“What is it?” the queen asked.
“I think I just remembered the time my dad tried to tell me.”
“It happens. Tanya’s persuasion is strong, but sometimes it wavers for a little to seep through.”
I looked at my dad and my hand hovered close to him. I wanted to touch him. My dad closed the gap. His thorny scales were like hard, leathery thorns against my palm. He was toasty warm.
He spoke again.
“Are you ready?” the queen asked.
I nodded.
He spread out his wing and laid it flat on the ground. The queen climbed on first. “I haven’t done this in a long time, so it’s like my first time as well.” She let out her hand for me and I took it.
I stepped on dad’s wing, on the boney parts and grasped the queen’s hand tighter as the wing moved toward his back.
“A little trick,” the queen said. “When he brings his wing in, you just step on his back.”
I nodded, and then she commanded something in Latin.
The wing folded in and it was so easy to step onto his back.
“How do you know this?” I asked as my eyes landed on a double saddle that was on Dad’s back. It was enormous and blended with his scales.
“I learned it from your mother. I wasn’t born with the mark.”
I looked back at her. “But you have the essence?”
“Emanual. He saw Helmut wouldn’t fare so well without me, and one winter I got very sick, Emanual saved my life by giving me his essence.”
Wow. She wasn’t even his rider, and he gave her his essence.
“Let’s go,” she whispered with her warm smile and walked gracefully on Dad’s back, holding her arms slightly up in order to keep her balance.
She went on her haunches as she reached the saddle and took the seat at the end. Her hands worked fast as she put the goggles on her head and flopped them over her eyes.
I didn’t have to keep my arms stretched out, my balance really became stronger. His breathing made it, however, a bit more difficult to calculate my steps. I reached her in no time and took the saddle in the front.
I put my feet in the holsters. This was nothing like the first time. The queen handed me my pair, and I put them over my head, and placed them on top of my face, protecting my eyes.
Helmut still spoke to Dad, and he replied.
Queen Maggie laughed. “You ready, Elena?”
I grabbed the laces that were in front of me. They did not attach it to beasty dad at all. It was like riding a horse, even though I did not know what that even felt like. Dad’s wings spread out and flapped. We ascended, and the palace grew smaller. My head spun as I looked down.
“Don’t look down. I’m afraid of heights and learned that you should never look down, focus on the horizon.”
I did what she said.
Dad spoke something, and the queen gasped, answering him.
He replied, and I was dying for her to translate.
“Your father said that when you were little, like three or four years old, you used to fly with him every night, Elena.”
“What?” I turned my gaze to my shoulder to look at her.
