Page 95 of Elemental Becoming

The admission lands heavier than anything else.

“Then somethingiswrong,”I whisper.

“Yes,”she responds without hesitation.

I tighten my grip slightly, leaning into her.

“Tell me what it is.”

Silence. Longer this time.

“What you ask is not withheld from you,”Calryx says at last.“It is unfinished. I know what the Guardians entrusted to me. I know what I have lived. Nothing more.”

Her presence settles around mine, calm but immovable like the mountain range beyond our fields at home. The wind rises around us, loose strands of hair whipping across my face.

“The Guardians told you when to call to me,”I add, the memory of our bonding rising—how that certainty was already there, placed in her long before she found me.“They knew.”

“They knew enough.”

“Enough?”

“To send me to you,”Calryx says.“To tell me when the time had come. To tell me what I must protect.”

My grip tightens against the saddle.

“But not why?”

A low sound moves through her, something close to sorrow.

“Dragons do not carry all truths, Virelya. We carry the truths entrusted to us.”

I swallow, my thoughts shifting, trying to catch hold of something just out of reach.

“So the Guardians know more.”

“Yes.”

“And they didn’t tell you.”

“No.”

The answer lands harder than I expect.

Calryx banks gently, the movement smooth beneath me.

“I was not made their equal in this,”she says.“I was chosen for you. That is the truth I carry.”

For me.

The Spiritborn is her truth.

“You were assigned to me.”

“Yes.”

“Years ago?”

“Yes.”