Chapter 49
“The time is approaching. I can feel it, but I cannot see it.”
“You will know. You always have before.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Well, that would be very inconvenient.”
~Conversations between Caeldra and Marek
Fiona
I can feel Azric’s eyes on me as I stand in front of him on the dragon’s roost. The dragons are on the other side of the rooftop, far enough away that I don’t know if they can hear us.
They watch as he creates a flying horse out of shadows and mounts it.
A ten foot long lance made of shadows appears in his hand, and he takes to the air.
My daggers are in my hands, and I’m in a crouch.
The Infusions of the Cat, Bear, Falcon, and Boar flow through my veins as I prepare myself.
I don’t have to hide my powers any longer.
Once the final trial begins, I can use my Marks.
I can use Infusions that transform my body.
I can wield the full powers of a Priest, and nothing the crowd watching sees matters.
They can’t do anything. If I win the trials, I’ll become Nyxthos’s champion regardless, and I’ll be untouchable by everyone.
If I lose, I’ll almost certainly die within the trial, so it won’t matter.
He swoops down, the lance directed straight at my chest. At the last minute, I take a step to the side, and the lance slams into the stone, but Azric doesn’t seem fazed at all. I try to leap at him, but I’m too slow, and he circles for another pass.
“Damn it all. How am I supposed to attack you when you can fly?” I call out to him.
As he’s diving again, he yells, “I let Inni deal with Riders, so I couldn’t tell you.”
I slip a dagger into its sheath, and I raise my hand. When he’s twenty feet above me, I activate the Mark of the Phoenix on my left breast, right above my heart. Heat flows through my body and explodes from my fingertips in the form of dragonfire.
The mount and lance disappear, the light from the flames burning the shadows. Immediately, Azric is consumed by it, but then it sputters out. The Mark of the Phoenix is short-lived, but I can use it almost at will with how quickly it regenerates.
The Prince of Bones falls, but in barely more than a second, bone-framed wings have sprouted from his back, and he’s slowly gliding to the stone at my feet. When his boots touch the ground, he pats at his riding coat and shakes his head. “This was my favorite coat,” he mutters and looks up at me.
To nearly anyone else, that would have permanently disfigured them if it hadn’t killed them on the spot.
Dragonfire burns hotter than nearly any other flame on Nyth, and it will melt even steel if it lingers long enough.
Even for as short-lived as the Mark of the Phoenix is, it’s rare anyone survives.
But the Cyrus family comes from the House of Flames, which existed before the Godforged were created, and they have complete mastery over flames of all types. “You said you let Inni deal with them. I thought I’d try the same thing, and it seems to have worked.”
“Of course it worked. I wasn’t expecting it, and no one else will either. Though you should know it’ll only work once. If you don’t kill Elara with the first blast, she’ll wait you out. You still can’t fly.”
I smirk. “Are you sure I can’t?”
Azric frowns. “I guess not, but I’ve never seen a Priest fly. Which Mark is that?”
“The only way we can fly is with the Infusion that gave me wings. I was kidding. But I can wield lightning with a Mark and with arrows, so I think one of those options is probably my best bet rather than trying to fight her with daggers.”
He nods. “Most likely. Elara is probably your least threatening opponent, though. Be aware of that. Isola can destroy anything, steel included, given enough time. She’s hard to kill and can use her abilities at range.
If she’s glowing, she’s killing things, and you may not even be able to see what exactly she’s pinpointed.
No one wants to go toe-to-toe with an Undying.
Even Priests know that. Your flames, lightning, and arrows won’t be able to touch her because the aura she exudes will be strong enough to destroy even lightning before it touches her. ”
I did not know that. “Not all the Undying are like that, are they?”
Azric shakes his head. “No. Only the very upper tiers of my army can create an aura that strong.”
So Rhaskar just didn’t understand. That isn’t a surprise. For all the knowledge he has on the Godforged, much of it is very incomplete. “So how do I fight Isola?”
“Make her keep the aura up and exhaust her. You saw how quickly she tired in the third trial. Make her maintain that aura without getting within range of it. Throw rocks at her if you have to. Shadow walk to her or shoot her with your bow when it drops because she’s probably going to feign her exhaustion to trick you into coming within range. ”
I nod to him and smile. The only other one is Jorren. And that’s terrifying. I saw what he could do with that blue mist. What will he make me see?
Azric steps closer to me, close enough that I can smell him. “Now, are you going to tell me what happened last night?”
I shake my head. “I will not.”
“You were on the verge of breaking again. Now you’re ready to train? Something’s changed, so what is it?”
I smile at him. “I figured… something out. Well, maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.
But I don’t feel as hopeless as I did last night.
I didn’t ask you to come up here to help me so we could talk about last night, though.
I need to understand my enemies, not my emotions, and I’m surprisingly short on time. ”
He sighs and shrugs. “I can’t help you with Jorren other than advice.
His powers are impossible for me to recreate.
I’ll just tell you this. Don’t try to outlast him.
Kill him fast or run very far from him. Make things physical as soon as you can because he can’t win a fast fight.
Using a bow against one of the Lost is a terrible decision, and you’ll probably end up falling off a cliff trying to escape whatever demons of your past he sets upon you. ”
The thought makes me shiver. There’s no way I want him anywhere near me. More than Isola and Elara, without a doubt.
“Do you have any idea what the trial will be?” I ask, rather than try to have a conversation about Jorren.
