Kailin put her fork down with deliberate care. "Are you all insane? You've just exposed yourselves as being suspicious of something that you were not supposed to know about."
"We had to know." I put my hand on her thigh, trying to defuse her anger. "And they all said the same thing anyway. Rider error. Every death was thoroughly investigated and determined to be the rider's fault."
"Of course, they said that." Kailin's voice was low but intense. "What else would they say? 'Oh yes, cadet, we suspect the dragons are murdering their riders, but there is nothing we can do to stop it'?"
"There was one piece of useful information," Shovia interjected. "Of the four, only one is currently unbonded. Morgateth. We need to warn people away from him."
Kailin lifted her fork and speared a piece of potato. "We have five weeks, but what are we going to say?" She lowered her head and whispered. "We can't tell them that we suspect a dragon of being a serial killer based on pattern recognition and conspiracy theories. They'd think we were mad. Or worse, they'd report us for spreading seditious rumors."
"There has to be something we can do," I said. "We can say that we've heard he's wild, dangerous, and unpredictable. That should be enough to discourage people from even approaching him."
"Is that how it works?" Codric asked. "Do they have name tags and we inspect them like livestock? Or do they inspect us?"
The three Elucians shrugged almost simultaneously.
"No one knows," Morek said. "That's one more secret riders are not allowed to talk about."
"Figures," Codric murmured. "Everything is a secret in Elucia. What are they afraid of?"
"Everything." Shovia snorted. "We are a tiny nation with powerful, deranged enemies who want to sacrifice us and our dragon allies to their god of death so nothing and no one stands in their way of global domination."
"Maybe the dragons are using mind control," Codric suggested. "Influencing their riders to make fatal mistakes."
"Dragons can't do that," Kailin said. "They can communicate telepathically with their bonded riders, but they can't control them."
"Maybe it's Sitorian black magic," Shovia said with a nervous laugh. "Dark sorcery that is corrupting our noble dragons."
I snorted. "If the Sitorians had that kind of power, they would have used it to destroy all of Elucia and its dragons by now."
"They almost did," Kailin reminded me quietly. "Twice."
The words hung in the air between us, a sobering reminder of how close Elucia had come to annihilation. Without Saphir'shidden eggs and Eluria harboring the surviving Elucians, the Sitorians would have succeeded.
"I'm still trying to figure out what makes Captain Odinah different. We need to find out who the other two are bonded with. Maybe that will give us a clue." Morek looked at Kailin. "Can you ask Ravel?"
She shook her head. "He was very reluctant to answer my questions on the subject."
"Maybe he's complicit?" Codric suggested.
The blood froze in my veins, but then I shook the suggestion off. "He can't be. He saved Kailin from the assassin."
"Could have been misdirection," Codric insisted. "What better way to prove himself innocent than to save the Hero of Elucia?"
Kailin glared at him. "Are you insane? He didn't even know that the three of you were snooping around in the archive and coming up with conspiracy theories."
Codric folded his arms over his chest. "Maybe he did. Maybe Captain Odinah told him."
"How?" Kailin asked. "You were snooping in the library while Ravel was in Skywatcher's Point."
"There are phones in the Pilgrim's Lodge," Codric said. "And the captain has access to phones in the Citadel. It's only the cadets who are isolated. The rest of the occupants have convenient access to the outside world."
"He's not complicit." Kailin seethed. "He told us his own suspicions on the issue."
Codric smirked. "It could have been just another smokescreen."
I couldn't believe we were talking about all this in the open. It was true that the other cadets were keeping their distance and busy talking among themselves, but still. This was too sensitive an issue to discuss in the open.
"Someone sabotaged the pilgrimage," Shovia said. "Someone leaked your location to the assassin. There's at least one traitor in the Citadel. We can't dismiss anyone."
