CHAPTER 16Lumina stared at the cliff that her father had just ordered her to jump off. She couldn’t use her wits and agility to get out of this one. The king was beyond allowing her to use mortal skills. In fact, she’d decided, he was truly desperate. “Father,” she said, the wind whipping her hair around her, calling her to do exactly as he wanted and leap into the air, shift into a phoenix and fly in the ecstatic freedom of it all. “Are you sure you’re not trying to kill me?”
He glared at her. “This works in nature, Phoenix. It will work with you.”
Hundreds of metres below, the waves crashed fiercely against the rocks, waging a war as old as the land itself.
The Avadierish had come to watch this test, or training, or whatever the king was now calling it. So had some of the palace serva
