The Boon of Alon

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

As usual, as much as things have changed inside my head, the monastery around me and all the people in it are the same. I head down to the lake with everyone else and the only difference is that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life.

Though, my little confrontation with Iamon seems to have had an effect. I stop in front of him—feeling Suthi's eyes on me, but not her hands, yet—and he doesn't even growl. Just snorts a puff of smoke at me and turns his head away.

"Morning," I say. "I don't suppose you want to finish our conversation from yesterday?"

Rather than stretch his head and all its teeth back towards me, he extends one wing forward. "No," he says, as soon as it bumps against my thigh.

Hey, I got a word instead of a growl. "Okay. I'll ask again tomorrow." I leave him be, though his snort as I go is as good as words to tell me how well that's gonna work.

There is another thing that changes, too, as I finish oiling today's dragon—a green named Lach—which is that Yrite comes flying in from wherever he hangs out all day and lands by the trail as I'm about to head back up it. I go over to say hello. It's rest day, so I'm in no hurry, and I know he was oiled yesterday, so whatever he wants, it's not that.

Sure enough, he stretches his nose towards me with a rumbled greeting as soon as I'm within reach. "I spoke with Suthi yesterday...as you suggested."

"I saw," I say. "How'd it go?" Suthi's behavior in the archive would've been contemplative if it were me doing it, but after our conversation during training, I think she could've just been sulking, too.

"Hmm." Yrite settles himself down in the brush, which doesn't look terribly comfortable to me, but then, I'm not covered in scales. "I was...not impressed."

"No?" I didn't like her much at first, but I was always impressed. She has pretty much everything it takes to be a rider.

"She was...too deferent, too easily swayed. She expressed no opinion or goal."

"Oh." That wasn't what I was expecting, but maybe I should have. "You know what—I should've thought about that. She thought she wasn't good enough for me, and I'm, well, half her size with no real power over her. You're a gold dragon." My heart sinks. "She was probably scared shitless of you. I should've said something to her first." What, though, I don't know—even if I told Suthi to tell him what she wants, would she have anything to say?

"Ah... But you think she would make a good rider?"

"Yes," I say, and then reconsider. "Well, actually, I don't know. What makes a good rider?"

He chuffs. "A desire to change the world for the better, certainly... Any other requirement depends on the dragon."

Huh. "I guess she wouldn't make a good rider for you. The things you want—at least the things you said you liked about me—are the things she needs to learn, I think." A sense of curiosity about anything other than me would probably help her in the archive, at least. I don't know if she can be talked into wanting other things, though. She's already said she just does as she's told.

"Hmm...You think I should teach her?" Yrite asks.

"Huh? No, not if you don't want to," I say quickly. "I...think she'd be worth it, though."

"Ah." He nudges my stomach with a rumble. "You no longer dislike her?"

"No, she's...fine. I think I said last time we were working it out, and we are."

"That is different...than believing she is worth the effort." There's something smug about his tone that makes me squirm, like he knows something he's not telling me. "I will consider what you have said...and perhaps, in the meantime, you might reassure her...that I do not bite."