The ground drops away in a rush of wind and heartbeat and adrenaline. My stomach swoops, but his grip never wavers.
His muscles bunch and flex under my hands as he pumps those massive wings, lifting us off the earthen shelter, up past the cliff face, and out over the Rooted Marches.
I can’t help it—I sneak a peek. I look down.
The Marches stretch beneath us like a living map. Terraced fields curve along the hillsides, dark soil freshly turned, glowing faintly where Dagan blessed the seeds earlier.
Little farmsteads pinprick the landscape, their lamps lit with soft golden halos, like stars that fell and decided to stay.
Closer to the cliffs, quarries yawn wide and deep, veins of stone and crystal catching the moonlight.
The moon hangs above us, pale and glowing, watching over everything like some kind of peaceful god.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe.
Dagan glances down at me, green-gold eyes molten. “You are.”
I roll my eyes, but my cheeks heat anyway. “Smooth.”
“I am Lord of Earth,” he says solemnly. “We are not known for smoothness.”
I snort, burying my face briefly against his neck to hide my smile.
He smells like stone dust, storm rain, and something warm and male and his that makes my brain go fuzzy in dangerous ways.
Below us, the Sowing Night celebrations are still in full swing.
We pass over a village square where people are dancing in circles around a bonfire, their shadows flickering over the packed earth.
Drums thrum a heartbeat rhythm that carries even up here.
Kids chase each other with glowing seed-pods that float and bob like tiny lanterns.
Someone sends a ribbon of spark-bright magic into the air; it spirals upward, twining through Dagan’s wingtip before drifting away.
He doesn’t flinch.
He doesn’t even look.
But I feel it—the way the Marches hum through him.
Like the whole land is plugged into him by invisible roots, and every heartbeat of it beats in sync with his.
With ours, a small, reckless voice in my chest adds.
Because today I watched him bless field after field—big rough palms laid against plow handles, barn doors, the very soil itself.
Farmers lined up with baskets of seeds, pressing them into his hands, bowing their heads as he murmured words in that rolling, ancient language.
I shook hands with more people than I can count.
Talked drainage and slope and water retention with women in dirt-stained aprons and men with callused hands.
Watched children sneak peeks at Dagan like he was some kind of rock star.
He kind of is, I think, watching him now.
“Proud?” I ask softly.
