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Rycon scowled. “How am I supposed to know if I’m doing something in ignorance to jeopardize whatever the hell it is you guys are up too?” He asked. Kasha shrugged.
“Guess you’ll just have to be extra careful. These are the terms. Sign it or don’t.” Rycon looked at me, as if I would come to his defense. I shrugged and echoed Kasha.
“Sign it or don’t. No one is forcing you.” My voice was even, though my chest was tight. He glanced around at each of us, a small group of witnesses to his willing submission to our party. Finally, he snarled, snatching the dripping quill out of Kasha’s hand and signed the parchment with his blood.
‘Rycon of Olkuyrbe,’ He scribed. The bleeding script burned bright red, then orange, then white, before the parchment turned to ash.
“It is done.” Kasha said somberly. She held her solemn expression for a heartbeat before grinning mischievously at Rycon, who was looking a tad pale. “Guess I just found myself a research buddy.”
“What?” He asked, taken aback.
“Yep, it’s the library for you, Kitty Cat.”
He gaped. “The library? I thought we were going to train? Or fight something. Half of you are in armor.”
Kasha laughed. “Baby steps, Rycon. Come with me.” She grabbed his hand and started leading the reluctant shifter out of the common room, her cheerful voice fading down the hall as they went. “So, we’re looking for a flute and a key, any books you can grab on those would be great.”
We all stood in collective silence for a beat after they left.
“She’s going tuh eat him alive.” Conrad murmured, shaking his head. Dossidian grinned.
“Aye.” He turned to me, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. You ready to train Raven?” I suddenly felt nervous.
“Don’t worry,” he winked, “I’ll go easy on you.”
16
We had to leave the East Wing to get to the training ring. I followed Dossidian up to the top floor and out onto a long outdoor bridge. It took us through the green and black mountainous landscape. The stone bridge, which had no walls or railings gave me vertigo. I pushed through and approached the face of a castle that had been built into a neighboring cliff.
I once again was overwhelmed with a sense of awe at the structure that had been built into the rocky terrain. The castle, made entirely of natural volcanic rock, seemed to have grown out of the cliff itself. Its high walls and towers loomed over us, casting a shadow over the landscape below.
As we got closer, Dossidian called over his shoulder, “This is the West Wing. We don’t spend a ton of time here unless we’re entertaining or training.”
“It’s incredible.”
He nodded and pointed up a set of stone steps that greeted us as the end of the bridge.
“We’ll take these all the way up, then we’ll get to it.” The stairs led to an open-air training ring, made out of the same black volcanic rock as the rest of the castle. It was almost a perfect circle, larger than a major league baseball diamond. It was lined with racks of different weapons, what looked like a set of weights and a stone water fountain. The view was breathtaking, I was sure I could almost see the entire Court of Pride from where we stood.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing into the far-off distance, to a plume of smoke that was billowing into the sky.
“That is Mount Frira.” Dossidian explained, as he began to move into a series of gentle stretches. “That is where you will go for the Quickening.” My heart sank. Right. The Quickening. The whole reason I was training in the first place.
“Is it really that bad?” I asked, turning away from the view to face Dossidian. For the first time since I had met him, his face looked grim.
“I’m not going to lie to you, it won’t be easy. But lucky for you, you have the best trainers around.” He winked at me again.
We started with stretching, and I couldn’t help but compare Dossidian’s teaching style to Rycon’s. The first time I had trained with Rycon, I had ended up with a bloody nose and a limp. There certainly hadn’t been any stretching involved.
From stretching we moved into drills. Dossidian laid out a prop that looked like a ladder on the ground and showed me how to run through it.
We started with simple footwork patterns, and increasingly got more complex as I mastered them. I remembered the flow state that I had achieved while walking on the boulders on the way to The Eye. I felt myself relax into the repetitive work. It was strangely soothing and kept my mind still.
“Your footwork is better than I expected it to be.” Dossidian commented, as we took a water break. I took a large gulp from the fountain, the refreshing water from the nearby glacier felt like heaven on my parched throat.
“I used to take boxing in school.” I told him. “There was a lot of footwork in that class.” Dossidian looked impressed.
“Why did you stop?” He asked, and I laughed, but there was no joy to it.
