Chapter 48 Kailin
KAILIN
I thought I understood what bonding meant. I understood nothing. It is a merging of souls, all pain laid bare, all grief shared, all hope kindled together, all joy doubled. To be bonded is to be fully known and fully accepted. It is the deepest friendship imaginable, and it is eternal.
—From the journal of Kailin Strom
The voices were everywhere.
I did my best not to listen. The conversations between dragons and cadets were supposed to be private, but my gift didn't come with an off switch.
Every telepathic communication within range flowed into my mind.
I had learned how to block them, but it was difficult in my depleted state.
I was tired, I was distraught from the nightmare, and I was worried for Alar.
I forced myself to stop listening.
Instead, I focused on the dragons who left without choosing anyone. They were easier to hear because they weren't directing their thoughts at specific cadets. Their communication was open, broadcast to anyone with the ability to receive it.
"None of them," a cobalt dragon murmured as it spread its wings to depart.
I waited until a pale gold dragon passed near me on its way to launch, then reached out with my mind.
"Why didn't you choose anyone?"
The dragon paused, turning one enormous eye toward me. It regarded me for a long moment before responding.
"Other than you, no one heard me. The right one was not present."
I wanted to ask how he knew that I wasn't the right one. After all I had heard them all, but the truth was that I hadn't felt anything special, and the same must have been true for them.
Evidently, not only cadets could leave the ceremony disappointed. Dragons could too.
Three more groups came and went. The line of cadets grew shorter, for which I was thankful because many of my classmates had found the right dragon to bond with, but no one in my quintet had been chosen yet.
Trying to remain optimistic, I hoped that the best dragons were saved for last.
I glanced toward Alar, who was standing a few paces to my left, and as he felt me looking at him, he turned and gave me a small, encouraging nod. He was doing his best to project calm, but I knew him too well to be fooled. I could see the tension in his posture and the worry in his eyes.
It will happen, I projected toward him even though I knew he couldn't hear my mental voice. Be patient. Your dragon is coming.
Another group descended from the clouds.
Five dragons, four typical of those who had come before them, but one stood out. He was massive, as large as Onyx, perhaps larger. His scales were deep blue, shot through with veins of crimson that looked like someone had painted thunder strikes on him.
When he landed and started his lumbering walk down the line of the remaining cadets, I was mesmerized by his eyes. They burned with intelligence but also pent-up rage.
I knew who he was, even though I had never seen him before.
Morgateth.
He radiated danger, and his presence was so enormous that it pressed against my mind even though he hadn't said anything yet. Not to me and not to anyone else.
I glanced left and right to gauge the reaction of the other cadets to him, and it seemed that he had a similar effect on them, including members of my quintet. Even Alar's shoulders tensed, and Codric had taken an involuntary step back.
Shovia, who was further down the line, had been waiting to catch my eye, and as soon as I looked at her, she shook her head, communicating a warning to stay away from the enormous dragon.
But it wasn't up to me, and it wasn't up to Morgateth either. We were either fated to bond or not.
His burning gaze swept the line of cadets and settled on me. For a long moment, he simply stared, those crimson-veined eyes boring into mine with an intensity that should have been frightening but wasn't.
Beneath the rage and the aura of menace, I saw something that the others couldn't perceive.
An ocean of pain.
Grief so profound it had calcified into fury. Loss so devastating it had become armor. Morgateth was not a monster. He was someone who had felt deeply and lost repeatedly, who had watched rider after rider die and blamed himself for each death.
The other four dragons in his group continued their slow procession down the line, but Morgateth came straight for me.
His stride was as lumbering as that of the others, and yet faster and more purposeful. Each step shook the roof beneath his talons.
"The Hero of Elucia who hears all dragons," his voice slammed into my mind. "I've heard a lot about you, and I'm sure you've heard a lot about me."
I held my ground. My heart was racing, but I refused to let fear control me.
"Yes."
"They say I am cursed. That my riders die. That I am dangerous, unstable, unfit for bonding." His head lowered until we were nearly eye to eye, his hot breath washing over my face. "They told me I shouldn't come here today."
"But you came anyway."
"I felt the pull. I knew I would find my rider here today. I hoped it would be you."
That surprised me. "What's your verdict? Am I the one you were destined to bond with?"
"Yes, but only if you'll have me. I will not force the bond on an unwilling partner. That's why this is called the Day of Volition and not the day of choosing. For the bond to solidify, you have to accept me."
I didn't even know that it was possible to force the bond. No one had told us about that.
"What will happen if I refuse? Will you get another chance?"
I could feel his disappointment in my answer, even though I hadn't told him no. He just assumed that was why I had asked him the question.
"There are more possible partners out there. I will attend other Days of Volition. Don't feel obligated to say yes."
Dragons were not bound by the precepts of truth. They could lie, but I didn't think Morgateth was lying about there being more than one possible bond partner. I couldn't be sure, though.
Still, I would never agree to bond a dragon or marry a man out of obligation, duty, or pity. The decision had to come from the heart, and my heart was telling me that Morgateth was the one for me.
"I accept your bond," I told him.
He reared his head back, surprise flickering in his luminous eyes before the mask of aggression slammed back into place.
"Are you brave, little human? Or simply stupid?"
"Neither." I met his gaze steadily. "I see you, and it's all good. Your reputation is unearned."
He looked like he was about to spew fire at me and burn me where I stood, but I didn't flinch away. "My riders kept dying one after the other. If that doesn't scare you, you must be stupid."
"If you are trying to push me away by insulting me, it's not working. I feel your pain. I know loss, I know grief, and I know what it means to carry burdens that threaten to crush you."
"Pretty words." His voice dripped with contempt. "Do you think understanding will protect you when the curse takes you too?"
"There is no curse."
