"Feeling better?" he asked.
I had to admit that I was. Some of the tension I was trying to ignore had eased. "I don't know." I put my hand on his chest. "I'm kind of dizzy. Are you trying to compete with Morek's speed?"
He laughed. "Come on." He took my hand. "I think I smell caff, which I desperately need. Let's go see if the others are up."
We found Kailin and Alar sitting at the table with cups of caff in front of them, looking like they hadn't slept last night.
"Well," I said, dropping into a chair across from them. "Someone had a busy night. Did you two tumble beneath the sheets until dawn?"
Kailin's cheeks flushed a lovely shade of pink. "I wish the reason for our sleepless night was that pleasant, but it wasn't. I had another bad dream, and Alar helped me work through it."
"Didn't you take the sleeping draught?" I asked. "It's supposed to keep you from dreaming."
"I did. The dream came anyway, but I don't want to talk about it." Kailin wrapped her hands around her caff cup. "I need to center myself and prepare. Today is too important to allow myself to get distracted."
I exchanged a glance with Codric. He gave a tiny shrug. If Kailin didn't want to talk, we couldn't force her.
"Caff?" Alar lifted the pot to pour into our cups.
"Please." I accepted the steaming mug gratefully. "I need to work on keeping my mind open today so I can hear my dragon talking to me."
Morek emerged from his room and headed to the kitchen. "Should we eat something?" He opened the cold closet and peered inside. "I can make eggs."
"I can't even think of food," I said. "My stomach is in knots."
"Same," Kailin echoed my sentiment.
Codric shrugged. "I could eat, but only if you eat too. I don't want to be the only one."
"Solidarity in starvation," Morek said. "I like it. Very dramatic." He closed the cold closet. "I have a nervous stomach too, so maybe I shouldn't eat. I don't want to puke over my bonded dragon on our first solo flight. Besides, it's time to go."
We finished our caff and headed out. The climb to the roof was shorter from the officers' quarters, but the distance to the staircase we were supposed to use was much longer.
When we finally made it to the staircase, we met other first-years who were on their way to the roof. All of them were dressed in the same dark blue flight uniforms, and all of them were wearing the same nervous expressions.
Good luck wishes were exchanged as we passed each other, some more genuine than others.
"May you find your wings," Davin said to us.
"And you," I replied automatically and added a smile.
He smiled back, but it looked forced, and I had noticed the same attitude with many of the others. There was a coolness beneath the surface, a distance that had started after Kailin's prophetic dream about Podana, and it had been growing ever since. It had gotten worse after we'd moved to the officers' wing.
I waited until we'd passed the group before leaning close to Codric. "Did you notice that?"
"Notice what?"
"They regard us as if we are different. They are not friendly anymore."
Codric took my hand. "They're jealous. It's natural."
"Jealous of what? We're all about to attend the same ceremony."
"They are not living in the officers' wing with their own apartment and a private bathroom." He kept his voice low, pitched for my ears only. "The apartment is just the last in a long list of special treatments, and even though we tried to hide it, everyone knows that we are not treated the same as the rest of them."
I snorted. "We're getting special treatment because traitors keep trying to kill Kailin."
"The reason doesn't matter. That's not how people think." Codric's expression was part amused and part sad. "They just see people who are getting more, or who are achieving more, and they think it's unfair that they don't get the same. They don't consider the circumstances. They only see the outcome."
