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

I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. The man—at least, I thought it was a man—looked grotesque. Charred and burned skin. Parts of his face seemed to be covered in oozing flame. Heat radiated off him, reminding me of the heat I felt deep inside when I attempted to pull on the power of the dragon. Still, there was a strange power to him—an energy. And there had to be, as I had no idea how this person was still alive given the way he looked.

“What is this?” I asked Thomas.

“This is one of the Servants of the Vard,” he said.

8

I couldn’t take my gaze off the Vard. He struggled against the binding of flame Thomas held around him, but couldn’t move past it. With most people, I would’ve worried the flames would cause harm, but given the way this Vard looked—the way it seemed as if he’d embraced the fire itself—it didn’t appear that the fire would even bother him at all. He continued struggling, but still couldn’t free himself. Thomas held tightly to him, calling upon power from the dragon, looping around and cycling it in a way that ensured the Vard wouldn’t go anywhere.

All this time, I had started to convince myself that the Vard weren’t dangerous.

My experience within Berestal had told me that those who serve the Vard mostly wanted independence for Berestal, and were not dangerous. I didn’t have Thomas’s experience, and had not feared them nearly as much as he and others who had served the kingdom did.

Perhaps that was a mistake.

Seeing this creature, I couldn’t help but believe they were terrifying and dangerous.

And I understood why Thomas would have feared the Vard attacking the kingdom.

“Why have him trapped out here?”

“It was accidental,” he said. He didn’t take his gaze off the captured Vard. “I was patrolling not long ago. After the last attack on the kingdom, we have stepped up our patrols. We were not going to be surprised by the Vard again. While I was out, I caught sight of this one. He was difficult, but we have needed a way of understanding the Vard—not the Vard who generally attack the kingdom, but the Vard who direct them.”

“He doesn’t look as if he could direct anything,” I said.

Even though I couldn’t peel my eyes away, it was difficult for me to look at him. Difficult for me to stare at the heat rolling off of him, the strange fire that flowed along the cracks in his face. What looked to be charred sections of flesh might only be dried areas where the heat no longer burned out of the flesh, as if it were lava cooling.

“Trust me. He is one of the Servants. I captured him here, and he’s far enough away from Affellah that he doesn’t have the power he would have closer to it, but he’s still dangerous.”

“What would he be like closer to Affellah?”

“He would have a different connection to power,” he said. “Unfortunately, when the Vard are closer to Affellah, they have a way of controlling it, manipulating and using that energy, which poses a danger to us. It’s why we don’t cross over the Southern Reach.”

“You fear us,” the Vard said.

There was something rough and raw about his voice. I marveled at the fact he could even speak. He glowered at Thomas before turning his attention to me and sneering. At least, I thought that it was a sneer. It was difficult for me to tell anything from him, only that his heat fluctuated briefly.

“If we feared you, we wouldn’t be able to hold you,” Thomas said. He pulled upon a bit more energy flowing from the dragon, summoning more heat and cycling it through. I wondered at that though.

If the Vard truly had the ability to use heat and fire, then what would keep him from using that heat to strengthen himself? I had no idea what the Vard were capable of, and no idea whether such a thing were even possible, but if he could somehow use the heat and fire, then there was a danger in that he might be able to call upon the power Thomas looped around him, and might even find some way of using it to escape.

“You fear us,” the Vard said again. “You won’t be able to hold me, and when the others learn what you have done—”

Thomas cycled power even more tightly, constricting it around him, and the Vard silenced.

I could only watch. It was strange, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. I was captivated by the Vard, captivated by the strangeness of him, and unable to work through just what I was seeing.

“You questioned. After what you’ve gone through, you still question. I understand. What you know of the Vard is limited to what you saw in Berestal. I thought you should know what we face,” Thomas said, looking over to me and still holding on to the power he wrapped around the Vard. “You wanted to understand just how dangerous they were.” He took a deep breath, turning his attention back to the Vard. “I had similar questions when I was younger. I didn’t know. I didn’t know whether I could believe. It wasn’t until I saw the Vard for the first time that I fully understood the threat we faced.” He squeezed the band around the Vard again. He just glared at Thomas, saying nothing, though I didn’t know if he even could. “The king keeps this image of the Vard from the people because they would fear it even more,” Thomas said.

If the people of Berestal knew about this, how would they react?

I suspected they wouldn’t welcome the Vard in the same way they had. I couldn’t imagine Joran and his sisters being quite so comfortable with the threat of the Vard if they knew this was what they were dealing with.

“Others need to know,” I said.

“Others don’t need to know. This is the kind of thing the