He shrugs again. “It could be anything, but there must be a clear and obvious winner. He’s already proven your combat abilities with the third trial, so whatever happens in this one will probably have something to do with things uniquely him. Darkness and secrets, Fiona.”
Darkness and secrets. Those two ideas have become the moon around which my life orbits. Ferreting out secrets has become a second profession, and darkness is in everything. The night sky, the hearts of my competitors, and more than anything, my thoughts toward the future.
Because my vision of the future is like looking into a moonless forest and trying to find my way.
I don’t know what will happen tomorrow night.
Not in a week. I’d had plans and schedules before.
I’d had dreams of what I wanted my life to be.
Now, I understand that my life isn’t ever going to involve knowing the future.
All I can do is exist in the darkness of the present.
“Do you think it’ll be a tournament like Draeven held?” I ask.
Azric shakes his head. “I could see Nyxthos doing nearly anything other than that. You’ll probably still interact with each other within the trial because it would be rather boring for the spectators otherwise, but somehow, I doubt it will be simple combat. That’s just not his way.”
He runs his hand over his cheek, and his nails scratch the short hair with a rasping sound. “No, it will probably be more like the Shadow Road. That trial was the truest to him. The second and third trials were necessities, but the final one will be based on what matters most to him.”
I frown. “Then how am I supposed to prepare myself?”
“I don’t know if you’re supposed to.”
I huff and sit down on the ground and wrap my arms around my knees. “Then what are we supposed to do? Just wait to die?”
Azric sits down next to me and mimics my position.
His eyes immediately go to Inni, who stands unmoving at the other end of the roost. Sidon’s massive body dwarfs her as he stands beside her.
The shining black of Vyran is on the other side of her, and Kasan stands slightly to the side.
Calyr, the gold-scaled dragon, is the only one missing tonight, and I wonder where he is.
“Inni wants to know what you would be doing if you were back in Stormhaven,” Azric says quietly.
My eyes fix on the red dragon as I think.
“Probably reading a novel or studying sword techniques. I’d been planning to change from daggers to a longsword before Ainslee and Rhion convinced me to join the trials.
I was still learning the fundamentals, and Rhaskar thought it would be good if I went without a teacher initially so I would have to come to my own conclusions. ”
Azric completely ignores most of my answer. “What kind of novels?”
I turn to him, a grin on my face. “That’s the part that catches your attention? Not me changing weapons? Not the explanation for why?”
He shrugs. “I feel like all I do is think about fighting and politics. The prospect of having a conversation about something as trivial as your favorite novels sounded far more entertaining.”
“Fine. I’m going to disappoint you, though.
Romance novels aren’t really my thing, if that’s what you were expecting.
Love wasn’t supposed to be in the stars for me.
I was supposed to become a Priest, and they don’t get married or have children.
It’s against the rules for any Priest to hold anything above the Order, and who wants to marry someone that will always hold them second in importance? ”
He turns to me, a thin smile on his lips. “You still haven’t told me what you like to read.”
I take a deep breath. “The last book I read and enjoyed was about a fisherwoman. It wasn’t exciting. There weren’t any battles or grand schemes. It was just a story about an older woman who was struggling to make ends meet as the fishing holes she’d always gone to were drying up.”
Azric nods with a smile. “Simple problems for simple people, yet for that woman, I’m sure it was tearing her up.
Fiona, that’s what life’s supposed to be about.
Finding food. Building shelter. Creating art and growing as a person.
Not fighting for entire worlds. Our lives shouldn’t be this exciting.
We should tell stories around the hearth fire and stop mid-walk to notice that the winds of autumn have arrived.
Noticing the first sprigs of green in spring should bring smiles to our lips. Instead…” He stops and hangs his head.
“Instead, we ignore the world and people around us unless they can help us win the next life or death fight.”
All he does is give me a slight nod, and we sit in that silence. It’s not uncomfortable, though. Neither of us have spent our lives trying to fill the silence with words. Instead, I look up at the stars twinkling above us. One of the dragons rustles, and I feel the roost shake as it lies down.
But the dragons have become just as commonplace as anything else in this exciting life of mine. They’ve watched silently every night we’ve trained together, and while they’re majestic, I’m no longer so awestruck by their very presence and breath.
Yet, the stars hold my attention, though they’ve been there since the world was born. They’re greater than even dragons, and I don’t know why. Azric’s eyes follow mine and stare as they twinkle in our shared silence.
The wind blows steadily, and I barely notice it. In the darkness, they’re always there. Sometimes, they’re hiding behind clouds or dim, but they’re always there. Even when all of us return to the Void or wherever humans go when they die, those stars will still be shining.
“Will the Hunters destroy the stars if they win?” I ask, suddenly afraid. I can accept my death, but the thought of those tiny flickering lights going out is far too terrible to imagine.
Azric shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably not. They’re not magic, at least not from what I’ve heard. Why?”
I don’t know why I care. If I’m dead, what does it matter if they’re gone? Then again, I doubt Darian would stop caring about what happened to Nyth just because he’s in the Void. I want the stars to survive whatever happens.
“I was just wondering.” The statement falls flat because I know it’s not true.
He takes a deep breath and slowly gets to his feet. He glances down at me and gives me a broken smile. “Come on. Inni says you need something good tonight, and I think she’s probably right.”
I frown as he puts his hand out to help me up. I take it, and when he hauls me to my feet, his smile brightens as he looks at the dragon walking toward us.
“Fiona Thorne,” she says in that soft, almost motherly tone, “I think it is time you rode a dragon that wasn’t trying to kill you.”