“It isn’t so much that I have no interest,” I said. “It’s just that I feel like I still have something I can accomplish here.”
“I should hope so,” he said, chuckling. “Look at what you’ve done so far. You’re going to be a dragon mage, Ashan.”
I looked away.
What had I done?
Not succeed.
Not yet, but I would.
We paused near one of the strips of shops within the city. There was an open-air market near here, and dozens upon dozens of street vendors converged upon it every day, something that was rare enough in Berestal, but incredibly common here. The sound of shop owners shouting rang out, carrying over to us, and both of us continued onward. We picked our way through the booths, and at one point, we paused to watch a troupe of acrobats as they tumbled and danced, flipping and spinning.
“It’s like a festival, but it’s a festival every day.”
I hadn’t really considered it that way, but he was right.
“You could stay,” I said to him.
There was a twitch at the corners of his eyes, and for a moment, I thought maybe he’d agree to it, but then that moment passed.
“I can’t. I still need to get back to my home, and my father’s going to need my help getting back.”
“Your father can get back without you,” I said. “Besides, given his connections,” I started, deciding not to mention the Djarn out loud here in the city, never knowing who might be listening, “you don’t have to worry about him.”
He shrugged. “That’s the thing, though,” he said. “I like having the festival when there’s the festival, and having a bit of normalcy otherwise. Besides, who’s going to keep an eye on your sister?”
“Careful,” I said to him.
“I’m just saying that Alison might need someone to keep an eye out for her. You certainly wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.”
I chuckled, shaking my head at him. “You know, you can be a complete pain in the ass.”
“That’s my plan,” he said.
“You’re doing it well.”
“I have to.” He paused at one booth, looking at the different books that were stacked up. “Who would buy these?” Joran asked, turning and looking back at me. “I mean, who needs books like these?”
I nodded, and several older men crowded toward the booth. “They do, apparently.”
“Them,” he muttered. “Scholars.” He shook his head. “I suppose they do, don’t they?” We both laughed and moved on. “You don’t want to come back, do you?” Joran asked.
“I’m going to be a dragon mage,” I said.
“I know.” He smiled tightly. “From the moment you left, I knew the idea of you returning was impossible. I can’t say I’m not saddened by it though.”
“I’m going to be able to come back,” I told him.
“Are you? Because I don’t know how many times we’ve had dragon mages visit the city. Wait. I do. I can think of exactly one time.” He started to smile. “Maybe if you return regularly, we could count that more easily, but I have a hard time thinking anything is going to change. If you become a dragon mage, or even a dragon rider—and I can’t believe I’m saying that as if that’s your worst-case scenario—you wouldn’t stay. You might come to visit, but I think we both know that won’t be long-lived.”
“I don’t know what the king might ask of me. Between what’s happening with the Vard and the Djarn . . .” I cut myself off and looked over to him, shaking my head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying any of that to you.”
“Did you say it just because my family happens to be involved with both?” he asked.
“It was a mistake,” I told him. “I know your mother and sister aren’t fully part of the Vard. Gods, we don’t even know if they had been the ones to attack.”
“My mother hadn’t heard anything of Elaine, and I told you how the Vard view dragons.” He wrinkled his brow, frowning. “That’s the other thing I wanted to tell you before I left. My mother and sister wanted me to warn you.”
“They did?”
“Not about of the Vard.” He added that quickly, and then cut himself off, lowering his voice and looking around. “But more about what brought you to the city. Tara doesn’t really believe you’re a dragon mage, so I suppose there’s that.”
“I’m sure it’s hard for her to believe it, given how long she’s known me.”
“I have a hard time believing it,” he said. “It means that somebody in your family has to have some connection to the dragons. It has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it? Your mother didn’t, or doesn’t, but do you think your father did?”
I had thought about it a little bit. I had wondered, especially the way my father acted in the months before his death. “I never would’ve thought so before, but comments he said made me wonder. There were times when I started to question just how much my father actually knew.”
We had reached the end of the market and the city opened up in front of us; there was not nearly as much of a crowd as there had been before. Now there were rows of homes all crammed in the street. It was crowded, but a different kind of crowding.
“There were things he said. I think that after his accident, he had started to lose some part of himself, but occasionally he would know things.” I looked over to Joran. “And since coming here, I’ve discovered more truths to what he’d known.”
Joran started to smile. “Maybe your father was a dragon rider. Or what if he was a dragon mage who had gone into hiding?”
I snorted. “I have a hard time thinking that he was either of those, but I do think that he knew more than what he shared. He mentioned something about being there when the King’s Road was built. And he mentioned the dragons. He mentioned feeling the heat in his belly.” I shook my head. Even now, I could feel the heat of the dragons, and it still struck me the way that my father had described it. “There was something similar between the way he described it and the way the dragon mages within the Academy describe it.”
