Chapter 17
Talia
Rafe expected me to change my mind.
I knew because he gave me six opportunities.
The first came when we entered the hidden garden and found Torren waiting beside the crystal flowers.
Torren looked from me to Rafe. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” I said.
Rafe leaned closer. “See? A perfectly reasonable chance to escape.”
“I’m not escaping.”
The second came when Leander joined us with a written list of safety conditions.
“You wrote rules for flying?” Rafe asked.
“I wrote rules for carrying an unshifted passenger.”
“Different activity entirely.”
Leander ignored him and handed me the page. “No steep ascents. No sudden turns. No entering cloud cover. You remain above academy property and within sight of the tower.”
Rafe read over my shoulder. “He forgot no fun.”
“I assumed that was covered by the rest,” Leander said.
Sebastian arrived last with a measuring cord and a leather harness borrowed from the flight instructors.
Rafe stared at it.
“No.”
“Talia needs a secondary restraint.”
“She’ll hold on.”
“Grip strength decreases under fear and prolonged wind exposure.”
“We’re taking one circuit around the tower.”
“She has never flown outside an air carriage.”
Rafe looked at me. “Do you want the harness?”
Four men waited for my answer.
None supplied it for me. Torren might distrust the flight, Leander might have rules enough to govern every wingbeat, and Sebastian might consider the risks measurable, but they all left the decision where it belonged.
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t yes.”
“It isn’t no.”
“Try it,” Torren said.
Rafe gave him an offended look. “Whose side are you on?”
“Talia’s.”
The runes surrounding the garden turned gold.
Rafe sighed and took the harness from Sebastian. “Fine. If I’m strangled by academy rope, I expect all of you to feel terrible.”
The third opportunity came after they fitted the harness.
It was a simple arrangement compared with those used by dragon rescue teams: a wide leather belt around my waist, two crossing straps over my chest, and a safety line designed to loop around the base of Rafe’s neck.
The flight instructors used similar equipment to evacuate injured humans and children.
They did not usually strap an adult woman to an heir she had known for less than two weeks.
Rafe checked the buckle at my waist.
His fingers brushed the front of my training uniform.
“Too tight?”
“No.”
“Too loose?”
“No.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes.”
He looked up.
I had expected a joke. He only nodded.
“We can stop.”
“That’s the third time you’ve said that.”
“I’m demonstrating respect for your autonomy.”
“You’re expecting me to quit.”
“No. I’m making certain you don’t continue because four dragons are watching.”
Torren had moved to the edge of the clearing. Leander and Sebastian stood beside him, leaving space around us.
“I’m continuing because I want to fly,” I said.
“Good.”
Rafe tightened the final strap and stepped back.
“Then I need to change.”
He crossed into the center of the garden.
I had seen hundreds of dragons shift. Camilla transformed during training demonstrations, and the academy grounds regularly filled with students moving between forms. The process was fast, but no two shifts looked exactly alike.
Stone dragons seemed to expand from the ground upward.
Fire dragons disappeared inside flame. Frost formed beneath the skin before the body changed.
Rafe became wind.
Air rotated around him, lifting his silver-gray shirt and tossing his dark hair across his forehead. His human form blurred inside the current.
Then it expanded.
The change occurred in one complete surge.
Wings opened where his arms had been. His spine lengthened, shoulders widening as four clawed feet struck the garden floor.
Gunmetal scales covered his body, darkening to charcoal along his back and tail.
Silver markings crossed his sides like narrow streaks of lightning.
His wings were smoky gray, the membranes translucent enough for the garden lights to shine through.
They filled most of the clearing when he extended them. Gray deepened to charcoal along the bones, silver traced the outer edges, and the faint white pulse of Storm magic moved beneath the skin.
Rafe folded his wings carefully.
His dragon form was larger than I expected. Not as broad as a full-grown Stone dragon or as heavily muscled as most Fire dragons, but long and built for speed. Two swept-back horns framed his head. Smaller ridges ran from the base of his skull between his shoulders, forming natural handholds.
