Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(24)

“You do a splendid job where you are,” I told her.

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

She was already talking about herself in the past tense. That was not good. Not good at all. Where the blazes was Ivy? I wasn’t good at calming people. I was good at inciting them. Maybe I could try to compel Nerissa into a state of calmness, but even if it worked, it wouldn’t be real. Ivy could calm people even without magic.

“Hello, ladies,” Ivy declared, sweeping into the lab like a beautiful summer butterfly, her long red hair bouncing against her back, her heels clicking like a runway model. “Nerissa, I’ve asked Soren to mentor you. He’s on his way. Everything will be all right.”

Captain Soren Diaz was Ivy’s former beau. They’d split up just last week after dating for a few months. The breakup had been amiable, just like all of Ivy’s breakups. She was friends with all of her former boyfriends. Everyone loved Ivy. She was like sugar-sprinkled strawberries. Everyone loved sugar-sprinkled strawberries.

“I have to go pack,” I told Nerissa. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ll take good care of her,” Ivy promised, wrapping her arm around Nerissa.

I gave them a final wave, then hurried toward my apartment. I checked the time. There was barely enough time to pack—and only if I ran all the way. I sped up. I guess that meant no hot shower for me. The story of my life.





8





The Elemental Expanse





Outside my car window, smoke billowed up from the burning trees peppered across the plains. On the other side of the road lay a frozen forest. Overhead, storm clouds rumbled and lightning flashed. Below our wheels, the dusty, cracked earth shook and trembled. And at the center of it all, high above at the peak of Mount Cornerstone, sat the mighty fortress the Legion had dubbed Storm Castle.

Here, within the inner ring of magic that stretched out from the mountain, all four elements blended together in perfect, inexplicable harmony. Hot and cold, wet and dry, mountains and plains, ocean and desert.

Beyond that lay the outer ring, the four lands of the Elemental Expanse: the Fire Mountains, the Sky Plains, the Wetlands, and the Desert Rose. One of the four elements flourished in each realm under the power of its guardian Dragon, a Legion soldier with extraordinary elemental magic.

The Elemental Expanse lay on the west coast, past the monster-infested Western Wilderness that had consumed a larger piece of the continent. There were no monsters here in the Elemental Expanse. There weren’t any cities either. And the only people who lived here were the Legion soldiers stationed at Storm Castle or at the Legion base located at the northern border of the expanse, not far from the wall that separated these civil lands from the Western Wilderness.

“What are they like?” I asked Captain Somerset as she brought the truck to a stop at the base of Mount Cornerstone. There were already three other cars parked there.

“The four Dragons?” Captain Somerset guessed. “They are exceptional soldiers and powerful magic-casters. The Legion only asks the best to become a Dragon.”

“They ask?” I said with surprise. “They don’t command?” That didn’t sound like the Legion.

“Living here, protecting the Elemental Expanse, nurturing its magic—it’s an enormous responsibility, one you can only give to someone who wants it. Each Dragon links with the castle’s magic to protect their designated territory, which in turn boosts their own magic. They are the most powerful elemental spell casters on Earth.”

“Stronger than the angels?”

“Stronger even than the First Angel,” she told me. “But only inside the Elemental Expanse, where they remain linked to Storm Castle. As soon as they pass the border, they can no longer draw on the castle’s magic.”

I looked up at the rocky wall that seemed to stretch on forever. “How do we get up there?”

“We climb.”

“We didn’t bring any climbing gear,” I pointed out.

“That was intentional.”

“You want me to climb up with nothing but my hands and feet?” I said.

“And your strength of will.” She slapped me hard on the back. “Come on. Get moving, Pandora.”

I stared down the mountain and silently promised it I would conquer it. I hoped it was listening.

“This is crazy,” I muttered a few minutes later when a loose rock nearly caused me to plummet to my death.

“It’s tradition,” Captain Somerset told me. “All Legion soldiers who visit the Four Dragons for training must climb this mountain.”

“And how many of those soldiers fall to their death?”

“Don’t think about that.”

Well, wasn’t that reassuring? I pushed thoughts of my own mortality out of my head and made a conscious effort not to look down. Looking up wasn’t a good idea either. Hearing the deep growl of thunder and the sizzle of lightning was bad enough; I didn’t need to see the ominous storm cloud swirling over the castle too. If I made it up this mountain without being struck by lightning, I was going to call that a victory.

“So, why aren’t we allowed to use climbing gear?” I asked.

“Because that would be cheating,” Captain Somerset told me. It sounded like something Nero would say.