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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“We left before the convocation could be called because the stone compelled us to,” Jaimin continues, and I wonder if that could be considered a lie.

~No~

What is it with the people—beings— things I’m ignoring insisting on talking to me? Do they not understand I’m infuriated right now and don’t want to hear from them?

The stone wraps me in a metaphysical hug, and I ignore that, too, focusing instead on what our fearless healer is saying.

“Unfortunately, it seems the temples have not heeded the wishes of the stone, and so your bishop waylaid us to again demand its surrender. We were surprised that he was willing to go as far as murder to obtain it.”

Arimen opens his mouth and closes it a few times, seemingly at a loss.

“The Temple of Wasianth—and, if the bishop was truly acting for the convocation and not simply Wasianth, all the temples—has, in the act of firing upon a dragon, broken treaty with the dragons. By killing a dragon rider, the temple has declared war on the dragon riders. It remains to be seen how the Academies of Healing and Magic will consider the act of attempted murder against myself and Mage Silverbright. The nations of Lenle and Camblin may also become involved—Coryn is a member of Lenle’s King’s Own Guard, and the Camblish queen may not react well to hostile activities within her borders. That is for others to deal with and decide. What matters now, Arimen, is that the stone has chosen you to join our quest.”

I’ve never seen anyone’s face get that pale before. He begins shaking violently, and then his eyes roll up, and he passes out. It’s only due to Coryn’s reflexes that he doesn’t fall.

“This is a mistake,” I mutter as Coryn lays Arimen gently on the ground and Jaimin goes to see to him.

“It’s the stone’s will,” Master reminds me, his eyes on the young acolyte. “It does seem… But I’m not going to doubt the source of all creation.”

His tone says he’s doubting it plenty.

“Is the academy going to consider this an act of war?” I ask quietly. I hadn’t thought that far ahead—Tia’s death, yes, I knew the riders wouldn’t stand for that. But I’m not dead, and I’ve been threatened by my peers enough times that I’m fairly sure none of them would be too upset if one of those arrows had hit me.

Master pulls a face. “Politically, yes, I believe so. I don’t think anybody particularly cares that you were shot at?—”

“I’m touched.”

“—but the fact that a mage was shot at cannot be ignored. Especially when you were traveling under the aegis of the council. There will be a great deal of discussion, but ultimately, it’s likely the council will decide to use this to maneuver concessions from the temples.” He meets my gaze dead-on. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t like the way the priesthood has been behaving.”

That’s something, at least.

“Could you try to ensure that at least some of those concessions support our mission?” I request. “Not having to dodge priests would be a good start, but it would be even better if we could be assured lodging, board, and fresh supplies at every temple on the continent.”

He winces. “After you disrespected a high priestess and fled a convocation? Asking for welcome might be pushing things a bit far, Talon.”

“We’re on a holy quest,” I protest. “Also, if that’s not a possibility, the council needs to send us more money. I’d hoped to have found the champion by now, but it looks like we’ll be on the road for a while longer.” Dammit.

“I brought some for you, but yes—we’ll work something out,” Master promises. Across the circle, Arimen sits up. There’s a sweet smile on his face now, and he seems utterly relaxed. It’s the healer’s equivalent of a cup of soothing herbal tea, and far more effective. Some people say that chasing that feeling is what led to the development of certain recreational drugs. I think that’s a load of turds—most of those drugs are just mixtures of natural hallucinogens anyway, and any country person will tell you that idiots have been eating weird mushrooms since time began.

“Are you feeling better?” Jaimin asks as he and Coryn help Arimen back onto the log.

The boy nods eagerly. “Oh yes! I feel splendid!”

“Good.” The master healer watches his patient’s face carefully, so I do too, and I see it—the gradual easing of the relaxing effect. When Jaimin’s done, Arimen looks tense once more, but at least he doesn’t seem like he’s going to pass out again.

In fact, he bravely squares his shoulders and says, “I think I may have misheard what you said.”

“Nope,” Coryn announces cheerfully. “You didn’t. The stone has chosen you.”

“But…” He shakes his head. “That’s impossible.”

“And yet,” Jaimin says, “it’s true.”

