I sighed and crossed the room to take her hands. I couldn’t believe she’d still care about my well-being even after everything I’d put her through. She stared at me warily but allowed it.
“You’re really a great person, Rowan. Really. Do you know that other than Kaden, you’re the only person in the Ether-Realm who’s been consistently nice to me?”
Now she was the one to blush. “It’s simply my duty as your handmaiden to watch out for my mistress’s well-being. That’s it.”
“I think it’s more than that,” I insisted. “And I’m grateful, and I’m so sorry that I’ve made things harder for you. You’ve been nothing but wonderful since I’ve arrived.”
Rowan didn’t say anything. She nodded a polite thanks and shuffled her feet.
“Would you want to be my permanent lady-in-waiting for as long as I’m in the Ether-Realm, Rowan?”
Now she glanced up at me, her eyes widening. Her mouth dropped open. “Truly? I… I’ve served you for such a short time…”
“You don’t have to,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you again, so it’s your choice. But if I’m soon to be Kaden’s sparkmage, I need a friend and attendant I can count on. I’ve already spoken to the dragon about it, and if you want it, it’s as good as done. I trust you, and there’s nobody I’d rather have than you. And of course you’d have to dress for your new station, and be with me in court, and—”
“Yes,” Rowan said, eyes shining. “Yes, and thank you so much. I’d be honored. I’m so sorry I’ve been rude these last days.”
I squeezed her hands and shared a smile with her. “Don’t even worry about it. I’m thrilled that you’ll be at my side. I’ll expect you to be dressed for the part by this time tomorrow, of course.”
“Of course, mistress.”
“And please call me Ella, for the last time,” I added.
“Ella, then.”
I could tell how excited she was. Her sullen demeanor had evaporated, and she practically radiated excitement now. It seemed like this was a pretty big deal for her, which was fine by me, since I owed her and genuinely liked her. It made me happy to see her so psyched about the promotion, and I couldn’t wait to see how pretty she’d look in the fancy court dresses I knew she liked. I still had to ask her whether there was a boy she wanted to impress in the mix somewhere… but that would have to wait for now.
“Should we go to Kaden, then?” I took her arm. “I doubt that the Dragon likes to be kept waiting.”
“Oh! Of course. At once. He had a special room prepared for your training.”
“A special room?” I arched an eyebrow at her as she led me out of my chambers. “What does that mean?”
Ella
It turned out that Kaden’s “special room” was one of the tower’s many display rooms, with mirrored walls and beautiful crystal chandeliers. All of the art had been removed, and Kaden stood alone in the center of the room, leaning on a bulky, waist-high shape about the size of a large table. It had a blue silk cloth draped over it, obscuring whatever it was from view. Kaden wore a black coat with golden embroidery which curled into the shape of dragons at the lapels. It was a nice touch, I thought, and it looked good on him; almost like a suit coat. It hung casually over a satin white V-necked shirt. Who didn’t like a guy in a black blazer?
Kaden stood up straight as we entered and smiled in a way that made my knees weak. “I was starting to wonder if you changed your mind,” he said. For all his brooding hesitation around kindling my spark, he seemed like he was looking forward to this training.
“I had to talk to Rowan,” I explained. “She’s going to accept the offer and be my official handmaiden.”
“Wonderful,” Kaden said with a polite nod. “It’s settled, then. But now, if you please, Rowan… I’d like to be alone with Ella.”
“Of course, my lord.” Rowan disentangled herself from my arm and retreated, still glowing, and closed the door behind her.
“She seems happy,” Kaden remarked. “It seems you’ve made up then?” He chuckled and shook his head.
“Yep,” I said. I peered at the shrouded bulky thing, since it was the only thing in the room to look at besides Kaden. “What do you have there?”
“The first part of your training.” Kaden held up a finger. “Before you learn to use magic, you need to learn to kindle your spark at will. Summoning up strong passion is required. Eventually you will come to do this without aid, but at first it helps to have some assistance.” He gripped the edge of the silk cloth and ripped it away. I gasped.
A beautiful grand piano stood before me, shining and black, with glittering ivory keys. It was the most beautiful instrument I’d ever seen. I was so excited that I slid onto the padded bench without waiting for an invitation. My fingers slid smoothly along the black and ivory keys. I plucked out a few notes and then beamed at Kaden, every bit as excited as Rowan had been. “You got a piano! I’ve always wanted to play on a grand piano like this. How did you know?”
