The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3), Dan Michaelson [books to read now TXT] 📗

attention to the dragons. She didn’t answer, much like she hadn’t answered the other times that I had tried to understand the situation.

There was something secretive about the reason behind her and her father’s presence—or perhaps only her father’s. As far as I had been able to determine, they were here as emissaries for the Djarn, and I suspected that was so the Djarn wasn’t oppressed by the kingdom. It was strange though. I couldn’t help but wonder why the Djarn hadn’t made their influence known within the kingdom. The king obviously knew about them, but it seemed to me that others did not.

“When I first came to the city, I wondered if the dragons resented their confinement,” Natalie said softly.

“They aren’t confined here. Not really.” I nodded to the open air. “It’s more to protect others from getting close to the dragons. It gives them a place to gather peacefully, not to fear others coming to them.”

She glanced over to me. “It might feel that way to you, but what do you think it feels like to the dragons?”

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