Chapter 44 #2
She swoops down, and with a shriek I latch my arms around her neck and squeeze my thighs into her belly, before she lowers into a full dive toward the earth, powerful wings beating into the air and driving us down, down, down.
The ground rushes up at us, and I scream again, but it’s not one filled with fear.
This is fun . She pumps her wings and we climb again, so high I think I could reach the sun.
She folds her wings in suddenly, and we drop. The wind shreds past me. I open my mouth to scream again—but no sound comes out. I have no breath; I can’t even move my lips. I cling to her as we dive. We’re falling so fast the pressure makes my ears pop and my bones vibrate.
Then she spins.
The world corkscrews around us. My lungs flatten until I think they might break from the pressure.
Her wings angle, and she levels out above the tree line, skimming the tops of pine trees so fast the wind from our wake snaps trunks and sends younger trees rebounding in our aftermath, snow from the branches flinging up into the air.
With my breath back, I throw my head back and laugh.
She whinnies, a wild sound full of delight, and rockets back upward—an explosion of force that sends the earth dropping away until it is nothing but a patchwork quilt of greens and whites and browns, with rivers sparkling like they’re blue threads.
The air thins. The cold sharpens. I can taste the sky, clean and vast and terrifying.
She sends me a flash—an intention, maybe—and I squeeze my legs tighter against her belly as she dips into a full body roll that continues in a circle, creating a corkscrew-like path.
She rolls again, a perfect loop that drags every organ in my body sideways.
I squeeze my thighs tighter, my entire body screaming under the force of the pressure trying to crush me.
My vision tunnels. My head throbs. But I don’t close my eyes—even with the wind trying to rip me off her back.
We level out.
I suck in breath like I’m breaking the surface of deep water.
“We’re gonna need to practice that again!” I yell into the wind, half laughing, half wheezing.
She answers with a hard bank and does it again.
And again.
Each time my body feels like it is shutting down under the pressure. By the end, exhaustion is tugging at my eyes and the muscles in my neck are aching, but I’ve at least gained the ability to turn my head left and right. I’m able to keep my eyes open.
When we started, the morning sun had barely eased over the height of the peaks.
Now, it’s sliding to its resting place on the horizon.
She must either sense my exhaustion, or she’s exhausted herself, because she begins a gradual descent.
We’re nowhere close to the Valespire Peaks—or to the Synod.
I lower my eyes in confusion as my eyes rake over the Weeping Forest.
The ground rushes up to meet us as we land. That initial thrill of fear returns, but not of landing. It’s a fear of being grounded when you know you’re meant to be in the clouds. When her hooves touch the ground, the world is heavier.
She continues, tucking her wings against her side as we enter the forest and she meanders through the trees until she finds the River Eleris.
Her sides are heaving, and she’s soaked in sweat.
I slide from her back and drop down to the ground, where I immediately fall on my ass.
My legs can’t hold me up. I squeak out something between a moan and a laugh as she turns her head around to look at me.
I think she smirks at me before she turns to drink in big gulps from the gentle-flowing river.
I drop my scythe and pack to the ground and then slide on my hands and knees across the ground, until I come to the edge of the water, too.
I cup my hands around the water and guzzle the water down.
Once I’ve sated my own thirst, I drop back on my heels and watch her, still a bit stunned.
This is so … surreal. I blink, half-expecting her to vanish like a mirage.
My eyes catch on her strong, sinewy body to see the sweat pulling on her soft coat.
How in the Veil am I supposed to take care of her? I stumble to my feet, my legs shaky and unsteady, but I make it to my pack and find a fur. I bring it over to her, and start rubbing it down her body, taking the sweat and dirt off in gentle sweeps.
She gives a full-body shake, a little sass in the motion, like she’s letting me know I passed some invisible test. I let out a breath of a laugh and smooth her mane back from her face, fingers threading through the tangled strands.
“Brilliant girl,” I whisper. “Beautiful girl.” Her eyes meet mine. Deep, endless, knowing. There’s so much she wants to say. This wall between us is unacceptable.
“I don’t even know your name,” I whisper, defeated.
Frustration claws through me. Unacceptable . I step back from her, and sweep my hand out behind me, calling my scythe into my palm. I swipe it through the air, as a release for some of this godsdamn anger.
The world in front of us shudders, and a seam splits open, like reality itself forgot how to stay stitched. I step in front of her, my scythe raised now as a defense against this … thing . But she’s not worried.
In fact, she nudges her nose into my back, pushing me forward toward— whatever this is.
I glance over my shoulder. She’s calm, as if she’s been waiting for this all along.
I keep the scythe up, but I reach my left hand forward now, too, and black wisps wrap around my finger—familiar, cool, and strangely tender. It’s holding my hand.
I recognize this. It’s the darkness of my dreams. It’s vast and unending.
It stretches in all directions, oppressive yet intimate.
I take another step forward, and she follows.
With that single step, the ground vanishes.
There’s no dirt beneath my boots, no sky above, no air to breathe.
And yet, I move forward. The darkness twists around me, making each step more disorienting than the last.
It’s like walking through water, but with no resistance; like trying to think in a dream where meaning slips through your fingers faster than thought.
It grows thicker, clinging to my skin. I start to feel like I’m suffocating, and my thoughts stutter. I want to run away. Doubt creeps in, but my beast spreads out a wing, sheltering me at her side.
I shove past the fear and push on. Cold explodes across my skin, and something ancient brushes against the edges of my soul. I stagger. The darkness shimmers—not with light, but with something else entirely. Something impossible. As though the void itself is breathing, alive and waiting.
The darkness isn’t a dream.
It never was.
It’s a Veil.
Obsidian eyes meet mine—deep, endless, and knowing.
“I’m Vaeloria ,” she says, and her voice isn’t sound. It’s sensation or memory or maybe truth. I reach for her. Not with my hands, but with everything I am. Our connection locks into place, and it’s not twine or thread. It’s something forged in the dark, stronger even than adamas.
The Veil ripples around us.
She steps forward—if “step” is the right word for movement in this space without form. Her mane ripples in slow motion, like molten silver caught underwater, and her wings flare outward, vast and gleaming. With a simple thought, I’m astride her.
“Together, we fly.”