Tauran swallowed, then swallowed again. “She died.” He looked away.
Kalai shifted closer, wrapping his arms around Tauran, drawing him into an embrace.
Tauran sat very still, waiting for his walls to crumble, bracing for it. When the seconds ticked by and nothing happened, he dared rest a hand on Kalai’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Kalai whispered again.
“I don’t like talking about it.” Tauran was acutely aware of Kalai’s warm chest against his side and the faint scent of pine parchment that clung to him. “Makes people realize how much of a mess I am. Although that’s probably already obvious.” He let out a bitter laugh to mask how pathetic he sounded.
Kalai raised his head, sliding his arms off Tauran, although Tauran wished he hadn’t. “I don’t think you’re a mess,” he said. “You had a terrible thing happen to you. I can’t even imagine what it would do to me if I lost Arrow.”
They looked at the white dragon, stretching out his wings across the floor. Tauran’s pain was raw and right under the surface. He wasn’t sure how long he could sit with it. Normally, he would have already cracked.
“So that’s why General Falka sent you to me?” Kalai asked. He sat up straighter.
Tauran nodded. “I think he wants me to have that baby titan. Raise it. Fly it.”
“Your dragon was a titan?” Kalai whispered, voice full of awe.
“She was.”
“Wow. Dragons come to Kel Visal all the time, but few people there have seen a titan as more than a distant shadow.” Kalai released a shivering breath. “What was it like? Flying?”
Tauran looked back at him. Kalai’s eyes shone with an almost childlike wonder that helped keep the door to Tauran’s fear shut.
Maybe he could do this.
Tauran closed his eyes. He took his time, picking words that felt safe, things he could say out loud without his already exposed heart trembling apart. Had it been anyone else, he would have told them to mind their own damn business. “It’s the most amazing feeling in the world,” he said softly, keeping his eyes closed. “When you’re up there, you can see everything, do anything you want. You can cover a distance in one hour that takes half a day on horseback. You’re the biggest, baddest predator in the sky. Up there, you’re invincible.”
“By the mighty dragons.” Kalai’s whispered words made Tauran open his eyes again. “That sounds... incredible.”
Tauran’s train of thought halted. He stretched out a little, muscles looser than they had been a moment ago. “You’ve never ridden Arrow?”
Kalai shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “My condition...”
“But if you stay low,” Tauran pushed. “Surely, it wouldn’t be impossible.”
Kalai’s pout grew more pronounced. He pulled his legs up and rested his elbows on his knees. “But it’s not just the altitude. You saw what happened in the archive. If I faint on the back of a dragon flying five times the speed of a racing silverhorn, it doesn’t matter that I’m only thirty feet above the ground. I’m going to die.” There was an impatience and a frustration in his tone that told Tauran he’d already gone over it a million times in his head. Tauran knew the feeling, trying to search for a new solution to an old problem that would never change. He had long since given up enjoying just a single day without constant pain. Only, the answer to Kalai’s problem seemed obvious.
“That’s what the harness is for,” Tauran said. “Keeping you from falling off.”
“What harness?” Kalai looked genuinely puzzled.
Tauran had to shift onto his knees so he could face him directly. “You’ve never heard of a riding harness? Goes around your hips? Attaches to the saddle?”
Kalai’s confusion transformed into two stark lines between his brows. “There are no saddles in Sharoani.”
Tauran mirrored Kalai’s confusion. “Why not?”
“The dragon masters believe that no dragon can be tamed, and that putting a saddle on a dragon is equal to throwing an innocent person in chains. No person can own a dragon, and saddling on one can get you in serious trouble. That is, if the dragon doesn’t bite, first.”
“I don’t understand,” Tauran said. Kneeling was starting to hurt too much to be tolerable, so he rocked forward and stood with a groan. “The Sharoani gifted Valreus our dragons all those years ago. If dragons can’t be owned, they technically can’t be given, right? I mean, they must know that we keep our dragons tamed and saddled.”
“They do,” Kalai said, glancing at Arrow. “And they don’t all agree with the choices