There wasn't much. The Dragon Force didn't encourage personal accumulation. A few changes of civilian clothes I'd brought from Catonia, and my dress uniform, which I wasn't sure I was allowed to take, but I wasn't going to ask permission and do it anyway. The combat dagger Ravel had issued to the quintet after the assassination attempts. I put the sidearm on the desk.
"You should take it," Kailin said. "For the perilous journey back home. There is a reason your parents are sending an armored vehicle for you."
I nodded. "I'll use it as an excuse if I'm asked to leave the weapons behind."
I picked up the regulation manual that had been issued to every cadet. The thick book with its three categories of rules marked by crossed swords, balanced scales, and stars. I'd read it cover to cover twice and annotated the margins with questions and observations that now seemed hopelessly naive.
"Leave that," Kailin said. "You won't need it where you're going."
"I suppose I won't, but it carries sentimental value."
"I have something better." She took the manual from my hands and set it aside, then reached under the bed and pulled out her sketchbook. The leather-bound journal was filled with drawings ranging from portraits of people and dragons to landscapes and architectural elements of the Citadel and the Circle of Fate temple.
"I want you to take this," she said.
"Kailin, I can't take your sketchbook."
I knew how much it meant to her.
"I can always draw more." She opened it. "I'm only going to keep pictures of you." She began carefully removing pages and setting them in a pile on the bed.
I caught glimpses of the drawings as she worked. Me, sleeping. Me, laughing at something. Me, in my dress uniform on the night of the bonding celebration. Me, looking out the window with that crease between my eyebrows that she was always teasing me about.
She carefully smoothed a drawing of my profile against the bedspread. "I'm going to put your portraits on the walls so it feels like you're still here."
My throat tightened.
She removed the last of my portraits and handed me the remaining sketchbook, which was still thick with drawings of dragons, mountain landscapes, Shovia in various poses of exasperation, Morek mid-gesture, Codric's theatrical expressions, and Morgateth's great head in careful detail.
"There's still plenty of room for new drawings," she said. "You can fill the rest with sketches of Catonia and send them to me in your letters. I want to see everything. The palace, the city, the markets. All of it."
I held the sketchbook against my chest. The leather was warm from her hands, softened by months of use, and it smelled faintly of the graphite pencils she favored.
"I don't have your talent for drawing, but I'll write every day," I said. "I will describe in minute detail every boring moment of palace life and the absurdity of political intrigue."
She smiled. "I'll read every word and cherish it, imagining you majestically navigating that intrigue. And I will write back in just as much detail."
I set the sketchbook in my pack. "I'll write you the truth, Kailin. All of it. No omissions, no diplomatic varnish. You'll know everything I know."
She chuckled. "You can't. Unless you write me in that cipher that you and Codric developed as kids and he translates it for me."
I had forgotten that all correspondence to and from the Citadel was scrutinized.
"That's an excellent idea. No one knows how to decipher that script."
Her eyes sparkled with mirth. "I'll ask Codric to translate what I write into the cipher. The sections about my training. About Morgateth and Saphir and whatever else happens here." She paused. "About the dreams, if they come."
"Especially the dreams."
She nodded, then looked down at the small pile of my portraits on the bed. She picked up the one of me sleeping and traced the line of my jaw with her fingertip.
"I don't have anything of value to leave you," I said. "Everything I brought from Catonia was designed to support a cover story that no longer exists. Fake documents. A merchant's wardrobe. Nothing that carries any meaning."
"You're leaving me your dragon," she said quietly.
That stopped me.
"Veynathei is not mine to leave."
