Chapter 22 Forced Flight #2
Her fingers found the worn saddle handle.
She gripped the rear with her other hand, testing the ancient leather with careful pressure.
The saddle melded to Ingamar’s form as though it had grown from his scales.
Lark’s eyes narrowed as she searched for any sign of a securing strap.
There was nothing. How was it secured? The puzzle pieces clicked into place in her mind.
By magic. Ingamar’s chest expanded beneath her in a great sigh, scales shifting like golden plates in intricate patterns, yet no physical binding revealed itself.
“I think he’ll let you on,” Venrick said.
Drawing in a breath, Lark leaped. She hauled herself onto the seat, sprawling across Ingamar’s back like a discarded cloak. She stayed there, every muscle tense, waiting for any sign of rejection. Instead, he merely turned his serpentine neck, fixing her with single golden eye.
“Get your foot in the stirrup,” Venrick called.
“I know,” she responded, her foot searching blindly below until it found the loop.
The leather creaked and adjusted, responding to her weight with surprising flexibility.
She swung her left leg over Ingamar’s broad back, feeling the warmth of dragon’s body heat rising through her clothes.
The second stirrup welcomed her foot, and the leather straps balanced themselves like scales finding equilibrium.
Standing in the stirrups, she hovered above the seat.
As she lowered herself into place, her hands found the twin handles flanking the chest pad, their grip both reassuring and terrifying.
Her legs slipped into the armored sleeves as if they had been crafted for her alone.
Ingamar stepped forward, his wings unfurling with a sound like ship sails catching the wind.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lark called, her legs tensing against Ingamar’s sides. The dragon’s response was immediate, like a current of understanding flowing between them. Yet that mental connection flickered, threatening to break at any moment. “Venrick, hurry up and get on before he goes.”
“Is he going to let me on?”
“Just get up here before I lose control,” Lark said, panic threading her voice. She held herself rigid as steel, every muscle locked in place, afraid the slightest shift would send them plummeting over the edge.
Venrick scrambled up, using Ingamar’s wing joint as a ladder. The membrane trembled beneath his touch. Lark remained frozen, fighting the thing that was beckoning Ingamar forward.
“I think there’s a clip or something back here,” Venrick said, his fingers searching the straps behind her, separated only by the padded leather that cushioned her.
“There it is,” he announced, pressing himself against her back as a metallic click sang out, sounding his security.
His arms wrapped around her core, their warmth a comfort to her.
As Lark’s focus softened, Ingamar moved forward, setting his talons on the cliff edge.
He tilted forward, muscles coiling like springs beneath his scales.
“Hold on!” Lark shouted, her body tensing as she released her tentative mental grip on the dragon’s will.
Venrick’s arms constricted around her as Ingamar pitched forward, surrendering them to gravity’s embrace.
The world became a howling tunnel of wind and vertigo.
A primal groan escaped Lark’s throat as they plummeted, the jagged cliff face bleeding past in a palette of earth tones until suddenly, they dropped into open space.
Pure, endless space spread out like an unending sea of clear sky.
Her heart thundered against her ribs, but euphoria bloomed across her face in a wild grin.
The wind transformed her burnt umber hair into a banner streaming behind them, each strand dancing with electricity as they fell.
They plummeted toward the carpet of green below.
Then Ingamar’s wings snapped open, catching the air and transforming their death-dive into a graceful arc.
As they leveled out, Lark became acutely aware of every point of contact between her body and Venrick’s, every shared tremor of adrenaline.
Something shifted in her connection with Ingamar.
A mental doorway swung open, inviting her to take the reins of his consciousness.
Venrick’s grip relaxed marginally as he said, “He hasn’t killed us yet. ”
“Yeah, I think he wants me to fly us.”
“You can do this.”
“You might want to hold on tightly again,” she said, moving his forearm back over her navel. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever b—”
Lark’s intentions flowed through the mental link like water finding the path of least resistance.
Ingamar dipped his left wing, using three powerful beats of his wings to send them climbing through the air in a sweeping bank.
She felt every ripple of muscle beneath the saddle as they corkscrewed out of the turn, the world spinning around them in a dizzying dance of earth and sky, before leveling out, only to mirror the maneuver to the right.
Then Lark sent him up, climbing straight toward the sun.
Gravity tugged at them like a jealous lover and Lark pressed herself against the chest pad, fingers white-knuckled on the handles as the force threatened to tear her away.
“You’re secure with a strap?” Lark called to Venrick.
“Yes,” his rich voice resonated against her ear.
“Good,” she replied, her legs slipping free from the stirrups’ embrace.
Venrick’s chuckle vibrated through her as his legs followed suit.
They hung suspended in the thin air, their bodies floating a foot from Ingamar’s warm scales, connected only by Venrick’s grip on her waist and her hold on the saddle handles.
The void below beckoned to Lark, tempting her to release her grip and surrender to freefall, trusting Ingamar to swoop down and catch her like a falling star.
She pushed the thrill aside, pulling herself back into the saddle as Ingamar’s ascent slowed. Their momentum bled away until they hung nearly motionless in the sky. Then Ingamar took command, nose dipping earthward, teaching her the boundaries of his trust.
Suddenly, her necklace flared with a heat that cut through her euphoria. “Stop here,” she commanded.
Ingamar’s wings beat steadily as he held them aloft in the thin air.