Silver eyes lowered to meet mine.
My body remembered fear before my mind could reason with it.
I stepped back.
Rafe lowered himself immediately.
His chest settled against the grass. He stretched his forelegs in front of him and turned his head away, making his body less imposing.
The fourth opportunity.
Torren came to stand beside me.
“You can change your mind.”
“I know.”
“No one here will think less of you.”
“Rafe might.”
The dragon released an irritated gust that bent the flowers around his head.
Torren’s mouth twitched. “He won’t.”
I looked at Rafe.
His dragon remained perfectly still. The only movement came from the slow rise and fall of his sides.
Allowing someone onto a dragon’s back was not casual.
Children rode their parents before their first shifts. Injured people were carried during rescues. Among adults, the act usually belonged to family, bonded partners, or people trusted so completely that the dragon accepted vulnerability without question.
There were stories of rulers carried into battle by their sworn protectors, but those bonds were formed over decades.
Rafe and I had known each other for days.
“Why did he offer?” I asked.
Torren looked toward the silver-eyed dragon.
“You’ll have to ask him when he has a human mouth.”
Rafe’s tail struck the grass once.
“He says because I’ve never flown.”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“I’m interpreting.”
“Poorly,” Leander called.
The wall blossoms brightened, their light reflecting across Rafe’s scales.
I approached.
His eye followed me, but he did not lift his head.
I placed one hand against his shoulder.
The scales were smoother than Stone and cooler than Fire, though faint electricity tingled beneath my palm. Rafe exhaled slowly.
“You will not do anything Leander prohibited,” I said.
The eye nearest me narrowed.
“Rafe.”
He lowered his head until his chin touched the grass.
I accepted that as agreement.
Sebastian showed me how to climb using the bent foreleg and the base of Rafe’s folded wing. Torren kept one hand close to my back without touching me.
I settled between the ridges above Rafe’s shoulders.
The position forced my legs wide around the base of his neck. Heat entered my face despite the cool scales beneath me.
The garden runes turned gold.
Rafe’s body moved with a quiet rumble that felt suspiciously like laughter.
“Don’t,” I said.
His wings shifted.
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
The gold deepened.
Sebastian attached the safety line around the lowest neck ridge and tested it twice. Leander checked the buckle at my waist. Torren placed my hands around two smaller ridges.
“Keep your grip here,” he said. “Move with him rather than fighting every turn.”
“There will be no turns,” Leander said.
“There will be turns if he plans to return.”
“No sudden turns.”
Rafe lifted his head.
The movement raised me several feet above the ground.
My hands tightened.
He waited.
“I’m ready,” I said.
That was the fifth opportunity.
Rafe rose slowly onto all four feet.
The garden dropped below me. I leaned forward over his neck, trying not to pull against the ridges.
He walked one circle around the clearing before opening his wings.
Wind filled the garden.
The crystal flowers bent outward, sending divided light across the walls. The opening overhead cleared until I could see the academy tower above us.
Rafe crouched.
The sixth opportunity.
His head turned enough for one silver eye to look back at me.
I could still climb down.
Instead, I loosened one hand long enough to touch the side of his neck.
“Go.”
He launched.
The first beat of his wings forced the breath from me.
The garden fell away as Rafe climbed through the opening. Air struck my face, cold and sharp. I flattened myself against his neck and held on while the harness pulled tight around my waist.
He rose above the Fifth Wing.
The academy spread beneath us.
Crown Tower stood at the center, surrounded by training fields, dormitories, archives, and the dark line of the mountain containing the First Trial.
From the ground, the buildings had always seemed enormous.
From the air, I could see how they connected—paths, courtyards, and stone bridges forming a pattern I had never noticed.
Rafe leveled his wings.
The violent wind disappeared.
Storm magic formed a smooth current around us, carrying the worst of the air away from my body. I could still feel his speed, but I no longer struggled to breathe.
I lifted my head.
We were flying.
