Smoke and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Progression Series (The Dragon Thief Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “This would have been easier had you any way of connecting to it.”

  The burning was there in his belly but faint, as if the dragon had retreated.

  Could the dragon have been scared?

  “I know that it would’ve been easier, but I can’t make it responded to me.”

  “You’re going to have to find a way to do so,” she said and sighed. “If the Order is not done with what they intend in the kingdom, then you must be ready. Practice. That is what you need. I have given you the basic lessons. Until you manage to perfect what you have been taught, you will not be of any use to the king.” She started away from him, heading toward one of the fallen men. Her shadows swirled around her.

  Ty waited for a moment. “What if I don’t want to be of any use to the king? What if all I care about is stopping Roson James?”

  But it wasn’t just stopping him that Ty cared about. He wanted revenge for what happened to Eastley.

  “You won’t be of much use for that, either. Master your connection to the dragon.”

  Chapter Two

  The rocky point of the Dragon’s Jaw stretched high overhead. Ty kept his back pressed against the stone, feeling the strange warmth of the rock as he looked around and tried to decide which way he needed to go. The wind was calm, as it often was in this part of the kingdom. It carried the strange smells of the city, even out here on the outskirts, near the mountainous Dragon’s Jaw and away from anything that would normally make him think of the city.

  He checked his equipment. He had his dragon-bone dagger, the surface of which he traced his fingers along, feeling for the leather-wrapped hilt to ensure that it was safely tucked away, and he had the crossbow hooked to his belt, feeling somewhat unwieldy. It was better, he figured, to be prepared, especially given the Order of the Flame’s interest in targeting him.

  A strange cawing sound echoed in the distance, and Ty looked up, though he didn’t see anything out there. There was a hint of sound that suggested to him that it might’ve been one of the king’s small dragons that he had seen when he had visited the Hatchery with Gayal, though he’d never seen them wandering freely throughout the capital. The only time that he saw dragons out in the open had been within Zarinth, and that was because the king had used them as a show of force, primarily for Lothinal.

  He looked up at the rocky surface. It was long past time he continued his climb.

  He kept trying to reach for the dragon the way Gayal wanted, but he still struggled to make the connection. Like now. There were even times when the dragon seemed to disappear, though Ty wasn’t entirely sure if it truly had left or whether that was his imagination. It seemed as if he often woke in the morning with a feeling of smoke drifting around the room and occasionally with the burning within him, all of which left him wondering whether or not the dragon had been active while he was sleeping.

  Despite training with Gayal, Ty hadn’t learned anything about his brother, Albion. He’d been released from prison, but then had disappeared again, fading like the smoke dragon itself. And Gayal hadn’t been concerned the way Ty was.

  Which was why he wanted to come up here.

  His brother had been imprisoned here as bait to try to draw out the Lothinal influence within the kingdom, which had ended, but Ty still hadn’t spoken to Albion since then. All he had were his brother’s request that he go looking for answers within the Flame, nothing more than that. Nothing that would help him know his brother any better than he already had.

  That seemed to be how Albion operated these days. All in secrets.

  He shifted, finding a handhold within the rock and pulling himself up.

  He didn’t hear anything moving nearby, but he had to be careful. There was always the risk of the soldiers noticing that he climbed through here. He had been cautious about revealing his presence, not wanting to draw any notice, since Gayal warned that he couldn’t reveal too much about his intentions. It was dangerous to do so, mostly because it meant that he would reveal information about the Tecal, something he intended to keep secret.

  Another shift, and once again he looked, testing to make sure that there was no other movement.

  He had to be as careful as possible here, staying alert for a sign of any of the soldiers, but the closer he got to the hidden prison within the Dragon’s Jaw, the more likely Ty thought it would be that he would encounter some of the soldiers. They were generally hidden, but they had their own way of sneaking around the rock face and getting to their prisoners. He had to take a much more roundabout approach.

  He reached an opening. In his mind, he imagined it something like hiding between two massive dragon teeth, as if the jaws themselves had somehow opened up to permit him in, though he knew that was little more than personal make believe.

  He remained pressed in the opening, holding his arms and legs out, trying to lodge himself in such a way that he could shimmy up the side of the rock. A little bit higher, and he would be able to reach another opening.

  He climbed a little farther and then found a path through the rock. It was the path he needed to take. The only other time he’d come here, he’d had no idea what he might find and still didn’t really know much about it. He couldn’t guess why they would have used this space to hide Albion. Roson James had thought that he could use this prison to force Albion to reveal more of his reason for going to Zarinth, but he had not known the truth. Ty wondered if he even could. He wondered if such a thing were possible for someone like Roson James to understand. His brother had done it because he followed the Flame. What did Roson James follow?

  He scrambled forward along the path, keeping his head down, and unsheathed his dragon-bone dagger. With each step, Ty attempted to reach into the connection he shared with the smoke dragon, but with each step he found it missing.

