The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3)

by Dan Michaelson

  “I will see what I can do,” he said.

  “You have to be careful.”

  “I don’t know that I do,” he said. “If you’re concerned about the Vard having some way of connecting to dragons, then I don’t need to fear them The mesahn aren’t dragons. I don’t need to worry about them getting compromised.”

  “But the mesahn can be injured.” I still hadn’t said anything about having seen one of the dragons kill a mesahn—I didn’t know how the Hunters would have taken it.

  “I suppose they could,” he said.

  “And if they were, what would happen?”

  Manuel stared at me. “The south you say?”

  “To the south,” I said.

  “I will see what I can find.”

  He turned away, disappearing into the trees and fading from view more quickly than I could follow. I stood there for a moment and finally turned away, heading back through the forest, back toward Natalie. When I reached the edge of the forest, a third dragon had landed. It was enormous, a pale white, yet heat radiated from it. I had never seen it before, and was not surprised to see the Sharath sitting atop it.

  “What was that about?” Natalie asked.

  I glanced behind me, looking toward the trees. “That was about me seeing if we could get help.”

  “Help?” her father asked.

  “If we’re right—at least, if Natalie and I are right—then we won’t be able to stop the Servants with just the three of us. It’s going to take more than that, and whatever cycle—or circle—we can connect to. I asked one of the Hunters to bring the mesahn.”

  The Sharath frowned, pressing his lips together tightly before nodding. “That might work,” he said. “I suppose you know the mesahn are able to neutralize much of the dragon magic.”

  I frowned. “Actually, I’m not aware of that.”

  “Why did you ask him to join us then?”

  “Because he serves the king, and if anyone could help, it would be Manuel.”

  “You know Manuel. That is right,” the Sharath said. “Perhaps you were wise getting his help.” He looked up to the sky before turning his attention back to us. “Come along, now. We should go. We should be ready.”

  He took to the sky, the dragon hurriedly streaking up into the air, then disappearing over the forest. Natalie stared after her father for a long moment before shaking her head, climbing atop the dragon, and taking off.

  I stood next to the green dragon for a moment, lingering, feeling a growing unease. I had no idea if what we intended was safe. All I knew was I felt out of my comfort zone. Looking over to the Academy, I smiled to myself. At least it wouldn’t be the first time I was out of my comfort zone. Hopefully this time would go a little better than the last.

  As I climbed onto the dragon, I glanced to the dragon pens, focusing on the dragons there—before thinking too much of it, I joined them to the cycle. It was enormous now, nearly twenty dragons in total—enough for me to hope that I could withstand any attack from the Vard, but I didn’t know for sure that it would be enough. I couldn’t shake the feeling I had when we were attacked before, the feeling I had known when the Vard attempted to bring their danger to us.

  As we circled up into the sky, and started after Natalie and her father, I prepared for whatever we might face. The Servants of Affellah, or the Vard, or worse—perhaps even dragons that had been claimed by the Vard, dragons that should serve the kingdom.

  I had to be ready for any and all of it, but what would it require? What would happen if we didn’t act quickly enough? How many would suffer if we didn’t take the time needed to act?

  As I chased after the other two dragons, a pressure started to build within me. It built upon the cycle of dragons that flowed through me. It was familiar. I thought it might be the Vard, but that didn’t seem to be the case. This was something else, familiar for a different reason.

  I pulsed power through the dragon, drawing from the others in the cycle, and giving the green dragon even more power for us to fly. We had to hurry. We had to get to the familiar dragon I sensed before the Vard were aware of us.

  If I didn’t reach Thomas first, I had no idea what he would do.

  17

  We didn’t travel far before I started to feel the pull on me even stronger than I had before. It started to build quickly, even though we hadn’t gone all that far from the city. I looked over to Natalie, checking to see if she detected anything, but as far as I could tell, she didn’t feel anything either.

  I continued cycling power to the dragons, holding on to that energy, using as much as I could to maintain my connection to them. I could feel the heat and the power flowing through me, and I summoned as much of it as possible so I could feel the dragons.

  I looked over to Natalie. There was danger in her being here.

  I guided the dragon even faster, and we caught up to the Sharath. “Should she be here?” I asked, yelling across the distance.

  I tried to ignore the way Natalie looked at me and felt some guilt at making a comment like that, knowing she wanted to be here, felt as if she had every right to be here, but I knew there was some danger in her decision. She was only connected to a single dragon. That mattered more than it should when resisting the way the Vard interacted with us.

  “She’s in no danger by being here,” the Sharath said.

  “I’m not so sure. When I was here before, I could feel the way the dragon power was drawn away as the Vard called upon it. If they can do that to me, as connected to the cycle as I am, then they can do it to her.”

  The Sharath shook his head. “She is as safe as she can be here.”

  I frowned. “Have you added her to your circle?”

  “No.”

  “Then how is she ‘as safe as she can be’?”

  The Sharath didn’t answer.

