“However,” Pyke continues with flourish as he claps his hands three times. “We can travel by gryffin if you’re not afraid of heights.”
“She’s totally afraid of heights,” Carrick says, but then adds. “But I can take that fear away from her.”
My head snaps his way to get a reading of his face, those initial thoughts that would tell me if this is a good idea to him or not. I am indeed afraid of heights, and I hope his offer to remove that fear is not just big talk. I hope mightily because—soaring on a lion-eagle-creature thingy is beyond my wildest imagination. If I can do so without fear of falling or puking, then my dreams would come true.
Carrick smiles and nods, confirming he can make me comfortable to fly, and that’s that.
Grooms in the barn saddle two of the creatures, the gray one, Cerida, that we’d met the day before for Pyke, and a chestnut brown that’s a good size bigger than the gray. His name is Warnuf.
“You’ve ridden one of these before?” I side-mouth to Carrick as we watch.
“A time or two,” he replies, but it’s with a teasing smile, so I know it’s more than just a few times.
He proves it to me when he easily mounts the mighty beast, then offers me his arm so I can swing up behind him on the chestnut gryffin. The minute I’m seated, my anxiety over flying suddenly disappears. A rush of warm comfort settles over me with the knowledge I’ll be perfectly safe. It’s magic I’m grateful that Carrick has.
Let me just say… it’s not a chore needing to plaster myself to him as the saddle isn’t overly roomy and I have no stirrups or anything else by which to hold on. So my arms go around Carrick’s waist, and I hold on for dear life as he gives a small kick to the creature’s flanks. Our beasts run several paces with long, galloping strides that get faster and faster until they both leap into the air with great wings flapping.
Unlike traditional methods of steering animals—say with a bit on a horse—everything is done by light touch on the animal. The saddle’s made with an arched bar—normally where a pommel would be on a western saddle—and it’s designed for the rider to hold on to. For guiding the gryffin, Carrick need only put some pressure on the side of the creature’s neck for it to bank right, or squeeze with his knees to go lower and maintain a certain altitude.
Admittedly, my eyes remain closed for about the first fifteen seconds. When I open them, I gasp at how beautiful Faere is from above. Down on the ground, everything looked so very fake, but, from above, it’s a riot of brilliant colors between the grass, the rivers, and the trees. It looks like a beautiful oil painting.
“Down there,” Carrick says, gesturing to the left with his head. Peeling my cheek away from his back where I had pressed it, but leaving my arms tightly—and I mean tightly—wrapped around his waist, I look down where he is indicating, and my belly doesn’t even flop once.
Below is a huge estate complete with a massive manor house—clearly belonging to a noble or gentry—that has to be at least ten thousand square feet. Dotted all around are smaller houses that are not nearly as refined. We fly on a bit, and the smaller houses become more clustered until we’re flying over a tiny village.
Carrick has to twist to talk to me, speaking loudly enough I can hear him over the rushing wind. “There’s no formal government here in Faere. Nimeyah is the one and only ruler, but the nobles and gentry will often lord themselves over the closest villages.”
It’s odd to me that things can run so smoothly with so little structure, but, then again, what is there to fight about? The rich and powerful have all their needs met, and the lower class will never have enough power to demand more.
With Pyke on Cerida leading the way, we fly over crop fields, forests, valleys, and rolling hills. I have no clue how far we’ll go, but there are purple mountains way in the distance that look like they have snow peaks.
We pass one large manor house that has extensive gardens in the back where I can see tiny fairies—like the kind I saw walking into the castle yesterday—flitting among the bushes, vines, and flowers, sprinkling a shimmery dust around.
“Are those little fairies actually fallen angels?” I ask Carrick, wondering how creatures in this realm could be so vastly different.
He shakes his head. “They’re just magical experiments by Nimeyah and evolution happening down there. The original fallen angels are Nimeyah and her husband, as well as the nobles. All others were birthed here or created by Nimeyah.”