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

by D. K. Holmberg

  “And the jungle near your homeland. Would you say that it’s safe or dangerous?”

  “I would probably say that it was safe enough, but there are plenty of people who feel like it’s dangerous.”

  “And why are there those people who feel like the jungle itself is dangerous? What is it about the jungle that they fear?”

  He thought about the jungle, Zarinth, and Ishantil itself.

  People respected the Flame of Ishantil. People knew about the jungle. And the city itself wasn’t terribly dangerous.

  There was one part of all of that which left outsiders uncomfortable, and for good reason.

  “Most people fear the velum.”

  Dorian’s dark cloak fluttered again, as if the wind and the shadows were working together, trying to combat each other. Ty had a mental image of him fighting with the dragons, trying to keep them controlled.

  As he did, he realized something.

  Here he had a hard time getting one dragon to follow him, and Dorian had four dragons under his command—that he knew of. Maybe he had more he didn’t know about. He would have to keep watch, wondering whether there might be something more that Dorian didn’t want to share, some connection to a dragon he didn’t want Ty to know about.

  “Savage beasts,” Dorian said. “But like any creature, they can be trained. You just have to know how to get to them. Once you do, then you can influence their reaction.” He smiled at Ty, and the darkness swirled around him again, this time looking somewhat sinister. “It’s not that different than with these creatures. The dragons are animals, and once you gain mastery over them, you will understand that is all they are.”

  Ty frowned, focusing on the smoke dragon, on the energy that he had felt from it. It hadn’t felt to him like they were simply mindless creatures. He didn’t know how to describe it, but his experience with the dragon, especially the lava dragon that had been fully formed, wasn’t one of ignorance. In fact, his experience was of a powerful creature that had a mind of its own. What would Dorian say if he told him that?

  Likely he would have some way of explaining it.

  Even if he did, it wouldn’t necessarily change his own opinion. Much like he had his own opinion about the velum. They weren’t mindless, either. Savage, at times, but definitely smarter than most people gave them credit for.

  “You want me to train the dragon the way we would train a horse?”

  “Not quite like a horse. The horse is domesticated. A dragon is never domesticated. Perhaps controlled. Influenced. And when you have enough influence over the dragon, you can find that it reacts to you in a consistent manner.” Dorian took a step back, holding his hands out, and a bit of power swirled away from him. “What you must know is that a dragon can only be controlled by somebody who has enough control over themselves.” He held his hands up and the darkness swirled around him. “As you can see, the dragon recognizes me.”

  “What if the dragon only wants you to believe you’re in control?”

  Dorian chuckled. “Intriguing thought, and one that has been considered before. There have been those of us who have a connection to the dragons who have questioned whether or not they simply permit the illusion of control, but then there are those like myself, including others who serve the king in the same capacity, who have demonstrated a measure of control over the dragons. When you have a dragon that fights for its independence, you must fight back. You must find your own level of control.” He took a step back, and the shadows swirled for a moment, flaring with a bit of light, and then he pressed it out. It disappeared, the cloak forming back on him once again.

  That was something he hadn’t paid any attention to before. Both he and Gayal had cloaks made of the strange dragon energy. He did not.

  “Wait a minute,” Ty said.

  Dorian watched him, frowning. “What is it?”

  “Why do you have the dragon’s cloak like that?”

  “What cloak do you mean?”

  “The one where you have the dragon around you? Why do you have that?”

  He grinned, and there came another flurry of power around him. Then the dragon surged, taking over the cloak again before fading.

  “What did I talk to you about with the dragon?”

  “You mentioned I need to keep it controlled.”

  “Indeed. You do need to keep it controlled, and the key is maintaining that connection and that hold over the dragon, ensuring you have control at all times. When you can master that, then you can demand the dragon provide you with a level of protection.”

  As Ty watched, he started to suspect that it was more than just a level of protection. There was something else to it, though he had no idea what that might be. Maybe it was just a matter of suppressing power, forcing the dragon to provide energy, or maybe it was something else.

  He could feel the faint energy within him, though it was subtle and not at all like he felt when he had detected the energy of the dragon before. It was almost as if the dragon itself wanted to keep the connection that he now had with him a mystery, as if the dragon were trying to conceal it from him.

  Still, he could feel that burning, that gnawing sort of power buried within him. That had to matter somehow.

  “Do you think you can accomplish this?”

  “I told you I’m trying,” Ty said.

  “You are trying but failing.”

  Dorian watched Ty, and once again there came a fluttering from him, a hint of power that drew upon him, energy that called to the smoke dragon before fading. That energy drifted away, as if he wanted to prove that he could pull on that power before releasing it.

  The dragon fought, which Ty appreciated.

  “We will continue to work. If you cannot gain control over this dragon soon, I’m afraid I will have no choice.”

  The darkness swirled around him as he said it, but a different darkness filled him.

  Ty couldn’t lose the dragon. He had a feeling he was going to need the dragon, and that connection, before too much longer. He didn’t know how long he had to gain this mastery, but understood what would happen if he failed. Which meant he could not fail.