  We continued flying above the forest, the darkness there beneath us, the sense of power building. I focused on that power, trying to use what I could to figure out just what was out there, whether there was any danger to me, but I could only feel a steady pulling.

  I hadn’t seen Thomas yet. I could feel him, though. There was a heat and an energy to him, something that suggested he was nearing us, but I didn’t know how much longer it would take for him to reach us. Every so often, I’d scan the horizon, looking across the sky, but couldn’t see anything more than what I had already detected.

  “We should look for Thomas,” I said.

  The Sharath shook his head, looking over to me. “I’m not so sure we should.”

  “I don’t know what happened to him, but I think we need to go after him.”

  I could feel the energy coming off of Thomas’s dragon, and for a moment, I debated whether or not I should try to add that power to the cycle of dragons, though I didn’t know if I could even do it, not with the way I could feel power flowing and not without Thomas’s permission. As he had already connected to the dragon, it was possible he might have a way of resisting my attempt to influence it.

  I could still feel the calling of power, the energy that came off of the Vard, the way they were pulling on the dragon cycle.

  “Do you feel what I’m feeling?” I asked the Sharath.

  “I feel the Vard,” he said. He looked over to Natalie, and there was a concerned look on his face that hadn’t been there before.

  “You didn’t think they were that powerful, did you?” I asked.

  He shook his head slightly. “Perhaps she should return.”

  “Father,” Natalie said. “I can be of use.”

  The Vard were traveling fast, moving ever farther south, and the farther and faster they went, the more I knew we were going to start feeling the effect of the Vard, and the connection that came from it. As I focused on that energy and power, I recognized that we had only a limited time before we ran out of chances to turn back.

  “You can be of use, but I fear what might happen if we linger here too long.”

  “I can take care of mys
elf,” she said.

  “You aren’t part of the circle.”

  “I could be, if you would let me.”

  “It is not for me to decide,” he said.

  “Father—”

  He turned, looking as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t have a chance.

  His white dragon suddenly descended, streaking downward, as if he had been struck.

  “What happened?” I called after him.

  Even as I said it, I could feel the effect, and I could tell that something had shifted and changed. I didn’t know what it was, only that something had changed for the dragon, and that there was some effort put forth that had shifted and had targeted him.

  The dragon was suffering.

  I focused on the green dragon, borrowing the power from within him, and used that to try to figure out whether there was a way for me to help. The Sharath’s dragon wasn’t a part of my cycle though. Considering that, I didn’t know if I could do anything to help him.

  “Father?” Natalie called. There was panic in her voice, and she shouted after him, but he continued to descend, dropping ever farther to the ground.

  And I had to help.

  I pushed on a pulse of power through the connection I shared with the green dragon, and we suddenly dropped as we chased the white dragon.

  “Turn around,” the Sharath said.

  “I’m not leaving you alone like this,” I said.

  “You can do nothing.”

  “I can help.”

  “If they have enough power to overwhelm me, they would certainly have enough power to overwhelm you.”

  I frowned. Why hadn’t they targeted me?

  Unless they were, and I wasn’t paying attention to it.

  I focused on what I could feel from the Sharath’s dragon. I didn’t feel any effort beneath me from the Vard. There was nothing other than the slight touch of power. Why was the Sharath targeted the way he was?

  Because he was the most powerful of us. The attackers must have focused on him because it was easier. Or harder. Focus on the one they needed to get rid of first, then they could focus on me.

  Which meant I had some time.

  I had to act quickly. I didn’t know how long the Sharath had to live, but if he was targeted by the Vard, it couldn’t be long.

  In the distance, I noticed a flickering light. It was glowing, despite the brightness of the day. It had to be the Vard.

  Not just the Vard, but the Servants of the Vard.

  I looked back. In the distance, I saw Natalie.

  She started thrashing, the dragon struggling.

  She was under attack.

  I tapped on the dragon’s side, and we turned, shifting direction, heading back to Natalie.

  “I can’t control it,” she said. “There’s something wrong here. The dragon is struggling.”

  The Vard were pulling on her.

  Natalie gasped. She continued to thrash and struggle, barely holding on to the dragon.

  “Ashan?” Her voice was strained. Pained. “I feel . . .”

  She never finished as she collapsed onto the dragon.

  I looked up at the dragon, then to Natalie, and there was only one thing that came to mind. She was susceptible to the Vard because she wasn’t part of the cycle.

  I hoped she would forgive me.

  I pressed out from the dragon cycle, focusing on her dragon first. If I got control of that dragon, I could bridge it to my cycle and help her. I forced the dragon into the cycle.

  There came a surge of power, and I suddenly felt the effect the Vard were having on the dragon. More than that, I knew exactly what I needed to do to help the dragon. I could add power to it from the cycle, and we could resist the Vard together.

  The dragon roared, flames shooting from his mouth.

  The dragon was freed. Natalie hadn’t gotten up yet. I had to help her. I had saved dragons before, but this was something different. This was somehow adding a person to the cycle.

  Did it mean that we would be forever linked?

