As an Elurian and as a prince, I had mastered the art of not lying outright by omitting the things I didn't want to say and focusing on something else. We were not as strict about the Precepts of Truth as the Elucians, but that didn't mean that we disregarded them completely.
Being bonded to Veynathei, I needed to remember that my dragonia wasn't bound by the Precepts at all and could lie at will.
The question was, would she?
There were things I needed to keep from her, but that wasn't the same as lying.
I smoothed my expression and focused on fastening the silver buttons of my dress uniform. They caught the light in a way that reminded me of Veynathei's shifting scales.
"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you?" Kailin asked.
"Nothing is bothering me."
She turned from the mirror and fixed me with those blue eyes that always saw too much. There was a new steadiness in her gaze, more power, and I didn't like to think that Morgateth was the one responsible for this new strength.
"Alar."
"Fine." I let the half-buttoned uniform gape at my chest. "You chose Morgateth. That's what's bothering me."
"He chose me."
"You accepted. You could have refused."
"I could have. I didn't want to."
My jaw tightened at the calm certainty in her voice. "He snapped his jaws in your face, Kailin. I and every other person on that roof thought you were about to die."
"He was testing me."
"By terrifying you and all the other cadets?"
"Yes. He was testing whether I was scared of him." She crossed the room and sat beside me. "If I'd flinched, he would have moved on to another cadet. The fact that I didn't flinch told him what he needed to know."
"And what was that?"
"That I'm strong enough."
Strong enough to survive him. That was what she meant, even if she didn't say it. Strong enough to survive a dragon whose three previous riders had died in tragic and suspicious circumstances.
"There were plenty of other dragons you could have chosen from."
"None would have been right for me, and vice versa." Her voice was patient, but I could hear the edge beneath it. We'd had this conversation once already on the roof, in the brief minutes between her landing and when we'd gone to change for the celebration. It had been interrupted by Morek's exuberant recounting of his flight with Korthax, but there was no buffer now.
"You didn't even wait to see who else might come," I said.
"I didn't need to. When Morgateth walked toward me, I knew. The bond was already forming before either of us spoke." She paused, seeming to search for words. "It was fated to be. I felt it."
It was hard to argue with that when I had felt the same way when Veynathei had walked toward me. The recognitionhad been instant, bone-deep, undeniable. But Veynathei wasn't a dragon with a body count.
"I don't know, Kailin. Perhaps you should have fought the pull. Three dead riders is not a good track record."
"Those deaths were not his fault." By the sound of her voice, I knew that her patience was wearing thin. "We talked about this, and we arrived at the conclusion that those accidents hadn't been the dragons' fault."
I shook my head. "Those are theories. We can't be sure."
"I'm sure." She put her hand on her chest. "I can feel his grief for those riders, his guilt, his rage at those who might be responsible for their deaths. I know that he didn't murder them because those losses nearly destroyed him."
Every instinct I possessed told me that feelings were not evidence, that the bond could be coloring her perception, that she was too close to the situation to assess it objectively. But I knew that telling Kailin her feelings were unreliable was the fastest way to turn a tense conversation into a fight, and I didn't want that. Not tonight.
