I looked over to the green dragon, feeling the energy coming off of him. I couldn’t tell his emotions, at least not most of the time, though there were times when I thought I had a sense of something from him, a sense of power that surged from him and connected him to me in a unique way. When I detected that, it left me wondering if I might be able to understand the dragon.
There was no doubt in my mind the dragon understood me when I spoke to him. Dragons were far smarter than most give them credit for, and in my experience, they had an incredible level of intelligence, especially the green dragon, which I had been around the most.
“I’m not getting the feeling that the dragons resent this,” I said.
Natalie just nodded. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said softly.
“Do you think the king would mistreat dragons?”
She shrugged. “Probably not intentionally. The dragons are the key to his power, and I can’t imagine he would disrupt that, it’s just . . .” She smiled, looking over to me. “Perhaps it doesn’t matter.”
“If it’s bothering you, then it matters.”
“What would you do differently, Ashan?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “When I stand here before the dragons, focusing on the energy within them, I don’t get the feeling of anything wrong.” I just shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it any differently than that, only that my experience with the dragons doesn’t lead me to feel like they need anything more from me.”
“What if they can’t tell you?”
I chuckled, thinking back to the massive dragon trapped beneath the palace. “Dragons have a way of letting us know.”
“Perhaps they do,” she said, turning away and focusing on the bars of the dragon pen. “Or perhaps they tolerate us. They aren’t meant to be like this.”
“They are our allies,” I said.
“This isn’t an ally,” she said softly. “This is a tool.”
“It doesn’t feel like that to me,” I said.
She glanced over, shaking her head. “Only because you have lived within the kingdom your whole life.”
I smiled at the thought. “Not exactly,” I said. “I grew up almost as far removed from the kingdom as could be. We might still be within the kingdom, but not truly.”
“You don’t feel as if you were a part of the kingdom?”
“I don’t feel like we were the same as it is here. We knew the king, and we could feel his influence, and we were aware of him. But it was different. There was a distance.”
“Your distance from the capital doesn’t make you any less a part of this kingdom,” she said.
I had a sense that I’d upset her somehow. I tried to pick my next words more carefully. “We were more isolated. Left on our own. That made it so that we weren’t a part of his plans with the Vard. We even have quite a few people in Berestal, the city near where I grew up, who are Vard sympathizers.”
I tried to smile, but felt as if I only forced it.
She watched me. “Your home knows the Vard?”
“Not like the kingdom knows them—at least, the rest of the kingdom,” I hurriedly added. And not from the way Manuel described it. The Vard were more of a curiosity in Berestal.
Which was why I couldn’t imagine the Vard might choose to target Berestal.
What if the city were more important to them than I knew?
If they attacked and tried to take over Berestal, Manuel had made it clear what the king would do. There would be no saving Berestal then.
Natalie looked over to me, watching, seemingly aware of my thoughts. She said nothing else, staring through the bars toward the dragons, and I sensed something troubled her.
“What experience have you had with the Vard?” I asked her.
“A complicated one,” she said.
She fell silent.
Natalie was skilled at keeping secrets from me. Not that I had any reason to think she had any need to share with me. It was just that I’d helped her, and helped her father, and I thought maybe that would have created some semblance of a connection with her.
She started away, heading toward the road leading toward the dragon pens, and I followed her. It was late evening. I could return to the Academy, but I didn’t have any reason to do so quite yet. I still wanted to practice, to continue to reach for the dragon power, and to see if there was anything I might gather from it, but that may not have even been the entire reason I didn’t want to return to the Academy. Perhaps the other part of it was the sense of isolation I felt. I still didn’t feel like I fit in within the Academy, as so many others did. Despite getting better for a short time, the feeling was back.
Natalie looked back at me. “You don’t have to follow me.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” I said.
She flicked her gaze behind her, looking over to the Academy. “That’s not true.”
“Fine,” I said. “I don’t have anywhere that I want to go. Does that help?”
She offered a hint of a smile before it faded. “I suppose that’s understandable.”
I chuckled. “It’s not that bad. A few know I had some hand in what happened here before, though none other than Thomas know exactly what that was.”
Thankfully, Thomas had kept that secret. I wasn’t sure if I wanted anybody else to know what role I had, not while I was trying to be a part of the Academy. That might change in time, and as I continued to progress within the Academy, or perhaps outside of the Academy, it might not matter anymore, but for now I needed to try to fit in as much as I could.
We made our way down the street, neither of us saying anything. The street was broad and crowded; carts were stationed along it while merchants hawked their wares, and others pushed their carts ahead, shouting for shoppers to stop and purchase from them. Everything had a festival air to it, at least compared to what I had experienced in my hometown.
As we walked, I held on to the connection to the dragons—primarily through the green dragon, as I bonded to him most easily and he was closest to me.