“You have a unique talent for music,” Kaden explained, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “When we were linked, back in the glade, I caught a sense of your enthusiasm for this instrument. You are skilled at playing it, are you not?”
I blushed fiercely. “I don’t know if I’d really say skilled,” I replied. My hands hovered over the keys, itching to pick out one of my favorite melodies. “I’ve taken lessons since I was little. I’m not bad at it.”
“Go ahead.”
I took a deep breath, my fingers resting lightly on the keys. It felt like an eternity since I’d gotten to play. I began to play a beautiful sonata that had been a longtime favorite of mine, one of the earliest songs I’d learned. Very quickly I lost myself in the music, swaying in the gentle rhythm of the notes as they flowed out of me and filled the room. Something swelled up inside of me, a lovely rushing glow, and the moment carried me away. The piano was perfectly tuned. I didn’t miss a single note. It was beautiful.
When the last few chords had faded to silence, a lovely stillness settled over the room. I sighed happily and leaned back, wrapping my fingers around the plush edge of the bench. Playing the piano scratched an itch I hadn’t even known I had, and it was oh so satisfying to do it again.
Kaden stared at me with surprise. “That was… lovely,” he said. “Not bad at it? False modesty doesn’t become you, Ella. You’re wonderful at that.”
I smiled shyly. It was true, and I knew it. Music was one of the only things in my life I was really, truly great at. I just didn’t like to brag about it.
“Thanks, Kaden,” I said. “This is stellar, really, but what does it have to do with magic? Wasn’t it my singing that kindled the spark last time? Do I need to do that again?”
The corner of Kaden’s mouth quirked, and he leaned over the back of the piano. “You didn’t even notice, did you?”
“Notice what?”
“When you were in the middle of your song, you burned almost as brightly with your inner spark as when we were in the clearing.”
My mouth dropped open. I realized he was right. That was what I felt when the song flowed through me. That was what I always felt when it came to the music. My fingers played along the keys, releasing another little flutter of notes.
“But how do I hold it, then? I can’t always be singing and playing piano, can I?” I frowned. “I guess maybe I could carry a harmonica with me, and do lots of vocal exercises, or… why are you laughing?”
“It’s not really about the music, Ella. It’s just your unique way to express your inner passion. For some it might be painting, or writing, or dance. For others it could be a martial art, or a favorite skill, or the satisfaction gained from losing oneself in a craft. Summoning forth a spark is about understanding your truest essence, your purest expression of self, and reveling in it.”
I gaped at Kaden, feeling swoony. I’d never heard him speak so passionately about something before. Was it hot in here, or was it just
me? I cleared my throat. “So once I find my, uh, purest expression of self… then what?”
“You slowly learn to summon up that feeling inside of you whenever you need to. It will always be with you at its strongest when you’re immersed in your passion, but when your passion is part of your identity, when you align yourself with it, you carry it wherever you go, and can bring it forth as needed.” He smiled. “You’re lucky that your passion is something you can invoke anywhere. If you’re ever struggling to keep the flame burning inside of you, remember that you can kindle it by returning to your song. You never know when it might come in handy.”
“What’s your passion?” I asked him, suddenly curious.
Kaden’s face darkened, and he looked away. “Dragon magic is not the same as human magic. Our veins thrum with arcane essence, although strong emotion does heighten our power.” He hesitated, and then his voice dropped to almost nothing. “My passions are immaterial. All that’s left for me is duty, Ella.”
His words tugged at my heart. It must be so awful to be the last of his kind, and I sensed that there was even more to it than that, but I didn’t want to push him unless he wanted to talk about it. My mouth tightened. We all had our secrets, didn’t we?
“So I just play until I feel that same feeling I felt in the glade, and then…” I trailed off, looking at him questioningly.
“And then you stop, and hold it for as long as you can. Once you’ve learned to hold it well past the song’s end, we’ll work on summoning it just by visualizing the song, and then summoning it on its own.”
I could do the visualization thing. It was already how I wrote songs—picking the notes out in my head and imagining playing them on the piano without ever touching them. “And then tonight?” I asked.
