Shovia shook her head. "Where were you just now? Riding on a dragon and gliding along the magnetic lines?"
I grimaced. "That's not how it works."
"That's precisely what I need help with," Morek said. "You have a gift for explaining difficult subjects so even a moron like me can get them."
"You're not a moron." Shovia flicked the top of his head. "Your brain is just too busy dreaming about girls. You have zero capacity left for critical thinking."
He smiled sheepishly. "What's more important than finding my one and only?"
"That's a load of crap." Shovia rolled her eyes. "As if you are looking for a wife."
"Eventually, that's the goal of all this dancing, isn't it?"
Shovia shook her head. "You are lucky to be so good at the athletic stuff so you get merit points to counter your barely passing grades in other subjects. If you want a command post, you'll need to do better on the academics."
I chuckled. "For me, it was the other way around. Remember the accursed rope climbing? Your father let me pass even though I barely made it to the first knot."
Shovia didn't bother to deny it. We both knew it was true.
The coach hadn't needed to do that. The merit points from my academic classes would have more than compensated for my rope climbing failure, but he hadn't wanted me to have a shameful failing grade on my record.
Did that constitute lying? Had Coach Emil committed blasphemy to help me?
As counterintuitive as it seemed, truth was not absolute, it was subjective, and Coach Emil could have claimed that he'd let me pass because of the effort I had put into achieving the goal. That wouldn't have been a lie. I had really tried.
Morek puffed out his chest. "I'm not great at studying, but I don't need to be to become an awesome dragon rider. If I have the gift, I don't have to ace any other tests. It's enough that I pass the damn refresher."
He had an uncle who was gifted, so it was possible that he had the gift as well, but if he didn't pass the comprehensive refresher, he couldn't attend the upcoming pilgrimage andwould have to wait until the next one, provided that he passed it then.
I smiled encouragingly. "I do not doubt that you will make a great rider."
"So will you." Morek leaned and patted my back. "I know that you are not thrilled about bonding with a dragon, but I can't for the life of me understand why not. It's not just about the rush of soaring through the sky, which is the most awesome thing any human can do. It's also about living practically forever."
It was a good selling point, and it wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. So, even though it didn't violate the Second Sacred Truth principle, it did violate its spirit.
"Show me a rider who lived to an old age," I said. "Most of them end up dead sooner than they would have if they weren't riders, let alone living forever. Secondly, it means never having a real life outside the Force."
Dragon riders served for life, and since their lifespans could be extended indefinitely thanks to the bond with their dragons, that life was theoretically much longer than that of regular Aurorysans—a reward for sacrificing everything in service to Elucia or punishment, depending on how one looked at it.
"The shaman," Morek said. "No one knows how old Saphir is. Some say that he's two thousand years old, and he doesn't look a day over forty."
He was right about that. The shaman's hair was all white, but his skin was smooth and his stride youthful. He had to be more than a thousand years old because he survived the Second Extinction War, which had happened one thousand and thirty years ago, but no one knew how old he had been when it had happened, and Saphir wasn't volunteering the information.
"He might be the only exception." I waved a dismissive hand. "So, what do you need help with?"
"Everything."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Don't tell me you haven't studied at all."
A sheepish smile spread over Morek's handsome face. "Fine. I won't tell you that."
"You're terrible." I turned on my heel and returned to my desk. "There is no way I can cram everything into a couple of hours."
Once upon a time, I would have been ecstatic about spending time with Morek, just the two of us, but I was over my silly crush. The guy was yummy to look at, but that wasn't enough to excite me. I needed someone with whom I could also have a stimulating conversation.
A pair of dark eyes with flakes of molten gold swimming in their depths flashed through my mind, but I pushed the memory away.
It had been a traumatic night, and my mind must have interpreted the battle rush the wrong way. How in all hells could I have felt a connection with a guy among all that carnage, with the smell of sulfur and burned flesh still lingering in the air?
