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

if he were attempting to cycle through the dragon’s power, but the dragon resisted, sealing off any connection to the other dragons. It seemed the dragon didn’t want Thomas to know how he had bonded to the others.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To show you the real danger of Vard influence.”

Before I had a chance to say anything, he veered off, heading south.

We traveled quickly. It was late, and I was tired, but my heart raced, and it kept me awake. I looked down at the ground as we flew, the forest undulating beneath us. I imagined the Djarn were down there, probably aware of our presence, though I couldn’t see any of them. Could they see us? The Djarn had a way of connecting to the dragons—at least, some of them did. I suspected that some of the Djarn down there might know we were traveling overhead.

As we traveled, I focused outward, searching for the connection to other dragons. Some of the dragons that were part of the cycle were out in the forest, far enough away that they provided me with a bit of information about where they were, but not what they were doing. I could only tell that they were out and circling, some hunting, some actually moving through the forest itself, and still others were resting. The cycle informed me of all of that, despite it being a relatively new sensation for me, something that I did not fully understand.

We traveled quickly, moving over the dark forest. I had no idea what else was down there, only that the forest remained. Every so often, I looked over to see Thomas flying in front of me. He sat comfortably atop the dragon’s back, his posture slightly leaned forward, tilted so that he could look over the side of the dragon. What did he see when he looked down at the ground? Maybe nothing more than what I saw.

Although, maybe Thomas had some connection to the dragon magic that permitted him to see the ground in a way I couldn’t.

After a while, the darkness below us shifted, and the forest seemed to ease, not nearly as dark as it had been. Now there was something else down below. It reminded me of the plains where I’d spent so much of my life, though this was far hillier. There were no buildings, nothing that stood out in the darkness. Moonlight shone down upon the ground, casting beams of silver that seemed to flutter and slide as we flew. A bit of starlight shone down as well, though not nearly bright enough for me to see much of anything. Hopefully we were little more than dark streaks against the night.

At one point, Thomas looked back and nodded. “We’re at the edge of the kingdom.”

It might have been my imagination, but it seemed as if there were a faint tingling over my skin when he had said that. Could there be some sort of magical barrier?

“Are all of these Vard lands now?”

“These are unclaimed lands. We call this the Southern Reach,” he said.

“I thought the Southern Reach was all part of the kingdom,” I said.

“Most do, but that’s because the king wants people to believe that. We’ve never claimed it. We certainly don’t protect it.”

As I looked over the side of the dragon, feeling the fluid movement as we soared above the ground, I saw no buildings. No signs of life. No signs of anything. “Do the people here know that the king doesn’t claim them?”

Thomas shook his head, laughing loud enough that it carried to me. “There are no people here, Ashan.”

When I was in Berestal, there had been talk of trade out of the Southern Reach. It was infrequent, not enough that anyone could ever claim they knew the lands well, but I knew there had been travelers from there.

“Is this all Vard controlled?”

“The Vard would like to think so,” he said.

“So it isn’t, or it is?”

“It depends on who you want to believe,” he said. “According to the Vard, these lands are all part of their control. They’ve tried to influence those who come through here. None live here. It’s too dangerous.”

“Why?”

“If we came in the daylight, you would see why.”

We continued flying.

“If these are contested lands, and the Vard are near, why are you taking me this far?”

“You question the danger of the Vard,” he said.

“It’s not that I question the danger of the Vard, it’s just that I—”

I didn’t get the chance to finish. In the distance, I could make out flames burning.

At first, I thought it was some massive fire, but the more I stared, the more I came to realize that it looked as if the earth itself was alight with flames. It was close, too.

Far closer than it should have been.

As we approached, Thomas slowed the dragon, and my green dragon started to slow as well, seeming to recognize the danger. We neared the flames shooting up out of the ground, and I stared down, struggling to comprehend just what I was seeing. I had never seen anything quite like it. The flames licked across the ground, moving slowly and steadily.

“That’s lava,” I said.

Thomas looked over, nodding. “The Vard call it Affellah. They view it as something sacred.”

“The lava or the fire?”

“Neither. The source of the lava.”

We turned and flew slightly west, but still south. As we neared the flames, the heat intensified, rising up from the ground and radiating toward the sky. Smoke filtered around us, and I realized why Thomas didn’t fear the Vard recognizing us. There was no reason to fear. Wrapped in smoke as we were, there would be no way for the Vard to even see us.

Gradually, the smoke started to clear. A soft wind picked up, blowing around and making it so I could see the bright flames all around us. They were mostly behind us now, but there were some in the distance, all tracking toward a single location.

That had to be Affellah. It rose