Fight or Flight

Chapter 23

Simon

I nibbled on my lip in thought. Enola had confirmed most of what Katerina's note had told us... but there was still one detail I wanted to confirm. And I finally had the opening to ask it. "What if you took a rider?"

Enola grew very still for a moment. She clasped shut the pouch on her saddle, then turned to look back at me. I had the same feeling I got when I knew a mage was around – I was suddenly in danger. "What?"

"If you had a rider bond. Would that get around the magedebt?" I saw Enola's claws start to curl into the dirt beneath her, and I tried to think of a way to ask the question that wouldn't anger Enola more. "If it was with a mage? Would you owe magic back to that mage, or could their magic go towards clearing your debt without creating more?"

The pink dragon relaxed a little, though I could tell she was not happy with the topic. "A rider bond is not some cheap decision we make to get out of a problem. It is only something we do after careful deliberation, when we are ready to begin a family. It can only be done once, and then never again. Taking a rider just so I could have magic back would be even more shameful and foolish than having lost all my magic in the first place."

I thought back to the story Enola had told me of her past. Of the feelings her younger self had for Cess, and of how the blue dragon I had seen on occasion still clearly enjoyed seeing her. And... Cess had been the only dragon who had come to see her. In the months I had been here, no other dragons had come by to visit her. Given Enola's attitude towards me any time I tried to help, that probably meant she had driven away every other dragon.

Every other dragon but Cess.

He hadn't let her drive him away, like she must have done with the other dragons. He clearly cared about her a great deal if he kept coming to check on her, and kept trying to find ways to help with her magedebt. And she clearly had feelings for him, even if they might be buried deep down inside her.

If it hadn't been for the magedebt draining her magic, I was certain that the two of them would have been a family by now. "Even if you are ready to begin a family, and getting your magic back let you do it?"

The feeling of immediate danger sent goosebumps up my arm as it returned. I tried very hard not to look at Enola, and stared out at the lake instead.

It was several long moments before Enola spoke again. Her voice was cold with anger, and I knew I was prying too deeply. This was not a subject the pink dragon wanted to think about. "A rider bond erases any favors owed. Rider and dragon are considered one creature as far as any magedebt is concerned. Any favor done to the rider is counted as a favor to the dragon." She was quiet for a long second before continuing. "Any resource the rider has can be used to repay a magedebt. Even magic. Magic would flow across the bond as the rider generated it, and be drained by the debt, until the debt was fully repaid."

I nodded slowly. That tracked with what we had pieced together from Katerina's letter – as a rider, the dragon had access to her magic. Everything in the letter had been true. The dragons were legit. They hadn't enslaved Katerina in order to create the rock cliff at the coast, but had just gained her power when they had taken her as a rider. Which... could still be seen as trapping her, sure, but it meant that taking her magic hadn't necessarily been the original intention. It meant the dragons weren't playing some convoluted game to try and trap more of us. It was all on the up-and-up. I could tell the other Wellsprings what I had learned, and they could decide for themselves if they wanted to take the dragons' offer of protection or not.

There was nothing else I needed from Enola.

"Enola..." I hesitated, watching the still water of the lake. "The humans who helped you. What if they weren't mages?"