Morek grimaced. "It's hard for me, okay?"
"You're smart, Morek," Kailin said. "You just learn differently than the rest of us. There's no shame in that. But if you coast through on the prophecy's coattails, you'll always wonder. Every time you fly, every time you fight, there'll be a voice in the back of your head asking if you really earned the right to be there."
"Fine." He rose from the couch. "Circle it is."
We sat around the dining table, manuals and notes spread before us.
"Where do we start?" Morek asked.
"Navigation," I said. "It's the section you struggle with the most."
He groaned but didn't argue.
We worked through the material, taking turns asking questions and explaining concepts, and I had been right about Morek learning better this way, especially when we framed the boring parts in stories. I described wind current patterns as a conversation between mountain and sky, and Alar turned navigation calculations into a puzzle.
After a couple of hours of intense studying, Codric stretched his arms over his head. "I have to admit that being stuck in this apartment isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to us."
"Someone tried to kill Kailin two nights ago," I reminded him.
"I said it wasn't the worst. Not that it was good." He turned his head to look at me. "I just love having a private bathroom. No more trudging down the hall to the communal showers, and no more waiting in line while someone takes forever on the toilet."
"There's only one bathroom for the five of us," Alar said.
"I know." Codric sighed as if it were a great hardship. "But it's still better than sharing with an entire floor of cadets."
It occurred to me that the standards of living he was accustomed to were much higher than those of an average Elucian. Most of us had only one bathroom in the house.
"How many bathrooms do you have in your home?" I asked.
Codric hesitated. "Most merchant-class Elurian homes have a dedicated bathroom for each bedroom. So, if it's a three-bedroom home, it has three bathrooms."
I couldn't imagine having a bathroom all to myself, to soak in the tub for however long I wanted, without anyone banging on the door and telling me to hurry up.
"My family's house in Catonia has six," Codric added. "And it's not even considered all that fancy."
Six bathrooms. Even the governor's mansion didn't have so many.
"That's real luxury." I meant it sarcastically, but the truth was that I wanted to experience that at least once.
"I wish you could visit." Codric reached for my hand. "There is so much I could show you."
"I'd like that, but it's not going to happen. I used to dream about traveling. That was the main reason I wanted to join the Spy Corps. Operatives travel everywhere. It seemed like the perfect way to see the world. But riders don't leave Elucia. The Sitorians would love nothing more than to capture a rider."
Codric squeezed my hand. "I've seen the world, well, just the civilized part of it, and I'm happy to trade it for becoming a rider. There is no greater glory than that."
I nodded. "Being a rider is the highest honor. I just didn't expect it to happen to me."
"Fate had other plans." He lifted our conjoined hands and kissed my knuckles. "And I'm grateful to her."
Across the table, Alar and Kailin exchanged one of their looks, and I wondered if they were thinking about fate bringing them together.
Kailin's expression was wistful and a little sad, but Alar's was something else. It was guilt mixed with determination, and it didn't fit a talk about a couple fated to meet under interesting circumstances.
Perhaps it was about the logistics of their future. It was obvious that they were serious about each other, but Alar was Elurian from a wealthy merchant family, and his parents wouldn't be thrilled about him marrying an Elucian, no matter how heroic she was. Kailin's family liked Alar, but they would prefer an Elucian for their daughter.
I couldn't envision a wedding that both families could attend.
Where would they hold it? Who would officiate? Would Alar's parents come to Elucia, or would Kailin have to travel to them?
