The ridge he was talking about jutted up like the prow of a ship in front of the little hollow I was in. Leaning forward, I was able to throw my arms around it, noticing that the scales here were a bit harder, though still very warm to touch.
Then, as Avery and Emma and Megan and Griffin called goodbyes to me, the enormous wings unfurled on either side of the Drake. He flapped them once, as though to make certain everything was in working order and I saw that my Coven-mates looked like people standing in the middle of a hurricane, with their wind and clothes whipping all over the place.
This was the same sight I’d seen when the Drake had rescued me from the Guardian and then it had struck fear in me. Now, I simply waved again and then held on tight as he raised up into the air and we flew away into the jeweled night sky.
I remember thinking I had no idea when or even if I would ever return but I had absolutely no regrets or doubts about what I was doing.
None at all.
65
Kaitlyn
The journey to the place where there was a tear between the human world and the Sky Lands took about an hour and a half. We were very high up, as the Drake had predicted, and it was quite cold if I stuck my head up. But if I huddled into the warm dip in his spine and covered myself with Ari’s shirt and blazer, I found I was quite warm and cozy. I rolled up his trousers and used them as a pillow under my head.
Listening to the wind whipping by overhead and feeling the smooth working of the Drake’s enormous muscles as his wings beat the air in long, slow strokes, I felt calm and soothed. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until I heard his voice in my mind, informing me that we were almost to the rift.
I poked my head up to look and saw a wide, shimmering patch in the sky ahead of us which looked big enough for several Drakes to fly through. Despite being so big, it was subtle—you had to look at it just right in order to see it and it was just kind of a sparkly spot in the sky. Avery had once described it as a portal, but the Drake called it “the rift” and explained that it was a tear in the fabric of reality that let Drakes cross back and forth from the human world to the Sky Lands.
“Will it hurt to go through?” I asked him. The wind took my words but I was touching him, so he understood my message anyway.
He told me it might tingle, but it wouldn’t hurt and that I shouldn’t fear for he would never let any harm come to me.
Secure in his love and protectiveness, I watched with interest as we entered the rift, the Drake flying right through the middle of the huge sparkly patch.
As he had said, I felt a tingling all over my skin as we passed through—all except the place on my back, where the scars had changed. There, I felt a strong burning sensation—almost like someone had set my skin on fire.
I gasped and arched my back, reaching blindly to try and stop the pain, though of course I couldn’t reach my own back. What was wrong with me? What was going on?
The Drake, who was attuned to my every action and emotion, snaked his long neck around and looked at me anxiously.
“What is it, L’lorna? What pains you?” I heard his deep voice rumbling in my head. I was learning that he didn’t speak in words unless he felt very worried or very serious about something but I also felt the emotion that accompanied his question—concern and protectiveness for me which radiated through him like steam through a pipe.
At that moment we passed completely through the rift and the burning pain stopped as suddenly as it had started. It didn’t fade away gradually—it was as though someone had cut the pain sensation cleanly with a knife. My back simply felt normal again.
“It…it’s nothing,” I told the Drake, reaching out to stroke his nose, because he still had his head twisted around to look at me. “It hurt for a minute when we went through but it’s gone now. I feel fine—honestly.”
The Drake nosed me very gently, in a concerned fashion and then finally seemed to accept that I was all right. He turned back around and his wing-beats became faster as we flew deeper into the Sky Lands.
I didn’t understand what had happened with my back, but I put it down to the fact that I had passed from one world into another. Probably the tingling that the Drakes felt when they went back and forth had become a burning for me because I was neither a Drake, nor strictly a human anymore. I was a Made Nocturne—that must be why I’d had more of a reaction to entering the rift, right?
It was the only explanation I could think of and since the pain was gone now, I decided to put it out of my head and concentrate on seeing as much as I could of the Sky Lands.
I had been excited to see this new world—this new reality—but I was disappointed to note that I couldn’t see much of anything because it was so dark.
After about thirty minutes of straining my eyes and trying to make out the landscape, I got drowsy again and curled back up in the hollow of the Drake’s neck to rest. I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I had faith that everything would be all right because I knew