“B-But I’m nobody! I can’t go on a quest.” His eyes widen. “Am I the sacrifice?”

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. This feels an awful lot like the first day of classes, and I didn’t expect to go through that again until next autumn.

“What sacrifice?” Hearne asks, bewildered. “There’s no sacrifice.”

“Are you asking if we plan to sacrifice you to the gods?” Kanesha seems equally confused. “Because you’re an acolyte—you know our gods don’t require sacrifices, right?”

“No, I mean… in every story of great quests, there’s always a sacrifice. And if the creation stone has sent you on a quest to find a champion to defeat evil, then this has to be a great quest. Which means there’s a sacrifice,” he explains. “Someone in the group has to die.”

“You mean other than my sister?”

The question falls into a silence nobody wants to break. Arimen pales again, his eyes locked on me, and he begins to tremble, all signs of his courage gone.

“My sister, Tia, the dragon rider, is dead,” I say, the words as hard and piercing as crossbow bolts. “Is that not enough of a sacrifice for you? Do you feel that your life is worth more than hers?”

“N-N-N-N I-I-I-I,” he stutters.

“I’m sure that’s not what Arimen meant,” Jaimin says quietly, and Arimen nods frantically.

“I didn’t! I s-swear! I-I-I’m s-sorry about your sister! I-I-I—” He breaks down into tears.

“I think we’re done with this conversation,” I continue in the same hard tone. I don’t have time to baby him, and when—not if—we get attacked by zombies again, he needs to not assume he’s some kind of godsforsaken sacrifice and let them kill him. “You’re coming with us. I don’t know yet for what purpose, but until we figure it out, your job is to keep up, pull your weight, and not die. And stay out of my way,” I add. “Coryn will tell you everything else you need to know.” I stand. “Rider Master, Rider Kanesha, would you excuse me? I’d like to speak with my master before the pyre ceremony.”

Hearne inclines his head. “Of course. We need to speak with Leicht anyway.”

I know from what Tia told me that when the riders need to speak with a specific dragon, they do so via their own bonded dragons—an odd relay of messages, similar to what children do when they stubbornly refuse to speak directly to someone. It still concerns me, though, that they might guess?—

“Nobody will know unless I choose to tell them.”

That’s not as comforting as he seems to think, given our history of him disliking me.

Master Samoine also stands. “I think I’d like to stretch my legs—it was a long flight, and the return journey promises the same. Master Kahwyn, will you join us? I have some questions about the archers’ suicides.” He places the very faintest emphasis on the last word, as though he wants to cement the cause of their deaths in everyone’s minds.

The group disperses, with only Coryn staying to talk softly to a still-sobbing Arimen. Master, Jaimin, and I walk out into the barren fields. Farther south, farmers are still able to get crops in winter, but here in the northern part of Camblin, the frosts and occasional snowfall make it too risky.

“Very well,” Master says when we’re out of hearing distance. “Tell me exactly what happened. When did you realize that… that Leicht…” He trails off uncomfortably.

I blink back tears and clear my throat. “They were shooting arrows toward Leicht,” I say. He knows this, but the story would feel incomplete if I didn’t repeat it. “I thought they were stupid—arrows against a dragon? They were only going to make him angry. Then…” I stop walking and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. “It was as if I wasn’t real anymore. As if my limbs were gone. I knew—I knew…” I open my eyes. They understand. I don’t need to finish that sentence. Resuming our walk, I say, “She was falling, and I wanted to… catch her. It seems stupid now, but I couldn’t let her hit the ground. Leicht caught her and set her down, and I already knew, but seeing her… Leicht was screaming; I could hear him screaming, but then I realized I wasn’t just hearing with my ears.

“His screams were in my mind too. The part of me that was Tia was gone, but there’s something else there now.”

Master looks troubled. “I don’t need to tell you that this is impossible.”

“Believe me, we all know.” I wave a hand to indicate that “we” means me, Jaimin, and Leicht. “But somehow it happened anyway.”

He sighs, then glances at Jaimin.

“I know the twins can—could—communicate mind-to-mind,” Jaimin says quietly. “I’ve suspected for quite a while.” He looks me squarely in the eye. “I won’t betray you.”

