Page 17 of House of Ashes

Those coal-banked, simmering eyes peered down at me, and he tilted his head a fraction to the right.

“I was just admiring the view, you gorgeous beast.” I leered at him mockingly, and he turned his head and made a harsh coughing sound in imitation of my gagging, each of his teeth as long as my hand and shining brightly. “Oh, you don’t like it, either? What a surprise.”

He lowered his head, and I threw the end of the lasso over it, tugging the ropes until they cleared his horns.

It took serious attention to detail and more than a little sweat to get the makeshift reins in place. My stomach had started quivering well before it was time to actually climb onto his back.

He let out a low growl, as though wondering what I was waiting for as I stared up at his ridged shoulders.

“Shut it, I’m going.” He had flattened himself as much as possible, making it easier for me to climb up his arm and settle myself in the dip between his shoulder blades. His scales were warm, silky and iron-hard at the same time.

I panted for breath, my head spinning from the mild exertion, and gripped the reins with hands that were already sweating. I had to squeeze him tightly with my thighs to stay in place. The ridges of his scales jabbed into my legs with every tiny shift I made.

All I had to do was make it to Jhazra Eyrie, and I’d get a proper harness. This was horrendous.

The mountain I rode lurched beneath me as Rhylan rose to his feet. He extended his wings, and I adjusted myself to accommodate their motion, patting him gently between the shoulder blades when I was settled again. It wasn’t in the basic system he’d worked on, but if he couldn’t figure out what I meant, then the whole thing was clearly flawed.

Before I took my hand away, I looked down at the broad expanse of his back, the scales now catching the sun and gleaming with a sheen of midnight blue.

There were rounded, silver scars between his shoulder blades, thick knots of flesh nestled against his spine. Six of them, forming a constellation of silver against the night sky of his hide.

Before I could ask what had caused them, he launched into the air, each hard flap of his wings a boom of thunder echoing in the mountains.

My stomach felt like it was left behind in the eyrie, along with most of my other innards. I gripped the reins so tightly my fingers ached, doing my utmost best to not shriek when I slipped backwards a few inches.

Rhylan leveled out, circling the next peak. With my heart pounding so hard I tasted blood, I scooted back into place with a white-knuckled grip on the rope.

“Doing fine!” I shouted, but the wind tore my words away.

This was why the mind-speech was necessary.

As of right now, I was not remotely fine. Every flap of his wings made me feel like I was going to plummet straight off his back, the natural sinuous motions of a flying dragon like trying to ride a living, breathing wave.

He climbed slowly, circling in increments until we were well above the mountains, and by that time I’d calmed enough to actually look around me. My third eyelids blinked into place once they began watering from the wind.

Mistward Isle was a long, bare chunk of godsforsaken rock set in the middle of the Empty Sea, and now it was rapidly vanishing beneath us. I could see the deep blue of the ocean in the distance to the east, the grayer, choppier sea we would cross to return to the mainland of Akalla to the west, and the expanse of black wings on either side of me.

A fist squeezed my heart.

I had spent years in the Koressis Training Grounds, practicing for when I would become a mate bonded rider. Back then, I’d always believed my first flight would be a victory with my mate, who I’d daydreamed would be Rhylan.

How ironic that my first flight was on Rhylan…a dangerous, rigged flight, without the mind-speech, without trust, without even friendship.

“We don’t always get the things we want,” I whispered to myself, letting the wind take the words away.

I might not have a bonded mate, but I would have my birthright. I could have that much, at least.

We flew in silence for half an hour, and I’d nearly gotten used to the sensation of open air all around us as we glided out over the eastern coastline of Mistward. The waves below us spumed like fine lace, frothing over the rocky gray shore, and the depths of the sea here were as barren as the island itself.

I glanced back once, in the direction of Farpost. I could hardly believe I was leaving. Never again would I have to lay eyes on this hellhole, where I’d scraped out my survival on my own for years.

My mother was buried beneath those cold rocks.

I felt a pinch of guilt at leaving her behind, but she would have slapped me for that sentiment, would have told me to harden my heart.

Sentiment had no place in the life of a draga destined for more.

I blinked at several black specks in the distance. It was only when one wheeled, revealing a flash of crimson, that I realized what they were.