Chapter 26 Alar
ALAR
I know how to negotiate treaties, navigate court intrigues, and when diplomacy fails, how to fight my way out of whatever is left. Yet when I see the woman I love fading before my eyes, none of it matters. No training has prepared me for the one battle I can't afford to lose.
—From the private journal of Alar Tekum
Iwatched Kailin sleep, her chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm that told me the sleeping draught was working. Her face looked peaceful and beautiful, but she was pale, and the shadows under her eyes had become permanent fixtures.
The medical examination yesterday had confirmed what I'd already known. She was burning herself out. Every time she used her abilities, she poured out more than she could replenish. And the dragon bond that might save her was still weeks away.
I brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, careful not to wake her.
She needed every moment of rest she could get, but I worried about leaving her alone in the room while I was in conditioning.
Someone was supposed to always watch over her while the rest of us were training.
I had seen Jarren Voss, our hallway monitor, hovering nearby, but I didn't trust him to protect Kailin.
I truly hoped that this wasn't another plot to flush out the assassins. So far, those ploys had achieved nothing but putting her in danger.
My hand closed over the hilt of the knife strapped to my belt. It was good to be armed again, and I was glad my friends were similarly equipped. Someone in the Citadel wanted us dead, or wanted Kailin dead, and we were just the collateral.
At least we weren't completely defenseless now.
I put my boots on and slipped out of the room, nodding at Jarren as I passed him by. He smiled and nodded back.
Morning conditioning would start soon, and I was actually looking forward to the physical punishment. I needed to hit something, to push my body until it became a machine so I could better protect the woman I loved.
The conditioning grounds were already filling with first-year cadets when I arrived. Morek spotted me and jogged over.
"Where's Kailin?" he asked.
"Sleeping. She's excused from conditioning until the medics clear her."
"Good. She was starting to look like a ghost." He winced. "Sorry. Poor choice of words."
"But accurate." I started stretching, working out the tension in my shoulders. "Where are the others?"
"Shovia's doing laps. Codric's..." He gestured toward the far end of the grounds, where my cousin was doing pull-ups. "Being Codric."
I nodded. We'd all been processing the explosion in our own way.
Captain Odinah's whistle cut through the morning air. "Line up! Today we're running the obstacle course. Full gear, full weapons. To be considered for bonding, you need to complete it in under fifteen minutes."
A ripple of anxiety moved through the assembled cadets. The obstacle course was brutal on a good day. With full gear and weapons, it would be torture.
Perfect.
It was just what I needed.
Twelve minutes and forty-three seconds later, I collapsed at the finish line, lungs burning and legs shaking.
Morek had naturally finished first, beating me to it by at least a minute if not more.
Codric crossed five seconds after me, and Shovia finished at fourteen minutes and twelve seconds, which was exceptional for a female, but she still looked irritated for not being among the first.
"Not bad," Captain Odinah said, once she stopped the timer at precisely fifteen minutes. "Half of you made it. The other half needs to do better."
I was proud that the four representatives of our quintet who'd participated in this challenge had all made it in under fifteen minutes, but I noticed that other cadets were giving us sidelong glances.
Some friendly, some wary, a few openly hostile.
Ever since the attack, our quintet had become simultaneously revered and feared.
"Do you feel it?" Shovia asked quietly, following my gaze. "The way they look at us now?"
"Like we're different," Codric said.
"We are different." Morek's face twisted in a grimace. "Saphir marked us as such when he took us below the temple grounds and sent the others back to the Citadel."
"We were also targeted by assassins," Codric pointed out.
"And we're armed while the other cadets are not.
But what differentiates us the most is that we are close friends of the Hero of Elucia.
After the dream that saved Podana, Kailin gained a nearly mythological status, and since we were in her inner orbit, some of it rubbed off on us. "
That was a very astute observation from my cousin.
"I hate it," Shovia said. "I miss when we were just ordinary cadets like the others."
"We were never just cadets," I said. "We were always destined to be more."
