“I agreed to mentor you before the start of the trials. It’s a relationship for life. One doesn’t stop being one’s mentor, ever.”
I swallow hard and drop my gaze. The backs of my eyes burn.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice thick.
“You’ll be up at four every morning. Pick a spot you like most in the castle grounds, as you’ll be spending three hours every day meditating in it,” she barks. “I’ll meet you there. Every. Morning. Am I clear, shithead?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding.
She jerks her chin at me. “How’s it going with Lorca?”
I return to my mangalos. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The trickster god chuckles in my mind.
Thankfully, Kazh drops the topic.
After some time working in silence, I ask, “Can I ask you a question?”
Kazh snorts. “Obviously.”
It’s something that’s been on my mind since the Trial of Wisdom.
“How does one bond a dragon?”
Kazh freezes, in that unnatural fae way.
“Not everyone can do that,” Kazh says. She throws me a sideways glance. “You got some crazy thoughts in that small head of yours?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I was just thinking about it. Everyone would fear an Ezkai General with a dragon. Maybe it would help me pass the law House Dzuni is fighting me on.”
“You’re right, shithead. It’s hard to argue with a General who rides into a battle on top of a damn dragon.”
“I want to try that.”
Kazh arches an eyebrow. “Do what? Bond a dragon? You really are using the last two brain cells today. Bonding with a dragon is no easy feat. One can’t just wake up one day and decidethey’ll bond with a dragon. It’s not meant for every Ezkai, if you haven’t noticed. It’s a rare gift, you shithead. Though, leave it to you, a spoiled brat, to think it’s going to be easy and destined for you.”
I wave her off, splashing the mangalo juices all over the kitchen counter. “No, Kazh. You don’t understand. During the Trial of Wisdom, the dragon I faced but didn’t murder…I didn’t understand it then, but I felt this weird…connection with the creature. That’s why I couldn’t just kill it, even when I had the chance. And when I used the powder to kill the creature’s flame, it was as if I hurt inside myself.”
Kazh watches me with utmost stillness. I don’t think she’s even breathing.
After a pause, she says, “You should have said something.”
I throw my hands, knife still in one of them. “I didn’t understand it. How could I say something?”
Kazh mutters under her breath.
A wicked smile spreads on my face, hope blooming in my chest. “So, do you think I can do it? Bond a dragon?”
Kazh sighs and shakes her head. “Spirits of the gods help us.”
CHAPTER SIX
PHOENIX
Ezkai Castle is built on a steep hill. I’m surprised how much one can hide under the castle as I take the dark stone stairs winding down to Noire’s spy lair.
So far, I’ve found seven floors underneath the castle. The deepest four are where the prison is. Jax’s cell is on the seventh. The first three are for Noire’s spies. Or so I’m told.
