"Alright then!" she said again. "Get on. This ride is going to be wilder than anything you've ever lived."

He blinked at her, then at the dragon.

He had done this once already, chasing her through the sky. That time, he had jumped without thinking.

Now he had too much time to think.

He moved anyway.

He planted a foot on one of the dragon's lowered wings and pulled himself up. The scales were warm under his hands. He swung a leg over and settled behind the spot where Elin sat before.

There was no saddle. No harness. Just the natural ridges and curves of the beast's spine.

Alan watched, jaw tight.

"And me?" he asked.

Elin turned her head slightly, eyeing him.

"You don't like heights?" she asked.

"I like not falling from them, sure."

She smiled, small.

"You will be fine. He is very gentle."

Alan looked at the dragon's claws.

"I don't feel good about this..."

Elin snapped her fingers.

The dragon's head tilted.

"Pick him up" she told it. "Firmly. But don't rip anything. I still need him."

"I STILL NEED HIM!? WHAT AM I, SOME KIND OF TOY!?"

The dragon blinked once, as if weighing the request, then moved.

One massive claw lifted from the stone and reached for Alan.

"Right now, you're in my hands. So... More or less..." Elin laughed.

He flinched back on instinct.

"Wait -"

The claw closed around him with surprising delicacy.

The beast lifted him clean off the ground.

For a second Alan was just hanging there, held around the torso in a cage of black claws, his legs dangling, coat and hair swinging with the motion.

"This is undignified" he said to no one in particular.

Elin laughed under her breath.

"I thought you liked polite entrances."

"This is NOT what I meant."

Raizen almost smiled despite the knot in his chest.

The dragon shifted its weight, testing the balance.

Elin climbed up in front of Raizen, moving with the ease of long habit. She settled near the base of the neck, knees bent, one hand resting on a scale seam.

"Hold on" she said over her shoulder.

He reached for the ridge in front of him.

"No" she added. "To me. Or you'll fall."

His brain stalled for a second.

"What?" he said.

She glanced back, eyes sharp.

"You are not sticking your fingers into his scales while we fly at that speed. You can't. Now. Hands. Around. Me."

Raizen's throat went dry.

He hesitated.

Elin rolled her eyes, grabbed both his wrists and pulled them forward.

She wrapped his arms around her waist herself, locking them there with a firm tug.

Her jacket felt warm and slightly damp under his hands. He could feel the muscle in her back coiled and ready.

"There" she said. "Now if you fall, you take me with you. That is much more fair, yes?"

He tried not to think about how close they were. How his chest pressed against her back. How his heartbeat felt way too loud.

"Whatever you say..." he muttered.

"You're fine" she said. "Try not to pass out or something."

She leaned forward, bringing her mouth close to the dragon's neck.

"Go. As as fast as you can." she told it softly.

Raizen felt the change at once.

Earlier, the dragon had flown with a certain looseness - wings open, scales easy, red lines of faint Eon glowing between plates.

Now its whole body shifted.

The plates along its sides slid tighter, closing the tiny gaps between them until the red light disappeared. The seams locked, turning the beast into a smoother, more solid shape.

The wings folded a little, changing angle.

The air around them suddenly felt sharper.

Alan made a small, strangled sound from within the claw.

"I would like to register a formal complaint" he said.

"Denied. Now shut up, and try to save your breath" Elin replied.

The dragon crouched.

Muscles bunched under Raizen's legs.

Then it jumped.

Takeoff hit like a punch.

They shot sideways off the platform, wings smashing downward in a heavy, powerful beat. Raizen's stomach lurched as the cave fell away behind them.

The waterfall rushed up.

He had a split second to squeeze his eyes shut.

Cold slammed into him. Water hammered his face, his hair, his clothes. It grabbed at them, tried to rip his hands away from Elin.

He held on tighter.

Then they were through, bursting out into open, cloudy sky.

The wind hit different now - not the heavy, tumbling rush of falling, but a tight, focused stream. The dragon's wings beat in a vicious rhythm, each stroke shoving them forward.

They were faster.

A lot faster.

The forest below blurred.

Earlier, he had been able to pick out details - leaves, cliffs, waterfalls. Now the world smudged into streaks of green, grey and light blue.

The air whirred in his ears.

Alan's voice cut through anyway.

"Elin!" he shouted from the claw. "You didn't say it would be this fast!"

"Didn't I? Whoops! My bad!" she called back.

"If I die on the way there, the Ruler will be very disappointed!"

"Then hold on tight!"

Raizen almost laughed. The sound caught in his throat and turned into something tighter.

He pressed closer to her back, trying to match her center of gravity as the dragon kept flying. With every shift of its wings, the pressure changed. His whole body wanted to slide, to fall, to be left behind.

Elin moved with the motion.

She wasn't stiff.

She flowed with it, leaning into turns, guiding the dragon with small touches and subtle shifts.

They sliced through a bank of mist.

Droplets exploded against his skin and then were gone.

The rainforest fell away beneath them.

The ground started to rise.

Not in height - in structure. The massive trunks that held Ukai's platforms came into view first, dark pillars reaching up out of the sea of green.

Then the shapes of bridges.

Rings.

Lights.

Ukai.

From a distance, it still looked like a crown of wood and lanterns, wrapped around a colossal trunk. Platforms spiraled. Ropes and vines crisscrossed. The city had always seemed almost... gentle to him before. Wild and alive.

Now something else wrapped it.

Cloud.

Dark.

A ring of black sat over the whole city.

Not storm black. Not the chaotic churn of thunderheads. This was a thick band of cloud that hugged the upper canopy, smothering the lantern glow.

It didn't move.

It just... Sat there.

The closer they flew, the more wrong it felt.

Raizen could see lighter sky beyond it, bright grey clouds still untouched. And then this band of darkness around Ukai alone, like someone wanted to darken the city.

The dragon slowed as they approached.

Its wings shifted into a broader, more cautious beat.

Elin's shoulders tensed under his hands.

"That wasn't there when we left" Raizen said quietly.

"No" she agreed.

Alan twisted as much as the claw allowed, craning his neck to look.

His face went pale.

Raizen watched the dark smoky cloud creep along the edges of the platforms, swallowing little points of lantern light.

The dragon circled once, staying just outside the cloud ring.

Ukai loomed ahead of them, wrapped in a band of unnatural dark.

Elin stared at it.

"Well" she said softly.

"Looks like someone prepared to tell us welcome."

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