It was surreal.
The title made me queasy like an overindulgent meal that was difficult to digest.
I didn't deserve a medal for what I'd done. I'd saved lives, but that didn't make me a hero. I hadn't fought in the battle, hadn't even been aware of what I'd been doing, let alone displayed any bravery doing it. I'd just dreamt and broadcast my prophetic dream.
My ability was a big deal. I wasn't denying that or diminishing its importance, but it had nothing to do with heroism.
The real heroes were the Elucian Forces, those who had fought on the ground and in the air to protect Podana from the Shedun invasion.
"I don't feel like I deserve it," I said quietly. "The only heroic things I did were to drink the nasty tea Saphir had given me and to suffer through the disturbing dreams it induced."
"You saved lives," Shovia said. "Without you, rivers of blood would have flooded Podana's streets. Own it or at least play the part."
"I'm trying." I ran my fingers along the embroidery on my sleeve. "But it's not easy when I'm about to stand before the entire assembled might of the Dragon Force while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is pinning a medal to my too-tight jacket. Even you would be jittery if you were in my boots."
"The General is a little intimidating," she admitted. "But you know me. I would love being the center of attention."
"Even if that would put you in danger?"
She smiled. "What do you think?"
Shovia would love it no matter what, and for a moment, I was tempted to tell her that I would gladly have her accept the honor in my name, but I would never knowingly put her in danger.
I didn't know what I hated more about the exposure of my ability—the danger it was putting me in, the way other cadets and even instructors were looking at me now, or the feeling that this prophetic dream was a first of many more to come. But since there was no way for things to go back to the way they had been before the attack, my only option was to get used to my new reality.
Even without the medal ceremony, everyone in the Citadel probably already knew about what I'd done. Most of the riders had been exposed to my dream communication, or they had heard about it from others, and it was too big of a deal for the story to remain contained. The only way my ability could be hidden again was if Saphir thralled everyone into forgetting my role in the miracle of saving Podana.
Could he do it to everyone attending the ceremony today? Perhaps that was the real reason for presenting me with the medal in such a public display?
That didn't make much sense, though.
If they all were made to forget my part in saving Podana, how would the medal be explained? Besides, I didn't know if Saphir was powerful enough to affect so many people at once.
I sighed.
The shaman's compulsion ability was one of the many secrets he'd entrusted me with, and those secrets were just as difficult to carry on the inside as the medal would be on the outside, or maybe more so because I had to keep them from my friends.
Portals to other worlds and the prophecy about the seven who would save Aurorys, supposedly written by Elu himself, were reality-altering enough, but to me, the biggest secret of allwas that Elu was not the creator of the universe and everything in it.
Our Two-Faced God wasn't divine, omnipresent, omnipotent, or all-knowing.
Saphir claimed that Elu was a god but not a deity, and as Elucia's highest spiritual authority, the shaman should know better than anyone the truth about our god. According to him, Elu was immortal, powerful, and the creator of our truth-based faith, but he was flesh and blood, born to a mother and a father, and not the ethereal entity Aurorysans believed him to be.
Where was Elu, though?
Had he left Aurorys through one of the portals? Or did he reside in the Fabled Dolis that was in fact a real, physical location?
I had so many questions I needed to ask Saphir, but I hadn't seen him since our meeting right after I woke up from my prophetic dream three days ago, and most of that time had been spent recuperating from my ordeal and replaying in my mind what I had learned in my last conversation with him.
Was it all true? Or should I question the shaman's sanity?
Portals to other worlds seemed like a madman's fantasy, the prophecy about the seven could belong to the same category, and the strange world that the shaman’s peculiar pet had projected into my head could have been the result of the tea Saphir had given me. Moki seemed to be part monkey and part cat, a creature that did not exist on Aurorys, and the world he had shown me looked like nothing I had seen before. That brew certainly induced hallucinations, so what I had seen might have been the result of that. But the fact that my dream had saved countless lives was irrefutable, and it made everything else seem possible as well, including the prophecy.
Who was the seventh member, though? A cadet who had yet to attend the pilgrimage? Someone from outside the academy?
Even the five of us, who Saphir was convinced had been prophesied, weren’t sure about our roles.
The text claimed that five would come as one, bound by threads of destiny to join the one who was there first and wait for the seventh who would come in last.
