38. Kailin
KAILIN
I never noticed how loud Morgateth's voice was in my head until he went quiet. The silence is intolerable, and I do not know how to live with only my own thoughts for company. The bond is still there. I can feel it. But it gives me no solace, because it's hollow.
—From the journal of Kailin Strom
Ihad bared my soul to Ravel, but letting it all out had not made me feel any better.
Onyx kept his bulk between us and the long drop and the worst of the wind, and Ravel kept his arms around me, cradling me like a child and rocking me gently.
I kept my face against his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, and didn't move because I couldn't let go.
I needed him to provide the scaffolding that prevented me from falling apart.
I should let go of him.
The thought simmered weakly in the back of my mind, and I decided to ignore it because there was no other thought that offered an adequate substitute. I had nothing to cling to, nothing and no one to lend me strength except for this brave man who had risked his life to save mine.
He could have fallen out of his saddle. He could have torn his arm right out of its socket and would have been forced to watch me fall despite his heroic effort.
"Does your arm hurt?" I asked.
He seemed confused. "What?"
"Does your arm hurt from catching me? I can't calculate it in my head right now, but the velocity times my weight made an impact strong enough to tear your arm right off."
He chuckled. "The Hero of Elucia is back, thinking about others instead of herself. My arm is still attached to my body, and I didn't tear any tendons. Immortal, remember? Or nearly so."
I'd forgotten.
Ravel wasn't a normal man. He was much stronger and faster. That was how he'd been able to catch me.
No wonder I clung to him like a baby monkey to its mama.
I was still clutching his flight jacket, but only with one hand, which was an improvement.
I needed to release that hand as well, but every time the thought surfaced, it was accompanied by a wave of panic, and my fingers tightened around the worn leather even more.
I needed a few more moments, and then I would let go.
The problem was that panic was only one part of it.
I could have forgiven myself for clinging to Ravel out of fear.
But it wasn't only that, and I was too wrung out to lie to myself about it the way I usually did.
I liked being held by him, especially now, after being abandoned by the man I loved and my bonded dragon.
I felt so utterly alone, and he was here, solid and certain.
His arm was an iron band I couldn't get free of even if I'd wanted to, and I did not want to.
I had spent months calling the thing I felt for Ravel a harmless reflex, a body's response to a striking man, nothing, less than nothing, a thing not worth the trouble of naming.
It did not feel like nothing now, with my hand locked in his coat and my head on his chest, my face in his throat, and no willpower to move away.
It was so confusing.
I loved Alar. That hadn't changed, and falling toward certain death had only proven it.
The only one I'd thought about in those seconds was Alar and how devastated he would be when he learned of my death.
That was why my last words had been meant for him, a message of love and regret deposited with Morgateth.
So why couldn't I let go of Ravel?
I didn't have an answer, and I was too shaken up to feel shame or guilt or to loosen my fingers on his jacket.
I needed Ravel because right now, right here, there was no one else to hold me, physically or mentally.
I kept reaching for Morgateth out of reflex. I couldn't help it. We hadn't been bonded long, but he'd already become such an integral part of me that turning inward and expecting to find him was a habit.
Now I was hitting a wall.
He'd promised he would never let me fall, and then he had anyway, and on top of that he was letting me down.
I knew his reasons, and I wanted to be forgiving and understanding, but not right now. Now I was fragile, weak, and needy.
He'd even told me to write Alar and tell him that he would keep me safe, and I'd believed him, but he hadn't been the one who'd saved me. It had been Ravel and Onyx.
Morgateth had fled.
I didn't believe he was a coward. I'd felt his terror, amplifying mine. Old wounds had reopened at the sight of me falling, and he had not been able to stay inside his own skin to bear it.
He couldn't handle one more death.
But knowing it didn't fill the hole I was left with. He'd left me, and he'd shut me out, and my head was full of silence where my dragon used to be. In a way, it was more traumatic than the fall.
