“Ready?” he said. Even with his head turned, she could just see the corner of his eye at the end of his long stretch of silvery neck.
Not really. But she never would be until she did it. She held onto the ropes as tightly as she could. “Yeah.”
He walked, carrying her on foot for a quarter of a mile, to the line of forest that marked the valley. The motion felt lurching, shoulders bunching and lifting as he moved his arms and wings, his hind legs causing his whole body to roll like a boat as he pushed himself forward. If she were prone to motion sickness, she would be sick from this. But she crouched, sitting up slightly on her hands and knees, letting her body shift and rock with the motion. She could even start to look around her and marvel at the world from fifteen feet off the ground. High branches passed by at eye level; birds flew below her.
The path he took crested, then started downhill. He didn’t warn her when he launched straight up, fast as a rocket.
She fell and slammed against his scaly back, grunting as the harness took all of her weight. The breath was knocked out of her. Dangling, she rolled over until she was looking up at bright blue sky. She grabbed the rope and pulled herself back to stability, digging her toes in, bracing. Artegal flinched a little—no more than the shiver of muscle she’d have when shrugging off a fly. If he was going to do things like that without telling her, then he’d just have to put up with her scrambling on his back.
The muscles under her bunched as he stretched his forelimbs and raised his wings. They became gleaming sails on either side of her. At the same time, he tipped up, almost vertical, and she gasped as her legs swung free. But her knots held, her harness gripped her comfortably just as it was supposed to. She’d secured the lines well enough that they slipped only a few inches, shifting along his back. They didn’t seem to interfere with his wings. It was just like climbing. She wasn’t going to fall.
Almost immediately he flattened, skimming along the treetops where he was less likely to be seen. Lying on her stomach, she mostly saw him, his neck stretched forward, the wedge of his head cutting a path through the air, the thick muscles of his back bunching, relaxing, bunching again as his wings dipped like oars. When the wings swept back, she could see past his shoulder to a carpet of treetops, the tips of conifers speeding past in a blur. In the distance, mountains surrounded them. Above her, nothing but sky. It was a big world.
The scales were slippery, and when he made a sudden banking movement, she lost her grip again, letting out a yelp as she fell. Scrabbling for purchase, she rammed an elbow into the base of a wing. He grunted, and the rhythm of his wing strokes faltered. He swerved and flapped harder to keep upright.
“Sorry,” she called, wondering if he could hear her over the wind.
He leveled off again, and she regained her balance in the center of his back. Her muscles were already stiff from bracing, but she thought she’d found the best position: lying flat, propped on her elbows, holding the rope across his shoulders, using her feet to keep her steady, shifting with his movements instead of against them. Struggling against his rapid turns had caused her to fall.
Wind howled around her. Gripping the ropes tightly, she huddled as if in a storm. But she was flying with a dragon. Flying. She grinned, laughter bubbling up, but the wind kept her gasping for air, and the sound never quite burst forth.
He sailed around the valley, dipping his wings to turn one way or another, soaring just above the treetops. No fancy tricks—they were both getting used to this. But she grew comfortable enough with the harness, the movement, the view, and the feeling of being at the mercy of a large, living creature. No, not at the mercy of—they were partners in this. She started to enjoy herself enough that she was disappointed when the dragon tipped his nose down and dipped into an open space among the trees.
He tucked himself, pulling up his neck and body, stretching his hind legs forward to take the landing, and sweeping his wings back like a hawk to control his descent. She was practically dangling off his nearly vertical back as they passed by the top of the trees.
She’d have expected them to crash into the trees, ripping through branches. A total mess. But for all his size, Artegal was agile. He hit the ground without a stumble, while inertia slammed her into his back, causing her to lose her breath again. Just as carefully as he’d unfurled them, he tucked his wings in and settled, leaning forward on the tips of his fingers and shifting on his hind legs.
Her hands were cramped from holding a death grip on the ropes. She almost couldn’t open them. She shivered because even her coat and winter clothes hadn’t been enough to protect her from the blast of wind. If they did this again, she’d have to wear warmer clothes. And learn to trust the harness and rigging. If she could learn to use it to balance, she wouldn’t have to hold on so tightly, and she might be able to look around more.
If they did this again—she couldn’t wait to do this again, even though they weren’t supposed to be doing this at all.
She hung there, unable to move for a moment, trying to catch her breath and unclench her body. Artegal curled his neck around, trying to see her. Over his shoulder, she caught the corner of his gaze.
Then she laughed. “Oh my God!”
“Well?” he rumbled.
“That was amazing!” Fumbling, she unclipped her harness and fell, sliding down his shoulder to sprawl on the ground. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“Your weight is little. Easy to carry. But we could adjust the ropes.”
With his clawed forelimbs, he showed her where the ropes had slipped and pinched under his wings, where they could be tighter across his back and looser across his chest to allow easier movement while remaining secure. She did the best she could with cold, stiff fingers. As she stepped back, Artegal rolled his shoulders and stretched his wings, flexing against the harness. He seemed to nod in satisfaction.
“Better,” he said. “It will need testing to be sure.”
Half hopefully, half fearfully, she asked, “So this means you want to do this again?”
Instead of speaking down to her, he lowered his head, almost to the ground, so they were on a level. “Don’t you?”
She nodded as enthusiastically as she could, hoping he’d understand. “Of course! I mean, I’ve flown before, in airplanes, but this—this was so different, so amazing. I could see everything, everywhere. I felt like I could touch clouds—I mean, the air even smelled better.”
He purred, as if in agreement, and seemed pleased.
“Is it always like that?” she said. “Do you ever get tired of it?”
“No,” he said. “Never. We are made for flight.”
He’d made her a part of that. It was better than conquering a rock face. And they would fly again.
8
Kay started doodling dragon wings in the margins of her notes in class. Then, drawing in harnesses around the wings, in different patterns, thinking of different ways to arrange the ropes. Then she’d scribble it all out, glancing around nervously, hoping no one saw what she was doing and got suspicious. At night, she dreamed of falling and of stopping abruptly, pulled up short by the ropes and harness, then soaring. She lost sleep, thinking of and waiting for the next time she and Artegal would go flying.
It came two weeks later.
They experimented to find the best way of fitting the ropes into a harness. He crouched low so she could reach the knots and make adjustments. Kay added a knot in front so she could adjust the lines from both sides, and not just at his back, and that seemed to help. She learned to make the knots lay flat so they didn’t irritate Artegal’s skin. His scales looked hard, and they seemed like armor—they could act like armor, too, the dragon said. At least in the old stories, against weapons like swords and arrows. But the skin underneath was sensitive and would chafe and itch if pressed wrong, like an awkward wrinkle in a piece of clothing.