41. Alar #2
"I'm still here." His voice cracked on it.
"I'm doing great." He let out a long breath.
"It was a window. The gym on the fourth floor, the one Father wanted to skip that day.
I made him keep the appointment. The glass came in from the left, and I had half a second, and I knew exactly what it was.
" The words came out flat and shaking, and his eyes stayed focused the whole time. "Saying it helps."
I made myself breathe before I answered, because the healer had told me that I shouldn't push, that the healing couldn't be rushed. I could help point Arlen in the right direction, but he had to be the one to crack the door open.
"I think that's enough for today," I said. "You can rest now."
He nodded, spent, and we sat in the sun while his breathing came back down, and something had changed between us that hadn't been there an hour before. He'd let me see the worst of him, and I hadn't flinched.
"I'm going to tell you a secret," I said. "One nobody knows but our parents. Not the twins, not Avren. But you have to promise it stays between us."
I don't know what inspired me to say that, but I knew the rightness of it the moment the words had left my mouth.
I'd been allowed to tell him that I had been in Elucia during the five months I'd been gone, but only the version approved by our parents, that I had been on a mission for our father, negotiating a secret treaty.
Now I was going to tell him the rest of it.
The part our parents didn't want anyone to know.
His eyes brightened, filling with the old spark that had been a permanent feature before the incident.
"You have my word, Alar." He glanced toward where his manservant was standing, then leaned closer to me.
"But if you don't want the entire palace to be talking about it at dinner, you should whisper it in my ear. "
This was the Arlen I remembered.
I leaned closer to him and wrapped my arm around his shoulders so it looked like I was comforting him.
"When I was in Elucia, I wasn't really negotiating. Codric and I joined the pilgrimage on the slim hope that the drop of Elucian blood we'd discovered we have would allow us to become dragon riders."
I stopped because Arlen gasped. "We have Elucian blood?"
"Yes. Keep your voice down."
"Sorry."
"It's our family's dirty little secret, and Father would do anything to keep it that way."
"Did you make it?" Arlen asked. "To the dragon force?"
I nodded. "Miraculously, both Codric and I were found gifted.
We were accepted into the Dragon Force Academy, and we both bonded with dragons.
We are riders, Arlen. There's a dragonia waiting for me in Elucia who speaks to me inside my mind, and I speak to her inside hers.
Her name is Veynathei, and leaving her to come home felt like leaving a limb behind.
" I leaned away to see his reaction and saw the disbelief, then the dawning acceptance that I wasn't joking.
I leaned back and continued my confessions.
"And there's a girl. Her name is Kailin, and she's extraordinary in ways that you would find so unbelievable that I'm not even going to tell you about them.
Kailin and Veynathei are the reasons I'd give anything to go back, and that's not going to happen unless you get better and take back your place as Father's successor.
I cannot stay as the heir, Arlen. My life is in Elucia. "
I wasn't supposed to put pressure on him, and telling him that he needed to heal so I could have my life back wasn't something the healer would have approved of.
For a long moment Arlen just stared at me. Then he laughed, the first real laugh I'd heard from him since my return. It was rusty from disuse and the most beautiful music to my ears.
"A dragon," he said. "My little brother bonded with a dragon and fell in love with a mountain girl. I bet our Father is not happy about any of it."
"He doesn't know about Kailin. Neither does Mother. They only know that I bonded with a dragon."
He snorted. "Figures. They'd be more upset about you having a commoner as a paramour than about you bonding with a dragon and proving to the world that our family is not purely Elurian."
"They are not happy about that either, and they intend to keep it a secret. Frankly, I don't know how I'm going to escape this even if you recover fully by the time the ball rolls around. I'm still thinking about a plan. I want my life back."
The light that had kindled in his eyes when I'd started telling him my secret intensified. He had a reason outside himself now; he needed to set his baby brother back on his feet.
"Then we'd better work harder and faster," he said. "I didn't care about passing the throne to you. You would have made a good king, but I care about what is being done to you. I want you to go back to your dragonia and your girl and be happy."
"Thank you," I said. "I still don't know how I'm going to pull it off. First, we take care of you, and once you are hale enough to resume your heir duties, I will play my trump card."
"Which is?"
"A letter from the head shaman of Elucia to our father. I've been carrying it since I left, and I haven't given it to him."
"Why not?"
"Because the letter would be wasted while I'm still the crown prince, no matter what Saphir Fatewever wrote to Father. When I'm no longer the heir, it might carry some weight with him. I'll put it in his hand after the ball, once you're confirmed heir and the dust has settled."