Kailin staggered, her knees buckling before she caught herself, and her expression transformed from determination to awe. Then her posture straightened, her shoulders settled, and the radiance emanating from her was enough to make me jealous of the damned dragon.
She looked complete in a way she had never looked before.
Morgateth knelt, and she climbed onto his back with a confidence and grace that was the result of weeks of training but also something more. She reached for the riding straps and secured them, put on her goggles, and then the enormous dragon took a couple of bounding steps, launched them both over the parapet, and unfurled his massive wings.
The wind from his wingbeats nearly knocked me off my feet. Dragon and rider spiraled upward through the auroras, Morgateth's crimson-veined scales catching the light, and Kailin, my Kailin, small and golden-haired on the back of that beast, threw her head back and laughed.
I couldn't actually hear it, but I'd seen her laugh so many times before that I read her body language and heard her laughter in my mind.
She was magnificent.
And she was flying away from me on the wings of a deadly dragon.
"Breathe," Codric muttered from beside me.
I exhaled slowly, forcefully, and as I unclenched my fists, my palms were marked with half-moon indentations from my nails. Thankfully, I hadn't broken the skin.
Once the four remaining dragons departed, only two having chosen riders, Codric leaned closer to me. "She'll be fine." He didn't sound like he believed his own words.
"She chose the one dragon we all agreed to stay away from," I said under my breath. "Why would she do that? She could have refused the bond."
"She's Kailin. She does what she wants and makes you feel like an idiot for doubting her."
That was an accurate assessment.
The ceremony continued. More dragons arrived in groups of five, performing their slow, ponderous walk down the shrinking line of cadets. Bonds formed. Cadets flew away on the backs of their new partners. Others remained, waiting, hoping, trying not to let the growing anxiety show on their faces.
I focused on keeping my mind open and my body still, but it was difficult. Part of me was with Kailin, even though I could no longer see her, wondering if Morgateth's deadly reputation was about to claim a fourth rider.
She couldn't die, I reminded myself. She was part of the seven prophesied to save Aurorys. She was fine. If anyone could tame Morgateth, it was Kailin.
I forced my attention back to the ceremony.
Three more groups came and went. The line grew shorter. Morek bonded with a sleek bronze dragon who seemed to match his restless energy, practically vibrating with excitement as they launched into the sky.
Shovia still waited.
Codric still waited.
I still waited.
The doubt crept in gradually, starting at the edges of my mind and working inward. What if the prophecy didn't require all five of us to be riders? What if Saphir had been wrong about my role? What if no dragon wanted a prince who'd lied his way into Elucia and whose family was trying to drag him back?
What if my father was right, and this had been nothing but a childish dream?
Another group landed. Five dragons, all of them striking, but one drew my eye immediately.
She was much smaller than Morgateth but larger than most dragonias except for Nyxath. Her scales were extraordinary, shifting between silver, pale gold, a hint of turquoise, and a hint of pink, like light refracting through crystal. Every time she moved, the colors changed, rippling across her body in patterns that seemed deliberate, as if she were showing off.
She was the most beautiful dragonia I had ever seen, and she seemed to be well aware of her extraordinary beauty.
Even her walk down the line of cadets was more graceful and less lumbering than the other dragons who had walked the line before her. She didn't ignore any of the cadets, assessing each one in turn with her amber eyes.
She paused before a cadet three places to my right, seeming to consider him for a little longer than those before him, but then moved on. She passed two more cadets, giving them only the most minimal of considerations, and then she was before me.
Her head lowered until we were nearly eye to eye, and those amber eyes held mine with an intensity that made my breath hitch.
It wasn't fear, though. It was recognition.