I don’t have the emotional energy to untangle everything those words make me feel, so I shove it all aside. “If people knew, they’d lock us up and experiment on us. They still would, especially now that…”

He shudders and repeats, “I won’t betray you. And if somebody finds out and comes for you, I’ll stand between you and them. I don’t understand everything that’s happening, but I know what it feels like to be an anomaly. We stick together.”

“I trust the healer,” Leicht says. “Tia liked him.”

“Thank you.” I ignore Leicht, even though the reminder of how highly Tia regarded Jaimin is comforting, and turn to Master. “We can tell him everything.”

I don’t know if Master feels as confident about that as I do, but he doesn’t betray it in his expression or words. “Talon and Tia weren’t just able to communicate telepathically—they were present in each other’s minds in a way that is, to use a word that’s rapidly becoming meaningless, impossible. The best theory we have is that Talon is so gifted a telepath that as an infant, he unintentionally imprinted on his sister’s brain. Neither of them could remember a time when they couldn’t share thoughts and images.”

“Tia couldn’t initiate a conversation,” I continue. “But she could let me know when she wanted to speak to me. It always felt like she was pulling on an invisible string. I could always tell what she was feeling, and she was the same—if I had a strong reaction to anything, she’d immediately check on me. We were just… linked.” A wave of grief swamps me. The place in my head that was always Tia feels hollow and empty and so very wrong.

Jaimin wraps an arm around my shoulders, and I lean slightly into him. He smells like herbs and horses, and he’s warm against my side. I resist the urge to lay my head on his shoulder. For the first time since Tia died, I don’t feel so devastatingly alone.

“I suppose we need to work with the assumption that the bond transferred when Tia died because of the connection that existed between you,” Master muses. His brows are drawn together in a frown. “I don’t know enough about the bonds between dragons and their riders, I’m afraid. Did Tia ever tell you anything?”

“Not much,” I admit. “Just as there are some things about magehood that I couldn’t share with her, the riders have their secrets too.”

“So she never mentioned whether a bond could be broken?”

Leicht’s hiss in my head is answer enough. “She never said, but… it can’t.”

For a moment, Master looks confused, but then his gaze goes over my shoulder, back toward the camp where Leicht is. “Oh. He truly is in your head, then? He can hear what you hear?”

I shrug, uncomfortable with the concept. “So it seems. I’ve yet to discover a way to block him out.” Although in my defense, I’ve been preoccupied with other things.

“This presents a larger problem,” Jaimin says. “The bond between you and Tia could be hidden. But a bond with Leicht?—”

“He says nobody will know unless he wants them to,” I interrupt.

“Yes, but does he plan to return to the dragons’ valley today? Because that’s what Hearne and Kanesha—and their dragons—will expect. With his bonded gone, it would be the norm for him to go back there, correct?”

“I… He hasn’t said.” Part of me feels ill at the idea, and I don’t fully understand it. Is that because of the bond, or am I just loath to let any remaining link to Tia go?

“ Can he even return?” Master asks. “I thought dragons and their bonded riders couldn’t be separated over long distances for prolonged periods—much like you and Tia.”

“I don’t know,” I admit. Leicht, for once, is quiet. How typical. The one time his input might actually be useful, the overgrown lizard keeps his thoughts to himself.

They both look at me expectantly.

“What?”

Jaimin sighs. “ Ask him, Talon. What does he plan to do now?”

Dammit. “Ah… I don’t want to.”

“You don’t want to.” He glances at Master, then back at me. “Why?”

“He’s trying to pretend Leicht’s not there,” Master says dryly. “Because Talon is the master of hoping if he ignores things, they’ll go away.”

Hold on now. “That’s not true!”

“What did you do when you were first assigned a class to teach?”

My mouth snaps shut. Gods’ turds, he had to bring that up.

“No,” Jaimin says, his mouth quirking in that little smile I used to find so annoying. “Don’t say you tried to ignore the existence of your class?”

