Uncrowned (Cradle, #7)

by Will Wight

[Oh, those sound like games!] Dross said. [I love games!]

“He has cores like deep lakes and a lifeline like a thousand-year ancestral tree. Were those his only gifts, I would call him merely talented. Certainly nothing to rival young Mercy. But his mental tests...perfect scores in all categories. I've never seen anything like it. If he has the skill to bring out his full potential⁠—”

“They were…bribed to work against us. My mysterious, mystical senses tell me that…the gold dragons were responsible.”

“Do not fight,” he said in words Lindon could understand, just above a whisper. “Back away.” Lindon nodded, and together he and the man from Dreadnought City took slow steps back. Pride darted forward.

I hate him

In the ravaged twenty-five-year-old Blackflame, Lindon saw Orthos.

“Your opponent asked for his last words to be delivered to you.” Lindon felt a pang in his heart. Last words. So Naian had expected what happened to him. “He said, ‘The dragon advances.’”

Information requested: how to drag Lindon out of self-pity. Beginning report...

“I'm not going to hurt her. It isn't worth it.” You're hurting her now! Lindon hesitates, bringing his attention back to Yerin's expression. Anger was her response to pain. “I’m giving her what she wants.” She wants you to listen to her, Dross says.

She wants you to see her full power, and she wants you to trust her to handle yours. She wants to see the real Lindon, not…is it too much to call you a cringing wreck? That sounds like too much.

“I thought you didn't understand humans.” I don’t understand any of this. But I do listen.

“If I’m not mistaken, that was a touch of the Sword Icon. How is this the work of twenty-year-olds?” Fury threw an arm around her neck, hooking her tightly, still laughing. “These kids are amazing, aren't they? I can't wait!”