With a bark of laughter, Dain complied, adding a comfortable-looking saddle onto his neck, complete with stirrups and a blanket beneath. All of it black and storm-gray, of course, with silver accents. The man was committed to his monochromatic color scheme.

"Lovely," I said in my perky voice, put my foot in the stirrup, and swung up onto his neck. I didn't have anything to hold onto for reins, but that was probably fine. If worse came to worse, I could always ask him to give me a handhold of some kind.

Dain stood underneath me, all liquid motion, and rolled his shoulders. "Brace yourself," he said, sounding wickedly amused.

It was all the warning I got before he launched into motion, the smooth bounding gallop of a wolf. I grabbed onto the saddle as he went, leaning forward, my braid whipping out behind me from the speed of our passage. Riding Dain was nothing like riding a horse or a deer. I knew his body and how it moved as if it was mine, and I moved with him as if we'd done this a hundred thousand times. A grin spread across my face, and then I started laughing with open delight.

In response, Dain stretched his pace, and in minutes we were past the garrison, closing the distance at what had to be highway speeds. Some of the people on the walls howled in greeting as we passed, and Dain answered them the same way, with a deeper and more dangerous song than that of a wolf's.

He turned to the north when we reached the main road, still at a gallop, his ears up and forward, not even breathing hard. The sky grew dark as the sun finished setting, and the full moon rose into the sky, casting silver light across the landscape. The wind from our passage roared past me, like having the windows down while cruising down the interstate, and I leaned forward so I didn't have to fight the pressure of the air, resting my forearms on Dain's scaled neck.

"Still comfortable?" his voice asked next to me, making me jerk in surprise. From beneath me came the sound of his laughter again, as easy as if we were teasing each other in the garrison.

"I'm fine!" I called back up to him, towards the ear he tilted back towards me. "How long can you run like this?"

"Until the full moon sets," Dain said, sounding both shy and proud at the same time, like he really wanted me to approve of what he could do, yet was worried that I wouldn't like it. "Raloden is a little over a hundred miles north of the palace. We'll be there within two hours, assuming you can keep up this pace and we don't need to slow down or stop."

"That's amazing!" I said with a laugh, bright and happy. "Let's do it!"

Dain laughed again, put down his head, and ran through the night.