I didn't appreciate him saying that he regretted bonding with me. "So why did you?"
"Onyx. He wouldn't shut up about you. He kept saying that you need a powerful dragon, and that bonding with the Hero of Elucia would bring a dragon a lot of prestige."
I was feeling less and less thrilled about having bonded with him."So that's the only reason you chose me? The prestige?"
"I never wanted to bond again."He banked into a thermal, navigating the current with ease as effortlessly as breathing."Onyx said that your life is in constant danger. That assassins are constantly trying to eliminate you. That you need the protection of someone powerful and terrifying. I figured that we could be good for each other. I figured that if you survived all those assassination attempts, you were strong enough to survive me. And I also figured that you might be my ticket to redemption. After Nyxath, I'm the most powerful dragon there is. No other can do for you what I can."
He was blunt and unapologetic, which I appreciated, but I had romanticized the bond for so long that hearing him break it down to practical considerations ruined the magic of the bonding for me.
I gripped the riding straps tighter."Thanks for being honest with me. I will be honest with you as well. Those riders didn't die because of you, Morgateth, so stop beating yourself up because of their deaths. I'm not telling you not to mourn them because that's impossible, but you need to let go of the guilt."
He chuffed."Easier said than done, as you humans like to say."
"I know, but you don't have to do it alone. I'm here for you."
He was quiet for a long moment, as though he needed time to consider my words. Testing for sincerity, perhaps. I hoped he felt it.
"You're very young,"he said finally.
"All cadets are young. I'm actually among the older ones."
"I didn't mean it as an insult. Your youth means you haven't yet learned the meaning of limitations. You believe that you are invincible."
"I wish that were true."I leaned forward to rest my palm against his scales.
The bond hummed between us, warm and steady, and I suddenly noticed that for the first time in weeks, my head wasn't aching, my vision was clear, and my mind felt sharper than usual.
Morgateth's vast reservoir of energy was mine to draw and replenish from, and I hoped that my empathy and the so-called prestige he'd gained from bonding with me were a worthy exchange.
"Let's just fly, Little Warrior."He used Onyx's nickname for me.
I chuckled."Shouldn't you come up with something more original?"
"Little Shaman?"he asked. "Or Little Dreamer? We can also go with Hero of Elucia."
"No, not that!"I cried with mock horror."And why does everyone keep calling me little? How about Big Dreamer?"
"Doesn't sound right. I'll think of something."
We dove through a gap between two peaks that was so narrow that his wingtips nearly brushed the rock on either side. We skimmed the surface of a mountain lake so still it was like a mirror, and our passage left a wake that shattered the image into a thousand rippling fragments.
"Can you see the shimmering ribbons of the magnetic currents?"he asked.
"No. Can you?"
"Of course. Dragons see them like a vast web. This is how we navigate. They shift constantly, but the patterns repeat. Learn the patterns, and you can fly anywhere on Aurorys."
"What happens during storms? Can you see them then?"
"Naturally. The currents are strongest then. What do you think causes the storms?"
"Changes in atmospheric pressures."
"That too. The best thing riders can do during a storm is to let their dragon guide them through the weave."
The currents Morgateth had described sounded remarkably similar to the energy pathways that the healers had diagnosed as wide open and bleeding in me. Perhaps those pathways were somehow connected to the magnetic currents, channels that the shamanic gift opened but that the body wasn't designed to sustain without a dragon's strength to anchor them.
I was about to share my musings with Morgateth when I saw a streak of crimson shoot through the sky. It started far to the west, rising from the mountains that marked the border between Elucia and the Elurian Federation. The smoke climbed in a thick column, vivid as blood against the auroral shimmer.
