"Thank you." She sat down on the edge of the seat and glanced at the journal open on my desk with its map of the academy. "Plotting an escape route?"
"Learning my surroundings," I said, pulling out the chair from Codric's desk. "So, what is it that couldn't wait until tomorrow?"
I hated the petty words that had come out of my mouth. I knew why she was here, and I admired her for having the guts to do what I should have done, but some contrary part of me didn't want to make it easy for her.
"Why are you avoiding me?" she asked.
The directness of the question caught me off guard. "I'm not avoiding you. You're the one averting your gaze every time you catch me looking at you."
"Because every time I looked, you were glaring at me like I'd offended your mother and spit on your ancestors' graves."
I chuckled. "Did you borrow that phrase from Shovia?"
Kailin blushed. "So what if I did? It fits."
I couldn't argue with that.
"What happened, Alar?" she whispered. "On the pilgrimage, we were...I thought we were..."
"Friends," I supplied when she trailed off.
Her eyes flashed with annoyance. "Is that what we were?"
The question hung in the air between us, loaded with unspoken implications. I could deny it, maintain the emotional distance I'd been trying to establish. Or I could acknowledge the truth—that what had grown between us during the pilgrimage had been more than friendship.
Instead, I opted to go on the offensive. "Who is he to you?"
"Who?" she asked.
"Commander Ravel."
She blinked. "He's my brother's commander."
"And?" I pressed.
"And what? That's it."
"You recognized him when he walked up to you, and you looked at him like he was the embodiment of Elu. Did your brother introduce you two?"
Anger flashed in her eyes. "Is that what this is about? You think there's something between me and Ravel?"
"I don't think anything. I'm just telling you what I saw."
She shook her head. "Commander Ravel was there the night the Shedun attacked my village. I recognized his dragon first and then him. That was the only time I had seen him or spoken to him before the Circle of Fate. Naturally, he left an impression on me that traumatic night."
The explanation aligned with what I'd already guessed, but it still felt like there was something she wasn't telling me.
"That doesn't explain the besotted look on your face when you looked at him," I said, aware that I sounded petulant but unable to stop myself. "Was it just hero worship or something more?"
"Maybe it was the surprise of finding out that he was my brother's commander and marveling at the coincidence of it all? Maybe it was fear of getting on the back of a dragon for the first time and launching into the sky? Or maybe both? Did any of these occur to you before you jumped to conclusions?"
I searched her face, looking for signs of deception.
As an Elucian, she was supposed to adhere to the Precepts of Truth, but omitting information was not lying, and the truth could be cloaked in many different ways.
"So, there's nothing between you two," I said, part as a statement and part as a question.
"Nothing whatsoever. He's my brother's commander, and even if he weren't..." She paused, her cheeks coloring slightly. "Even if he weren't, he's not the one I..."
