Page 42 of Phoenix Burn

I didn’t care about the scars. “Let me in,” I repeated.

He did, but he came in with me.

They’d brought back two Dragons from the roof. The other three hadn’t survived the battle.

This one be rather a mess. Half-healed rents stitched across his shoulder and chest, and he’d likely lose the sight in one eye. The good one glared daggers at us.

Dragons be stubborn and arrogant. I didn’t mind that the same words had often been used to describe me. By someone who’d once mattered more than she should have.

I leaned close to him. He be chained, but he could reach me if he chose. I sensed Razir tense behind me.

“Tell me,” I hissed, “Where be Talakai?”

I didn’t expect an answer, and I didn’t get one. But my senses were on full alert, reading his life essence.

And it came back a total blank.

This Dragon had never heard of Talakai.

I straightened and left the cell, with Razir following close on my heels.

“Was this Talakai connected to these guys?” The purple-scaled Dragon seemed confused as he secured the cell door. “Because I swear, he looked completely blank. Like he didn’t know him at all.”

The Dragon be no fool. “I agree. Have the Reader search for references to him, anyway.”

Razir’s mouth pulled straight. “I have Jacques pulling together a list of underworld females in power. Maybe if we use names, the Reader can pry something loose.”

It be a good strategy. The Satyr’s information network be second to none. Which made it only more impressive that the underworld Dragona had managed to infiltrate it and divert our resources to a pointless pursuit of Galeran, in order to gain the twins.

Whoever this female be, she be damned smart. And dangerous.

“I have a Legion trainee standing by to take you back to the academy,” Razir stated.

Like it be for most of the Empire constructs, wings be the only way to get to and from the Dragon equivalent of jail. “How be the replacement training going?” I asked him as we left the cell block behind and climbed toward the exit. The jail be buried deep within the mountain, and we passed four guarded doors as we walked.

His lips twisted. “It will be many years before the Legion is again what it once was,” he admitted. “We lost too many.”

The Emperor’s elite forces had been decimated by their battle against a rogue Archmage. Once the predominant force for stability across the realms, it be now staggering as it attempted to replace those it lost.

They be not only warriors, but also intelligence gatherers, and enforcers. Without them, the underworld influence had expanded. The balance of power be shifting, and it be not a good thing. Which, in turn, supplied the final essential push for the council to create the Academy of Shades.

Much as I had my doubts about the Cryptid council, no one else be in a position to push back.

“Go home, Sebastian,” Razir said. “We’ve got it from here.”

Home? I guessed the academy counted as such, for now. And Razir be capable. There be not many people I trusted, but he be one.

Like the entire palace complex, the jail had been built into the side of a mountain. We walked out onto a large ledge guarded by Dragons in both human and beast forms.

A recruit waited for us on the ledge, young enough that his scales still had the dark patina of adolescence, with the green only starting to shine through. Far too young to be a Legion member, he shouldn’t even have reached official recruit status.

I glanced at the guards and noted their youth as well. When I looked back to Razir, his gaze be dark with worry.

“We need what the academy can provide,” he said, keeping his voice low.

My responsibility as an academy instructor suddenly took on new meaning. And it shed light on Cara’s determination to get only the best of us to teach the next generation of peacekeepers across the realms.

I swung up onto the young Dragon, and he arched his neck as he dipped his chin respectfully to Razir.

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