You turned into a dragon," said a new voice from the end of the alley. The three friends turned to see a stranger standing there.