“Then maybe he really was a dragon mage in hiding,” he said.
“As much as I like the idea that my father was some sort of dragon mage, and that he had hidden that from me, I have a hard time thinking that’s true. The only thing that I can come up with is that he had potential that was never reached.”
He pulled something out of his pocket and twisted it between his fingers. It was long, slender, and had strange writing along the sides.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“This?” He held it up. “Just something from the Djarn that we brought to the city. Nothing all that exciting. I’m not even sure why we had to make the journey, but I’m glad we did.”
We paused, and in the distance, the palace stretched before us. I didn’t know if I were the one who had guided us here or if it had been Joran. Both of us tended to wander in the same direction, almost as if we were pulled, some invisible bands dragging us forward, summoning us away from the rest of the city. In the distance, I could see the power stretching, some part of it that was rising around, making me all too aware of what was up there.
“Do you think there are others in the city who might have that potential?” Joran asked.
I looked over. “Like you?”
He offered a hint of a smile. “There was a time that I think I would have wanted to have been given the opportunity to become a dragon rider. Anything more than that was impossible to even conceive of. I could never even imagine the idea of becoming a dragon mage. But here you are. And out in our part of the world, a place where the king rarely sends anyone, I can’t help but wonder if there might be others who have that ability, but will never have the chance to develop it.”
“It’s possible,” I said.
“Not just possible,” he said. “From what you have described, it would have to be probable, wouldn’t it?”
“There’s a reason they came out beyond the forest, out to the plains, and almost to the Wilds. They must ha
ve known that there were others who had some potential out there. Whether or not they knew that it was going to be us, or that they would even find anyone, they believed there was something out there.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And that makes me wonder. How many others are out there like you and your sister?”
I didn’t know, and what was more, I didn’t know what to tell him. Maybe there were others out there who had the ability to use dragon power. Not only people like me, or perhaps my father, maybe even Alison, had she been interested—and willing—to come to the Academy, but there was the potential of the Djarn.
I had felt the strangeness when surrounded by the Djarn.
“What has your father been doing in the city?” I asked.
He shrugged. “He doesn’t talk about it. He’s been trying to find a few different things, working his way through the market, and has been more than happy to let me wander. Especially since he knew you were here. He figured we’d want to spend time together.”
“He needs to be careful,” I said. “With whatever’s happening with the Djarn, your father needs to be careful. I don’t want him to get pulled into something that might draw him into danger.”
He started to smile. “I think my father knows how to manage.”
I considered telling him how I wasn’t so sure, or that there might be something amiss, especially given my experience, but I didn’t want to taint the time we had left.
“Why don’t we visit a few of the other shops here?”
“You want to keep me away from the Academy?”
“Maybe I should. I have enough trouble the way it is.”
He shook his head. “You keep saying that, but I have a hard time thinking that you, of all people, would have trouble with anyone.”
“There are quite a few people here, especially in the Academy, who seem to think their family connections mean they have reason to act like bullies.”
“You know how to handle a bully though,” he said. “Remember when we went to Berestal when we were no more than 14 or 15, before your brother and father were injured,” he said, glancing over to me, as if to see how I might react, “and we came across that little shit who thought to push us around during one of the festivals.”
I smiled at him. “I remember that well.”
“And you remember what you did?”
“It didn’t take much,” I said. I’d sat on him. I had treated him like I would treat a difficult animal.
“Do the same thing with anybody who gives you any trouble here,” he said. “Knock them in the teeth, tie them up if you have to, and make sure they know that you aren’t about to be trifled with.”
“I wish you could stay,” I said to him.
“I think I would only get in the way,” he said. “And besides, this suits you. At least, it seems to suit you. Maybe it doesn’t, and I don’t know anything. Just don’t get too caught up in thinking that the king, his dragon mages, the Academy, and all of this are the only answers there are in the world.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you know my mother and sister. They aren’t the dangerous Vard you think them to be.”
I nodded. I didn’t know enough about the Vard. Certainly not enough to know if they were dangerous. “I know.”
“And you know my father. He wouldn’t bargain with the Djarn if there were anything for you to worry about there, either.”
“I suppose.”
“And I guess what I’m saying is: find your own answers.”
I smiled at him. We wandered for much of the afternoon, until he had to leave. Saying goodbye to Joran was difficult. He promised to send word, and I promised to visit, but both of us questioned how easy that would be. There was something leisurely about the time that I spent with him. It was certainly less of an abrupt departure than what we had when I had left him in the forest and gone with Manuel, but it was still not an easy change.
As I returned from the city, I approached the Academy slowly. I glanced over to the dragon pens, looking for any movement, but other than noticing the dragons inside, I didn’t see anything there. It seemed as if there were not nearly as many dragons as there should be. But then, I realized that I didn’t pay that much attention to just how many dragons there should be in the pen at any one time anyway.
