Chapter 11 Kailin
KAILIN
"Home is not where you come from, but where you choose to stand and fight."
—Scholar Miriel Thorne
As Onyx touched down on the landing platform, the familiar scent of stone and dragons welcomed me back to the Citadel. After three days of sleeping in my room, the austere military fortress should have felt cold and intimidating, but it didn't.
"Welcome back, Little Warrior," Onyx said in my mind as I dismounted.
"Thank you. It's good to be back." I reached for my backpack, which Ravel was pulling out of the special compartment on Onyx's saddle.
I shouldered my pack and walked up to Dylon. "Don't be a stranger." I wrapped my arms around him. "If you don't visit me, I'm going to use my special status as the Hero of Elucia to demand to see you or come visit you."
He chuckled. "Go for it, little sister. Make it happen."
I turned to Ravel. "You are his commanding officer. I'm sure you have a say in his visitation rights."
He smiled. "Get some rest, cadets. Training resumes at dawn tomorrow."
Oh, so I was back to being just a cadet.
Got it.
That was probably his way of saying that I can forget about having special status and that I needed to remember my place in the Citadel's hierarchy, which, despite my medal, was right at the bottom.
"I can't wait for conditioning tomorrow," Alar muttered, and there was no sarcasm in his tone.
Maybe he was eager to release some of the nervous energy we'd accumulated over the last three days with the grueling conditioning, and so was I, just in a different and much more pleasant manner.
It had been difficult to wait for something to happen, not knowing when and where the blow would come from, and it had gotten much worse after the assassination attempt, when our suspicions had been proven to be true.
I was a threat to those plotting against Elucia, whether without or within, and I had to assume that more attempts on my life would come. Maybe they wouldn't happen today or tomorrow, but at some point, they would, and I needed to prepare for them.
Having a weapon would be a good start, and that was one of the things I'd discussed with Ravel during our flight back to the Citadel.
Cadets weren't permitted to carry handguns or even knives, but Ravel was going to ask that an exception be made in my case.
I'd suggested that Alar and I move in together, and that he be given a weapon as well, but Ravel hadn't been too keen on that idea.
He'd said that he would discuss it with the head of the Dragon Academy and let me know.
When I finished telling all that to Alar, he perked up. "That was excellent thinking, Kailin. I'm much better trained than Shovia, and I will defend you with my life."
"So would she." I leaned toward him and kissed his cheek. "But thank you for saying that. I will defend you with my life as well. You know that, right?"
He nodded. "I know, and with all of your emerging powers, you'd probably do a better job of defending me than I would of defending you."
"That's not true. You are much stronger and faster than I am."
He chuckled. "But you can see the future before it happens. I have nothing on that."
"Kailin!" Shovia barreled into me with enough force to knock me back a step, wrapping me in a fierce hug. "Thank Elu, you're back. I was going nuts without you." She turned to Alar. "I missed you, too, just not as much. Codric, on the other hand, was inconsolable."
"I was not." Codric enveloped Alar in a brotherly embrace. "But I'm glad you are back. We have so much to tell you."
Alar took a step back. "What happened?"
Codric glanced at Morek, then shifted his gaze to the other cadets who were walking toward us, probably intending to welcome us back as well. "Let's talk in Shovia and Kailin's room."
"In a moment." I smiled at the other cadets.
They seemed more relaxed around me than they had been in the first days after the attack on Podana, and I wondered if the medal had anything to do with that.
Maybe they'd realized that I was not a threat, or maybe they had liked my one-sentence speech about the medal belonging to all the defenders of Podana.
No one liked a braggart.
I exchanged greetings, shook hands, and smiled a lot, and then Alar and I followed our friends to the room.
The five of us arranged ourselves wherever we could find a place to sit.
Shovia insisted that I sit next to her on her bed because she'd missed me, so Codric and Alar sat on my bed while Morek grabbed a chair.
The space felt smaller with all of us in it, and it was charged with the anxious energy of anticipation.
"So, what happened?" Alar asked.
Shovia waved her hand at Codric. "You tell it."
That was surprising. Usually, she liked to be the center of attention, and I wondered why she preferred for Codric to tell the story.
