…
When I wake, Xaden is gone, but that’s not exactly a surprise. Him staying the night to begin with? Now that was the shocker.
Finding a jar on my nightstand with a handful of spring violets? My heart swells. I’m in so much fucking trouble.
He even moved all the debris to a pile in the corner, which means he must have used his shadows while I was sleeping because I didn’t hear a thing.
I’m still exhausted, but I dress and pin my hair up quickly, noting the sun has already risen. With Liam in the infirmary, I’ll be solo for my Archives trip today, but I might be able to sneak in to see him on the way back.
I’m lacing my boots when there’s a knock at my door.
“You have to be kidding,” I say loudly enough for the knocker to hear. “Just because Liam is healing doesn’t mean I need another”—I wrench the door open and stumble over the last word—“bodyguard.”
Professor Carr stands in my hallway, his hair standing on end as he looks at me with scientific appraisal, then lifts his eyebrows as he stares past me into the wreckage of my room. “We have work to do.”
“I have Archives duty,” I argue.
He snorts. “You’re off Archives duty until we can be sure you’re not going to burn the place down. Lightning and paper don’t mix well. Trust me, Sorrengail, the scribes aren’t going to want you anywhere near their precious books, and from the looks of it, you can’t even control your powers in your sleep.”
I try to ignore the sting of his words, since he’s far off, but end up following him down the hall when he leaves. “Where are we going?”
“Somewhere you won’t start a forest fire,” he says without looking back.
Twenty minutes later, we’re in the flight field, and to my surprise, Tairn is saddled.
“How the hell did you do that?”
He chuffs in indignation. “As if I’d let them design something I couldn’t figure out how to get on myself. Remember where you get your power from, Silver One.”
“How’s Andarna?” I ask as Professor Carr thrusts a satchel into my hands. “What is this for?”
“Sleeping, but she’s fine,” Tairn promises.
“Breakfast,” Carr answers. “With all the wielding you’re about to do, you’re going to need it.” He climbs onto his Orange Daggertail and, after I mount Tairn and strap in, we’re airborne.
The bite of spring wind stings my cheeks as we fly deep into the mountain range, and I’m thankful I dressed in flight leathers this morning, thinking I’d have a session before lunch.
We land almost a half hour later, high above the tree line.
I shiver and rub my arms to fight off the low temperatures that come with high altitude.
“Don’t worry. You won’t be cold for long,” Carr assures, dismounting and pulling a small tome from his pocket. “According to what I read last night, this particular ability has the power to overheat your system, hence—” He gestures around us.
“Plus, there’s not much to burn up here, is there?” And no witnesses if he decides to break my neck, either. I glance at him quickly before looking away, undoing the buckles of my saddle, then sliding down Tairn’s foreleg. “Don’t leave me.”
“Never. I’ll burn him alive before he takes a single step toward you.”
“Exactly.” He studies me carefully, and I avoid meeting his eyes as I check the wrap on my knee to make sure it hasn’t slipped under my leathers. “It’s always intriguing to me how nature finds the balance.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean, Professor.”
“This kind of power found in one so…” He sighs. “Would you not call yourself fragile?”
“I am who I am.” I bristle. I’ve never given this particular professor any reason to think of me as different.
“It’s not an insult, cadet.” He shrugs, looking at the saddle. “It’s a balance. In the course of my duties, I’ve found a correlation of sorts that keeps a system of checks on power. Yours seems to be your body.”
A growl rumbles in Tairn’s chest as he edges Carr’s smaller dragon out of his space.
“Your dragon doesn’t trust me,” Carr states, like it’s an academic problem to be solved. “And considering he’s the most powerful of them in the quadrant at the moment—”
“But not the Continent,” Tairn admits.
“—that means you don’t trust me, either, Cadet Sorrengail.” He holds my gaze, and the mountaintop wind makes his white hair dance like feathers. “Why is that?”
“No point lying.”
“Other than you calling me frail?” I stay at the base of Tairn’s foreleg, ready to mount if necessary. “I was there the day you killed Jeremiah. His signet manifested, and you snapped his neck like a twig in front of all of us.”
Carr tilts his head in thought. “Yes, well, he was in a considerable amount of panic, and it’s widely known that inntinnsics aren’t allowed to live. I ended his suffering before he could see the end coming.”
“I’ll never understand why mind-reading is a death sentence.” I place my hand on Tairn’s leg like I can absorb his strength, even though I already feel it flowing through me.
“Because knowledge is power. As a general’s daughter, you should know that. We can’t have someone walking around with unfettered access to classified material. They’re a security risk to the entire kingdom.”
And yet Dain is living.
“Because Aetos will be useful to them as long as they can keep him under their control.” Tairn blasts a puff of steam over my head, and the Orange Daggertail backs up even more. “His power is also limited to touch, so more controllable.”
