Chapter 46 Alar
ALAR
"The stories we tell ourselves are the most convincing of all, for we know exactly what we want to hear."
—King Aldric III of Catonia, Letters to My Daughters
Dawn light crept through the window, as I lay still, listening to Kailin's steady breathing beside me.
She'd finally fallen asleep a few hours ago, exhaustion winning out over fear. I hadn't been so lucky. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father on his deathbed, or myself falling, or my mother's grief over losing both of us.
Was staying the right choice?
Saphir's restrictions might have applied only after the bonding, not before, so I might have misrepresented them to Kailin.
He hadn't offered me the option to leave now, and it was possible that if I asked to be released before the bonding, his answer would still be the same, but there was a small chance that it wouldn't.
Even then, I could put my foot down as the prince of Catonia, threaten an international incident with the Elurian Federation, and demand to be transported to the border.
I doubted I would be denied.
After the bonding, I would fully belong to Elucia, so things might get more complicated, but knowing my family, they were already drafting correspondence to submit to the Elucian government.
Still, what I had told Kailin hadn't been the entire truth, and I'd pretended that the decision was out of my hands even prior to bonding.
I knew it was cowardice and had done it anyway because the alternative was too painful.
If I acknowledged that I could leave, then I would have to choose between my dying father and my dreams and aspirations for becoming a rider and, in time, creating a dragon force to protect Eluria.
I would have to choose between my family's demands and the woman I loved, between the life I was born into and the life I wanted to build for myself.
Kailin stirred beside me, and I turned my head to watch her wake. Her blond hair was tangled from restless sleep, and dark circles shadowed her blue eyes. Bonding couldn't come fast enough for her. She desperately needed her dragon's strength to fortify her.
"Good morning." I smiled and leaned to kiss her forehead.
"Good morning." She regarded me with worried eyes. "Did you sleep at all?"
"A little." I brushed off a strand of hair that was stuck to her cheek. "We should start getting ready."
Neither of us moved.
Last night's conversation hung between us, with all the things we'd said and all the things we hadn't. I had told her about my mother's last letter. She had told me her prophecy. We had argued, she'd cried, and then we'd held each other in the darkness.
And in the end, nothing had been resolved.
"Alar." Kailin pushed herself up on one elbow. "We need to talk about what happens if the official summons from your family arrives because I'm sure it will, and then Saphir will have to release you."
I didn't want to have this conversation. I wanted to get dressed, make some caff, go to the ceremony, bond with a dragon, and pretend that everything was going to be fine. I wanted to bury my head in the sand and hope that the problem would go away.
"I don't want to talk about it, and please, don't take it the wrong way. I don't want to work myself up before the ceremony and get passed by all the reasonable dragons. A bad mood might attract the one that none of us wants to bond with."
I knew that she feared that, which was precisely why I brought it up. I hadn't grown up in the court of Catonia without mastering the art of manipulation. That I was using it on the woman I loved was despicable, but what I'd said wasn't a lie. It was a relevant point.
The fear that entered Kailin's expression made me feel guilty, but not enough to retract what I'd said.
"You don't get off the hook that easily, Alar.
If I didn't know what's on the table, I would be distraught, and then I could be chosen by the one undesirable dragon.
You know a lot more about politics and what an official summons means to both countries.
All I'm asking is for you to share that knowledge with me. "
I shouldn't have underestimated her.
"If the court of Catonia formally demands that Elucia release me, I will be released, but if they demand that I be reinstated later, Elucia might put up conditions that the court would have to abide by later.
The problem is that my family will never demand my reinstatement.
If they get me back, they'll never let me go again. "
Kailin was quiet for a long moment. "Maybe your destiny is to save Aurorys as a prince of Catonia and not an Elucian rider. Maybe you were always meant to go back home."
The words were like a punch to my gut.
How could she say that? How could she let me go?
If the roles were reversed, I would do everything to keep her from leaving. I loved her. But I was a selfish man, and I wasn't a great believer in prophetic dreams even when they came from Kailin. I didn't put much stock in her visions of my death.