“You’re better bonded to him than most,” Natalie said without looking over.
“You can tell?” When I’d first met her, she’d hidden her understanding of the dragons. I still didn’t know what she’d been doing around the pens other than trying to learn what was happening with the missing dragons.
She nodded slowly. “The very first time I met you, I recognized you had a connection that most don’t. Some within the city do, though given what they’ve done over the years, that’s not at all surprising. Even still, most don’t. It’s a strange thing. Perhaps it’s only because of the proximity to the dragons, or perhaps it’s something about the kingdom itself, but people’s connections to the dragons have shifted over time.”
I held on to what I could, and tried to see if the dragon shared anything with me. I couldn’t feel anything from him, though the connection remained solid between us. I had a vague awareness of him resting.
Each time I focused on the dragon, I could feel something different between us, some aspect of the dragon’s power that continued to flow, something that suggested to me there might be even more power available if I were to just grab at it. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet. It was almost as if I needed to find some deeper understanding of the dragon, some way to tap into a part of the dragon connection I knew was there, but had yet to see and feel and know.
When I could, what would change for me? I didn’t know if it would grant me any greater understanding of the dragon himself, or if it would strengthen some aspect of my power.
“Can you reach for the dragon energy?” I asked Natalie. The question had lingered with me for a while. I hadn’t known for sure if she could, though I had my suspicions.
“I’m one of the Djarn,” she said softly.
I looked over to her, regarding her for a moment. The sun had started to set, and shafts of fading sunlight streamed along the ground, illuminating her face. She was quite lovely. I’d noticed her st
riking beauty the very first time I’d seen her, and had wondered who she was, why she had come to the dragon pen, and whether I’d muster enough courage to speak to her. Had I known then what I know now about her, I might not have.
She was an incredible woman, not only intelligent, but powerful in her own right.
“Do all of the Djarn have a connection to the dragons?”
“Most of us. In one form or another,” she said. “That is a trait of my people.”
“Does the king know?”
“Why do you think he keeps us here?”
“You say that as if you’re captives.”
She glanced over to me and shook her head. “Not captives. Not anything quite like that. We aren’t home though.” She turned and looked toward the center of the city, toward the palace itself. It loomed over much of the city, rising high above, so that the eye was drawn toward it. “When I was young, I often asked my father when we would return home, and he kept telling me that we were home.” She continued to stare, having paused in the street. There weren’t many people out in the section of the city we were in now, and though it was mostly homes, there were a few businesses. Some of them were distant from us, and the sound of music drifted along the street, carrying to my ears. It was sweet and melodic—almost peaceful and relaxing. “I told him we weren’t, that we couldn’t be. The kingdom was not for our people.”
“What did he say?” I asked softly.
She looked over to me and smiled sadly. “He told me I could go home, but with my mother having been gone for as long as she had been, I didn’t know that I had a home to go to. I didn’t know who would be there for me.”
“You have to have family there,” I said.
“Family, but it’s not the same as having my mom there.”
I nodded slowly. “I think I understand.”
“Do you?”
I frowned for a moment, thinking about my experience and my family—where they were and what they were going through. I had been away from them long enough now that I didn’t know what they might be dealing with.
Manuel’s update left me a bit worried about my sister and my family. My brother, suffering from an accident that had claimed his youth and vibrancy. My mother, so fatigued from caring for my family that she had changed, losing the compassion that I had known when I was younger, becoming something different, colder, and more withdrawn. My sister, wanting nothing more than to have a life of her own, to be given an opportunity to make something of herself off the farm. I had to hope that she made it into Berestal and had been apprenticed to the weaver there. I had to hope that she had been successful.
“I know what it’s like to have family that holds you to a place,” I said softly. “It’s probably not the same, but it’s what I know.”
She nodded slowly. “Perhaps that’s all it is. Or something else.” She shrugged. “I learned to enjoy the travels,” she said. “Over time, I’d come to learn about each of the places that we were stationed, trying to understand the people there. I threw myself into that aspect of our travels, nothing more than that, and as my father had said, it was an attempt to make each place our home—as much as they could be. Some places are better than others. Like here, where the forest had once pushed around everything before relenting and letting men build.” She pushed out a smile. “It’s not like that everywhere. Some places are . . . different. In time, I started to find moving easier. Not easy. Just easier. I still wonder what it would’ve been like had I been raised with the Djarn.”
“Do you know them?”
“We visit with the people, but it’s not the same,” she said.
“Would they take you back?”
“I’m one of them, so they would welcome me.”
“Why do I get the sense that you’re uncertain?”
