42. Ravel
RAVEL
The long lives of riders are not costless. Our families and friends grow old without us.
—From the journal of Commander Ravel Nidar
Onyx had brought the saddle up from the floor of the ravine the same night, and I'd taken it straight to the forensic department and refused to let anyone handle the case other than Amik.
I'd known him since we'd both been pilgrims. He'd made it to the academy but not to the bonding ceremony. He'd stayed on and built himself a fine career out of the science of examining evidence.
He was good at what he did, dedicated, and I trusted him.
"Ravel." He walked up to me, shook the hand I offered, and pulled me into a brotherly embrace.
I didn't have brothers by blood, but I had several by choice, and Amik was one of them.
Regrettably, he hadn't become a rider, so he was aging at a normal, human rate, and although he looked good for a forty-seven-year-old man, with strong shoulders and a full head of hair, his temples were graying, and the skin around his eyes was crinkling, and I both envied and grieved his mortality.
"What do you have for me?" he asked.
"A failed saddle that almost claimed the life of our shaman in training."
His brows shot up. "How did that happen?"
"That's what I want you to find out. She checked the straps and buckles before mounting like she always does, and they seemed fine. I don't think it was an accident. Not this time."
He nodded. "Let me take a look. Go sit down while I work on it."
I didn't want to sit. My nerves were too frayed for me to stay stationary, but I didn't want to bother him while he worked, so I sat.
He checked the harness methodically, examining the whole rig, every buckle and billet and length of strap, and I watched his hands and said nothing.
Kailin had checked it herself. She'd told me so.
And even though she blamed herself for not being thorough enough, I knew she had done what she'd been supposed to do. Kailin never half-assed anything.
Whatever had taken her out of the sky, it wasn't a faulty buckle she'd failed to inspect.
"Well," Amik said at last, and turned to me. "At a glance, I'd write this off as chafe and brittleness. The billet failed where billets always fail, under load, at the fold. Nothing here a board of inquiry would look at twice."
That wasn't what I wanted to hear. "Those saddles are inspected daily because riders' lives depend on them. Wear and tear is taken into account, and each strap and buckle is marked with the date it was attached so it can be replaced well before it wears out. This shouldn't have happened."
"I agree." He picked it up again and held it to the light so I could see the broken edge.
"Look at how it's gone. That's old leather's failure, dry and crazed all through the grain.
And this isn't old leather. I checked the marks.
This saddle is relatively new, and all the straps were replaced four months ago and kept oiled.
They had no business being this brittle.
The leather should've bent and stretched before it ever broke. This snapped like a winter twig."
Something cold settled in my chest. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, either there was a flaw in the leather, or something was put on it to make it deteriorate faster.
A solvent, an agent that drinks the life out of the leather and leaves what looks like honest aging.
I don't know of any such solvents that can work fast, but over time, even simple chemicals can do enough damage.
Not oiling it properly can also hasten its wear and tear.
Kailin checked the straps when her dragon was on the ground, and they might have looked perfectly fine, but then when gravitational forces put a strain on them, they snapped. "
Whatever had weakened that leather, it had nothing to do with Kailin. Riders inspected their own rigs before every flight, but the oiling and upkeep belonged to the maintenance crew, not the rider.
"Can you prove it?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Whatever it was is gone now. All I have is a hunch."
"Your hunch is good enough for me. I'm going to interrogate everyone who had access to this saddle."
He gave me a sympathetic look. "That would be the entire maintenance crew. It's not like specific people are assigned to specific saddles."
"Perhaps that needs to change, so when a saddle fails, we know who to hold accountable."
"That's not a bad idea." He wiped his hands on a rag. "I'll run every test I have, but I'll likely find nothing. The inquiry will rule it wear and want of maintenance, and they'll put the blame on Kailin, who did everything right."
"They wouldn't dare blame the Hero of Elucia for neglecting her duties, and if they do, they will have to deal with me."
Onyx stirred in my mind then, the way he usually did when he sensed I was irate.
