The Betrayed Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 2), Dan Michaelson [best books to read all time .txt] 📗

way the connection flowed. There was some hiccup, hesitation as the power cycled from the dragon to me and then back to the dragon. That hiccup was what I had to deal with. It was part of the cycle.

What if I pushed?

It was strange to try to push the dragon’s power back to him, but that was what it felt like I needed to do. Heat burned within me from some place deep. It was stored power.

I hadn’t quite let go of the energy of the green dragon.

It was almost as if I had held on to some of my own power, so that I didn’t even need to connect to the dragon.

Could I use that? Better yet, could I use the green dragon to help this dragon? The idea of it seemed impossible, but so did the idea that I might find a dragon that needed my help to override whatever was happening. I latched on to the energy of the green dragon, and could feel it building, sliding through me, and then I created a chain, connecting to this yellow-scaled dragon, flowing that power out. I felt the resistance, that strange hiccup, and then blasted through it.

When it happened, I made sure to force that power back to the green dragon, creating a strange cycle. I had never linked to more than one dragon, though now that I had, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was exactly what Thomas had been doing when he was touching upon multiple dragons within the dragon pen.

The dragon lunged toward me.

I was too startled to react.

Instead, I braced myself, holding on to the power within me, and then the dragon roared, shooting flames past me and out into the forest. With a surge of wind, the dragon took to the air, circling and then disappearing into the night.

I could still feel him though.

I stood motionless, still too startled to even move. I had no idea what had just happened.

The sense of the dragon began to grow increasingly distant, though I felt that his injury had been healed. Whatever else happened, at least the dragon would recover.

I turned, making my way into the trees, when I saw the effect of the dragon’s flames.

There was a charred form on the ground. I approached carefully, holding my hands out, still pulling some power through the green dragon. I moved slowly, carefully, but even still, I already thought I knew what I was going to see.

When I neared it, the enormity of the creature startled me most.

Mesahn.

The dragon had killed one of the mesahn.

18

I reached the edge of the forest late. I was tired, and had focused only on the energy of the dragons near me, trying to get to the edge of the forest as quickly as I could, unable to shake the feeling that something strange had just taken place. It was something beyond my ability to understand. I needed to know why the dragon would attack the mesahn. The Hunter with that mesahn had never appeared, though I’d waited.

Now, even more than understanding the mesahn, I needed to better understand what happened to the dragon and what I had done to it.

I could still feel the vague sense of that dragon, and was surprised it hadn’t gone all that far. It was connected to the green dragon still—and that surprised me more than anything. There was a faint stirring, as if some part of the green dragon continued to cycle out, connecting from me to itself to the golden-scaled dragon.

That mattered, though I didn’t know why or what it was, and I didn’t know what it might do. The only thing that I knew was that I could feel that power.

I couldn’t feel Thomas’s dragon, which worried me. He was out there, chasing the Djarn and the missing dragons, and I had no idea what he was going to do. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about it. It wasn’t my responsibility. Maybe none of this was.

I was a student. I shouldn’t be out here chasing a vague sense of dragons.

I trudged through the edge of the forest, making my way to the dragon pen, and then stopped, startled. There was a darkened form there.

They were dressed in a long, black cloak, the hood pulled up; they weren’t tall enough to be Thomas, though given what I had seen from earlier in the day, I wouldn’t have been surprised to know that it was Thomas hanging out by the dragon pen after having hunted for the other dragons.

I approached slowly, carefully, and still I think I made too much noise.

The figure turned toward me.

Moonlight reflected off of pale skin, and I frowned. “Natalie?”

“Ashan,” she said softly. “What are you doing out so late?” She flicked her gaze past me, looking into the forest.

“Well . . .” I regarded Natalie for a long moment, debating how much I should share with her. Considering what we’d been through already, I might as well tell her what happened. “I thought I could try to uncover what happened to the dragons that went missing.”

The strangeness I’d detected in the forest lingered with me. An irritant I couldn’t shake. It felt like it burned along with my sense of the dragons.

“Did you?” She took a step toward me and watched me. “Did you find them?”

I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “No. I did not.”

She breathed in slowly, tilting her head back as if she were sniffing at the air. “I always enjoy crisp nights like this,” she said.

The sudden change in the conversation was jarring, but Natalie just leaned back, still sniffing at the air. She breathed in and out slowly, and it seemed to me that she was relaxed in a way that I wasn’t.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked. Could she be responsible for what happened with the dragons?

“I told you. I came out here because I wanted to enjoy the cool night air.”

“It’s getting late,” I said. I looked over