The realization opened something in my chest. For years I had watched dragons rise from the academy fields and trained myself not to imagine the world from between their wings. Now there was nothing beneath me but Rafe and the air he commanded.
Not enclosed behind the walls of an air carriage. Nothing blocked my view or separated me from the open sky. Rafe’s wings extended on either side of me, smoky membranes tightening with every change in the air.
He banked gently.
My body shifted with his.
Fear tightened my stomach, but Torren’s instruction returned.
Move with him.
I leaned.
Rafe completed the turn around Crown Tower.
The first circuit remained slow. He stayed well above the roofs and far below the clouds, exactly as Leander required.
The second was faster.
“You agreed to one,” I called.
Rafe’s wings beat harder.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
He accelerated.
The academy blurred below. Silver light moved across his scales, and a low current of electricity traveled beneath my legs. It did not hurt. It raised every hair along my arms and made the crystal torc pulse against my throat.
We passed the tower windows.
I caught one glimpse of Torren, Leander, and Sebastian watching from the garden opening. Torren’s arms were folded. Leander appeared to be shouting something neither of us could hear.
Rafe climbed.
Not steeply.
Steeper than Leander would have approved.
The entire valley appeared beyond the academy walls. Forest covered the lower slopes. A river reflected the morning sun, winding toward distant farmland and the western road.
I had studied maps of the region.
None explained the size of it.
Rafe held us there.
His wings moved in slow, powerful strokes, maintaining our height while I looked.
I released one hand from the ridge.
Then the other.
The safety line remained secured around his neck, but nothing else held me in place.
I lifted both arms.
Wind passed over my fingers.
Sunlight struck the clear torc and broke across Rafe’s charcoal scales. For one suspended moment, we carried a ribbon of color through the open sky.
Rafe did not tease me or change direction. He remained steady until I gripped the ridges again.
He had given me every chance to say no. Now he gave me the space to be fearless without making me prove I was.
The descent lasted too little time.
He circled once over the tower, then folded part of his wings and dropped toward the garden. My stomach rose. I pressed against him, half laughing and half terrified.
His wings opened before I could protest.
We landed hard enough to bend the grass but not enough to jar my injured shoulder.
Rafe lowered himself.
Torren reached us first and unfastened the safety line. Leander began listing every condition Rafe had violated before my feet touched the ground.
I barely heard him.
My legs shook when Torren helped me down. I stood with one hand against Rafe’s shoulder, waiting for the garden to stop moving beneath me.
“You all right?” Torren asked.
“Yes.”
The answer came breathlessly.
Rafe shifted.
Wind surrounded him. His dragon body contracted in one smooth rush, scales becoming skin and wings disappearing as his human form returned. His clothing reappeared with him, his silver-gray shirt open at the throat exactly as it had been before.
He stood close enough that my hand now rested against his chest.
Neither of us moved.
The kiss formed as a decision before I acted on it. Not payment for the flight. Not gratitude for the garden. I wanted the man who had trusted me on his back, guarded my first fragile moment of freedom, and asked six times whether I still chose it.
“Well?” he asked.
I kissed him.
Rafe went completely still.
My mouth touched his once, brief and uncertain. I started to pull away.
His hand rose to my face but stopped beside my cheek.
“Again?” he asked.
The question was quiet.
No joke. No smug reminder that I had kissed him first.
I closed the distance.
This kiss lasted longer.
His fingers slid into my hair while his other hand settled lightly at my waist, avoiding the harness buckles. He let me set the pressure and angle. When I opened my mouth, he followed without taking control.
Heat moved through me faster than fear had during the flight.
The garden runes turned red.
Someone cleared his throat behind us.
Leander.
Of course.
I ended the kiss but did not step away from Rafe.
His forehead rested against mine.
“You kissed me,” he said.
The familiar teasing had returned to his voice, but it was softer now.
“You asked me to do it again.”
“I was demonstrating respect for your autonomy.”
I laughed.
Crystal flowers opened across the entire garden.