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

danger of others possibly working on behalf of whoever had infiltrated the Academy.

“About what?”

“About your connection to them,” he said, nodding to the dragons. “It has shifted. I don’t know if you have shared that with others, but I can see it.”

I looked out through the door, noting the dragon pen. In the early morning, most of the dragons were resting, at least those who were there. They rotated. Some dragons preferred to hunt at night, leaving the dragon pen and flying out over the forest, then returning after their hunt. Others preferred to go during the daytime. I had not had much experience traveling with the dragons, though I had flown atop one once. That one time had been enough for me to want nothing more than to have an opportunity to do it again.

“I have begun to better understand my connection to the dragons,” I said.

“I would encourage you to pick one of the master instructors to work with.” He nodded. “I understand you’ve been working with Thomas Elaron, and while he does have considerable knowledge, there are others who could work with you.”

“I’m sure there are,” I said carefully.

I wondered where this was going, but I had my suspicions. If he was saying it because he wanted to be the one to teach me, I had to wonder if it was tied to a desire to teach or a desire to ingratiate himself to the king. At this point, I didn’t know, and not knowing made me uncomfortable.

Walter usually struck me as harmless. Studious, if nothing else. He preferred to stay within the Academy, his head buried in books, working through ancient techniques to reach dragons. Even though he had never managed to teach me anything about connecting to the dragons, I didn’t deny the fact that he had knowledge, and he probably had a way of understanding the connection to the dragon that I had yet to fully grasp.

Now that I had a connection to them, I didn’t know if it were necessary for me to work with the master instructors on that. For so long, I had spent time simply trying to work with the basics, connecting to the dragon, feeling the heat with myself, and relaxing to embrace that energy. Once I had begun to understand the cycle of power through the dragons and myself, it had changed everything for me. Now that I had connected not only to the dragon, but multiple dragons, I had a better understanding of the power.

“Tell me, Ashan, what have you been working on with Thomas?”

“He’s forced me to try to master pulling on multiple threads at a single time,” I said. There was no harm in sharing that much with Walter, though I didn’t know I even needed to.

“Multiple threads? Hmm. I’m impressed you have progressed to that point.”

“It’s not easy,” I said.

“Pulling upon that kind of power is never easy. It is difficult, but when you succeed, there’s value in it. You’re able to do far more than you would’ve been able to do otherwise. I suppose that’s why he has asked you to do that.”

It was more than just growing in skill. I suspected Thomas wanted me to master it simply so I could gain a better understanding of the kind of power I would have to control over time—this power would permit me to react if I were under the threat of an attack, like the one we’d faced recently. He wanted me to be ready, and I appreciated Thomas’s recognition of the danger I faced, despite his insistence that we had to fear the Vard more than anything else.

“There are other things you might benefit from learning though,” he said.

“Such as?”

“Has he taught you how to weave the strands you’re pulling off?”

“I think he’s trying to get me to just pull the strands together to begin with,” I said.

Walter motioned for me to follow.

I looked outside, thinking I was going to spend my morning walking out in the cool air, isolated as I often preferred to be, but Walter didn’t seem like he would allow that.

Sighing, I closed the door and followed him through the Academy. When he reached a set of stairs heading down, I hesitated. I had gone down through the Academy before, and realized that there was much more here than most others knew about. I had found a dragon captured here and had freed him. Did Walter know that?

We stopped on the next landing, and he guided me along a narrow hallway until we reached a pair of wide-open doors. I’d been on this level before, though it had been a while. The last time I’d come down here was very early on in my time at the Academy. At that point, I had still struggled to reach for my connection to the dragons. He stepped inside a massive room with a domed roof. Walls of stone surrounded us, but it was otherwise empty.

“Close the door,” he said.

I pushed the doors closed, and there came a soft whoosh of air as they sealed shut. Something glittered along the doors for a moment. Dragon mage magic, though different from the kind I had learned so far.

Perhaps that was Walter’s point. I knew how to control the strands of power, but I couldn’t do anything all that useful with them yet. He wanted me to recognize that there were many things I needed to learn and control in order for me to be an effective dragon mage.

He made his way to the center of the room. Within this chamber, he seemed so small. He stood with his hands down at his sides, and they started to glow, heat starting to work up his arms, then above him. Strands began to form from above his shoulders, splitting off from each of these wide bands.

I could feel the connection he had formed to the dragon and the way he was pulling upon that power, though he controlled far more energy than I could.

Perhaps