  The dragon was there. From the occasional burning in his belly, he was certain the connection remained, as he had encountered it far too many times accidentally. It was just that the control over it never seemed to happen when he wanted it. At times, the dragon knew he wanted its attention and ignored his request.

  It was different than when he could feel the emptiness. At least in this case, Ty was aware of the presence of the dragon, and he could feel that burning sensation deep within himself, though feeling it and being able to do anything about it were different matters, and he had been unable to find any way to summon power. Much like now.

  Ty slipped forward again, only to hear a soft voice in the distance.

  Soldiers.

  He froze, pressing himself against the rock. As far he could tell, he would be hidden here. He didn’t have to worry about the soldiers recognizing that he was in this location unless they had some way of hearing him moving.

  He saw nothing.

  A hint of shadow off to his side caught his attention.

  He huddled against the rock and didn’t move. He needed to hide. The smoke dragon should’ve been able to help, but so far when he had tried to summon that assistance, the smoke dragon hadn’t responded.

  Gayal had taught him how to focus.

  It was a matter of trying to reach the heat within his belly.

  It was something that Ty wasn’t even fully aware of, though he had felt it enough times that he recognized it. The pressure built within him. He tried to focus on that pressure, trying to wrap it in a band of control, using lessons Gayal had given him ever since coming to the capital, but nothing seemed to work.

  He sensed movement.

  Voices came closer as well. He was aware of how close they were getting, and he started to slip back, moving into the darkness.

  His foot slipped.

  It scraped over stone.

  A shout rang out in front of him.

  Ty scrambled back, not wanting to get caught. He wasn’t in any real danger were he to be captured, at least not that he thought. The Tecal could get him freed. Gayal could do something, if he were willing and able to reveal that he worked with them. Still, he suspected that a
ny discovery of his presence here would only lead to some disappointment.

  He was still just an apprentice, though an old one. It meant that he didn’t have any way of ensuring his safety if he were to be captured. Gayal certainly wouldn’t help.

  Part of it was his own pride, though. Ty didn’t want to be caught. He was a thief. Perhaps not as skilled as his brother had been, but that didn’t mean that he felt like he should be caught sneaking through here. In fact, he thought that he should’ve been able to do so as quietly as his brother, especially if he could manage some connection to the smoke dragon. Somehow he had to learn.

  It was that connection the ghost king would value, were he to choose to work for the king. He wanted answers and to understand the dragon, so would continue to serve. If he were forced to be a thief again…

  He hated that he had made too much noise. Normally, he was a much better sneak than this. He had trained and worked as a thief, and that should’ve been enough for him to be able to navigate the stone without getting caught, but he had been too curious, wanting to get closer so that he could learn something about his brother, even though there might not be anything that he could learn.

  “I think it’s back here,” a voice said, drifting closer to him.

  Ty crept back, trying to slide into the rock, hiding his presence as much as he could. He didn’t see anything, though he could hear it near him.

  “Where?” another voice asked. “All I see is this damn crevice.”

  Maybe he would be fine. If he were lucky, they wouldn’t be able to get through the rock, and he wouldn’t have to fear whether there was anybody sneaking up on him.

  “Look,” the first man said, his voice carrying around the stone. “There’s an opening here.”

  “We’re going to have to seal that off. Can’t have anybody coming up through here.”

  Boots scraped along stone and the men grunted as they crawled forward. It wouldn’t be long before they reached him. Ty slipped back, staying in the shadows, trying to press his back along the stone. All he wanted was to see his brother.

  He needed to get away from here before somebody crawled through and found him.

  If only the damn smoke dragon would react to him, help him, though it didn’t seem as if it had any interest in participating in the training he was a part of. If he couldn’t learn how to control it, he would never learn how to be a Tecal, and then…

  He had no idea what would happen then. He could return to Zarinth, but what would happen when he went back? He had never really wanted to be a thief. He had done so because it was his way of finding information about his parents and where they had gone missing, but now thieving wasn’t the key to answers for him. Understanding this dragon, learning what it meant to be a Tecal, and using the resources that would open up before him were what he could do now.

  He slipped backward, keeping hidden. It was best to remain as hidden as possible, to avoid the guards and keep them from realizing where he was.

  His boots scraped against the stone again.

  It was the irregularity of the Dragon’s Jaw that kept catching his boot. Were it not for that, he thought he might’ve been able to slide through here more easily and silently, but unfortunately, his foot kept catching the stone.

  Now that the soldiers were in front of him, they knew they had something to pursue, and he would have to just run. Another failure.

  Ty wasn’t accustomed to failing. When he’d been in Zarinth, he had been a successful thief and had rarely struggled like he had ever since learning of his connection to the dragons. Ever since then, though, he had begun to find that he constantly had to question his abilities.

  He started sliding, dropping quickly now. From here, it wasn’t too far down to the ground, where he could then slip back into the city, disappear altogether, and not have to worry about the soldiers spying him, though he didn’t like the idea that he would have to retreat so far and so fast.

  Worse, having drawn attention to his presence, he had made a mess of the one access point that he had for climbing up to the Dragon’s Jaw, so now he didn’t have any way to get there without them knowing.