A familiar sensation crawled up her spine.
That same electric anticipation she’d felt when witnessing the firestorm.
It pulled at her very essence, drawing her attention to the distant pyrocumulonimbus.
She leaned forward, willing Ingamar to break their hover and dive, but like before, he stood firm against her command.
She pushed harder with the mental connection but met an immovable wall.
“It’s beautiful, but frigid,” Venrick observed.
“I want him to go down over there. He’s not letting me guide him,” Lark said, frustration in her voice.
Ingamar’s resistance carried its own flavor of tension. Through their connection, she sensed an invisible cord pulling at him, too, as if whatever lay hidden in the forest below the clouds had cast lines of power around both dragon and rider, drawing them toward some unknown point.
“Why won’t you go?” Lark asked.
“He isn’t listening to you anymore?” Venrick asked.
“No. He won’t go toward that storm. There’s something that’s causing him to hesitate. I don’t know why, but I think he wants us to fly south, back toward the City,” she said.
“The City? Don’t let him. We need to find wherever Sasja .”
What if this sensation I’m feeling is coming from the Hyalite.
Disagreement emitted from Ingamar like rank fruit. Lark tried to overpower him with her sheer will. Then in an instant, the connection was gone. Ingamar fell back into a dive, rocketing back toward the south, toward the border of Lamar.
“Ingamar,” Lark struggled to speak aloud over the roaring wind. She gasped for air as it assaulted her almost too fast for her to catch any in her lungs. Panic set in.
Oh ash, is he going to try to throw us?
The more Lark fought to regain control, the more impenetrable Ingamar’s mental walls became.
She couldn’t sense anything from him now.
He angled downward, speeding toward the southern reaches of the forest. The strange pull that had been drawing her east gradually weakened, as did the warmth from her necklace.
Eventually it was gone entirely. Soon, they were dangerously close to risking exposure to the towns near the edge of the forest.
“We’re going to be seen,” Lark said, the puffs of smoke from rooftops coming into view.
“Ingamar, what are you doing?” Venrick asked.
Suddenly Ingamar folded his wings and dove, slicing through a gap in the canopy.
Trees blurred past, branches snapping off his scales as he hurtled forward.
Lark tried again to seize control, commanding him to land, but Ingamar ignored her.
He weaved through the dense forest, his speed so dizzying that Lark struggled to keep track of the narrow spaces between the trees.
All she could do was cling tightly to the saddle.
“Ingamar, set us down,” Lark said, nausea starting to set in from the constant turning, blurring trees rushing by.
Without warning, Ingamar tucked his wings tightly against his body and hit the ground at full gallop.
Lark braced for impact, lifting herself in the stirrup as they slammed down.
Behind her, Venrick thudded into her back, bouncing wildly.
His grip broke, and for a second, he fumbled with the saddle strap at her rear before being thrown free.
She felt his warmth disappear as he hit the ground with a heavy HARRUMPH.
Ingamar slowed to a trot, slinking lower as he continued to slow, walking, then stopping altogether.
Lark hurried out of the saddle, landing firmly on the ground.
Her legs felt wobbly, the ground still felt like it was moving beneath her, but she was standing still.
She braced herself against the dragon’s foreleg and said, “What the ash was that, Ingamar?”
Nearby a masculine voice called to hush another. Lark froze, the realization that it wasn’t Venrick speaking hitting her all too quickly.
She bristled, wondering if an army was traveling through the forest to get into position for the firestorm. She went for a dagger on her belt as Ingamar slunk down onto his belly lowering his head and tasting the air with his tongue.
Why did you bring us here? To get us killed? She shouted her thoughts at the dragon, but he didn’t hear, understand, or care. He simply waited, tail swishing in the ferns behind him.
A whistle sounding like a timber lark sounded at her back. Lark twisted, seeing Venrick, approaching with his sword drawn. Blood trickled down the side of his brow, dirt smeared across his cheek, twigs and brush stuck out from chinks in his light armor.
“Nice landing, Ingamar,” he said in a whisper.
Lark put a single finger over her lips, silently shushing him.
“What happened back there? I thought he was giving you control?” Venrick asked in a voice so quiet only Lark could hear.
“I don’t know. He shut me out,” she replied.
“We’re close to the road,” Venrick said, pointing through a gap in the trees. “Someone approaches.”
Lark held still, sensing Ingamar lurking behind them, low and out of sight. When crouching, he could become half Lark’s height, somehow easily hidden in the brush.
The voices continued as the sound of wagon wheels rolled on the ground.
“I think you’re just paranoid,” a youthful-sounding male said.
“I am not, I’m cautious. You don’t reach my age without being cautious. Especially when we’re in the Everburning Forest,” the gruff older man replied.
Do I know those voices?
“And exactly how old are you, dwarf?” the younger said.
“Old enough not to answer that question,” he replied.
“I do know those voices,” Lark said, sliding out from behind the tree.
Through the gap, Lark saw Hardin’s face. Seated at his side with a war hammer in his lap was Ezra. They rode a six-wheeled wagon being pulled by two enormous draft horses.
“Hang on,” Venrick said, lowering his sword and emerging beside Lark. “Is that? It is. That’s my wagon.”
Ezra tugged on the reins, stopping the wagon and gazing into the forest. “Lark? Venrick?”