“We need to talk,” he says. “Away from the dragons.”
I remove my bow and quiver, dropping them beside a chair in the center of the room before sitting down. “What do we need to talk about, Azric?”
He slowly rolls up his sleeves while he remains looking away from me. “Do you want a drink?” he asks. I shake my head. Thelast thing I need right now is to be foggy-headed. He accepts my response and moves to a decanter sitting on a small buffet. He pours a deep burgundy liquid into a crystal wineglass.
“What’s this about?” I scoot back a little further in the straight-backed chair. “Are you about to make it seem like fighting a dragon was the less memorable part of the night?”
He lets out a little chuckle before carrying the wineglass to the table. “Maybe. I doubt it, though. There’s something about fighting a dragon that sticks in the mind.”
For a moment, he just stares at me, but then he begins talking. “You fought a dragon, and you did well. You would have died before you’d started if Sidon was trying, though. You know that, right?”
I shrug. “You make it sound like no one could beat Sidon in a fight, but he’s just as covered in scars as the rest of the dragons.”
“He refuses to use his abilities, Fiona. He says his lost mate, Vesper the Bright, would want him to use his mind more than his strength. Where the rest of them have used their abilities whenever the need or opportunity presented itself, he’s tried his best not to fight, or rather, not to kill unnecessarily.”
I watch him as he sips the wine, and it’s hard not to think of how he makes every movement seem sexual. “Why would he do that? Doesn’t he need to practice using them just as much as the others?”
Azric shrugs. “Calyr can see what people are most likely to do in the future. Vyran controls shadows and can shadow walk. Kasan can control the earth as if he were a sculptor. Inni… well, Inni doesn’t use her powers either. But that’s because it’s unnecessary. But Sidon controlshimself.”
“What?”
Azric grins. “The other dragons may think it’s not their secret to tell, but I disagree. He is not, nor will he ever be, our enemy. You need to know what your allies can do. I once sparred Sidon as I’ve sparred all the other dragons many times. It was a friendly spar where neither of us was trying to injure the other, but I demanded he use his powers as I’d beaten him the last time I fought him.”
He takes another sip of his wine, and I can feel my heart speeding up. Does he know I remember the way it had felt when he’d kissed me? Does he know I still wake up from fantasies of those crimson lips on mine?
“I did what you did, what any rational person would do. I stayed out of reach of his wings, tail, teeth, claws, and flames. Unlike you, I have a blade that could pierce his scales if I wanted to. As I raised it in the air, suddenly, he was gone. Well… not exactly gone. No, he’d turned into a hawk faster than I could react. I was falling, and before I’d grown wings or re-oriented myself, he’d clamped his talons onto my face.”
He sets down his wineglass and leans forward. “Then, to show off a bit, he turned back into his true form. He pinned me to the ground with his paw in an instant. Then he became a human wielding a greatsword like I’d wield a dagger. This time, he let me get to my feet and pick up my weapon. He moved faster than anything I’ve ever seen. One moment he was in front of me, thenext he’d slid past my guard and had tapped me four times before I’d had a chance to react.”
I blink. “So, he’s a shapeshifter like the House of Steel?” I ask, needing a simple answer.
“Yes and no. He’s a shapeshifter, but he retains his normal strength. When he’s in a smaller form, he has all that power and so much less mass. I wouldn’t be surprised if he could dodge lightning in human form.”
That seems impossible. “If he’s that powerful, then why does he ever fight as a dragon? He’d be unstoppable as a human or bear or anything that isn’t the size of a castle.”
“Think about it this way. He fights at my aunt and uncles’ side. He’s not trying to kill. He’s trying to save innocents, and he’s still an incredible force on the battlefield. I think it’s more than that, though. If you talk to him, you’ll inevitably hear about Vesper the Bright. Before his mating bond to her, Inni says he was a brute of a dragon, always trying to solve problems with his strength and size rather than by talking and thinking. After his mating bond, though, he changed. He hates killing, and I think every time he uses his powers, he’s tempted to revert to the dragon he once was. It’s been many thousands of years since he saw her, and she was the only thing that held back that brutish side of him.”
I frown at what sounds like an impossible stance to hold. Why wouldn’t he want to use that strength? “The strongest dragon is a pacifist?”
Azric doesn’t smile at the comment as I’d expect him to. “No. He’s…” He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know what he is, but that’s not why I brought you here. I just thought you’d want to understand the only creature that’s ever successfully won a fight against the Hunters a little better.” He pauses for a moment. “What I wanted to discuss was how confident you felt regarding the next trial, and I really didn’t need the commentary from the dragons.”
I take a deep breath because of the change of topic. It’s a question I’ve struggled with every day since the second trial ended. “I don’t know. I’m much more prepared than I was before. There’s no doubt about that. But am I ready to go into war games against Godforged who have spent the last eighty years inactualwars? I don’t know.”
Azric nods and takes another sip of his wine, finishing the glass. “Good. That’s the right way to approach this trial. There’s an aspect that I don’t think you’ve considered, though.”
“What’s that?”
He sets the glass down and steeples his fingers, a movement that makes me question if he’s truly as young as people say because it makes him look so much older.
“Your fellow competitors are war veterans, each and every one of them, while you’re barely out of training. But you aren’t going to war. You’re going to be in a game, Fiona. There will be rules and goals. The goal in war is to crush the enemy, and while it may be advantageous to capture castles and cities, if you can decimate their army, it doesn’t matter what else you do. That is what all your competitors know. This game, though, will have nothing to do with that. It’s quite possible you could win without ever drawing blood. You aren’t at a disadvantage in that regard, and truthfully,having my uncle at your side is more of an advantage than you realize.”
It’s strange to even consider that I might not have to fight in the trials. “Do you really think I won’t have to draw my daggers?”
He shakes his head. “No, there’s a reason I’ve been training you. Most likely, there will be plenty of battles to be had, but they aren’t what matter. Your job is to accomplish the goal, and,” he waves his hand dramatically, “your competition has only learned to kill efficiently. They’re not leaders or problem solvers. They’re soldiers. They’re incredibly gifted murder machines, but they’re all stuck with the minds of a soldier other than my uncle. You’re not. Trust your instincts and my uncle. Use the rest of them to win this thing. Be like Sidon and don’t focus on brute force as your first approach to success. Just because you’re carrying a blade doesn’t make every problem something you should solve with it.”
I nod my head. “Darian said something similar when we were choosing teams. That’s why he chose Jorren.”
Azric smiles. “He wouldn’t have been my first choice, but that doesn’t mean I’m right. Maybe I’m too much of a soldier these days as well, and I have a hard time seeing a solution that uses anything but Mournfang.”
