Part of me wants to use my Mark of the Lantern to burn away the shadows and then do my best to claw his eyes out for trying to force me to do anything. I haven’t forgotten exactly who he is, andI certainly don’t feel safe knowing he expects me to do whatever he says.
That part of me can’t win because I’m not the strongest person here. He is. I doubt I could even hurt him if I tried.
I nod, and the shadows over my mouth disappear. “Good girl,” he says.
“Are you going to give me my cloak back?” I ask. I still feel naked without it.
He moves to sit down even though nothing is below him, and stone rises to meet him. It’s an exact replica of the chair I’m sitting in. “No. You’ll find it. I have faith in that. As a reward, I’ll even tell you what those little glass beads you worked so hard to get can do when you find them.”
He smiles, and his eyes run over my body again, this time without the cloak to cover me up. “Now, are we going to have problems when I teach you to fight?”
“What do you mean by that? I’ve trained my entire life to fight the Godforged and their pets.”
He smiles. “You’ve been trained by a human who’s fought foot soldiers. I’ll teach you to fight the people with genuine power.”
I swallow hard and ask myself what Bram and Cedric would say. Bram would tell me to watch my back, but maybe it won’t only be me giving up secrets. Cedric would tell me that learning about the enemy is the most important thing I can do.
“I’ll do what you say. I won’t turn down a chance to better my odds of surviving.”
I expect some sort of physical reaction in his expression, but he doesn’t give it to me. The shadows around the rest of my body disappear. “Good. Go back to my aunt and uncles, and don’t tell them what we’re going to do. Aunt Ainslee can’t know, and you won’t be able to convince Rhion and Darian not to tell her. Just tell them you’re meeting me each night after dinner and that I commanded you not to speak of it to anyone.”
“I feel like they’re going to have a problem with it. Ainslee doesn’t want me going anywhere without a guard now that she understands why you’re interested in me.”
He smiles. “I guess you’ll have to convince them.” He pauses for a moment as if he’s hearing a voice on the wind and slowly shakes his head. “There’s another thing. You need to meet someone.”
I frown. “Who? Another champion?” A terrifying thought flashes through my mind. “I really don’t want to meet Lysara.”
He laughs, a real one with none of the seduction. “No, I think we all want you to stay away from all the gods. You don’t need to worry about her right now, though. She’s staying far away from Nyth. Of all the gods, she knows best how very real the possibility of gods dying is. No, Inni wants to meet you. And even I can’t stop her from getting that wish.”
Oh shit. I’m about to meet a dragon.
Chapter 20
The Prince of Bones is the Champion of Beauty as well as Death. Do not forget this. He could seduce a stone, and that stone would grow legs and arms if only to crawl into his bed. But remember that no one has survived a night with him. Succumbing to his charms is as deadly as walking off a cliff.
~Cedric Penrose, A Treatise on the Gods and their Powers
Fiona
Azric holds out his hand and says, “We’ll shadow walk. There’s no other way unless you’d like me to carry you to the dragon roost.”
A shiver runs through me at the thought of him wrapping his body around me like Rhion did. His arms wrapped around my ribs. His legs tightened around mine. No, that’s definitely not a good idea.
“I think shadow walking would be better,” I say.
He smirks again, and when I take his hand, the change is instantaneous. For a moment, we linger in that darkness outside Nyth, and then we reappear on a flat stone roof ringed in battlements. The sight before me makes me almost fall over.
If Azric hadn’t been holding my hand, I think I might have really fallen. In front of me is a dragon, at least thirty feet tall at the shoulders, with a long, sinuous neck. Bright red scales the size of my hand cover it, all of them flashing with light even in the morning sun. It opens its mouth ever so slightly, and I can see the teeth that are nearly as tall as I am. Scars crisscross the body, dark lines against the flames hidden in its scales.
“Fiona, this is Inni the Destroyer. Inni, this is Fiona Thorne.” Azric’s tone is polite, but there’s a bit of playfulness behind the words and in his eyes.
My knees are shaking, and immediately, my eyes go to my surroundings, trying to find cover on the offhand chance that Inni decides she’d prefer me as a pile of ash. We’re on a massive square tower that seems to be a separate building. There’s not any cover at all.
A black dragon who’s significantly larger than Inni lands beside her, and I remember Azric called this the dragon roost. That’s Vyran the Black. Will Sidon, Calyr, and Kasan show up as well to look at the little human Azric’s so interested in?
All of them could fit on the tower without space issues. The roost is nearly as tall as the actual castle, and already, a wall of shadows has risen on all sides, blocking anyone’s view of what’s happening here.
“It is good to meet you, Fiona Thorne.” Inni’s long neck snakes down to bring her face closer to mine. Her eye is massive and seems to glow red, just a shade darker than Azric’s. “I have heard much about you.” Her voice is strangely soft, not the booming thunder that I’d expected from a dragon.