"Three riders." His head snaked closer, those terrible eyes burning into mine. "Three partners, three deaths. Coincidence? Fate? Or something darker?"
I understood why he was trying to push me away even though he'd chosen me. He wanted me to fight for the bond, to prove that I wanted him despite his past, that I saw him for who he really was.
Evidently, male dragons were not much different from male humans, and understanding that made things simpler.
"I don't know what killed your riders. But I know it wasn't you."
He went very still.
"How can you be sure of that?"
"Because I can sense your grief and your guilt.
You feel only loss and rage at what you falsely label as ineptness.
My friends have a working hypothesis that Elusitor's converts were behind the sabotage that caused those riders' deaths.
Tampering with saddles, sneaking drugs into riders' food or perhaps even tempting them to partake. That's why they made fatal mistakes."
For a long moment, Morgateth said nothing.
Then he lunged.
His massive head shot forward, jaws gaping wide, and I heard Shovia scream. I heard the scrape of boots on stone as cadets scrambled backward.
I didn't move.
Morgateth's teeth stopped inches from my face. His breath was hot and smelled of sulfur and smoke. His eyes filled my entire field of vision, crimson and black and burning with a mix of emotions that I hadn't known dragons could convey.
They were supposed to have unreadable faces. They were supposed to have no expressions. Perhaps I was sensing rather than seeing.
We stayed like that for an eternity compressed into seconds. Dragon and human, predator and prey, standing on the edge of something that could be magnificent or devastating.
Then something shifted.
It wasn't words. It wasn't even thoughts, not in the way I normally experienced telepathic communication. It was deeper than that, more fundamental. A meeting of souls rather than minds.
I felt him.
The grief crashed over me first, wave after wave of loss, three riders gone, three bonds shattered.
Each death had torn something from him, left wounds that never fully healed.
He had cherished them, each one differently but no less completely.
He had felt them die, felt the golden thread of the bond snap and tear out a piece of his soul.
Then the rage at those who might be behind those deaths threatened to consume me, the flames stoked higher by the anger at himself for not realizing the danger that had been lurking behind familiar faces.
The guilt came next, crushing in its weight.
He hadn't been sufficiently fast, his reflexes hadn't been honed enough.
If he had been faster, stronger, they might still be alive.
The logic was flawed, but guilt didn't care about logic.
He blamed himself for every death, and he carried each one like a stone around his neck.
And beneath it all, buried so deep I almost missed it, was loneliness.
Years of isolation, of being feared and avoided by dragons and humans alike, of watching other dragons bond while he remained alone because he feared dooming another rider to the fate of his previous three.
Then, beneath the guilt and loneliness and pain, a new feeling arose like a flame through darkness.
Hope.
Fragile, still barely acknowledged, but present.
Hope that maybe this time would be different because I was different.
Hope that maybe this strange human girl who could hear his thoughts and see his pain might be strong enough and smart enough to avoid all the pitfalls the others had fallen prey to.
Behind the hope rose determination, fierce and unwavering, to protect me. His previous riders had died, but not from lack of trying on his part. He had fought for them, bled for them, would have died for them if fate had allowed it.
He would fight for me with everything he had, until his last breath.
"I need strength," I thought, letting him feel my own truth in return. "My prophetic gift takes so much out of me. I need a powerful partner who can lend me his strength. Out of all the dragons I've seen today, you are the most powerful."
"I will keep you charged with so much power that you won't know what to do with it." It wasn't a boast. He'd stated it as a fact.
I smiled and reached out to touch his snout, and he allowed it.
"I choose you, noble Morgateth," I said aloud for all to hear, even though I was not supposed to.
As the Hero of Elucia, I was allowed some liberties that others were not.
"I choose you as my partner and my protector.
You are a powerful dragon worthy of my bond. "
He inclined his massive head. "I choose you, Kailin Strom, because you are as fearless as you are compassionate, and because you are the most powerful human in this Citadel, and I'm a vain dragon. I want the best."
I was about to dispute his claim about me being the best when I felt the bond slamming into place.
I staggered under the force of it, my knees nearly buckling. It was nothing like I had imagined, nothing like the gradual warming the training materials described. This was a flood, a torrent, a complete and overwhelming connection of two souls.
Morgateth's emotions poured into me—all the grief and rage and guilt that I had glimpsed before, magnified a thousandfold.
But I also felt his strength.
It flowed into me like liquid fire, filling the hollow places the prophetic dreams had carved, shoring up the walls that had been weakened. For the first time in weeks, I felt whole, complete, strong enough to bear whatever came next.
He knelt, lowering his massive body so I could climb onto his back.
"May I?" I asked even though his invitation was clear for all to see.
"Yes, you may."
My hands found the riding straps automatically. I settled into position, put my flight goggles on, and wrapped my fingers around the leather.
He knew I was ready without having to ask, and as his enormous wings unfurled, the muscles beneath me bunching and coiling, I heard gasps from the remaining cadets, heard Saphir calling out something I couldn't make out.
Then Morgateth launched us into the air.
Wind screamed past my face, tearing at my hair, stealing my breath. The roof of the Citadel fell away beneath us.
We climbed higher and higher, spiraling up through the auroras, the colors dancing around us like living things. The mountains spread below, vast and ancient and beautiful. The sky opened above, endless and free.
Exhilaration exploded through me.
I had been born for this.
Below us, the world was small and far away. Up here, there was only sky and dragon and the golden thread of the bond connecting us.
I threw my head back and laughed, the sound whipped away by the wind.
THE BONDS OF WINGS AND FURY SERIES
CONTINUES IN:
SILVER PRINCESS
A prophecy still missing its final piece, a mystical flower holding an ancient key, and a princess who seeks knowledge but finds destiny.
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