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

to the dragon. “We should investigate,” I whispered to him. He locked eyes with me, and in that moment, he seemed to understand. More than that, he seemed to approve. Turning to Natalie, I forced a smile. “Would you come with me? I need to see if the Vard are attacking or if this is something else.”

“You can feel it, Ashan. I can feel it.”

I decided not to push her to explain what that meant for me or for her, but instead tried something different. “I know what I can feel, but I know what’s happened too. We have to go to the king and convince him of what’s taking place. He might not let us in, but if we get word to your father . . .”

Natalie watched me, and I could see the debate raging in her eyes. Finally, she nodded. “Let’s go,” she said.

I climbed onto the dragon’s back and waited, thinking Natalie might do the same, but instead she headed to a small blue dragon curled up near the edge of the dragon pen. She scrabbled onto his back, then whispered something to him. With a surge of heat, the dragon got up and launched into the air.

That was not what I expected.

I patted the green dragon on the side and we, too, launched into the air. We headed out over the forest, toward what I assumed was the Vard.

14

The air crackled with a certain sort of energy, and I focused on what I could feel. Every so often, there came a shifting and pulling of power, a slight strain, suggesting there was enough energy around me to have that effect. It was that shifting I knew we had to be careful with.

That was the effect of the Vard. Even though I couldn’t see them, I could feel their energy. I knew they were out there, but I didn’t know what to make of that knowledge.

Natalie flew quickly. Her dragon soared high over the forest, high enough that I had to shift the angle of our flight so I could keep up. I thought we could keep pace with the dragon, but at the same time, I needed to be careful.

As we flew, I recognized something about the dragon Natalie flew upon. There was a cycle to that dragon.

It was different from the one I flew, and different from the cycle we shared. I thought I could feel some power coming from within the other dragon’s cycle, circling out and away, but I couldn’t feel anything else beyond that. Whatever else Natalie did, whatever other connection she had to her dragon, to the cycle she summoned, I couldn’t tell. I was only aware of the way that power cycled out from her, flowing away and then back to her.

I tried to focus, holding on to my own connection to power, feeling the energy of the dragons cycling through the green dragon. That energy fed the dragon, fueling him.

I could feel something more from the dragons within that cycle.

It left me wondering how long it would be before Eleanor realized I had somehow done something to the dragon she had used. I didn’t think anybody else could use the power of that dragon now that I had added it to the cycle—doing so limited others’ access to their power. To me, that seemed like both a blessing and a curse. By linking the dragons together, I had protected them, but I also had diminished the possibility that other dragon mages might be able to use that power.

“Do you see anything?” I asked, hollering over to Natalie.

She banked the dragon, and it angled toward me. Natalie was far more comfortable atop the dragon than I was. She looked down. “I don’t see anything. There has to be some sense from below, but . . .”

I focused. I thought I might be able to use what I could feel of the pull upon me to find where that energy came from. It was somewhere down below, somewhere in the forest, but as I focused on it, I didn’t feel any sort of distinct target. It was just a presence there.

“I don’t feel anything,” I told her.

“I don’t either. It might be down there, but . . .”

She cut off, the dragon taking her higher.

We circled up into the sky, moving ever more quickly into the air. It became cooler, and I sucked in a sharp breath, trying to fill my lungs with the cold air, reminded of how difficult it was to breathe as Thomas had brought me south toward the Vard controlled lands. Was that going to be my experience here?

I let out a breath. She didn’t continue to gain altitude, which I figured was probably for the best. I wasn’t sure I could withstand climbing any higher than we already had.

We circled, flying in a tight pattern that brought us high above the ground, leaving the forest looking like little more than a darkened smear beneath us. As I focused on the forest, on the darkness below, I probed, trying to see if I could feel anything else. If there were some sort of power out there, some sort of energy drawing upon us. So far, I didn’t find anything else. It seemed as if once we were in the air, the occasional pressure upon me had faded, and there was nothing more.

That troubled me.

Why would that suddenly shift?

I attempted to pull upon the energy of the dragons, cycling it, using that cycle to check whether there was anything pulling on me, and for a moment, I thought there was nothing.

Then I detected it. It was faint. Little more than a tight shimmering of power.

I could feel the power I had detected while in the tunnel.

How is it so far away?

“It’s down there,” I said.

“Where?” she asked, leaning close.

We had to yell against the wind and the thin air, but I could still hear her.

“To the south.”

She nodded and veered south.

I followed, holding on to the