36. Kailin
KAILIN
“A task done a thousand times is the one most likely to escape our notice. Mastery does not free us from error; it teaches error where to hide.”
—From the training manual of the Dragon Force Academy
Iwas composing my reply to Alar's letter in my head as I climbed to the roof. Unlike Codric, I wanted to applaud and encourage his dedication to his brother and tell him I loved him and missed him.
But I couldn't write any of those things unless Codric transcribed them with their cipher, and I had a feeling that the academy wouldn't let letters written in cipher leave the Citadel.
My only option was to speak in generalities and let Alar infer the meaning between the lines.
My letters were not going directly to the palace, but rather to the address Alar had been sending his correspondence all along.
Even though the recipient was trusted by the King of Catonia and delivered the letters to the palace faithfully, Alar had told me to be careful with what I revealed because they could still fall into the wrong hands.
I would write that we were glad he'd written, meaning that I was glad, and I would write that we believed in him and that he could accomplish anything he put his mind to, meaning that I did.
I would tell him that miracles happened and all he had to do to believe in them was to remember what he'd witnessed.
He would know what I was referring to, while those who monitored correspondence in the Citadel would not, and if my letter fell into the wrong hands, the culprit would learn nothing from it either.
I was still composing the words when I emerged on the roof and headed toward Morgateth.
Ravel and Onyx were there as well, earlier than usual, or maybe I was late?
I'd left long after my friends had because their flight had to leave before my private training could begin, and with my mind preoccupied by the letter I was planning to write, I might have taken longer on the way up than I usually did.
"There you are, Little Warrior," Onyx sounded in my head.
"Sorry I'm late," I said aloud.
"You look troubled," Ravel said. "What happened?"
"I got another letter from Alar." I checked the harness, tugging on the straps, testing the buckles, then climbed up between Morgateth's wings. As I settled into the saddle, I made sure to check the cinch too, my fingers going through the motions while my mind was elsewhere.
I was still so distraught that I hadn't even reacted to Ravel the way I usually did. I didn't feel the unwelcome spark of attraction, or the familiar flutter in my stomach.
Alar might never come back. What was I going to do? How would I continue without him? Could letters sustain me?
"Why aren't you happy about receiving a letter from him?" Ravel asked. "Bad news from the court of Catonia?"
I shrugged, trying to make light of the news I couldn't share. "Something about one of the brothers getting injured and Alar taking care of him. It's just that I miss him so much, and he doesn't know when or if he's coming back."
The partial truth should have been good enough, but my shields were not fully up, and I could feel Morgateth and Onyx both reacting to the worry and sadness I felt.
I had to elaborate without revealing what I could not.
"I just feel so helpless. All I can do from here to help is write him cheerful letters.
" I put on the flight goggles and my hat.
"It's all right. Let's fly. I'd rather do that than think. "
"Good plan," Ravel said.
We went up.
The two dragons rose together off the roof, and we went through the motions of climbing spirals and the long banking runs, Morgateth doing them with such contemptuous ease that I didn't need to do much at all.
I followed along, shifting my weight into the turns, while drafting the letter in my head.
If Arlen couldn't be heir, who would the king name?
Codric thought it would be Avren because the twins were not suitable for some reason, but from Alar's stories I knew that Avren was a rigid man, perfectly suited to the military but not to ruling.
Maybe one of the twins would step up after all?
Could they be co-regents? That would be interesting.
In fact, it could be a great idea. Two kings, ruling together and splitting responsibility or taking turns. Had there been a precedent in the history of the Elurian Federation of twin monarchs ruling together?
"Pull up your shields," Morgateth said in my mind, sharp as a slap. "Your thoughts are so loud that even Onyx can hear you."
The cold dropped into my stomach. I yanked my thoughts back behind my shields and prayed I hadn't betrayed that which I had been sworn to keep a secret.
It wasn't that I was afraid Onyx or Ravel would use the information to undermine Catonia or the Federation, but Alar had asked us to keep his brother's condition a secret, and I didn't want to be the weak link who spilled it.
"Sorry," I said.
"I don't care about your prince and his court. What I care about is you paying attention. You are hundreds of meters in the air. It's not smart allowing yourself to be preoccupied during flights."
"You are absolutely right. I'm with you. Paying attention."
I wasn't, though. Not really. I tried, but my mind wouldn't let go and slid right back to Alar and the letter.
Morgateth had flown ten thousand of these turns, and he didn't need me to guide him.
He was humoring me when I did, but he didn't need it.
He'd promised me that he would never let me fall, and I could allow myself to be distracted and trust him to navigate for me.
He banked into a hard turn, a tight one, the world tilting up on its edge, and as I leaned with him the way I always did, loose and confident, I wondered whether he was testing me to see if I was paying attention.
It was amazing what Morgateth had done for me. Whatever had been left of my fear of heights had disappeared completely once I'd bonded with him. It was a pleasure being carried by someone so strong, so experienced, and so capable. I trusted him with my life.
It was a measure of how far I'd come. High above the peaks, in the middle of a hard turn, I was thinking about how much my life had changed since bonding with Morgateth.
The saddle shifted under me.
Not my body.
The saddle.
It slid under me, sideways and down, a hand's width in an instant, and the wrongness of it hit me a heartbeat before the fear did, because my body knew before my mind that I was in trouble.
"Morgateth!" I screamed, and then the turn and the slide threw me, and the harness that should have held gave, and there was nothing under me at all.
I went off his back into open air.
The sky and the mountain swapped places. I saw Morgateth's dark underside wheel away above me, saw the white teeth of the peaks spin past, and the wind tore the scream out of my mouth.
I was falling.
The same way Alar had fallen in my dreams. It was happening to me, and the ground was so far down and coming so fast.
I reached for Morgateth, not with my hands, but with my mind, yanking on the bond as if it was a physical lifeline.
I felt him there, he was coming after me, but he would never make it in time.
He knew it.
I knew it.
"Tell Alar I love him and that I'm sorry."
There was no answer in my mind, only a sensation of dread, a wash of blind white terror that wasn't mine.
And then the world went black underneath me, but it wasn't the ground coming up to claim me. It was a vast obsidian shape rising into my fall.
Onyx was beneath me, matching my plummet and rising to meet it, and then a band of iron closed around my arm and my chest, and hauled, and the impact of being caught knocked the air clean out of me.
Ravel had me.
He'd come half out of his own saddle to do it, one arm locked around me and one hand fisted in Onyx's harness, and he dragged me up and across and down against him. I grabbed him with both hands and held on like he was the last solid thing in the universe, because he was.
Onyx leveled out.
The mountains stopped spinning.
We were flying, low and steady, Ravel's arm crushing me to his chest and my face against his throat, and both of us shaking so hard I couldn't tell whose tremor was whose.
"I've got you." His voice was ragged. "I've got you, I've got you, Kailin. You're not going to die. Thank Elu, I've got you."
I couldn't speak. My whole body was one struck bell, ringing. I could feel his heart going like a hammer against my cheek, as wild as mine, and his arm wouldn't loosen, and I wouldn't have let it.