Page 47 of Feralheart

The dragon watched me drop the saddle and approach. His breath came slow, smoke-sweet-ash, the hitch on exhale more pronounced in the quiet. I slipped closer, my boots scuffing across the sand.

His eyes tracked me, but he didn’t move.

I lifted the tack, the leather cool and stiff under my hands. My fingers knew the motions. Years of prepping dragons had taught me how to buckle, adjust, and tighten until everything sat perfect.

But this was different. I had to make it fit right for me.

The noseband still sat too tight. I loosened it, Euan’s voice in my head, Don’t let them rush you.

The runes sparked when I touched them, a nerve-jarring sensation that made my skin want to peel itself off. Lykor flinched when I buckled the throat latch, his body going rigid.

I hummed, and his breathing smoothed.

I went around to his side, placing a hand on his leg, and realized I’d never done what would follow before. I’d only practiced saddling him the two nights before. But I gave the cue I’d seen a hundred times, the one that told a dragon to drop to its belly for a rider to mount.

A commons rider tonight.

Lykor sank down, taking his time, groaning at the pain in his joints.

I brought a crate into the pen and climbed, my boots slipping on scales worn smooth by the ages. I grabbed at the saddle, at anything, hauling myself up like I was climbing a wall that could decide to move at any time.

When I finally threw my leg over and settled into the saddle, my lungs burned. My thighs screamed. The ground was so far away it looked like another realm.

Lykor’s heat radiated through my legs, his ribs rising and falling in a tide I had no control over.

My hands found the saddle horn and locked there, my knuckles whitening.

This was almost like flying, a thing I’d signed up to do at speed, through a dangerous trial with nobles betting on whether my neck would break during my first fall.

I didn’t belong here. We both knew it.

Lykor shifted his weight, testing my seat.

I tightened my grip on the saddle horn, my pulse thudding in my ears.

He didn’t buck or rear. Just lay there, tolerating me the way he’d probably did everything else this world had done to him.

I dismounted, clumsy and too fast, nearly falling on my ass when I reached the sand-strewn floor.

Lykor curved his head around and sniffed me.

“Tomorrow,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t answer. Dragons never did.

I stayed with one hand on his leg until my breathing evened out and the tug in my chest urged me toward the gate.

After removing the tack, cleaning it, and returning it to its bag, I stepped out into the dark hallway.

The talon-blade felt heavier now.

I started up the moonlit path toward the fortress. The cold bit through my jacket, sharper at this height, and my breath fogged in front of me.

Moonlight sliced through the clouds, slanting across the ground, and I came to an abrupt stop.

The wild dragon stood on the path twenty feet ahead of me, scales the color of fresh bruises, the pale stripe on its snout standing out starkly. Its eyes reflected back at me with intelligence.

My hand went to the talon-blade, and the dragon’s nostrils flared, scenting it. Scenting me.