I give in. “I wasn’t ignoring them. I was trying to outwait the dean and make him assign somebody else.” Except the wily bastard was prepared for that, and he had the students track me down and trail after me all over the academy, like lost kittens, until I finally conceded defeat.

“We don’t have time for you to sulk right now, Talon,” Master informs me. “Talk to Leicht. We need his input.”

Pressing my lips into a line, I try to think of an excuse. A good one that they’ll actually accept. There isn’t anything. “If I talk to him, the bond is real. Tia…” I bite back the rest. Tia’s dead. She’s not coming back.

They both stare at me with compassion, but that doesn’t change anything. My sister is gone forever, but this mission remains. If I walk away now—if I even can—then the continent is lost. Perhaps even the world. After all, once whoever is raising the zombies takes us down, what’s to stop them from expanding? Tia was a soldier, but even before that, before we went to the academies and began our training, she never ran away from problems. I liked to ignore them; she tackled them head-on.

She’d never forgive me for walking away from this.

“Fine.” I prod the new part of my mind. “Are you there?”

A sense of fleeting amusement flows over me. “Where else would I be?”

“Have you been listening, or do I need to explain?” I’m not in the mood to play word games or chat right now.

“I know what has been said.”

I wait for him to continue, but that seems to be it.

“Well? Do they expect you to return? Can we be apart? What are you planning to do?”

“I had not considered.”

How very helpful.

“Could you consider now? The decision will need to be made soon.” There’s a tiny bite to my mental tone, but it’s deserved. If I have to deal with my grief and make decisions, so does he.

“They will expect me to return,” he admits. “We dragons prefer the company of our own in times of grief.” He pauses. “I’m uncertain if I can. Separation from one’s bonded is uncomfortable for both parties, especially in the early stages of the bond. Whether this… thing… will behave as a regular bond, I don’t know.”

I relay that information.

“Does the bond seem different in any way?” Master asks intently.

The sensation of Leicht’s hesitation vibrates through my bones. He doesn’t want to answer this, and I can feel it. “No.”

Before I tell Master, I check, “It feels like the bond with Tia did? It doesn’t feel like it could be a temporary anomaly, like we could remove it? Or it might… fade?” I’m clinging to that idea, the thought that this is some kind of trauma response that will dissipate as we become accustomed to the loss of Tia. It almost makes sense—the two of us were linked to her, and she was suddenly and violently ripped from life.

“Does it feel to you as though it could be removed?” The image of a blade severing the tie rises in my mind, and I physically jerk away, causing Jaimin to exclaim in startlement. My mind recoils also, and I feel vaguely ill. How can a simple concept cause such a visceral reaction? “That is how a bonded feels about the loss of a bond,” Leicht replies to my unspoken question. “We must face the truth: It is real and permanent.”

I’m too tired to contemplate how impossible that is. I’ve had that thought already. So has Leicht. Master. Jaimin. We all know it’s not possible.

And yet, somehow, it is.

“It’s a real bond,” I say. “It’s not going anywhere, and it definitely can’t be removed.” I’m pretty sure I’d instinctively attack anyone who tried.

“Then we have to assume you and Leicht can’t be separated. Does… Does he want to go back?” Jaimin ventures.

“I want vengeance.”

“Yeah, I hear and agree with that, but I can’t delay this mission for vengeance. Tia would haunt me for all eternity. So can you trust that the other dragons and the riders—and maybe the mages—will enact vengeance on our behalf? Or are you going to drag me off with you?” I can’t believe this is a conversation I’m even having, but if Leicht decides we’re going, there’s not a lot I can do to stop him… unless I try to kill him using magic. Which might get me arrested by the dragon riders, and then I wouldn’t be able to continue the mission anyway.

Even from here, we all hear Leicht’s growl of annoyance, and we turn to glance in that direction. “Tia was determined to see this task met,” he says finally. “I will honor her memory.”

“He wants to stay,” I report. “He wants to finish what Tia started.”

“We could tell the riders that,” Master suggests. “They’d understand that kind of honor.”

“But they’ll bring up the communication barrier,” Jaimin argues, shaking his head. “What if they decide to have another bonded pair join us? There’s too much chance of them guessing.”

An idea strikes me. “What if we tell them the truth?”