Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(29)

The platform rose, breaking the water’s surface like a giant whale. We turned into a frozen tundra, a white wasteland. I inhaled the icy air. It burned like cold fire in my lungs. It nipped at my fingers and nose. My breath froze on my lips. It was even colder in here than it had been during my trek through the Wilds this morning. And I had a feeling the temperatures in this training area could drop even further. This was how they built up our cold resistance.

We moved into the final training area. A warm, green glow dissolved the snowflakes on my face. I looked down at the obstacle course below. Quicksand patches. Tremors. Climbing walls surrounded on all sides by bubbling, gurgling mud pits. A pair of trumpet-shaped ears peeked above the muddy surface.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A mud monster,” Soren replied. “Earth elementals use their magic to create monsters from mud. Using elemental magic, you can do the same with other elements.”

“Like the smoke monsters in the fire area.”

“Right,” he said as we left the obstacle course behind to enter a dense forest. “But summoning these helpers is a master-level skill. Not everyone with elemental magic can do it. It requires a great deal of concentration, magic, and finesse.”

“It’s beautiful,” Nerissa said, looking around.

“It is indeed, but that beauty hides many dangers,” Soren warned.

He pointed at a squirrel running down a tree trunk. A nearby cluster of vines stirred. The squirrel froze at the rustle of movement, its nose twitching in the air, trying to sniff out the danger. The vines struck fast and hard. They snapped out like a whip, coiling around the squirrel’s body before it could flee, pulling it deep into the underbrush.

“Soul-eater Vines,” Nerissa said.

“Lovely name,” I replied.

“They are vicious plants. Swords cannot cut them, but they are vulnerable to several potions,” she said.

“Potions aren’t permitted here,” Soren told her.

“So how are we supposed to defeat the vines?”

I turned to hear his answer. My last encounter with sentient vines had been less than pleasant.

“An earth elemental can control them,” Soren said. “Someone with moderate elemental resistance can break through them.”

“Are there any other vicious plants in that forest?” Nerissa asked.

“Watch out for the moss. It will paralyze whatever part of your body it covers.”

The platform clicked. It had returned to its starting point. The glass went opaque, and a runway of lights showed the way out. We followed the four Dragons past the castle’s forges and armory. Here was where the Legion’s magic weapons and armor were made. Steam hissed. Fire sparked. As I watched the metal magic smiths working, I wondered if the immortal weapons of heaven and hell had been forged within these walls. Creating the Legion’s weapons and armor required strong elemental magic, among other things. The more powerful the smith’s magic, the better weapons he could make.

Past the armory was a training room. The gym hall was large, but after the training areas we’d just seen, it felt very plain in comparison. A rack of weapons stood against one wall. There was nothing else in the room.

“Candidates,” Major Valentine said, drawing our attention to her. “Your training, your first step toward elemental mastery, begins now.”



We trained the whole evening and late into the night. We started in the gym hall, but we didn’t stay there long. The Dragons divided us into groups for the obstacle course that brought us through the four elemental training areas. Nerissa and I were with Soren. Jace was with Kendra, and Morrows with the pretty petite lieutenant. There were two more pairs here, both from the Los Angeles office. The mentors showed us how to tackle the challenges, and we tried our best not to thoroughly embarrass ourselves.

It was a quadrathlon of elemental magic, one right after the other. We were frozen, drowned, struck by lightning, caught in tornados, set on fire, suffocated in smoke, besieged by carnivorous plants, and thrown into pools of magic quicksand. In other words, day one of elemental training at Storm Castle was nothing short of hell.

Of the six trainees, Jace was the best by far. He was the only one of us who could freeze a fire, if only for a moment. It was only a fragile layer of frost, just enough to slow it down so he could escape, but it was better than anything I could manage. My inability to cast a single spell made me feel horribly inadequate. Compulsion, the power of Siren’s Song, had come so easily to me, that I guess I’d thought I was finally getting the hang of things. I’d even dared to think that making it up the Legion’s ranks would be easy.

There was nothing like a dose of bitter reality to put my expectations in check. This wouldn’t be easy. I was going to have to work my ass off from now to level nine.

“Candidates, gather round,” Major Valentine called out just as I thought I couldn’t take another step.

In these few hours, I’d come to loathe her voice, the sound of her summoning us to the next course of torture. Getting set on fire and then frozen into a popsicle and electrocuted was not as much fun as it sounded. I hadn’t felt this bad since my initial Legion training. I couldn’t even twitch without something in my body hurting. And from the looks of my comrades, they weren’t faring any better.

“We are finished for today,” the Major told us.