What she'd dreamt about me was not the same as what she dreamt about Podana. She hadn't seen my death through the eyes of the small creatures whose consciousness she hitched a ride on. Her nightmares might have been a natural reflection of her waking fears.
"I don't want to leave you," I said. "I love you, Kailin."
"And I love you." She reached for my hand, her cold fingers intertwining with mine. "That's why I'd rather lose you than see you die."
"I'm not going to die."
"Alar—"
"No." I pulled her toward me, cupping her face in my hands. "I'm not leaving you. I'm not abandoning everything we've built together because of a dream that might be just a reflection of your waking fears."
"It's more than that," she insisted.
"I know it felt real to you. But even if it had a prophetic element, which I doubt, prophecies can be interpreted in many ways. My death could have been a symbol of my old self dying and being reborn as a rider and savior of Aurorys."
"You're grasping at straws because you don't want to face the truth."
The accusation stung because it wasn't wrong. I was grasping at straws. Still, what I'd said was valid as well.
"I will not base the most important decision of my life on a dream, Kailin. Not even yours."
She shook her head. "I can't believe you are saying that after you witnessed me saving Podana."
"That dream was different, and you know it."
"It was, but that does not invalidate the others." She lifted a pair of pleading eyes to me. "I'd rather have you alive in Eluria than dead in Elucia."
"And I'd rather die in your arms than live a thousand years without you."
We stared at each other, both of us stubborn and scared and unwilling to bend.
"There has to be another way," Kailin finally said. "Some way to change what I saw without you leaving."
I thought about the dream as she had described it. A training exercise. A solo flight. Something going wrong, the dragon banking too hard, me losing my grip and falling.
"What if I never fly solo?" I said. "The dream showed me on a solo flight. What if I refuse to do those? What if I always fly with a partner, someone who can catch me if I fall?"
Kailin's eyes became even more haunted. "In this nightmare, you died by falling off a dragon. In the two previous ones, you died in my arms, in the Citadel."
She'd admitted to having nightmares about the Citadel being attacked, but she hadn't told me that I'd died in her arms during those nightmares. No wonder she'd been so distraught by them. But the fact that I hadn't died the same way in her various nightmares only proved what I'd suspected.
"Don't you see?" I cupped her cheek. "If the dreams were prophetic, I would have died the same way in all of them, but I didn't, which means that these dreams were just a reflection of your waking thoughts."
"You still died." She swallowed. "And the same phrase repeated in each dream."
"What phrase?"
"Some fates can't be changed," she said in a small voice.
I chuckled. "Well, that settles it then. If my fate can't be changed, why even try?"
Anger flared in her eyes. "Stop making light of this. This is serious."
I threw my hands in the air. "You've just said that my fate can't be changed."
"Some fates can't be changed. It didn't say that all fates can't be changed."
"Semantics."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "You use semantics as you see fit, twisting words to whatever suits your agenda."
I took her hand, lifted it to my lips, and kissed her knuckles.
"You chose to fall in love with a prince of Catonia.
Twisting words is second nature to me." I smiled.
"Two days ago, you told me that I needed to accept you as you are because I chose to fall in love with a shaman in training.
Fairness demands that the same rules apply to me. "
"You're the most stubborn person I've ever met."
"Back at you."
A weak laugh escaped her. "I'm serious, Alar. If something happens to you because you refused to leave—"
"Then it will be my choice. My responsibility. Not yours." I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight. "Stop trying to save me by pushing me away. We're partners. We face things together. That's how it works."
She buried her face in my shoulder, and I felt the dampness of tears against my skin.
"I can't lose you," she said, her voice muffled.
"You won't."
"You can't promise that."
"No," I admitted. "I can't. But I can promise that I'll fight for every moment we have together. I can promise that I won't give up on us without exhausting every other option. And I can promise that if the worst happens, it won't be because I didn't try."