“Ah, for your own sake, I hope it’s an ex of yours who you dislike dearly,” he says to me, his eyes sparking.
“Mm-hmm,” I murmur. I turn to Kazh. “When should we begin?”
She walks towards the back of the studio and pushes the paneled glass door leading to the back garden open. “Now, you dipshit. You only have a week to get in shape before the Trial of Wisdom, otherwise you’ll die.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
PHOENIX
Kazh is a truly extraordinary woman.It’s the second day of training with her, and I want to quit.
“I can’t believe you survived the Culling,” she murmurs to herself. “The spirits of the gods must be crazy.”
Vera says Kazh is old as the spirit world, which means that nobody knows her actual age. From her appearance, the long silver hair, beige skin, and ice-blue eyes, I can’t tell her age either. I never met someone who looked old yet young at the same time.
I can’t trust my own eyes when I look at her.
“Your form is terrible,” she tells me and pokes me with a cane in the ribs. “And you call yourself an Ezkai? What did they teach you at that cursed academy, huh? How to quickly die in a battle?”
I grind my teeth and bite my tongue. I’m sitting with my legs crossed and tucked under me on top of a large stone in the middle of Vera’s garden. My palms rest on my knees. My fingers are twitchy.
Kazh insists I wear only cloth underclothes, so most of my skin is exposed to the cool air. My scars—the ugly ones from the fire—are on display for the whole world to see. That alone makes me want to die.
If only Kazh was here, I would feel better. However, Jax is lounging in the shade under a large plum blossom tree at the edge of the garden. I feel his eyes on me even without looking at him, and whenever Kazh pokes me with her stick, his chuckle reaches my ears.
I want to punch that asshole.
Always around, sly and charming, with his sparkling eyes and cheeky smirk that always brings out a tiny dimple he has, flirting with everything that has a pulse.
Gods. Damn. Him.
“Straighten your spine. Clench your butt cheeks and hold them tight,” Kazh instructs me. “Tense your core. Feel every single muscle in your body. Let it burn.”
I adjust my position, straightening my back and rolling my shoulders. My core is so tense it hurts. I press my lips into a tight line and focus my gaze in front of me.
“Better,” Kazh says, circling me.
She carries a wooden cane with a metal snake-head-shaped handle. She taps it onto the sand with each step, and it makes a dull sound I feel in my bones. When she starts tapping her sharp nail on the metal head, and the two sounds melt into a symphony, I want to scream.
It’s so irritating. Is she trying to torture me or train me?
“Concentrate all of your attention on breathing. Feel the burning of your muscles from the core of your body flowing to the very tips of your toes and then up to the very top of your neck,” she says in a low voice.
I am still as a statue. In my mind, I imagine that I’m in the moment right before I shoot the arrow. I breathe in slow andsteady, and embrace the searing pain in my muscles when I breathe out.
I become one with the pain.
Kazh starts shaking her hand full of gold, brass, and silver bracelets dangling together. The sounds the bracelets make merge with the sounds from her cane and seep deeper into me. The weight of it is uncomfortable. I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Clear your mind. Close your eyes.” I do as she says. “You’re going deep inside your mind. Deeper.”
The last words are not an instruction, but a demand. The whole back garden rumbles with their power. My heart flutters in my chest, but nothing happens.
Not immediately, anyway.
After a moment, though, the darkness behind my eyes starts separating. A red haze appears. Cold wind whips at my uncovered skin, and the temperature in the air drops a couple of degrees.
“Do you see the door to your subconsciousness?” Kazh’s voice is farther away.