Several students were near the pen, and I veered far enough away so that I didn’t have to interact with any of them. I didn’t know if it was Brandel and his followers, but I wasn’t about to give him the chance to bother me. Instead, by the time I reached the main part of the Academy, I wanted nothing more than to reach my room and settle into my bed, maybe even take a few moments to study. I was hopeful that I could find some new technique in my study guides that I could then incorporate into my lessons from Thomas. I was determined to keep learning.
Hushed voices in the hall caught my attention—one of them was a master instructor’s. I leaned against one of the walls, not really wanting to listen, but there was something in what they had said that troubled me.
“We’re missing another,” Master Matthew said, his distinctive voice carrying down the hall. “That makes how many now?”
“At least four,” Master Onas said. “We will find them.”
“We’ve gone years without any occurrences, and now we are losing dragons in addition to having one of our own betray us on behalf of the Vard?”
They were talking about Elaine. Jerith had made it clear that the instructors and the dragon mages hadn’t wanted to talk much about Elaine and her betrayal. I hadn’t brought it up, either, so overhearing it now was a little unsettling.
“She was always questionable,” Master Onas said. “Eager to acquire power, never eager to study.”
“She had power. She didn’t need to acquire it,” the other said.
“She had only seen that power. She did not have any of her own.”
I couldn’t tell who was speaking now, only that they were heading off in the opposite direction, neither of them speaking loudly enough so that I could overhear. I poked my head out and around the corner, trying to see who was talking, but could not tell anything.
When they disappeared, I leaned back up against the wall.
Another dragon had gone missing.
I was too new to the Academy, too inexperienced, to think that I might be able to do anything, but at the same time, I had a feeling that if I didn’t try to do something, especially given what I had seen out in the forest with the Djarn, there might be even more dragons that went missing.
I needed to go and try to find Joran again, speak with him and his father about what the Djarn had been doing, and try to get some answers. I could bring the dragons back to the Academy, keep my friend and his father out of it, and maybe offer another service to the king in the process.
As I reached my room, closing the door behind me, I couldn’t help but feel as if that weren’t going to be enough. Maybe I needed to alert Thomas. I didn’t know what he might do or say, but as the king’s chief dragon mage, there had to be something he could do.
And more than that, I had to hope that he would have more time to visit with me and train me—and that anything I might say would keep him interested in training me.
I pulled one of my study guides out, setting it open on my lap, and started to read. It was difficult to keep myself in it since I remained concerned enough about what was going on, but I forced myself to focus.
13
I hadn’t been able to find Joran or his father again. I knew they were leaving, and had thought that maybe I could come across them before they departed, but I didn’t know where they were staying other than a few vague references that Joran had made. Now I had to wonder if perhaps any opportunity that I might have had to uncover what they were doing—and whether it had anything to do with the Djarn and what was happening with the dragons—had disappeared with them.
I stopped in the dining hall and saw Donathar sitting at one of the tables, Jerith sitting
across from him. They were speaking quietly, and I had no interest in interrupting them. A group of students sat at another table, including Brandel and Dominic. Brandel looked over to me, smirking as I stood in the doorway, which was enough for me to turn away, head back out of the Academy, and walk over to the dragon pen.
It was late, the sun starting to set, and I looked through the pen, staring at the small green dragon, feeling the energy coming off of him. It connected to me, cycling through me the way it had over the last few days, ever since I had come to understand how to use that connection.
I held the power flowing through me, creating the flames that stretched out between my first three fingers, stretching my hands apart as I probed, detecting power.
It was an easy connection now, and it grew increasingly easier the more I held on to it, struggling to maintain a hold over it. All I wanted was to master that connection in some way, and to be ready when Thomas brought me before the king.
I pulled upon the power cycling through the green dragon, working from him to me, rolling through my arms, and building upward with a vibrant connection. I had gotten comfortable with holding on to the power, letting it cycle through me, the magic of the dragon circling through me, stretching between my fingers.
I had started twisting it, wondering if I might be able to control the flames. I had seen some of the dragon mages use power in that way, twisting their flames, weaving them together, but I had not seen much beyond that. There were levels of instruction at the Academy, and I was in one of the most basic levels, working to try to understand even more. Eventually, I suspected that I could touch upon even more power, but it would be challenging. So far, everything at the Academy had proven challenging.
In time, I hoped I could. I’d found that the more I stretched the power apart, moving it from one hand to another, the easier it became for me to feel as if I could use it. I started to try to twist the energy when I heard a soft laugh behind me.
I spun to see Natalie approaching. Her dark hair hung behind her, the soft breeze catching it. She was dressed in a lovely blue gown, and she carried a notebook in one hand, striding toward me, just a hint of a smile sweeping across her face.
The Betrayed Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 2) Page 14