Dragon's Storm (Legion Of Angels #4)(32)

I crossed the small island, avoiding earthquakes and sidestepping canyons. I reached the far shore, but instead of a sea of water, I met a sea of smoke. It swirled around me, drawing me forward. With every step that I took, the smoke cleared a little. I found hell on the other side.

Not literally, of course. The fire arena was marked by flames. They rolled across the land like a river of fire, consuming everything in their path. A black tree was caught in its wake. The flames pulled it down. Within seconds, it was nothing but ash.

Just past the former tree, a ring of fire burned around Nerissa. She was trapped, and the river of flames was coming. I had to help her. I took a running start up a mound of hardened stone, launching off it to jump over the fire ring and land beside her.

“You ok?” I asked.

She rubbed a smudged hand across her face. “Fantastic.” All around us, the fire was raging, burning higher. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

“Neither can I.”

She let out a strained laugh. “You missed the top of the flames by a hair’s breadth. If it had touched you, it would have set your whole body on fire. Didn’t you think about it?”

“No. At times like these, I find it’s best not to think too hard. Overanalyzing things just slows me down.”

“That would explain why your hair is on fire.”

I squeezed the tip of my braid between my thumb and index finger, putting out the tiny flame. My hair appeared untouched. Hmm.

“I’m going to give you a boost over the flames,” I told Nerissa. “Then you run for the exit like your tail is on fire.”

“Very funny.”

I shot Nerissa a grin, then grabbed her and threw her up high. She shot over the flames, landing safely at the exit. I drew in a deep breath and ran right through the fire. Flames hissed against my skin, but it hardly burned me at all. Maybe my elemental resistance really was improving.

I sprinted for the exit Nerissa had taken, but the opening closed before I got there. It reopened on the other side of the fiery field.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I growled under my breath, then headed for the new exit.

Jace burst out of the smoke, speeding past me. I pushed myself to run faster. He’d started a minute after me. He was not going to finish before I did.

Flames shot out of the ground all around us. Jace grabbed one of them between his hands and tossed it in my face. I dodged to avoid the fire, but that slowed me down. He burst through the exit. I came out right after him. The first thing I saw was the smirk on Kendra’s face. The second thing I saw was my time on the score board.

“Your friend Pandora was the slowest of everyone,” Kendra commented to Jace, her full lips turned up into a smile of dark delight.

I longed for elemental magic—if only to set her hair on fire.

“I’m sorry, Leda,” Nerissa said. “If not for me, you might have beaten his time.”

I knew she was just saying that to make me feel better. In a whole week of training, I hadn’t once beaten Jace’s time on the obstacle course. I just wasn’t fast enough.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not a competition.”

Which was why the scores were posted up there in bright shining digits for everyone to see. To see I was a loser. No, I couldn’t think like that. The scores meant nothing. What mattered was what happened when I drank the Nectar. I frowned at my pathetic score anyway. It might not be a matter of life-or-death, but it annoyed me anyway.

“You saved my life,” said Nerissa.

“You won’t die in training. There are too many safety measures in place.” I sighed. If I’d been thinking straight in there, I would have just kept going. But, no, I was so busy trying to hold onto my humanity that I’d taken leave of my senses.

“You haven’t been paying attention, Leda. This is the Legion of Angels. Of course you can die in training,” Nerissa said.

Captain Somerset walked over to me, the skirt of her red Fire Dragon dress swaying like flames in the breeze. “Pandora.” Her tone was foreboding.

“Yes?”

“You interfered in another candidate’s training. We cannot allow your indiscretion to go unpunished.”

Was she serious?

All it took was one look at the hard gleam in her dark eyes for me to realize that she was very, very serious.

“Rules are rules, Pandora. You aren’t doing her any favors by helping her. She needs to build up the resistance herself. You can’t do that for her. You can’t drink the Nectar for her.”

Maybe she was right.

“Everyone else is dismissed for the night,” Captain Somerset declared. “Pandora, you will train that course, repeating it until you beat Fireswift’s time. That is your punishment.”

I read Jace’s time off the scoreboard. He’d completed the entire course in under four minutes, nearly a half a minute faster than the next best person. I’d never finished the Dragons’ obstacle course in under five minutes. This was going to be fun. Since when had Captain Somerset become such a hard ass? She was certainly channeling Nero right now.

The candidates waited until the Dragons had left the gym. Then they began filing out with their mentors. Alec Morrows walked the other way—right for me.

“That was cool what you did, Leda.” He put one arm around me and the other around Nerissa.