"I'm fine, Onyx. I'm investigating the saddle failure."
"I know. I have a message for you from Veynathei, or rather for Kailin. She is offering to have Kailin as her rider until Morgateth returns so she can keep up her training."
"That's a great idea, but why didn't she contact Kailin directly?"
"She wanted to get your approval first," Onyx said. "As Kailin's flight instructor."
"I'm all for it. If Alar doesn't return, it might become a permanent arrangement."
"He'll return," Onyx said. "And so will Morgateth. Nyxath says to leave him alone. He will return when he processes the shame and guilt."
"I'll speak with Kailin," I told him, and turned back to Amik. "Let me know when you find something, and even if you don't."
"I will." He clapped me on the back. "And don't be a stranger. We miss you at the card table."
"Let me know when you are having the next game," I said, knowing that I probably wouldn't attend.
Between my regular duties, training Kailin, and investigating sabotage and assassination attempts, I didn't have the time or the mental capacity for friendly card games.
I made my way to where I knew I'd find Kailin this time of day, which was in Saphir's office.
After the cadet manning the front desk in the shaman's antechamber let me in, I found Kailin standing in the middle of the large office, reciting the ten main Precepts of Truth.
Moki was draped along the edge of Saphir's desk, watching her with his strangely human eyes and waving his tail in sync with Kailin's cadence. Or maybe it was the other way around, and she was taking her cues from his tail.
It was hard to tell.
Kailin stopped when I entered, and for a moment neither of us knew how to act around the other.
Things couldn't just go back to where they had been before she had nearly died, before I realized that I loved her, before I'd held her for hours as she shook, before she'd clung to me like we were the only two people left in the world.
There was no manual with step-by-step instructions for what to do next.
Saphir looked from her to me and back, and as a small knowing crease appeared at the corner of his mouth, I felt the familiar pressure of his attention turning my way.
I had my shields up, as I always did around Saphir, but today they weren't enough to contain the turmoil in my mind, and I suspected the shaman was reading me like an open book.
"Commander Ravel," Saphir said mildly. "What brings you to my office this morning?"
He probably already knew.
"I come with a message for Kailin. Veynathei is offering to train with you until Morgateth returns."
She frowned. "Why didn't she ask me directly? I wasn't blocking her, was I?"
"No, you weren't. She needed my leave for it since you are training with me. I guess she also wanted to know if you were alright to fly."
"I don't know," Kailin said. "I'm used to flying with Morgateth. It will be a completely different experience with Veynathei."
She looked scared, and I knew why, but it was important for her to get over her fear, and the best way to do that was to go right back to flying.
"Training you on a stand-in dragon rather defeats the purpose of the training, but it's important for you to get back in the saddle. You don't want to let fear paralyze you."
Kailin took that in. "So, you want me to take her up on her offer?"
"It's up to you," I said. "I told you what I think, but I'm not your commanding officer, and I won't tell you what to do." I smiled. "You are a shaman in training, and you have the autonomy to decide whether you want to allow fear to rule you or spit in its face."
I was being harsh. I was pushing her, but the final decision was hers, and I knew what she would choose even before she did. Kailin didn't give up. She was incapable of that. She would accept Veynathei's offer and go right back to flying.
For a moment, she didn't answer, and as I saw her working through it, her expressive face broadcasting every emotion, I braced for being wrong about what she would choose.
She was thinking about her brush with death, the memory of the empty air, Morgateth's betrayal…
"You are right," she said, sounding resolute.
"If I don't get back up, the fear wins, and I might never fly again.
I was terrified of heights my entire life, and I've gotten over it.
I will not allow myself to retreat back there.
I need to fly, or the fear will eat everything I've achieved.
I'm going to tell Veynathei that I accept her offer. "
My chest swelled with pride.
"You are incredibly brave, Kailin. Very few would have been ready to get on a dragon's back after a nearly deadly fall, but I knew you would choose the hard road because you're you." I dipped my head to her. "A true Hero of Elucia."