by Gage Lee
Table of Contents
Summary
Shadow Alley Press Mailing List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Books, Mailing List, and Reviews
Books by Shadow Alley Press
Books by Black Forge
The Adventure Continues!
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Even More Cultivation on Facebook
Copyright
About the Author
About the Publisher
Summary
A REBELLIOUS KNIGHT. A fearsome dragon. An impossible challenge.
When a fiendish enemy attacks his family's keep, Taun, a human knight, must bond with the spirit of an ancient warlord: the Dread Dragon Tyrant Axaranth.
And though accepting the dragon’s soul scale saved his family from certain destruction in one battle, Axaranth's power threatens to tear Taun apart before they can win the war.
To save himself from the dragon trapped within him, Taun must brave the dangers of the Celestial Academy. Surrounded by young dragons, the knight must master the power of dragon's breath.
Something no human has ever achieved.
Faced with haughty young dragon nobles, deadly tests of his skill, and hostile traditions, the knight must transform a band of unlikely dragon students into a formidable force. Because if Taun doesn't win the school's brutal competition and an audience with the Scaled Council, his family and the dragon kingdoms are doomed to fall to the dark enemy of a previous era.
Scaled Soul is the first book in the Dragon Academy series. Filled with magic, crafting, and exotic dragons, this novel from bestselling author Gage Lee will enchant fans of the cultivation genre.
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Chapter 1
THE DRAGON BLADE TREMBLED in Taun's hand. He exhaled across the weapon, directing a steady flow of fire pneuma into the scalesteel blade.
Yes, an encouraging voice whispered through his thoughts. Almost there.
It wasn’t the first time Taun had heard that voice. He imagined it was his older, wiser self guiding him to a new discovery. It was that voice that had originally encouraged him to research pneuma when he was barely old enough to read. Now it was clearer than he’d ever heard it, and that kindled a certainty within him that something was about to happen.
Taun’s excitement grew as purple flames gathered around the weapon's razor-sharp edges, a sure sign the blade was absorbing the power he’d fed into it. Taun had spent the past two weeks at the forge crafting the long knife as the perfect vessel for an enchantment. All that remained for the young knight was to control the elemental energy he'd channeled until the blade absorbed it. Just a few seconds more and he'd have a magical blade that would never grow dull.
Taun felt a connection to the blade forming. It was no longer something he held in his hand, it was somehow a part of him. The pneuma that flowed out of him and into the blade solidified that connection.
See it as you will, the voice whispered. That was the longest sentence Taun had ever heard, and the string of syllables made it clear that the voice was not his.
The realization shook Taun’s confidence and broke his concentration. The flow of pneuma lost its smooth rhythm and became spiky, jagged bursts that accompanied the knight’s shaken breathing.
Thunder rolled through the sage's workshop. The dragonblade rejected Taun's power and tore itself free of his grip. The young man struggled to regain control of the pneuma he'd poured into the weapon. A sharp pain speared through a spot just below his solar plexus, and the elemental power slipped his control. Undirected power flashed away from him with a sizzling crack. Taun's nostrils filled with the scent of scorched hair and smoldering cloth, and he staggered a step back, dazed.
“I told you,” Sage Lantan said. He chuckled and patted out the cinders that had caught light in his pupil's clothing and hair. “Humans cannot control pneuma. That is the province of dragons, and even they need special training at the Celestial Academy to harness its advanced forms.”
Taun, the youngest son of Honorblade Kaul Koth-tok, the master of Ruby Blade Keep, raked his fingers through his thick hair in search of any sparks the sage had missed. He was frustrated that he’d failed to control the pneuma, but excited that he’d taken a step closer to his goal. For as long as Taun could remember, he'd wanted to master the sacred and arcane powers of pneuma, the breath of the world. He'd read legends of dragon sorcerers who used their power to shake the very heavens and perform miracles.
And all his life, the young knight had been told that magic belonged to dragons, not men. It had frustrated him for years, but he hadn't given up. He was determined to be the first human to cultivate pneuma and master its power. “I was so close that time,” Taun said. “If I can direct the pneuma, there's no reason I can't control it.”
Before Sage Lantan could answer, the workshop door swung open to admit a trio of armored knights. Taun's brothers, Shaus and Raul laughed as they entered the smoky chamber, while his sister, Keelie, looked at her little brother with concern. She pushed past her larger, older siblings, to reach Taun. She fussed with his unruly hair and scorched clothing like a mother hen over a wayward chick.
“Were you experimenting with fire powder again?” Keelie asked. She pulled her gauntlet off, tucked it into her belt, and hooked her fingers in the front of Taun's scorched shirt and pulled him down until their eyes were level. “You know what mother said about that. If you blow a hole in the Keep, she'll make you repair it. If you're still alive.”
Sage Lantan hurried around to Taun's right side where Keelie could see him. “He did nothing of the sort. It was a pneuma exercise.”
