Bodhi #2
“Sgaeyl.” He pushes off the tree and strides right past me. “Come on, Cuir is waiting for you.”
“Cuir?” I repeat like a fucking bird, chasing after my cousin. My mind races through the list of willing dragons. “Green Swordtail?”
“Yes,” he says as I catch up. “Sgaeyl says Cuir is waiting for you in a field to the south.”
Too many emotions flood my body to catalog them all, but I register the burst of joy that I’ve been chosen and an inexplicable pang of…something…that I’m being told. “What, like Sgaeyl chose my dragon for me?”
Xaden scoffs. “She’s not one to play matchmaker. She’s just conveying the information.”
“That’s not normal.” My hands fist at my sides.
“This”—Xaden gestures to the rebellion relic on his left arm—“makes everything out here abnormal when it comes to us. I can’t explain it.”
“I think you can.” I keep up with him, only because I know he’ll leave me behind if I try to prove a point by stopping and waiting for an answer he obviously doesn’t want to give.
There is no match in the world for his stubbornness, except for maybe Sgaeyl.
“You are the only family I have left. You’re closer to a brother than you are a cousin. So fucking tell me.”
He glances my way as we approach the field, then nods. “There’s a chance that the dragons willing to fight this war with us are seeking out riders with rebellion relics.”
“Of course they’re willing to fight Poromiel, otherwise they wouldn’t bond—” My words die. “Oh. You mean…”
“Yes.”
My chest draws tight. “Are you saying the choices are already made for us?” Gods, is everything about my life decided by other fucking people?
“It’s just a theory,” he says quickly, his gaze darting toward mine.
“Sgaeyl told me about Cuir because she knows I worry—” He grimaces.
“That’s not true. Sometimes I think she relishes in me worrying.
She knows I won’t leave the forest until you bond, and Garrick and I have somewhere we need to be.
” He throws up a finger. “I will tell you about that after you bond.”
“One day your inability to be entirely truthful with someone is going to bite you in the ass.”
“Doubtful. My ability to keep secrets keeps people alive.” The leaves rustle on a sulfur-scented wind. “But I will tell you I’m going to need your help.”
My chest swells with a sense of purpose, and I nod. “I’ll do whatever you need.”
“I know.” We share a look and continue toward the field where my future waits.
I almost never get to see him alone anymore, especially with the addendum in place, so I take advantage of the situation. “Are you going to see Cat? Is that where you have to be?”
“Fuck no.” He grimaces. “I spend as little time with her as possible. It’s not worth the trip when all we do is annoy the shit out of each other. I don’t know how much longer…” He rips his hand over his hair. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You deserve to be happy,” I say quietly, and somehow it feels like the loudest thing I could have said in a forest full of dragons.
“What is this elusive happiness of which you speak?” He scans the forest around us, ever on guard.
“I think it’s love.” I nod to myself. “Like what my parents had. Love and family and a future beyond all the misery—or at least someone who makes the misery worth it.”
“I like that for you.”
“I like that for you, too.” My hands curl into fists again. “I hate that you’re betrothed to someone you won’t have that with. Hate that you had no say in the matter. Most days I wake up just wishing it would all…stop.”
“The betrothal?” His brow furrows.
“The wars. The fighting. The powerlessness, including your betrothal.”
“You don’t need to worry about me, Bodhi.” He drapes his arm over my shoulder. “I’m the one who’s responsible for you, remember?”
“All I do is worry about you,” I blurt. “You think I don’t see what this place is turning you into?
I barely recognized you when I showed up in July.
You hardly ever smile anymore. You almost never laugh.
I’ve seen you kill on the mat when a knockout would have sufficed, and you didn’t warn those first-years that the red was going to bake them because they were in a group.
You should break the betrothal. Fuck whatever agreement Uncle Fen made.
I’ll back you with the council. You know I’ll do it. I’ll keep my word.”
Durrans always keep their word. Dad’s voice slides through my memory.
“I know you will. It’s not the betrothal changing me.” Xaden squeezes me once in a half hug, then drops his arm. “And does it really matter what I become if it means you’re safe? Garrick? Liam? Imogen? Sloane? Soleil—”
“You don’t have to list every marked one,” I counter as we approach the line of trees surrounding the field. “I get the point.”
“You don’t.” He pauses, then pins me in place with a look that instills fear in most of the quadrant. “But you will. Because you didn’t warn those cadets, either. Not that I give a shit, but I’m bound by Codex not to interfere, so what’s your excuse?”
My mouth snaps shut. A pit hollows my stomach because he’s right, even if I don’t want to admit it. I could have stepped out and said something to those cadets.
He looks up to the sky, takes a long breath, and then looks at me again. “This place changes everyone, including you.”
“We can choose not to let it,” I whisper.
“If we don’t change, we die.” His expression softens into something akin to pity.
“What would our parents think?” My pulse pounds as I turn away from my cousin and walk into the field.
“Our parents would think those cadets had already been warned by Kaori, and it was their choice not to listen to guidance. We can’t save everyone, Bodhi,” Xaden calls after me.
A big Blue Clubtail that isn’t on Kaori’s list waits in the center of the field, standing at its full height. Its claws flex on the ground and, above a scar that bisects its snout, its golden eyes narrow on me.
“Bodhi—” Xaden’s words die from the edge of the field behind me. “Oh, fuck. Not that one.”
It’s not the green I’ve been told I’m going to bond.
Fuck it. I’m done having my choices made for me. I may not be a Riorson by name, but I am by blood, and I can handle a blue. I break into a full sprint, my arms pumping as my feet devour the distance across the field.
“Bodhi!” Xaden shouts. “No!”
Three things seem to happen all at once.
The blue lowers its head and opens its enormous jaw, tongue curling, fire welling in the back of its throat. Shadows rush the ground in front of me. And I realize I may have just made the biggest mistake of my life and am about to pay for it.
I throw out my arms in front of me like they have a chance of saving me from the impending inferno, and my mother’s face flashes in my mind.