Page 157 of The Keeper of the Kingdoms

“Nice,”he complimented mind to mind.

A bell rang and Jaxus took off. We flew left, then right, passing through glowing markers as we went. An illusion rose up ahead of us. A dragon that reminded me of the head of Kerani’s council. Jaxus blasted fire and I felt the pull on my magic where it joined with his to sustain the attack. It was a rushto be using our combined magic this way again so soon—I cut off the thought. Only days ago, I’d hoped never to be in a situation like that again. Now it was a rush? I feared for my sanity.

“You’re just realizing how good we are together, aren’t you?”Jaxus invaded my thoughts.

Before I could respond, another illusion of a dragon flew into our path. Together, we beat it back. Nothing like Zaria had managed, but not a shameful effort by far.

As we could see the end of the course, the final illusion appeared and I was horrified to find it resembled one of the undead. It was different, but in some ways similar. It had whitened eyes and a pallid complexion. That was when I knew why Nyx had used night fire. Because this thing was an illusion of a Vivi Mortui. Something the new undead were merely a copy of. Regular dragon fire rarely had the power to take them down if my memory served.

So Nyx had an advantage there since there was nothing regular about his fire.

Jaxus drew in air to launch an attack.

“Wait!”I cried into his mind.“Your fire won’t be enough.”

“What then?”he replied urgently.

Thinking through what I knew faster than I could register, I came to an idea.“Let me.”

I drew on the source of his fire, a vapor which was highly flammable, and I mixed it with magic of my own. Healing magic. These creatures could not be destroyed until they were separated from their master’s control. Back in the wars, they sought out the masters rather than going after the creatures. Once they were down, the creatures were simple to kill.

But if I could ‘heal’ the thing inside the creature that was linked to its master, could we break their control? It was our only option with what we had. I pulled from deep within, using an older type of healing magic Gran favored. One which could seek out a sickness and target it from a time before some of ournewer tests were developed. I pushed all my healing power into Jaxus, and without any instruction, as if he was an extension of my own power, he shot a stream of the near-invisible vapor that ordinarily charged his fire straight at the undead-looking dragon.

It roared its rage to the skies and then its cries were silenced, eyes changed. The white disappeared, leaving alive looking dragon eyes for a fraction of a second and then it plummeted to the ground.

We turned to come back around, and as we came back to land, the roars and applause deafeningly greeted us.

“That was incredible, Firefly!”Jaxus set us down amid the chaos. I slid from his back, wanting to hide from all the attention.

“No one cares about us, huh?” I muttered as Jaxus shifted and took an offered pair of pants from Nyx.

“What was that?” Nyx shouted above the noise. “It looked like you simply stared at it, and it fell out of the sky!”

“I—umm—” I didn’t know what to say. I had come up with it literally on the fly and I couldn’t really dissect it right now.

“A very interesting power combination,” Rakan said. He had an acidic nature, and he had little time for pleasantries, so I knew his interest was a compliment in itself. “And a magic strength only rivaled by our general and his ryder.”

Jaxus dipped his chin in thanks to him and turned to take me in his arms.

“See, Firefly? We aced that.”

“We did.” I agreed, a little stunned by having to think so quickly and still trying to catch up with my own thought process. As a healer, I hated not knowing what in particular it was I’d done to make something work. I liked to study outcomes and learn from them. But with all the commotion around us, it would have to wait until later.

“Come on. Let’s go assert ourselves over our flight,” Jaxussaid, all charged up and ready to take on even the most disrespectful of flyers.

I blew out a breath but walked side by side with him over to our group. As we approached, one by one, the dragons shifted back to fae form and took one knee, bowing their heads. Their ryders followed suit.

It was a show of great respect, and I almost staggered back from the shock of it.

After a moment of reverence, they all rose and gathered around their leader. Jaxus crossed his arms over his chest and took each of them in, seeming to soak up the acknowledgement of our power.

“I hope now that we understand each other, we can begin working together as a team?” He asked.

Koen stepped forward, the speaker of the team. “We appreciate your forbearance, Lieutenant.”

Jaxus nodded. Then Koen turned to me and I held my breath.

“And I wish to welcome you into our flight, Kiera. That was an impressive performance.”

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