From the moment Saphir had identified us as part of the prophesied seven, our path had diverged from everyone else's. We couldn't go back to being the way we had been before, whether we wanted that or not.
I didn't like it any more than Shovia and the others did.
It had been so refreshing to be treated like everyone else without having to worry if people sought my company because they liked me or because of my supposed status and position.
As the fifth son of the king of Catonia, my position had never been overly important or influential, but as a prince, I had always been treated with deference.
People had never been comfortable around me, and I detested the sycophancy.
After lunch with Kailin, I felt strange about heading out to flight training without her. Right now, I would have been happy to see her flying off with Ravel even though my gut twisted with jealousy every time I saw him sitting so close behind her, touching her…
I knew the Commander acted professionally and wouldn't do anything inappropriate, and I was confident that Kailin loved me.
There was nothing between them except training and mutual respect.
And yet, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was more going on between them, even if they couldn't admit that to themselves.
I pushed the thought away and focused on the exercise. Banking left, climbing in formation, diving in matched descent.
After landing, I lingered on the platform and looked at the distant peaks where Ravel usually conducted Kailin's training sessions. No one was there now, but I could picture them, Kailin on Onyx's back, Ravel behind her, too close, his hands on her waist.
"Come on." Codric clapped me on my back, startling me. "Darma told me this morning that there would be something good for dinner. Some kind of roasted bird."
"Do you ever think of anything other than food?" I asked my cousin. "I don't know how you don't get fat."
Codric smiled. "Fast metabolism."
Kailin was already in the mess hall when we got there, sitting at our usual table in the corner. The position gave us clear sightlines to the main entrance as well as the one leading to the kitchen.
Given the two assassination attempts, vigilance was not optional.
"How are you feeling?" I leaned to kiss her cheek.
"Rested and better." She patted the spot next to her. "And bored out of my mind. I don't think I could have survived another day of that. Thankfully, I can attend classes and training tomorrow, but I'm excused from conditioning until after bonding."
"Be grateful," Shovia said, taking the seat on Kailin's other side. "Odinah is getting more sadistic with each passing day." She turned to me. "Did you tell her about the conditioning this morning? It was brutal."
"I gave her the highlights over lunch."
Morek grinned from across the table. "I won."
"Of course, you did," Shovia said. "But it wasn't your best performance by a long shot. You could probably do it in under ten if you tried."
"Why waste the energy? What's important is that I won."
"Maybe you're just getting slow in your old age," Shovia taunted.
"I'm twenty-two!"
"Definitely over the hill," Codric deadpanned, earning a laugh from the table.
I watched Kailin as she laughed with them, her face lighting up. This was how I wanted to see her—happy, healthy, and surrounded by friends who would die for her.
If only I could figure out how to keep her safe.
"What about you?" Kailin found my hand under the table and interlaced our fingers. "How did you do on the challenge?"
"I came in second."
"That's good."
"Would have been better if I'd beaten Morek, but since that's probably never going to happen, I'll take second place."
"We need to talk," Shovia said quietly. "We haven't had a chance to discuss what Saphir told us."
After the attempt on our lives, Kailin had been in no shape to discuss anything, and today was the first day that she looked well enough to do so.
"What is there to discuss?" Morek asked in a near whisper. "We're five of the seven. We find the missing eggs, and we save the world. Simple."
I put a finger on my lips. "Not here, Morek."
I pushed to my feet and offered Kailin a hand up. "Let's go to our room."
As was usual lately, our departure was followed by stares and murmurs, but I was adept at blocking those kinds of responses. After years at court, I had developed the ability to filter them out. Kailin, on the other side, walked stiffly beside me, her hand clutching mine as if I were her anchor.
Once the door to our room had closed behind the five of us, Codric sat on the bed and leaned his elbows on his knees. "We don't even know who the other two are. Ravel doesn't think he's the sixth, and I agree."
"Why?" Kailin asked. "Saphir thinks that Ravel is the tracker." She sat next to Codric.
"Because he had to find someone who was already here and matched that description. That doesn't mean it's Ravel. I'm sure many riders are good at tracking."