Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(30)
I would have sighed in relief—if my chest hadn’t hurt so much. It felt like a family of elephants had done the polka across my ribcage.
“Captain Somerset will show you to your rooms,” Major Valentine finished. Then she, the Sea Dragon, and the Sky Dragon left the training area.
The candidates and our mentors slept in rooms located in the castle’s four enormous towers. Captain Somerset led us to the Fire Tower first, where the four soldiers from Los Angeles were staying. From its fiery peak, you could see the Fire Mountains. The other three lands of the Elemental Expanse—the Sky Plains, the Desert Rose, and the Crystal Forest—were visible from their corresponding elemental towers.
Next, we dropped off Jace, Kendra, Alec, and his mentor in the Sky Tower. Nerissa and Soren each had a room in the Earth Tower. I was alone in the Sea Tower. I walked beside Captain Somerset. She was unusually quiet. The only sound in the spiral stairwell was the hum of the magic lanterns on the walls. The flames blinked against the darkness, casting everything in a pale blue light.
“So, how did I do today?” I asked her with a crooked smile.
“As well as we all did on the first day of elemental training.” Her gaze remained forward. Wherever her mind was, it wasn’t here.
“That bad, huh?”
“You will improve with time.”
With that said, she unlocked the door to my room and walked back down the stairs. A large bedroom with a fairytale canopy bed awaited me. The antique wooden furniture certainly fit with the castle. I swung my door closed, plunked my backpack down on the floor, and explored the rest of the room. I found a private bathroom off to the side. It even had a shower.
I went to the window, brushing aside the thick, velvet curtains to look outside. My room was about halfway up the Sea Tower, and I had a nice view of the Crystal Forest from here. Icicles hung from the branches, glistening and jingling in the moonlight. A waterfall sat at the edge of the woods. It was all so perfect that I almost expected a unicorn to step out of the trees and sip from the sparkling water. I’ll admit I was disappointed when that little fantasy didn’t come true.
I took a moment to stand there and drink in the beauty of this perfect, magical scene. The moment was over too soon. I didn’t have time to daydream. My schedule stated that tomorrow’s first session would begin in just under four hours. Today’s training had drained me down to my last reserves. I needed rest. I kicked off my boots and fell onto the soft bed. I fell asleep without even changing out of my magic-stained clothes.
10
Elemental Trials
My elemental training continued in much the same way for the next week. I rose early, trained hard all day, then dropped onto my bed, not stirring until the unholy hour of morning when training began anew. Fire, sea, sky, and earth. I’d come to detest the very elements of nature. That which I’d always considered beautiful had turned inside out. I could only see the danger now. Burning, electrocution, frostbite, drowning, mud monsters. Even the snowy forest outside my bedroom window couldn’t soothe my frayed nerves.
I felt like my body and magic had been put through an elemental blender. This endurance training was supposed to prime our elemental magic, make it more able to survive the gods’ fourth gift, the Nectar that would unlock our elemental magic. There was a certain nuance to it, a process, a procedure. Like everything the Legion did, this process was equivalent to subtly hitting someone over the head with a hammer.
“Face your partner,” the Sky Dragon instructed everyone, projecting his voice to every corner of the gym hall.
Jace was my partner. We’d already fought four times this afternoon, and we’d each won twice. Jace was the better fighter, but he wasn’t nearly as scrappy as I was. Never underestimate the importance of scrappiness. The Legion of Angels might have been founded on the principles of dignity and honor, but humanity had been founded on dirty fighting.
Jace and I stood facing each other. We held no weapons; we were armed with only our magic and willpower. Our eyes locked, our bodies froze. It was like a good old Frontier standoff—without the guns. Our hands were posed at our sides, our fingers twitching.
Jace struck. He waved his hand up in an arc, igniting the leaves under my boots. I stomped them out.
“You should freeze them,” the Sea Dragon told me from the sidelines. There was disapproval in her voice. Like she expected me to be able to do magic just like that.
I couldn’t freeze anything. Even after a week, Jace was still the only one in the whole group who could so much as set a matchstick on fire, and his sister knew it. Kendra Fireswift shot me a smug smirk. She was getting on my last nerve. And on Jace’s too.
“Make more fires,” she demanded.
“I think she wants you to turn me into a bonfire,” I whispered to Jace.
He managed to ignite another crinkly dry leaf. It was more smoke than fire, though. The strain on his face was noticeable.
“Indeed,” he said.
“Why are you holding your breath?” I asked. “Afraid if you exhale, your breath will put out your fires?” I winked at him.
Jace snorted, and a small laugh escaped his mouth. His tiny fires went out like birthday candles. I chuckled.
“Less laughing, more kicking her ass,” Kendra instructed him.
Jace grabbed one of the flaming swords off the rack. I grabbed another. The blades had been pre-spelled for us. The rack charged the magic on them, kind of like how my electric whip worked. As we used them, the magic would slowly wear off.