Page 70 of Crown of Wings and Whispers

Easy,she said in my mind.Show him how brave we are. He will admire us all the more.

This wasn’t a matter of courage—this was logistics. This was freaking physics! She would move and I would slip off, and Griffon would definitely not be impressed!

“I need a saddle,” I said, looking for a way to get down gracefully.

Heat began building in my sleeve, along with tugging and pressure that threatened to rip the cloth apart. I unzipped my coat like it was on fire and peeled my sleeve away from the armband where the gold was expanding once more.

Finally free from confinement, long tendrils stretched out and flexed. This time, instead of weaving themselves into an intricate, decorative pattern, they turned into thin slats that wrapped around Kivi’s neck, then detached from my arm. Beneath my butt, warm gold puddled and became a seat, then quickly cooled. Gold straps spread up over my thighs and locked me down like safety restraints on an amusement park ride. Into my hands rose two ridges that mimicked Kivi’s knotted brows.

I searched for Griffon’s face, to see if he was witnessing anything from the ground or if I was having some fantastical dream.

Kivi was right. He was impressed and we hadn’t even left the ground. His bare stomach jumped when he laughed. “Still worried about falling?”

The snow sank away and rolled past me. Kivi was running!

I gripped the handholds and hung on for dear life. She leapt into the air and brought her wings down. Seated between them, a violent whoosh deafened me.Boom! Boom! Boom!The beating stopped and Kivi’s wing fluttered, allowing the air to rush under them, to lift us higher. I could hear her heart striking in my chest. Between my knees, I felt the pounding of the real thing.

I should have been puking at that point. I felt fine.

I eventually got up the courage to look to the side, to scan the fog flowing beneath us. Something dark darted through the white stuff, keeping pace with us. Just a shadow--a fast shadow that was completely aware of our movements.

Son of Fae.Kivi turned her head and smiled back at me.He loves the race.

* * *

When I was little,we used to go to the Wyoming State Fair in Douglas every year. The one ride that never made me sick, oddly enough, was the Tilt o’ Whirl. It might have had something to do with centrifugal force keeping my stomach where it was supposed to be, or maybe in the chaos, I was too distracted to worry about motion sickness. Or maybe, just maybe, the ride was similar to riding a dragon—something which I was apparently born to do.

My life, in the week that followed my first dragon flight, was also carnival-esque. Loud laughter, flashing lights, joyous music. And nothing held still for more than a minute.

All three of us laughed, though my laughter might have been the loudest and probably due to an edge of hysteria. The memories of blue shadows in the forests were punctuated with flashing yellow and orange—some from the fire inside the mökki or from the sun lurking near the horizon, visible between beats of Kivi’s wings.

During our short days, Kivi and I slowly became synchronized in our movements and our thoughts. After a lot of frustrating attempts, I learned how to see her intentions forming in her mind so I could be ready for the turns and dips she made in midair. And after a lot of time in the saddle, I eventually sensed her intentions in the movement of her body. A muscle movement here or there, the tilt of her head, and sometimes a scent in the air—a scent I knew she would want to follow. And by the end of the week, I didn’t need to listen to her thoughts at all.

We became one.

I was shocked by some of her revelations. For instance, she knew my thoughts because she’d been there, all along, in the back of my mind, biding her time. She’d done the same with my grandmother, though their time never came. And sometimes, when I struggled, she’d console me like my grandmother would have, had she been standing on the shores of a frozen lake in Finland, watching me learn patience the hard way. It was like having family with me again.

And every afternoon, when the sun took its blue and orange blanket and disappeared into the night, Kivi would fly off to sate her hunger. And though she never brought back another reindeer, she always presented us with a small offering before fading back to spirit form. A rabbit, a fox, a fat goose.

And every evening, Griffon and I grew just as close. We were able to anticipate each other’s reactions, sense a change in mood, and give each other space. I could have gone on like that forever.

At the end of the week, the Ahonens came to check on us and make sure we hadn’t burned down their mökki. Since we hadn’t tried to get through on the radio, they’d reached out to us every other day. I think they worried we didn’t take seriously enough the risk of freezing to death. When they found both of us outside with our coats hanging open, they gave us a mild lecture…and started talking about emergency contacts.

Tuuli gave me a stern look. “You left no telephone numbers on your application.”

Griffon laughed. “If something happens to us, there is no one to call. If there is anything left of us, just push us out onto the ice.”

They didn’t appreciate our attitudes, and when they wished us luck before they left, I was certain they expected to find us frozen to death when they came to collect us the next week.

“You’d better radio them every night,” I said, as we started stripping off our coats again. “Or they won’t sleep a wink.”

After the buzz of the snowmobiles faded, I called Kivi to me. There was no need to touch my armband anymore, but I was surprised to find her already standing behind me.

Kivi ducked her head guiltily. I looked into her thoughts and learned she’d come before I’d called.

I don’t understand.

I shouldn’t have come, but…I was curious.

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