Hero of Elucia (Bonds of Wings and Fury #2)

Chapter 1 Kailin

KAILIN

"Heroes are not born from desire but from necessity. They arise when the world demands it, often despite themselves."

—Shaman Saphir Fatewever

My new dress uniform was a beautiful shade of midnight blue, the silver embroidery marking me as a cadet of the Dragon Force, but it was too tight, and not because I'd regained any of the weight I'd lost during the night of my epic prophetic dream.

Splitting my consciousness between so many creatures and warning hundreds of dragons had taken more out of me than seemed possible in the span of eight hours, but I wasn't complaining.

It was such a small sacrifice given that my dream had saved our capital from a massive Shedun attack.

The changes went beyond mere weight loss and the lingering exhaustion three days later, but the only aspect I could attempt to fix was the uniform, which had been tailored for the Kailin from before the dream.

I had been too enthusiastic with the needle and thread, though, taking it in too much, and now I feared that a deep breath might rip open the seams I'd spent hours sewing by hand.

Still, examining my reflection in the mirror, I had to admit that I liked the new slimmer version of me, just not the reason for the rapid weight loss, the implications on my overall health, and my future chances of surviving another prophetic dream of such magnitude.

I also wasn't sure whether I liked the face that was staring back at me.

My eyes seemed different, and not just because of the shadows under them.

They appeared to be a darker shade of blue, older, wary, but it was probably just the lingering fatigue.

I turned to Shovia. "Do my eyes look different to you?"

She glanced up from the boots she was polishing. "In what way?"

"They seem darker."

"You're imagining it."

"Maybe." I tugged on my jacket again, trying to flatten the lapels, but they refused to behave because the fabric had no give left. "I feel like an overstuffed doll."

She shook her head. "Stop fussing with the uniform. It's fine. Work on your panicky expression instead. You look like you're about to face a firing squad instead of General Bardaky and several other top brass."

Shovia could always read me so easily, either because we'd been friends for years and she knew me so well, or because I was so transparent.

"Thanks for reminding me that it won't be just the general." I swallowed. "Your firing squad analogy is not far off."

She chuckled. "Bardaky is greeting you with a medal, not a gun."

"I'm not afraid of him shooting me in front of the entire Dragon Force. I'm afraid someone else might do that because the 'Hero of Elucia' is too dangerous to be allowed to live."

Honoring me in a public ceremony made no sense. If my abilities were supposed to be kept a secret, why parade me in front of the entire Citadel?

Anyone who didn't already know what I'd done would know soon enough.

Shovia's hands stilled on the boots. "Is that what's bothering you? I thought it was stage fright."

"It is mostly that, but being a target doesn't help." I pulled on the drakking lapels again, but they refused to lie flat no matter how much I fiddled with them.

"Maybe it was a one-off? You've never had prophetic dreams before. Are you still dreaming about seeing the world through the eyes of small animals?"

I nodded. "When I woke up this morning, it took me a moment before I realized that I had hands instead of paws."

I hadn't been drinking Saphir's tea since the night of the attack, so the dreams weren't as vivid as before, but evidently, I was still accessing the consciousness of nocturnal creatures, so perhaps the connections had never been fully severed.

Her expression sharpened. "How long did the confusion last?"

"Just a few seconds. But I'm afraid that next time it will be longer, or worse, that I won't be able to get back to my human self."

"Don't worry about it. I'll pull you out," she said with so much conviction that it almost made me laugh. "A slap on the face should do the trick."

I mock glared at her through the mirror. "You would dare strike the most decorated cadet in the history of the force?"

"Anytime, darling. You were my best friend long before you became the Hero of Elucia." She shook her head. "Who would have thought that my shy and reserved friend, the bookish Kailin Strom, would be awarded the highest medal of honor?"

I grimaced. "Not me, that's for sure."

It was surreal.

The title made me queasy like an overindulgent meal that was difficult to digest.

I didn't deserve a medal for what I'd done. I'd saved lives, but that didn't make me a hero. I hadn't fought in the battle, hadn't even been aware of what I'd been doing, let alone displayed any bravery doing it. I'd just dreamt and broadcast my prophetic dream.