  Chapter Seven

  The streets of the city were quiet, though Ty didn’t expect anything different this time of night. Given the late hour that his brother had wanted to meet, he had anticipated that he would find the streets empty, which suited him just fine. With everything that he’d been through recently, he wanted a bit of solitude, a way to clear his mind, and he needed to have the opportunity to focus, though the fatigue he felt after another day spent trying to reach for the smoke dragon—and failing—filled him.

  He knew the smoke dragon was still there with him. Every so often, Dorian would call on the dragon, summoning the dragon out, and he could feel it burning deep within him, as if there was some aspect the smoke dragon wanted him to know was there. Then it faded, drifting down into nothingness once again and leaving him feeling as if he couldn’t reach it.

  It was those times that left him wondering if perhaps it might’ve been better for him to have remained in Zarinth and continued stealing. At least he wouldn’t be trying and failing at something that he didn’t know if he would ever accomplish. At least there, he felt like he had a chance to succeed. At least there, he believed he could be useful in a way that he had started to wonder if he ever would be here.

  Ty pushed those thoughts away.

  He could be useful.

  Now that he knew about Albion in the city, and knowing who and what he was, he had an opportunity to understand more about what he had been up to, and he had the chance to learn more about whether there was anything he intended to do to help their parents. That was the only reason he got involved in this lifestyle in the first place. He wanted to help their parents as much as he could, and the only way that he had been able to do so was through taking up a type of work that placed him into danger, but it was the type of work that also gave him an opportunity to find them.

  The city was
quiet, and the air was cool, so vastly different from Zarinth. In Zarinth, not only was there a general bustle within the city, an energy that seemed to come from everyone who lived within, but there was the regular summons for celebration with the Priests of the Flame at the temple. The crowd often lined up around the temple awaited an opportunity to celebrate the Flame. Not only that, but Ishantil occasionally made its presence known, a deep rumbling sound that rolled over the city, a trembling that could not be ignored. And then there was the time when Ishantil had very nearly erupted, sweeping the city into chaos and leading to a near exodus from the city.

  Here, the city was calm. Almost too calm.

  Not that there wasn’t something intriguing to look at. With the Dragon’s Jaw rising up around the city, the landscape itself took on a vastly different appearance that he found intriguing. Even where he stood now, nestled in between a line of buildings on either side of him, there was a smattering of shops and homes, but the Dragon’s Jaw rose up over all of it, impossible to ignore. The mountains shadowed the streets even under bright sunlight, leaving it to be darkened, taking on its nickname: the City of Shadows.

  It was fitting, but even more so given that Gayal and Dorian had spent time here, and that both were connected to shadow dragons. Perhaps this was where they had found the eggs. He had not challenged Dorian about where he had uncovered the dragons and how he had gained his connection to them, though Ty wondered if perhaps he should have.

  Dorian might provide him with more understanding. Only, the more that time that Ty spent with him, the harder it was to know whether Dorian really wanted anything from him other than failure. It seemed almost as if he was waiting for him to fail, as if he wanted an excuse to claim the smoke dragon, and he wanted to make it seem as if he were trying to help, but in fact did nothing of the sort. How could he be helping when it seemed to him that all he did was show him how he could pull on the dragon, attempting to draw it off?

  Were it not for the smoke dragon fighting back, Ty wondered how he might succeed. The dragon struggled against him, using his own power to resist, something he appreciated but didn’t fully understand.

  He checked the slip of paper again. Having a piece of paper that he had to follow was not all that different than when he had come here with Eastley, looking for information from Albion.

  Thinking of Eastley sent a pang of sadness through him, but there was also a surge of anger and a desire for vengeance.

  He had to push that back.

  There was no reason for him to chase vengeance.

  He needed a practical approach. Control the dragon. That was it. Do what Gayal and Dorian wanted from him.

  Then he could follow them and ensure that Roson James didn’t succeed with his sinister plans.

  There wasn’t much light in the city. Not enough for him to see all that well, but Albion had left him directions on how to reach his place. He should have scouted it before, and had he been thinking more clearly, Ty would have taken the time to have done so, if only so he wouldn’t be surprised by anything that might be there. His brother already had surprised him by appearing suddenly in his place of residence within the city, and he didn’t need any more surprises when it came to Albion. Ty began to wonder if perhaps that was the nature of what he offered.

  It was a far cry from what he had known of his brother when they were younger. At that time, Albion had always been the quiet one, though he had never hidden his affection for the Flame. It was why he had found it easy to believe that he would have gone off in search of some greater meaning. Ty wondered what had changed for Albion since he had become involved with the Priests of the Flame.

  But maybe Albion’s devotion to the Flame was only for show.

  If so, how had he managed to stay in the priesthood and move up within it as well as he had?

  How had he managed to accomplish all that he had?

  More importantly, how had he managed to become the Dragon Thief?

  There were so many questions about his brother and so few answers.

