Page 59 of Flameborne: Chosen
I laughed. The sound was slightly hysterical and accompanied by tears, but as I reached up with one hand to wipe my eyes, I accepted that I wasn’t going to get out of this. They weren’t going to let me say no. And neither would Akhane.
“God, help me!” I cried.
“That’s the spirit!”
Teeth gritted and heart pounding, I positioned my feet wide, with one slightly ahead of the other, then with a silent prayer, let go of the net with both hands, keeping them low enough to grab the twine again if I needed to.
“Yesssss!”
My hands were still only inches from the net. I was bent in half, wobbling like a child learning to walk. But the cheers went up anyway.
A gust of wind rocked over us and the net rippled. I gasped and grabbed for it again.
“No, no. Stand up, Kearney. Come on! You can do it!”
Tears tracked across my temples, blown by the wind. I wasn’t sure if I cried them or the wind blew them from my eyes, but I let go of the net again and straightened slowly, inch by inch, until I stood almost upright, hands out and to the sides for balance.
“Lift your chin.Look,Bren!” Ronen called excitedly, and pointed. Instinctively I followed his hand, my head lifting and eyes focusing in the distance… and I was washed in awe.
To the left, the coastline spread ahead of us, an endless serpentine of rocks and sand that faded into sea mists and purple mountains beyond where my eyes could focus. The sky was mostly clear. To the right the sun gilded the few wispy clouds in peach and gold over the deep blue of the sky beyond.
Then someone whooped and I realized I was doing it. I was upright. Well,mostly.But I was flying.
And I wasfree.
16. What Can be Done
SOUNDTRACK:KAMELEONby Kami Kehoe
~ BREN ~
My chest hitched with pure joyas the men cheered and screamed, and some of the dragons bugled.
Tears were still blown back into my hair and my chest was tight with fear. But alsofreedom.
I’d never seen or felt anything like this. So high above life.The sky above me, the wind on my skin, so much of the world in sight, and yet so distant. It was beautiful.
‘Oh well done, Little Flame.’
‘Akhane, this is incredible.’
‘It’s only the beginning. The promise of more. We were made for this, Bren. It’s my joy to fly with you.’
Then the tears were pure emotion. I was overwhelmed by her. As we flew on, I wobbled and hunched, but stayed on my feet, awestruck by the view, and the sensation in my chest. As if the iron bands that were always clamped around my ribs had simply vanished.
Freedom.
I laughed, lifted a hand to wipe my eyes, and promptly overbalanced.
Adrenaline punched in my veins as my arms pinwheeled and I grabbed for the net again, my pulse thudding. I ended up back on all-fours, panting. My bloodhumming.
But the cheers still went up from the men.
“Well done, Flameborne Kearney!” Ronen crowed.
My body fizzed with a tangled mix of fear and elation. That joy still throbbed in my chest, but the precarious edge on which I stood, the yawning threat of death, made my body cry out for safety as well.
“How do we land? Will you roll me back up—”