"We did some research in the library archives," he said. "And we found intriguing patterns in rider deaths going back forty years. There might have been more, but we were kicked out by Captain Odinah before we could go through the older journals."
I lifted a hand. "Hold on a sec. First, how did you get into the library? And second, what journals?"
Shovia smirked. "It was my idea to go to the library.
I thought I could charm the librarian into telling us some of the juicy gossip that was circling around the Citadel and that the military types were not going to share with first-year cadets.
But as usual, things worked out differently than I planned.
Morek asked the guy about the journals of the first riders.
The librarian said that the information was restricted, but he took us to the archives, where the journals of all deceased riders were stored.
It turns out that each rider has a journal, not only with their entries, but also with comments from their instructors, commanders, fellow riders, and so on.
Each also has the cause of death listed. "
"Interesting." I shifted a few inches away from Shovia so I could look at her face. "It would seem that I was ahead of the game with my journaling."
Shovia's eyes widened. "I haven't thought of that. What if you are a reincarnated rider?"
Only a few short weeks ago, I would have dismissed her suggestion outright. However, given all the recent events that had been happening to me, I wasn't going to dismiss even her most absurd ideas.
"Could be," I said. "So, what did you find out?"
"A strange pattern revolving around four particular dragons," Codric said.
"Ixilthar, Syltharion, Morgateth, and Vyrassin.
Each of them has had several riders die in suspicious circumstances.
Some died in battle, but their deaths were due to mistakes that experienced riders shouldn't have made, and others in training exercises, again due to careless mistakes like not strapping the saddle properly. "
My blood chilled. "How many riders?"
I remembered the discussion in the bar at Pilgrim's Lodge, and Ravel's suspicions about rogue dragons. Was he aware of the pattern of riders' deaths?
"Three each for Ixilthar and Morgateth," Codric said. "Four for Syltharion. And five for Vyrassin, all in the span of four decades. Guess who's Vyrassin's current rider?"
"Who?" Alar asked, though his tone suggested that he had an inclination regarding who it was.
"Captain Odinah has been bonded to Vyrassin for the past twelve years."
The silence that followed spoke volumes about the implications. Our strict, by-the-book training commander was bonded to a dragon that had five dead riders connected to him in the past four decades.
"We can't jump to conclusions and accuse these dragons of murder," I said.
"They might just be more volatile than others and therefore more prone to accidents.
Besides, why would they keep bonding with new riders just to kill them later?
No one is forcing them to choose a rider.
They can refuse and wait until they find a good fit.
And what's different about Odinah? It could be that she's a superior rider, so she survived bonding a wild dragon while those who came before her did not. "
"We have some theories," Shovia said. "Maybe the dragons are looking for something specific in their riders, and that special trait is not self-evident from the start.
Perhaps those who died didn't have that.
Dragons are ruthless and the apex predators of our world.
They are not sentimental, and some regard humans as little more than food.
They only tolerate us because they need us.
Killing those whom they deem inferior would not pose much of a moral dilemma for them. "
"We have a pact," I murmured. "They can't just kill whoever they want," I added with not much conviction.
The pact was about mutual protection, but it didn't explicitly specify that they were not allowed to kill Elucians. To us, it might have seemed self-explanatory, but dragons didn't reason like humans.
Then again, Onyx had been wonderful with me, and he helped me with my fear of heights, pushing his warmth and strength into me. He would never think of me as food or as expendable. We were friends.
"Another possibility is that Odinah knows something the others didn't," Morek said. "Some way to keep Vyrassin in line."
Shovia snorted. "Yeah, she's so scary that even her dragon is afraid of her."
I wondered if now was a good time to tell them about the attempt on my life. "If we're already sharing disturbing news, someone tried to kill us at the Pilgrim's Lodge. Probably me specifically."
"What?" Shovia grabbed my arm so hard I'd probably have bruises.
"Are you hurt?" Codric was halfway off the bed.
"When?" Morek demanded.
I held up a hand to quiet them and took a deep breath. "Someone walked into the bar with a bomb in his backpack. The plan was to leave it near our table and detonate it remotely."
"Obviously, it didn't work," Shovia said with a voice that sounded strangled. "You are here."