  Ty turned a corner. At least on this main street running through the city, there was a little more lighting. It was all strange light, created by those who were Dragon Touched, and it created a pale blue glow that illuminated the street itself. It seemed to come up from the cobblestones, though when he paused in front of one of them, he realized that wasn’t the case at all. It was some sort of dragon relic that had been placed, giving the streets that steady glowing light. He had seen it before when he had wandered out late at night but had never spent much time trying to evaluate it, other than thinking about how to steal one and whether there was any value in it. He had given some thought to that, but of course he would. That was the thief in him.

  As he slipped along the street, he saw a pair of men heading in his direction, and he instinctively reached for his dragon-bone dagger, holding his hand on the hilt, though the men laughed, swaying as they made their way along the street before rounding a corner and disappearing from view.

  Just men coming from a tavern. Nothing more than that.

  He was jumpier than he would’ve been in Zarinth. Maybe it was simply that he was in an unfamiliar city and he didn’t have the same allies as he had within Zarinth, or maybe it had more to do with what he was doing, where he was going, and his uncertainty about whether he would find the answers that he wanted from his brother.

  The streets weren’t completely quiet. There were soldiers that marched intermittently, all bearing the crest of the king, along with Dragon Touched wearing the dark blue jacket and pants that marked their station. None of them paid much attention to him, which he appreciated. When he had been in Zarinth, Ty had always been afraid of the Dragon Touched following him, and had feared them tracking him down, noticing that he was carrying a dragon-bone dagger. Now he wondered if it would even matter.

  But of course it would. He might be training with the Tecal, but he was not one yet. Would they protect him?

  He reached an intersecting street. The buildings all along this central road were massive, two or three-story buildings. Most of them were made out of wood, not stone like in the ancient section of Zarinth, and many of them were intricately decorated with carvings along the roofline, some shaped in the form of dragons, others celebrating the Flame, swirls of patterns that were meant to indicate the power of the Flame. Most of the buildings were painted in bright colors: red and yellow and blue. He couldn’t see it all that well at night, other than from the glowing blue coming from the cobblestones, but his vision was enough that he could make out the designs.

  The air in this part of the city was still, leaving him wondering if perhaps Dorian followed him. He wouldn’t put it past Dorian to track him through the city, likely because he would claim he needed to know what he was up to and to ensure that he wasn’t using the smoke dragon in some unsavory way. If only he could. There were stories of the smoke dragon that had caused difficulty for him. Which meant that the smoke dragon was still with him, even if he had never felt it again.

  Maybe the dragon disappeared in the evenings while he was sleeping, or perhaps that was what the smoke dragon was doing when he failed to reach its power. Ty certainly didn’t know what was going on with the dragon or why it wouldn’t react to him the way Dorian—and Gayal, he had to admit—had intended. There was something more to the smoke dragon. Whether it was simply a matter of the smoke dragon resisting his attempt to call to its power or whether it was something about his inability to use it the way that the others wanted, Ty simply did not know.

  A flicker of shadowy movement from behind caught his attention.

  It was subtle. Something like a slipping of shadows along the street.

  Dorian. It had to be.

  He must’ve been here, using the shadows and the dragons in order to scare him—or to follow him. It wouldn’t be all that difficult for Dorian to use all of his dragons to conceal his presence.

  It might even be Albion. He had pulled impossible jobs, jobs that eve
n were beyond anything that he had ever considered. That would be incredibly valuable—especially as a thief. Using shadows like that would make someone a true Dragon Thief.

  Ty started forward, now paying more attention to that feeling of movement behind him. It was still there, and he tried to ignore it, thinking that maybe he could loop around and lose Dorian, though that would involve his knowing the city in a way he didn’t. Were it Zarinth, he wouldn’t have any difficulty losing someone who was trailing him. All it would take would be to duck into some side alley, slip through an ancient temple, or hide on a rooftop and let them move past. In the capital, he was at a disadvantage.

  Which was why somebody like Dorian could take advantage.

  “Now would be a good time for you to help,” Ty muttered to the smoke dragon, though he doubted that there would be any sort of response. Unfortunately, there was none. The smoke dragon remained quiet. There was no burning deep in his belly, no sense of energy that began to fill him, and nothing to suggest that the dragon was even paying any attention to him. For all he knew, the dragon had disappeared altogether.

  It was just himself and the dragon-bone dagger. Well, that and the crossbow.

  Maybe he could scare Dorian a little bit. If he thought that he was going to follow him, he could unsettle him a little as well.

  He loaded the crossbow, forcing the bolt into place, and slipped off to the side of the street, ducking into a space between two tall buildings that he thought were homes, from the way they looked. They had rocky lawns with a wall surrounding them and high, peaked roofs.

  He wouldn’t be able to wait here very long. If any of the homeowners realized that he was there, Ty would draw attention, and at a shout the city soldiers would come. He doubted Dorian wanted him to draw attention any more than Gayal had. According to both of them, he was to remain hidden, staying as unnoticeable as possible. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do something, though.

  He watched for that shadowy form to slip along the road, but there was no sign of it. Maybe he’d been wrong.