Raul leaned against the worktable on Taun's left side. He prodded the charred dragonblade with the tip of his finger. “This was a fine weapon before your experiment,” he laughed. “How many daggers will you ruin trying to do the impossible? They call pneuma dragon's breath for a reason.”
Taun gently freed himself from his sister's grasp and scowled at his brother. “That's just a figure of speech. And even if that were true, young dragons are basically the same as young humans. And if they can harness pneuma before they reach their mature form, then humans can, too.”
Taun had studied the sage's books since he was old enough to read. The young knight had even trained himself to decipher draconic runes so he could dig through the more esoteric texts as he got older. Though he'd never read of a human who could cultivate and control pneuma, there was nothing in any of those books that said it was impossible. To Taun, that meant he could learn magic that only dragons had mastered. It would just take practice.
Probably a lifetime's worth.
And that was all right with him. He enjoyed the practice, much as his brothers and sister enjoyed banging their swords off each other's armor. There was something calming about his ex
periments with pneuma, a deep and consuming meditation that gave his mind respite from the keep's many problems. Lost in that timeless place between waking and sleeping, his mind drifting on currents of elemental energy, Taun didn't have to think about the failing crops, their shrinking population of landsmen, or the bandits who preyed on travelers on the roads between holdfasts. In those precious slices of time when his mind was free of worry, Taun explored theories and experimented with ways to strengthen himself and control the pneuma that eluded him. When he'd started, the young knight couldn't even sense the mystic energy. Now, he could feel it in his breaths and guide it with his thoughts. Not well, but it was a start.
Closer, the voice in his head encouraged him. There was something familiar about the word, but Taun couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Controlling pneuma takes more than book smarts,” Shaus said. “Your body has to be strong enough to withstand its currents. That's why dragons can master it, and humans can't. Their spirits are more powerful than ours, and their bodies hardier. It's just the way the world works.”
“It's a little more complicated than that,” Sage Lantan said. “But, yes, that is the gist of the problem, Taun. Even if you strengthened your spiritual core and increased its capacity to hold pneuma, your body would not keep pace with the demands you placed on it. Perhaps—”
Shaus, who’d never been interested in the sage's long-winded explanations of anything, nodded, and then interrupted. “Sorry,” he said, “we don't have time for a lesson today. Father sent us here to ask Taun if he'd like to join us on a bandit hunt.”
The youngest knight offered his eldest brother a rueful smile. “I'd join you, but it looks like you're all ready to go and I'd still have to get my armor. Father doesn't like to be kept waiting. I'll sit this one out, I suppose.”
Shaus and Raul exchanged glances, then nodded to the younger brother. “All right, we'll let him know. He'll be disappointed, though. You know he wants you to sharpen your practical skills more. Sabers, bows, horsemanship, that kind of thing. I'll make sure you get plenty of advance warning before our next trip beyond the wall. I doubt he'll take no for an answer next time.”
With that, the brothers nodded to Sage Lantan and their youngest sibling, then left the room with a clatter of jangling battle harnesses, their heavy boots clomping across the wooden floor.
“They're right,” Keelie said quietly, smoothing the wrinkles her grip had left in Taun's shirt. “Father worries you spend too much time cooped up here in the tower with the sage. It's good to stretch your mind, but all those smarts won't protect you from an enemy with a sharp sword.”
Taun was well aware that his family prided themselves on their martial prowess, but he had other goals. As a young knight of fifteen winters, he'd been trained in unarmed combat, could handle the saber competently, and even knew his way around the longbow. But there were bigger problems and greater dangers in the world that couldn't be handled with strength. The failing crops that tormented his father, for example, couldn't be explained or prevented by any amount of sharp weapons or heavy armor. Not even a master swordsman could explain why there were fewer babies born each year, or why the ones who survived their first year seemed somehow stunted. The roaming bandits were a danger, but if these larger problems weren't solved, there'd be no one in the kingdom left to defend from robbers. The world was changing, Taun could see that, and he knew that people had to change, too, or they'd be left behind.
That was why he spent so much time with the sage. The Ruby Blade Keep had more than enough masters of the martial arts. What they needed, whether they knew it or not, was the kind of strength Taun was cultivating between his ears.
“I'll consider your advice,” Taun said to his sister. “But I'm onto something here, Keelie, I know it. If I solve this problem, we'll all benefit. You can't even imagine what we could accomplish if only—”
Keelie threw her arms around her brother's neck and squeezed him into a hug. “This is why Father worries,” she whispered into his ear. “He thinks you're lost in the clouds, your mind drifting away. But I'm rooting for you, little brother. If any of us can master pneuma, it's you. Just be careful you don’t lose yourself in the process.”
“You better get a move on,” Taun whispered back. “Before Father comes looking for you. If he finds you up here, he'll think you're turning into a sage, too.”