  I had no idea, but I figured that would be something to question later. For now, I had to focus on what I could do to help her.

  I pulled up alongside her and looked over to her. “Natalie. I need you to join my cycle.”

  She looked over at me. Her eyes were wide, panicked. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “I need you to try. I don’t know how to do it.”

  “Ashan?”

  “You need to reach for the cycle. Focus on the energy.”

  “I don’t know what it’s going to take,” she said.

  “I can push the power outward, but you’re going to have to add to it.”

  I started to cycle the power, and I pushed it toward her. Suddenly I could feel Natalie trying to latch on to the cycle.

  I could understand why it was so difficult for others to grab on to the power within a cycle if they didn’t have a connection to the dragons. I could feel her influence, and I could feel the way she tried reaching for the connection, but I could also feel how I could impact and diminish it.

  There had to be a way to add even more power.

  I surged again, sending heat outward and letting it flow into Natalie. It exploded outward and she was there. I could feel her connection, and I could feel the cycle between us form.

  It was strange being so aware of somebody else.

  It was similar to what I felt with the dragons, how I could detect that pulsing of power, but this was different in that the emotions and feelings within that link were similar to mine. I pushed, taking power from the cycle of dragons and funneling it into Natalie.

  She gasped, then she took control. She had far more skill with holding on to that power than I did. It was incredible.

  She looked at me, her eyes tight. “Thank you.”

  “Now we have to go help your father,” I said.

  I looked down, but there was no sign of the white dragon. I only saw the glowing lights in the distance, the power that told me the Vard were down there.

  We headed toward them.

  Neither of us needed to speak; it was as if we knew where the other wanted to go. Now that we were connected through the cycle of power, it was incredible. A significant energy built between us. She continued to hold control of it. Then we were upon the glowing lights. Fire erupted from the ground.

  “Is that—”

  “Lava,” I said.

  There shouldn’t be any lava here. We hadn’t even reached the Vard lands yet. We hadn’t even passed over the Southern Reach. How could there be lava here?

  The Servants of Affellah had to be somewhere nearby.

  Neither of us had any idea where her father had gone, but I could feel the energy of dragons somewhere near us. It was close. We veered off, heading slightly to the west, and when we did, I saw dark shapes on the ground.

  Dragons.

  Many of them.

  They weren’t in Berestal, so that eased my concern. At least, for now.

  Something was wrong with them though. I could feel the dragons, could feel that some aspect of them had been modified, though I could not quite tell what it was. They were weaker than they had been before, and as I probed through the cycle, I recognized that something was off with them. Perhaps it was the connection to their power, or perhaps it was simply that they were tired.

  It was similar to what I had seen in the city before, similar to the way the vases had been used on the dragons. At the time, Donathar had mentioned something bigger.

  Could this be it?

  “They recreated it. It’s even more powerful than before.” I looked over to Natalie. “It’s the same Djarn power used before. This time, it is so much more.” And I thought about the dragon mages that had left the city under the king’s command.

  They would all be targets.

  They weren’t part of the cycle the way I was. They wouldn’t be able to withstand it the way I could, or the way these other dragons could.

  They wou
ld be devoured.

  “This is something else,” I said softly.

  I attempted to connect to the dragons when there came a strange pulsing from the green dragon. It was a warning.

  I looked over to Natalie. “Can you understand your dragon? There is something in the connection that I feel I should be able to understand. I can tell something from the pulsation, but it’s not clear enough to detect just what the dragon is doing.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think the dragons can communicate with us. We believe they have a way of communicating with each other, but we haven’t figured out a way to reach them. They seem to understand us though.

  That had been my experience, as well. The dragons certainly did seem to understand me, but getting them to speak back was the challenge. I could pulse energy at them, but could they response?

  “Whatever it is, the dragon seems to want me to hold off,” I said.

  “Maybe it would be dangerous.”

  I frowned, focusing on the dragons down below. I could see them, and I could feel something coming from them, but I couldn’t tell what it was. This attack would use the dragons, somehow.

  And if they used them, they might have enough power collectively to overwhelm my cycle.

  “We have to be careful,” I said.

  “What do you feel?”

  “Dragons, but dragons under the control of something and someone else. It’s the same sort of attack as we faced in the city before. It might even be the same people.”

  Donathar was gone, but there were others. Who else might have betrayed us?

  Natalie looked over to me. “Are they here?”

  “I can’t see them, but they must be.”

  They had to be doing something to the dragons. That had to be the reason the dragons were acting the way they were. If I could somehow get to them, I might be able to help.

  I looked over to Natalie. “We have to figure out what they’re after. And it has to be tied to the lava in some way. We need to draw them out.”

  “I thought we would do that just by being here.”

  “I thought so, too, but I think we need to draw them out another way. I don’t know if our presence is going to be enough.”

  More than that, I had to wonder if perhaps they were using her father’s dragon against us as well. And I wondered if maybe I might be able to detect something about that dragon since it was down there. If I could connect to it, maybe I could find it.