She glanced over, holding my gaze for a long moment. “Because I no longer know if that’s what I want.” We started walking, and the palace disappeared from view as we went down a narrower street. “I’ve been within the city long enough, all of the different cities, that perhaps I have become a part of the kingdom. It happened gradually. At first, it was a matter of not feeling welcome throughout our travels when I was younger. Over time, I began to see that we were met as outsiders simply because we weren’t from the places we traveled. Most places don’t deal well with those not from their land. Eventually, we were welcomed in a different way, and I felt increasingly a part of where we traveled and whom we visited.” She shook her head slowly. “Unfortunately, then we would move on. When we did, we would start all over again, and I felt the same each time. It was a process that involved me needing to become comfortable with my surroundings once again. It took a long time.”
“And then you came to the city here,” I said.
She nodded. “Then we came here. My father hasn’t been the Sharath all that long. I don’t know that he ever expected that promotion, but when it was offered to him, he felt as if he didn’t have any choice but to accept.”
“Has the Sharath always been one of the Djarn?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s just because of my father, or if it’s because the king prefers to keep one of the Djarn as the Sharath. Either way, there’s value in it.”
I had realized that right away. There was value, but partly because the king needed to maintain a level of peace with the Djarn. He couldn’t have somebody so close within the borders of the kingdom acting against his people. Not that the Djarn had shown any sign of acting against the king. In all the time that I had lived out in Berestal, out on the plains, the Djarn had been hidden and isolated, but had shown no signs of danger to the king or the people of the kingdom.
We continued making our way along the street, stopping near the broken remains of a building. I stared at it, recognizing it.
“This is where I found one of the vases.”
“I know,” she said.
“Did you bring me here because of that?”
“I have wondered why it was here,” she said softly. It seemed as if she were afraid to speak too loudly, not wanting the sound of her voice to carry out into the growing night. “There had to have been a reason.”
I knew there was a reason, but the problem was I didn’t know the reason itself. When Donathar had attacked, he had alluded to the fact that his people were targeting the city, intending to make it look as if the Vard had attacked, even though I had come to learn that wasn’t the case. Now I wondered what more I might be able to learn, and whether there was anything I might be able to do to ensure that another attack didn’t take place.
I’d been searching, looking through the Academy for evidence of additional infiltration, and trying to find the reason for the attack, but I hadn’t uncovered anything. Whatever reason there had been for Donathar to attack had proven elusive.
“I think it was here because the dragons were situated on each side of the city.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“Why? What do you worry about?”
She looked over, a deep frown wrinkling her face. “I fear the knowledge they obtained.”
“About how to trap the power of the dragons?”
She nodded slowly. “They should not have known what they did. It’s Djarn knowledge.”
“Donathar had spent some time with your people. I suspect so he could steal that knowledge.”
“My people have studied connections to the dragons for as long as I have known. What you saw there was . . .” She shook her head, stepping forward and heading toward the remains of the building. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. All that matters is that we stopped them.”
“It matters to you.”
She looked over to me. “This is a problem for the Djarn, not for you,” she said.
“Thomas would have me believe this is a problem for the kingdom, which means I should be more concerned.”
“Not for the kingdom,” she said softly. She stared at the broken building and finally reached her hand out,
tracing the stone. “This is of the people.”
“I know you think it’s only a problem for the people, but it’s not. It’s more than that. It’s a problem for the kingdom. For anybody who lives here. For anybody who might be—”
Natalie glanced over, shaking her head before continuing to trace her fingers along the stone. “This. Whatever the structure was. This is of the people.”
I frowned, turning my attention toward the building.
“I thought the Djarn lived in the forest.”
“We do. We didn’t always.” She looked around the city. “Or perhaps the city was once a part of the forest. I told you the forest relented and let the city rise. Things change over time, and borders shift. Even the forest begins to change.”
“So your people used to live here?”
“I don’t know if they lived here, or if they simply built this.”
“Can you tell anything about it?”
She shook her head. “Not really. It’s a construct of my people, but that’s all I can ascertain.”
It left me wondering if the others were the same. When the city had been attacked, each building destroyed had been unique. At the time, I hadn’t really had a chance to process it, and I hadn’t gone back to examine them. All I had focused on was trying to save the dragons, getting them free, and doing anything I could in order to rescue them. I hadn’t thought about anything more than that, knowing that it really didn’t matter.
But if all the buildings were all tied to the Djarn . . .
It meant that those like Donathar and Elaine and whoever worked with them were aware of that connection.
I should’ve pieced it together before now. I had been focused on other things. The strange connection I now shared with the dragons and the cycle of power that flowed through me had occupied so much of my time. It had bonded me to the dragons, forcing me to pay attention to them, though perhaps I shouldn’t have.
Perhaps I should’ve taken a different approach, thought about some other aspect of the power.
“Have you let your father know?” I asked.
She nodded. “He knows. And he’s going to need to let the people know.”
The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3) Page 4