I'd never known that betrayal could hurt so much, or that the prospect of losing him for good was even more terrifying than Alar never returning to me from Catonia.
What if Morgateth never came back?
What if he'd gone somewhere and stayed there?
What if I'd done this to him?
I'd been distracted, and I might not have checked the saddle straps as well as I should have. If I were more attentive, more diligent, and had checked twice as Alar had asked me to, I might have found the problem and prevented this from happening.
"It's not your fault," Ravel said quietly above my head. "Stop blaming yourself."
"How do you know that's what I'm doing?"
"Because I know you. Despite your humble act, you think you are responsible for everything and everyone, and if something bad happens, it is because you didn't do enough to prevent it, like drinking the tea so you could have foreseen it and so on.
You are probably blaming yourself for not checking the straps well enough. "
He knew me surprisingly well, but I didn't like the implication that I was full of myself. I wasn't. It was everyone else who thought I was the answer to all of Elucia's problems, not me. I'd just accepted the responsibility.
"I should have inspected the straps twice. Alar even reminded me to do that in his letter, but I was distracted and didn't do what I was supposed to do, and now Morgateth is gone, and there is a void in my mind where he used to be."
"He'll be back," Ravel said. "Even if I have to drag him back myself."
I chuckled feebly. "How are you going to drag a dragon? By his tail?"
"No, by Nyxath. She's his queen. She can command him to return or face retribution."
"I don't know if Morgateth has to obey her.
She never told me that she had absolute power over her dragons, and the truth is that no one knows how their interior politics work.
He might not come back." Saying it out loud diminished it somehow, the way bad dreams lost their potency when retold.
"He was broken before he bonded with me, and I hoped I could fix him. Instead, I broke him even more."
"Worry not, Little Warrior. He'll be back," Onyx said. "He's temperamental, and he needs time to cool off and lick his wounds, but he's bonded to you. The bond is stronger than his ego."
I wanted to believe him, so I did, and held on to his conviction like I was holding on to Ravel's jacket.
I couldn't tell Alar about what had happened, which meant that I wasn't going to tell Shovia and Codric either, because Codric might decide to tell Alar, and there would be questions that I would have to answer.
I would have to tell him how I was saved, who caught me, and about clinging to the commander and being unable to stop.
He might understand, or he might get insanely jealous, and that would undermine the important work he was doing with his brother.
My gift to him was the warm things, the kind that would make him smile and elevate his mood. I'd keep the bad ones to myself.
"Can you do me a favor?" I asked.
"Anything."
"Don't tell anyone about what happened."
He was silent for a moment. "Why not?"
"I don't want Alar to worry, and if Codric hears about this, he might write him a letter and tell him. Alar has enough on his plate as it is."
It took me another moment to reason through it and realize that Codric couldn't write Alar about me falling off a dragon without using their cipher, and the Citadel would never allow such a letter to go out unless Codric provided them with the cipher so they could check to be sure he wasn't revealing secrets about the Dragon Force that he shouldn't disclose.
"Just tell Codric to keep quiet about this," Ravel said. "It needs to be investigated, and I don't intend to do it quietly. There will be hell to pay."
He sounded so vehement, and it made me feel good for reasons I didn't want to examine too closely.
I sighed. "Everyone is going to fuss."
"So let them. Surviving a fall from a dragon's back is a big deal."
"Catching a falling rider is an even bigger one," I said. "You just want everyone to know you are a hero."
I knew that wasn't true, but the moment desperately needed some levity.
He chuckled. "You've got me all figured out."
We sat in silence for a few more minutes, and even though moving out of the cocoon of his embrace was the last thing I wanted to do, I knew I should.
"We should get back," I murmured.
"We should." Still holding on to me, he shifted and got to his feet with me in his arms.
"I think I can walk now," I said, sounding unconvincing to my own ears.
"I don't think so." He smiled at me, his face so close to mine that I could see every individual gold flake in his eyes. "I've got you."