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

I looked over to Natalie. “I feel like we’ve been sitting here a long time,” I said. “I need to get to Berestal.”

“Don’t go. It only means my father is getting through to them.”

I wasn’t quite as convinced. It left me worried that perhaps he’d not gotten through to them, and if that were the case, then we might have to deal with this on our own. I wasn’t sure what I might be able to do, if anything. I had felt the power of the Vard: what they were able to do when they had attacked us before, the energy they had drawn from me, the way they could use their power in their magic, and the way they had influenced us. If they continued to use that power, drawing upon us, then what would we be able to do to stop them?

Nothing.

Not without the power of additional cycles and enough people with a connection to the dragons.

I fidgeted.

I couldn’t feel anything through the cycle, but I felt as if I needed to keep moving.

Get to the dragon.

Get to Berestal.

Keep the king from destroying the city.

After a while, I finally got to my feet and began to look around us. The dragon mages who had gone inside the throne room with the Sharath had left us alone.

“You look upset,” Natalie said softly.

“I don’t like how long this is taking.”

There was also the issue of the dragons that had gone off. A dozen riders, along with three dragon mages, were enough power the Vard shouldn’t have stopped.

They had brought enough power that the king could raze Berestal, like he had other places.

“I can’t keep waiting here,” I said.

“We have to,” she said.

“We have to because your father says that, but I fear if we stay here too much longer, the Vard are going to keep moving, and we’re going to be too late.”

She smiled at me. “Just give my father a chance.”

“I have been giving him a chance,” I said. “And it hasn’t changed anything.”

“We don’t know that now though,” she said.

This was a different side of Natalie, one I hadn’t seen before. When I first met her, she had come across as mysterious, yet completely in control. Perhaps she still was, but this had her scared, just as it had me scared.

“You feared the Vard when we got out there, didn’t you?” I asked, pacing in front of her. “Because you aren’t part of a circle.”

She breathed out slowly before nodding. “If I had been a part of the circle, I’d have been less concerned. We have long known that the Servants have a way of connecting that we cannot withstand. We can by joining in a circle, but without it, and without having a way to share the influence, we might not be enough.”

“That’s why you wanted to investigate, but you also didn’t want to get too close.”

“I knew I couldn’t get too close,” she said. “I knew if I were to do so, it would potentially put the dragon in danger.”

Considering what I had gone through, and how I had barely managed to escape with the dragons, I understood, and I thought she was right to be concerned. The dragons had been in danger, and unless we had help, we might have even more danger than we realized.

I needed to give this a little more time.

I could plea my case to the king. Save my home.

I continued pacing, glancing every so often over to the doors leading into the throne room. Her father had been inside for quite a while, and there had been no movement one way or the other. I could hear nothing from inside, and that troubled me just a little bit.

“You need to relax,” Natalie said.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked around the halls. The marble gleamed, light from the lanterns reflecting off of it, illuminating the inside of the palace. At one end of the hall, a pair of soldiers waited, just as they did at the other end of the hall. Neither of them moved toward us. I focused on the connection to the dragons, feeling for the energy that flowed through them and to me, and could feel something in it. I thought I could use that energy and that connection to call even more power.

The door suddenly opened, and the Sharath strode out. He came alone.

“Well?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, the king feels we cannot release the Servant.”

I flicked my gaze past him, looking into the throne room. “That’s what you approached him to do?”

The Sharath turned to me, crossing his arms over his chest. “We cannot hold him.”

“We aren’t holding him. Thomas is holding him. I just want to make sure my home is—”

“If the chief dragon mage has one of their Servants held, the Vard will view it as an act of war.”

I watched him for a long moment, deciding that I should pick my words carefully. I didn’t want to anger him, knowing that anything I said to him was truly directed at the king as well. “Others have acted as if we were at war for a long time. Even the Vard have, considering their attacks on the eastern part of the kingdom.”

The Sharath studied me. “You don’t understand, Ashan. The Vard have not been at war with us up until this point. They have sent their people to try to influence us, but they have not been at war with us.”

In my experience within Berestal, it had been more a war of influence than a war of actual aggression. Then there was another that had been meant to look like the Djarn.

It was meant to put the kingdom on the offensive.

But I had heard of the king fighting the Vard.

There had been violence.

And now Berestal would be caught in the middle.

“Why would that change now?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t seen the full force of the Vard attack before.”

I took a deep