My ability was a big deal. I wasn't denying that or diminishing its importance, but it had nothing to do with heroism.

The real heroes were the Elucian Forces, those who had fought on the ground and in the air to protect Podana from the Shedun invasion.

"I don't feel like I deserve it," I said quietly. "The only heroic things I did were to drink the nasty tea Saphir had given me and to suffer through the disturbing dreams it induced."

"You saved lives," Shovia said. "Without you, rivers of blood would have flooded Podana's streets. Own it or at least play the part."

"I'm trying." I ran my fingers along the embroidery on my sleeve. "But it's not easy when I'm about to stand before the entire assembled might of the Dragon Force while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is pinning a medal to my too-tight jacket. Even you would be jittery if you were in my boots."

"The General is a little intimidating," she admitted. "But you know me. I would love being the center of attention."

"Even if that would put you in danger?"

She smiled. "What do you think?"

Shovia would love it no matter what, and for a moment, I was tempted to tell her that I would gladly have her accept the honor in my name, but I would never knowingly put her in danger.

I didn't know what I hated more about the exposure of my ability—the danger it was putting me in, the way other cadets and even instructors were looking at me now, or the feeling that this prophetic dream was a first of many more to come.

But since there was no way for things to go back to the way they had been before the attack, my only option was to get used to my new reality.

Even without the medal ceremony, everyone in the Citadel probably already knew about what I'd done.

Most of the riders had been exposed to my dream communication, or they had heard about it from others, and it was too big of a deal for the story to remain contained.

The only way my ability could be hidden again was if Saphir thralled everyone into forgetting my role in the miracle of saving Podana.

Could he do it to everyone attending the ceremony today? Perhaps that was the real reason for presenting me with the medal in such a public display?

That didn't make much sense, though.

If they all were made to forget my part in saving Podana, how would the medal be explained? Besides, I didn't know if Saphir was powerful enough to affect so many people at once.

I sighed.

The shaman's compulsion ability was one of the many secrets he'd entrusted me with, and those secrets were just as difficult to carry on the inside as the medal would be on the outside, or maybe more so because I had to keep them from my friends.

Portals to other worlds and the prophecy about the seven who would save Aurorys, supposedly written by Elu himself, were reality-altering enough, but to me, the biggest secret of all was that Elu was not the creator of the universe and everything in it.

Our Two-Faced God wasn't divine, omnipresent, omnipotent, or all-knowing.

Saphir claimed that Elu was a god but not a deity, and as Elucia's highest spiritual authority, the shaman should know better than anyone the truth about our god.

According to him, Elu was immortal, powerful, and the creator of our truth-based faith, but he was flesh and blood, born to a mother and a father, and not the ethereal entity Aurorysans believed him to be.

Where was Elu, though?

Had he left Aurorys through one of the portals? Or did he reside in the Fabled Dolis that was in fact a real, physical location?

I had so many questions I needed to ask Saphir, but I hadn't seen him since our meeting right after I woke up from my prophetic dream three days ago, and most of that time had been spent recuperating from my ordeal and replaying in my mind what I had learned in my last conversation with him.

Was it all true? Or should I question the shaman's sanity?

Portals to other worlds seemed like a madman's fantasy, the prophecy about the seven could belong to the same category, and the strange world that the shaman’s peculiar pet had projected into my head could have been the result of the tea Saphir had given me.

Moki seemed to be part monkey and part cat, a creature that did not exist on Aurorys, and the world he had shown me looked like nothing I had seen before.

That brew certainly induced hallucinations, so what I had seen might have been the result of that.

But the fact that my dream had saved countless lives was irrefutable, and it made everything else seem possible as well, including the prophecy.

Who was the seventh member, though? A cadet who had yet to attend the pilgrimage? Someone from outside the academy?

Even the five of us, who Saphir was convinced had been prophesied, weren’t sure about our roles.

The text claimed that five would come as one, bound by threads of destiny to join the one who was there first and wait for the seventh who would come in last.