Kaden’s jaw tightened, and a look of wary determination spread across his face. “Tonight we’ll rest. It is not safe to begin the other training at least until you can hold your magic without the aid of music. You must be as comfortable with the magic as with yourself before you can use it to control the world around you without hurting yourself.”
I nodded. It made a weird kind of sense. The faster I learned to hold the kindled spark inside of myself, the faster the battle training would progress.
“Let’s get to work, then,” I said, opening up the first few notes of another song I knew by heart. “There’s no time to lose, is there?”
“No,” Kaden said quietly. “There isn’t.”
Thanks for Reading
Thanks for reading Flame Stirred, Book 3 of Seeking the Dragon! Read on for a free preview of Book 4, Flame Stoked.
Excerpt from Flame Stoked, Book 4 of Seeking the Dragon:
I remembered the horrible grins of the smiling men, and the way they fed off human fear. “So without the watchfire, the Eldritch would run rampant throughout Earth?” I asked. I imagined my whole family carried off to those awful stone Eldritch bases, and being subjected to the kind of torture I’d almost been a victim of. I shuddered.
“The Eldritch, the Frystfolk, and all the other fey beasts.” Kaden’s eyes were shaded. “And the Aethlings would have to meet them there to stop them from growing stronger by feeding on humans. The watchfire has never been this low in living memory. We don’t yet know exactly how quickly the magic barrier would dissipate, but once it did, millennia-old conflicts might spill into the human realm and tear it apart.”
A grim, cold tightness spread through my chest, and tears formed at the corners of my eyes. Now I finally understood why the other girls had agreed to give themselves up to Kaden’s magic. It wasn’t just about keeping one person safe, or one family safe. It was about keeping the horrible creatures of the Ether-Realm away from the entire human race. I swallowed, feeling the enormity of that wash over me like a wave.
“And now you know,” Kaden said quietly, his voice tightly controlled. His hands curled into fists on the table so tightly that his knuckles were white. “That is why each of the girls who came before you gave themselves. To bolster the flame and protect the whole of humanity. And that is why each time I have had to accept their sacrifice—to fulfill my sacred duty, no matter how much it pained me.”
Lots of girls probably would have been thinking about how unfair of a position this was to be put in, or feeling frightened about being burned, or angry at how much they were being asked to personally give up. But my heart went out to Kaden in that moment. He wore the look of a haunted man on his face. None of those girls had asked to have the spark and give themselves up for the world… but neither had Kaden asked to take their lives. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the dying, or the having to live with yourself in the aftermath of the killing, weighed down by duty. What a horrible position to be in.
I circled the table, took him in my arms, and hugged him tightly. His body was hard and unyielding at first, but slowly his arms wrapped around me, and then he rested his cheek on the top of my head.
“In Thrakongarde, the flame is lower than it has ever been,” he whispered. “We tried to find a different way to keep the flame lit. But I wasn’t skilled enough to control the sorcery. It didn’t work. But I’m not giving up.”
He stroked my hair as he held me, his grip tightening.
“I will find a way to protect the human world without you, Ella,” he promised. “It will not come to that. We have a little time before I must make a final effort, and I won’t waste a single moment.”
But I was staring off into the darkness of the library stacks, thinking to myself about what the future might hold. Kaden finding another solution didn’t seem likely if he’d already failed to do so once. I pictured hordes of smiling men descending upon the quiet little town I’d grown up in, with their skinny frames and superhuman reflexes and glistening scalpels. I pictured Nick and Matt and Katie getting strapped down to beds for torture. And I knew that I had the power to prevent it. Hadn’t they all said I’d had more power than any of the other girls? I knew I could give that to Kaden.
Kaden whispered over and over again about finding another way, but if there wasn’t one, I knew one thing for certain: Kaden had been right about me, and I’d been wrong.
I wasn’t going to let that happen to the people I loved, no matter what the cost.
About the Author
Alexis Radcliff is an author, gamer, unashamed geek, and history junkie who spent the better part of a decade working in tech before dedicating herself to her first love, literature. Alexis lives and works in the Portland area with her adorable (if surly) cat and her equally adorable husband. When not writing, she spends her time reading, running, playing way too many videogames, and thinking too much about everything.
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Flame Stirred (Seeking the Dragon Book 3) Page 6