I tucked the medallion back under my shirt. "That's reassuring. I'll make sure to wear it at night."
Moki, who had been quiet for some time, suddenly stirred in my lap, lifting his head and looking at me with those huge eyes of his that seemed to say goodbye.
"Oh, yes. He senses that our meeting is drawing to an end." Saphir rose to his feet, and Moki immediately leaped out of my lap, bounced off the desk, and jumped onto Saphir's shoulder, wrapping his long tail around the shaman's neck. "We'll meet again in two weeks."
Saphir stroked Moki's tail in a similar fashion to how he stroked his own beard, and I wondered whether he'd gotten confused and thought that the tail was his beard.
"Thank you for your guidance, Shaman." I dipped my head.
"Before you go, I have something for you." Saphir opened a drawer and withdrew a white bag that looked a lot like the kind Gran used for her herbs. "This is a special tea that might help the medallion do its work."
I looked suspiciously at the bag and narrowed my eyes at him. "Is it the tea we were given in the Circle of Fate?"
Hopefully, the tea he'd just poured for us wasn't that kind either.
"No, my dear. It's a much weaker version of it that will not make you groggy or disoriented in the morning. In fact, I drink it every night before going to bed. I brew it ahead of time and then place a full glass by my bed and drink it before turning off the lights."
As I took the bag from him and sniffed it, Moki projected into my mind an image of Saphir sleeping in his bed with a blissful expression on his face. The tea didn't smell as potent as the brew we'd been given in the Circle of Fate.
Saphir reached into his drawer again and pulled out a small leather-bound journal that was much nicer than the simple ones I used for my sketches and notes. "This is for recording your dreams in the morning, provided that you have anything interesting to note. Keep it private." He chuckled. "You can hide it inside another pair of socks and stick it under your wardrobe as well."
I stifled the urge to roll my eyes. I was so full of secrets that I was going to burst.
"Either Alar or my roommate is bound to notice that I'm writing in it and ask me about it."
"Oh, yes. The lovely Shovia. Such a spirited girl. She won't touch it if you tell her it's off limits, and Alar would never betray your trust."
That was good to know.
I took the journal and put it in one of the pockets of my uniform jacket. "What about the tea? What should I tell my friends about that?"
I hoped he wouldn't ask me to lie.
Saphir shrugged. "Same as with the journal, you can say that I'm interested in your dreams, but you can't say why. The tea is supposed to make your dreams more vivid. Every word is true, so you don't need to worry about straying from the Precepts of Truth."
By now, my friends were used to me keeping secrets, so adding two more to the list was not a big deal, but I wished I didn't have to hide things from them, and I wasn't looking forward to drinking the tea and dreaming vividly. Somehow, I had a feeling that those dreams wouldn't be pleasant.
72
KAILIN
"Still the mind, and the world will whisper, dissolving the boundary between dream and reality."
—Shaman Saphir Fatewever
The auroras' light filtered through the gap in the curtains, providing dim illumination across our joined beds. I lay awake and watched Alar as he slept beside me, his face relaxed in a way it rarely was during waking hours, his arm draped over my waist.
I traced his features with my gaze, admiring the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the dark sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks. After a month at the academy, with its brutal conditioning regimen and constant physical demands, he lookedlike he belonged on the ceiling of an Elurian art museum mural rather than in a cadet's narrow bed.
We'd fallen into a comfortable routine over the past few weeks—pushing Shovia's bed and mine together each night, then separating them again each morning. It was a bit tedious, but I didn't mind. There was something rather enjoyable about watching Alar lift the bed and move it almost effortlessly, his muscles bunching beneath his shirt.
Those muscles had become even more defined as time went by. We'd all changed physically, becoming leaner, stronger, our bodies adapting to the demands placed upon them.
Even flying, which I'd initially imagined as simply sitting atop a dragon while it did all the work, turned out to be physically taxing. The constant need to balance, to shift with the dragon's movements, to withstand the pressure of high-speed flight—it all required strength and endurance, which we had all been gradually building.
Carefully, I extricated myself from Alar's embrace, moving slowly to avoid waking him. He stirred slightly, mumbling something unintelligible before settling back into sleep.
I padded quietly to my desk, where I'd left the glass of tea I'd brewed at dinner. The herbal mixture Saphir had provided had a distinctive scent—earthy with hints of something sweeter beneath. I wasn't particularly fond of the taste, but the shaman had been insistent that I drink it each night before going to sleep.