  A face poked out up above.

  Ty pressed flush against the stone, silently willing the smoke dragon to answer his call. All he needed was a faint stream of smoke to swirl around him, something to give him a bit of shading, so that he wasn’t quite out the open. It was late enough in the day that some haze wouldn’t be altogether surprising, and he could imagine how that smoke would swirl, providing him sufficient cover, but it never came.

  There was no surge of heat within his belly, no burst of energy that struck him. There was nothing. It was as if the smoke dragon had abandoned him altogether.

  It was the same message that Gayal had told him. He had to get control of his connection. Her lessons came back to him, but he didn’t have any way of fully connecting to the smoke dragon the way that he knew he needed. Despite everything that he had tried when it came to that dragon, he still felt as if he were barely scraping at the potential he needed.

  Ty hurried back down. It wasn’t that he feared the soldiers catching him, but he chose to treat it like a challenge. He might as well. He didn’t have anything else that he had to be doing until he was scheduled to meet with Gayal again. She had been gone for some time, and he was bored.

  He jumped down another section of the wall and then landed, twisting his ankle as he did. Ty cursed under his breath. The fire-blasted stone had grabbed his foot. It was almost as if it were trying to get him captured.

  He looked up. One of the soldiers had started to descend, creeping down the wall, backing toward him. He moved as quickly and carefully as he could, limping down the rest of the Dragon’s Jaw, staggering away and making his way toward the street.

  Somebody shouted behind him, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the outskirts of the city where he could find a way of blending in. There was still no evidence of heat in his belly, nothing that would suggest that the dragon was there, trying to come to him, offering him a bit of protection, nothing other than the emptiness that he felt.

  “You could’ve helped,” he muttered.

  There was no smoke.

  His ankle throbbed, but at least he didn’t think it was broken. He was tempted to take a seat, to test it, but if he were to do so, the soldier climbing down the wall—and moving far more quickly than he could now—would catch up to him.

  It left him with little choice but to keep moving.

  He gritted his teeth as he hobbled forward.

  In the distance, he caught sight of the outskirts of the buildings, embracing him in a faint shroud of darkness. A few people were out, meandering between the buildings, and Ty kept going until he blended into the crowd.

  It wasn’t until he passed another street that he began to relax.

  He looked over his shoulder every so often but didn’t see anybody coming after him. There was nothing back there, no shouts of soldiers, nobody who seemed to pay any mind to him. Finally, he breathed out, relaxing.

  A hint of heat flared in his belly.

  “Not now you don’t,” he muttered to the smoke dragon, though he doubted saying so would have any effect.

  He limped forward, reaching one of the side streets and then heading down it until he could see the tavern in the distance.

  In the time that he’d been in the city, he had stayed in the same place, mostly out of comfort, but partly because he didn’t really have any other place to go. Gayal hadn’t offered him any lodging, though he would’ve expected the king’s Tecal would’ve had something more formal. Maybe in the palace, but that hadn’t seemed to be the case. As far as he’d been able to tell, she didn’t even go to the palace.

  All of that left him with more questions about the ghost king. He thought that he might find answers now that he was spending time in the capital, but all he was left with were more questions. Gayal didn’t seem inclined to tell him anything, though he thought he understo
od. She still wasn’t sure whether she could trust him. He suspected she tried to dig deeper into his past to know if he posed a threat to the ghost king.

  Ty didn’t care if she dug. Her digging meant that she might find answers for him. More than anything, that was what he wanted. Answers. To learn what happened to his parents. To understand where those answers might be found.

  When he reached the tavern, he staggered around the back side and found the door leading into the upper rooms. He hurried upward, reached the second story hallway, and paused. The lantern flickered at the end of the hall.

  Ty studied the lantern for a moment, watching for any sign of movement, anything that would suggest he wasn’t alone, but he didn’t see anything.

  It was an old trait he had picked up from his time on the street. He had learned to watch for activity, looking at all times to ensure that he was safe and that he had not been followed, but even now he didn’t know if he might be surprised by somebody sneaking up on him.

  There was nothing.

  He hobbled down the hallway to his door, fishing a key out of his pocket, and he unlocked it, only to freeze in the doorway.

  “Damn it, Bingham. What are you doing here?”

  He grinned at him. “I figured that the two of us could talk.”

  Ty shook his head, stepping into the room, closing the door behind him and locking it. When he turned back to Bingham, he was sitting in a chair, leaning back, his arms crossed over his chest.

  He was an older man, with silver hair, silver eyes, and deep wrinkles along his forehead. A thief, and one of his first mentors, who shouldn’t have been in the city.

  “I thought you were back in Zarinth.”

  “I was. I heard you had come here, and my business carried me away from Zarinth. You know how that goes.”

  Ty frowned at him. He did know how that went, but he also wasn’t expecting Bingham to be here. Bingham looked around, his gaze darting from the narrow bed along one wall to the wardrobe at the end of it and to the small desk sitting next to the bed. It was a simple room.