Page 155 of The Keeper of the Kingdoms

“They are ready for your instructions,” he told Nyx.

“Any trouble?”

“Just the usual pushback,” he replied.

Nyx smirked. “Don’t worry friend, I have a feeling that’s about to change.” He patted Jaxus’ shoulder and moved forward to address the ranks.

Jaxus took his place beside me.

“This is very official,”I murmured nervously, mind to mind.

“It’s just to get them in order, otherwise it would be chaos, and nothing would be achieved,”he assured me.“Nyx will divide them up in a minute, and they will all go off in groups to do their own exercises.”

“And us?”

“Once I’ve instructed our flight on their exercises, you and I will go and fly the course for Rakan to assess us before we join them.”

My eyes went wide, and I almost answered out loud.“A course? Isn’t that something we should have practiced?”

“Calm down, Firefly. You can’t practice this, Rakan creates a new one for each session. It’s simply a set of magical markers thrown up into the air, that’s all. He will tell us what we have to do before we fly.”

“Calm down, relax, that’s all I keep hearing today. You don’t seem to understand how hard it is for me to do this with such an audience.”

“Shut them out. Don’t think about how many fae are watching. It’s just about you and me.”

“It’s not about how many are watching. It’s about which ones specifically are watching.”

Jaxus finally understood my meaning and glanced away, scanning the ranks for the specific fae he knew I was worried about.

“Don’t think about them,”he said with such a soothing tone into my mind.“They have been helping the healers, have they not? Maybe they won’t give you any more trouble.”

I side-eyed him.“You think?”

“I do.”

I narrowed my eyes.“And that pushback you told Nyx about that you are still getting from them, who exactly is leading that?”

He returned his gaze to me, his face giving me the answer.

“I thought so.”

“It’s only because I’ve been trying to lead them without proving myself. After today, we will be part of this, and they won’t be able to use it as an excuse to ignore my orders and flout the rules anymore.”

I really hoped he was right.

After the individual flights were dismissed to start training in their groups, we found space for ourselves and they began practicing takeoffs and landings in different circumstances. We watched the rest of the group trying different mounting techniques for quick take off.

Jaxus shouted commands and pointers at the various pairs, and they hardly listened. I knew this was the reception he was getting, but watching it was extremely frustrating.

“Show them that thing you do, Kiera,” Jaxus called without warning. I was caught off guard and rendered speechless.

There was a scoffing snort from the line of dragons and then one snapped at another. If I wasn’t very much mistaken, it looked like Koen had snapped at his cohort, almost like he was telling him off, which couldn’t be right. Then his eyes met mine, and the barely masked hatred in them told me I’d definitely got that wrong. I swallowed.

“Firefly?”Jaxus spoke into my mind.

“I—I—”I began to reply, when our names were called by Rakan for our assessment.

I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or terrified.