Sei’s vision blurs. His hands tremble, clenched into bone-white fists.
“I don’t hate grails,” Kazia says. “I hate mages, because they’re monsters. Never forget that.” Smiling brightly, Kazia pushes away from the table. “Happy wedding.”
Any polite response dies in Sei’s throat. He ducks his head and clings to the back of the chair until his stomach stops churning.
Kazia’s warning is crystal clear, his motive less so. Does he just want to warn Sei, or is Kazia also trying to drive a wedge between Sei and Marek? Sei hasn’t seen anything monstrous in Marek. The opposite. Marek doesn’t even want to use Sei as a grail.
Now, Sei thinks he has some idea of why. And he’s long overdue for a real talk with his betrothed.
***
Sei finds Marek meeting with a few other riders in the harness repair room. Nobody remarks when Sei slips in, but the riders aren’t subtle about eyeing him. The smirks are obvious—but more admiration than mockery. Sei doesn’t care about the attention. He’s supposed to be here.
If the riders make lurid assumptions about why Sei is waiting for Marek’s meeting to be over? That’s also fine. Sei has nothing to hide.
Settling against the wall, Sei doesn’t have long to wait. One rider finishes her report about the Nostic outpost, and Marek says, “All right, then.”
Which ends the meeting. Like a flock of birds taking off, the riders rush out of the room. Marek closes the door behind them with a thud.
There’s a quieter thud when Sei throws the latch. Then a louder one when Marek kisses him against the door.
Sei indulges for a breathless moment. Will he ever get used to the wonder of Marek’s touch? He doubts it. But that’s exactly why Sei needs to have this conversation.
“Wait.” Sei slumps against the door. “That’s not why I’m here right now.”
Marek touches Sei’s throat, then his shoulder. His violet eyes turn cautious. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“No, but I hope you’ll listen to me anyway.” The repair room smells of leather and oil. Broken things surround Sei—and the tools to mend them. “Why don’t you want to use my magic?” Sei lifts a hand to forestall Marek’s protest. “I’m not demanding that you use me. I just want to know why you won’t.”
Marek’s jaw tenses beneath his beard. Just like last time Sei asked about sharing power. But this time, Marek answers. “Because it’s too dangerous with the dragonbond.”
“How does that work?” Sei asks.
“My mind and soul are always connected to Loska. I can’t turn that off. Dragonriders used to use grails in battle, but they had to be incredibly careful not to pull too much power. In the heat of aerial battle?” Marek grimaces. “We burned out too many grails before the dragon corps stopped using them.”
Sei’s mind races. Until very recently, Draskora was the only nation in Alantha with dragons. The guildmasters never trained Sei to fuel a dragonrider. But they warned about burning out.
Grail magic renews over time, but it isn’t infinite at any given moment. If a mage takes too much at once, then scrapes for more, they can trigger a final, violent burst of power—leaving the grail an empty husk forever after.
Burning out isn’t necessarily fatal. Symptoms vary. Weakness, memory problems, depression, paranoia. If the grail is lucky, their mage will continue taking care of them. If the grail is unlucky, they’re discarded as useless.
That isn’t supposed to happen. Not anymore. Burning out a grail is a capital offense in Fellrin. Even Draskora outlawed it a few years before Sei was born.
But the disturbingly recent law isn’t what reassures Sei.
“Thank you for worrying about that,” Sei says. “But burning out won’t be a problem for us.”
Marek crosses his arms. “It’s a big fucking problem. I won’t hurt you.”
“Indulge me in a thought exercise.” Sei takes Marek’s hand. He presses it against his own chest, wondering if Marek can feel Sei’s heart thudding against his palm. “Pretend you’re using my magic. Then I tell you to stop. What do you do?”
Marek yanks his hand away. “What the fuck do you think? I’d stop and make sure you were all right. Sei, this is serious.”
“You would stop,” Sei repeats. “Yes, this is serious. Which is why I would tell you to stop long before I started burning out.” He shrugs. “You’re trained as a mage and a dragonrider. I’m trained as a grail. I know what I’m doing.”
“That’s different. You never had a choice.”
“How much choice did you have, becoming a mage and a dragonrider?”
