The Marked Ones
an excerpt

He launched into the sky. I stayed on the ground, following him with my eyes. I didn’t tell him I was afraid of heights. I hadn’t even remembered until that moment that I was afraid of heights. He didn’t need to know that just yet, he’d find out soon enough.
“Why are you just standing there?” he asked. “Beat your wings…trust me, you don’t have to do much just to get into the air.”
I knew that, and it wasn’t the problem. I didn’t have the heart to tell him how terrified I was. I closed my eyes and let my feet leave the ground. I really, really should’ve considered the height issue before I agreed to let a scatterbrained idiot give me flying lessons, instead of after. When I opened my eyes, the ground moved closer, and farther away, and closer, and suddenly with a yelp I felt myself start to fall. Rannok caught me far before I had a chance to hit the ground, and I clung to his neck for dear life. The ground still looked like it was moving around underneath me. I clamped my eyes shut again.
“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely surprised or making fun of me.
“Yes, now put me down, you idiot!” I screamed. I waited. I didn’t feel his feet touch the ground. Was he taking me higher?! I opened my eyes only to be greeted with a sudden wave of lightheadedness.
“Rannok, I said put me down!” I would have hit him, but I was too busy keeping a death grip around his neck to be sure he wouldn’t accidentally drop me.
“Nope,” he replied.
“You’re a jerk!” I whimpered. He kept going. Then, suddenly, he pitched forward and started to fly towards the ground way faster than I would have liked. I would have liked to be on the ground, and not moving at all. The wind whistled through my hair as I screamed the entire way down and clamped my eyes shut tighter.
“Open your eyes, Wren!” he shouted.
“No!” I shrieked in absolute terror. Flying lessons had definitely been a bad idea. The worst idea he ever had. I always let him suck me into his random plans!
“Just do it!”
I opened one of my eyes. We weren’t more than 10 feet or so in the air, and the ground was moving past slowly.
“You can put me down any time now,” I said in agitation. I didn’t want him to make me go that high in the air again.
“Okay,” he said. He dropped me. Instinctively, I spread my wings and soared gradually back down to the earth. He flew down himself and landed next to me.
“Are you dead yet?” he said with a smile. I slapped him.
“That has to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, Rannok!” I screamed. I was even crying a little bit. He rubbed the side of his face.
“Jesus,” he said. “Isn’t my nose enough?”
I frowned. It was hard to see his swollen face and blackened eyes in the dark. I forgot all about his broken nose. Still, he completely deserved it.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I huffed. My hands were shaking.
“Sorry,” he said. “Are you going to try again or not?”
“No!” I protested vehemently. “Not after you just took me 300 feet into the air and then did a barrel roll straight down!”
“Actually, it was about 100 feet, and I only flew down at a 45 degree angle. We don’t have to fly that high this time.”
I sighed. I never learned, did I? I guess I could get sucked into one more of his dumb ideas.
“Do you promise you won’t do something like that again?” I asked. I made a mental note to never let myself get talked into things like this again.
“I swear to God,” he promised. “We won’t go higher up than you want to. Trust me, it’s not so bad once you get used to it.”
Somehow, I didn’t believe him. He was never afraid of being higher than ground level. After all, when we were younger he was always the stupid little kid climbing on top of buildings. He even got a concussion once falling off.
“Let’s get this over with,” I whimpered. He took off again. I closed my eyes again and moved up just a little bit into the air.
“Wren, you have to open your eyes,” he told me. That was absolutely the last thing I wanted to do, but I did it anyway. I didn’t feel quite as dizzy, but this time it was a lot less frightening. He was right next to me, and we weren’t more than 15 feet up. Still, I wobbled and had a hard time keeping my balance. He grabbed my arm before I could fall out of the sky again, and I clung to it.