The windows had been covered with heavy drapes, blocking the distraction of the aurora and the mountain views, and artificial illumination was provided by the usual mixture of oil lamps and electrical lights.
I took my assigned seat in the third row, my name written on a card at the desk's corner. Kailin was two rows ahead and to my left, so I could see the back of her head, her blond hair pulled back in a practical braid.
She hadn't looked at me since we'd entered the hall.
My stomach twisted with guilt. We'd argued this morning, which was our first big fight since becoming a couple, more disturbing than the small spats we'd been having lately that had probably been caused by stress.
After I'd confronted her about the haunted look in her eyes, she'd told me that she'd had the nightmare about the Citadel falling again. She'd refused to tell me any details, which only added to my anger over the fact that she hadn't woken me up as she'd promised and had no intentions of telling me about it at all until I pulled it out of her.
She'd lain awake all night, tormented by a terrible headache, while I had slept right next to her, unaware of her suffering.
"You promised," I'd said, my voice harder than I'd intended. "You said you'd wake me if you had a disturbing dream."
"It wasn't the kind of dream I needed help with. It was just a stupid nightmare, probably caused by stress. I didn't want to worry you."
"So instead, you suffered alone? That's not how this works, Kailin. We're supposed to be partners."
"You needed sleep."
"So did you, and you might have slept more than a couple of hours if you woke me up and let me soothe you back to sleep. I need you to trust me more than I need sleep!"
Her eyes blazed with ire. "And I need you to trust me when I tell you that you couldn't have helped. I'm not a child, Alar, and you are not my father."
She'd turned away, and I'd let her, too frustrated to bridge the gap. We'd walked to the examination hall in silence, the distance between us measured in more than footsteps.
Now, sitting at my desk with the thick questionnaire before me, I couldn't focus on anything except how badly I'd handled it.
The proctor was an instructor I didn't recognize. He stood at the front of the hall and addressed us in a dry voice. "You have three hours to complete this part of the examination. Navigation, tactics, dragon physiology, and Elucian military history. After that you will break for lunch and return here for the second part of the test. You may begin."
Papers rustled as thirty-six cadets turned over their test booklets.
I stared at the first question. Something about wind current calculations and optimal flight paths. The numbers swam before my eyes, refusing to coalesce into meaning.
Focus. I had to focus.
I'd studied for this. Codric and I had drilled each other on navigation formulas until we could recite them in our sleep. I knew this material.
But my mind kept drifting to my father and whether he was really ill or trying to manipulate me into leaving the academy. My mother wanted to know when I would be coming home.
When. Not if. As if my return was inevitable, as if the Elucian pilgrimage had been nothing more than an extended vacation that would naturally conclude with me resuming my place in court.
What about the mission I was on? Had Father changed his mind about its importance? Had he ever believed in it or justpretended to humor me and my boyish fantasies? Had he hoped I would not be found gifted and sent packing?
Probably.
But I wasn't the same person who had left Catonia all those months ago. I was part of something much bigger now than the royal family of Catonia.
And in two days, I would bond with a dragon and start my journey toward immortality while my family back home remained human.
I was going to outlive them all, and the thought was staggering.
I'd known it intellectually, had understood the implications when I'd decided to pursue this, but now, with Father's illness making mortality suddenly very concrete, the reality hit differently.
If he died before I could see him again...
I forced my attention back to the test. Wind currents. Navigation. The question was asking about compensating for magnetic anomalies during mountain crossings.
I wrote an answer. It was probably correct. I couldn't be certain because half my brain was elsewhere, but I'd practiced calculating these formulas so many times that I could solve them without thinking.