Keelie snorted at that and rubbed her knuckles on her little brother's scalp. “See you when we get back, little brother. We'll be hungry, so try not to eat everything before we return.”
Sage Lantan said nothing until the heavy sound of Keelie's footsteps echoed from the stairwell at the center of his tower. “You know I'd never discourage your curiosity, Taun, but you could have been hurt today.”
The young knight rolled his eyes and picked the dagger up from where it had fallen on the table. The dragonblade looked bad, but it only took him a moment to brush the soot from the steel with a cleaning rag to reveal the shining scalesteel. “A little smoke and thunder never hurt anyone.”
The sage moved to Taun's side. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were surrounded by deep wrinkles of worry. “You are the smartest young man I've ever met,” the sage said. “But surely you understand that you are not the smartest person the world has ever known. Humans cannot control pneuma. This isn't a theory. It's a fact of supernature. The power of the earth's breath belongs to the dragons. It would do my old heart good if you accepted this and let your dream go.”
“I'm too close to quit now,” Taun said. “I've never gotten as far as I did today. When I started this, you told me I wouldn't even be able to feel the pneuma. Now I'm directing it.”
Sage Lantan's ancient fingers curved over Taun's shoulder, the joints cracking as he squeezed the young man's arm. “You are not the first young scholar to believe he’d unlocked the dragons' secrets. You should look up the legend of Master Suun.”
Taun made a mental note of the name. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. “I'll do that, tonight after dinner. I should go see my father off on his hunting trip.”
The sage nodded, guiding Taun back toward the workshop's thick door. When they were a few feet away from the exit, Lantan put a hand on the knight's chest to stop him. “You'll find Master Suun's story in the Collected Tales of the Roil,” the sage said. “Be sure to read it before our next class.”
There was something in the old man's words that soaked into Taun's ears like the winter's chill. “Why the urgency?”
“Because you must know what happens to young men who walk too far into the furnace of knowledge,” Lantan said.
“Oh?” Taun said glibly, “do they become re-forged in the fires?”
Lantan's smile faded and he clucked his tongue at Taun's dismissive attitude. “No, my young friend,” the sage said with a bitter smile, “the flames consume them.”
Without another word, he guided Taun out of the workshop and into the cold, dreary hallway.
THE SAGE'S WORDS LEFT Taun feeling confused and uneasy. Lantan had never exactly encouraged Taun's quest to master pneuma, but he'd also never actively discouraged it. Taun didn't think it was a coincidence that Lantan had changed his tune now that the young knight had proven he could touch the mystic power.
Taun puzzled over the sage’s warning as he descended the spiral staircase at the tower's core. He glanced out the window at the first landing and saw a quartet of knights riding out through the Scaled Gate in the keep's western wall. “Ashes and tar,” he grumbled, “I missed seeing them off. Father will never let me hear the end of this at dinner.”
He couldn’t do anything about that now. With nothing to occupy his mind, Taun decided to visit the top of the keep's wall. From there, he could look out over the western wyld and watch his family ride out to bring justice to the long road to the next keep. With any luck the young knight might also catch sight of a flock of blightravens or maybe spy a windsnake. Taun liked animals, but he'd only ever seen rats and oxen up clo
se.
Wild animals rarely came anywhere near the keep's scaled walls. The dragons who came every few years to maintain the magical structures insisted that was because of the residual magic they left behind. The theory was that wildlife could smell the dragons and instinctually gave their work a wide berth.
Taun thought a more likely reason was that there was nothing inside the walls that feral animals needed. The savage wilderness provided nuts and berries for the herbivores, and carrion and small game for the carnivores. The circle of life turned at a furious pace out there, while it had all but ground to a stop within the keep. Every day seemed the same to the young knight. The only excitement he felt anymore came from his work in the forge with the keep's blacksmith and during his pneuma experiments. Taun knew in his heart that one day, maybe soon, he'd combine what he'd learned from those two pastimes to change the world.
But that day was not today.
The young knight stopped on the next landing and hopped up onto the short stone wall that surrounded it. He looked down at the courtyard dozens of feet below him to make sure his mother hadn't followed his father to the gates. She would skin him alive if she saw what he was about to do.
Satisfied there were no authority figures in sight, Taun judged the distance to the stairs that zigzagged up the inside of the keep's wall. He'd made the leap a hundred times, but every time was unnerving. His target was only six feet away, a jump he'd easily make on the ground. If he slipped up here, though, the fall would be terrible. Before he could change his mind, Taun leapt.
For a moment, he felt as if time had stopped. He hung far above the muddy courtyard below, his life at the mercy of gravity and his legs' strength. If he'd misjudged the jump, his life was about to end.
His feet hit the catwalk hard enough to make the metal squeal, but the rock solid construction held. Taun scrambled up the incline to the top of the scaled wall, his heart pounding and adrenaline coursing through his veins. “All part of the thrill,” he said, grinning to himself.
