Promise the Sky

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

Kiara

 

 

 

Geraint watches me with an odd eagerness as I step nervously up to Drake's side.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Watching," he replies with a small smile, "I want to see you fly."

"You already did."

Geraint shakes his head, and I am shocked to find his tolerance in the gesture. He flips his hood up over his head with an easy hand. And I cannot help but find myself awed at the way Ella's movement is timed so perfectly that the material only just brushes her snout as she leaves his shoulder. She does not get in the way.

"What are you so scared about?" Geraint's stubble asks from beneath the shadow.

I mutter something incomprehensible and he laughs.

"I guess you'll have to watch how it's done then, little girl," he replies easily, and hardly seems to move.

But by the time I have blinked, Ella has snaked beneath him. Or he has pulled himself fluidly onto her back. I cannot tell; the movement is too rapid and she is already drawing into the sky.

"I thought you didn't want to play teacher!" I shout back, but Ella is already far too high for him to hear.

Oh it is beautiful.

Drake calmly ignores my awe and hunkers patiently at my side. But I am capable of no action beyond watching and his forced patience flashes briefly through my mind. No dragon ever felt awe.

But then, I think, what is more glorious than this? What could inspire wonder in the most magnificent creatures on earth?

My face flashes briefly through his mind, by way of an answer, and is accompanied by an overwhelming sense of attachment.

"You're supposed to be a killer, you soppy beast." I roll my eyes.

Drake doesn't care. How many times must I be reminded that he is only what he is? That there is no pressure to be more?

My eyes are rolling again.

"You could gain a sense of humour," I mutter, and he snorts.

I sense him ruffling through my memories before he eventually announces me a hypocrite. I feel oddly violated. If he can do that every time, I will never win an argument. Any attempt I make at simply 'ruffling through' his mind, finds me lost in some event of distant history and I have to be rescued.

I am learning strange things, though, about strange, dead beasts. He steers me well clear of Bron, however, and I think he is worried it would upset me. I have my doubts, though. Seeing Viper through his mind would almost be like knowing her, and unless she truly was evil, it would go a good way toward soothing any of my residual unease.

Back in the real world, and up above, Geraint waits. He has drawn a knee to his chest and I can just about make out his impatient fingers, tapping at his shins. How can he sit like that? My stomach lurches unpleasantly. My first flight had been a reflex, my body almost certainly under Drake's control. There are nerves now, where there had been none before.