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

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Albion has decided that he wants to keep things from me,” Ty said.

  Bingham looked up, holding Ty’s gaze for a moment, but then he looked away.

  “What?” Ty said.

  “It’s nothing.”

  Ty crouched down in front of him. “What is it? You know something.”

  Bingham breathed out heavily. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. I kept waiting for it to make a difference, but…”

  “Bingham?”

  “I suspect your brother was feeling the same things that I was. The same concern for you.”

  “Albion isn’t concerned for me,” Ty said.

  “More than you probably know. Much like me. Your mother asked me to keep an eye on you, and to ensure that you were—”

  “She said what?”

  Bingham held Ty’s gaze. “Why else do you think I worked with you?”

  “I don’t know, I thought because I had an eye for relics.”

  “That much is true,” he said. “Which made you useful. But it was more than that. And had she not asked it of me, I don’t know that I would have been there to protect you.”

  Protect him?

  The idea that Bingham had done something to protect him left Ty feeling a mixture of emotions. Irritation, primarily.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me rather than keeping it from me? It’s almost like you and Albion were working behind my back.”

  “It wasn’t behind your back.”

  “It wasn’t out in the open.”

  Bingham held his gaze before turning away and looking once more at Esme. “You might be right,” he said. “I certainly am not the expert in these things. If I were, I might never have left the capital, but then if I hadn’t left I never would’ve met you.” He held Ty’s gaze for a long moment, and there was something in the way that he stared that carried a different weight, but Ty couldn’t tell what it was. “I suppose that everything worked out the way it was supposed to.”

  “Is that right?”

  Bingham cocked his head to the side, his brow furrowed. “What are you getting on about?”

  Ty debated how much to push him. He knew there was something more going on, something more than what he wanted to admit to him, but at the same time he also didn’t know if digging too hard could backfire. Maybe it didn’t matter. At the same time, he thought that there was something more he needed from him.

  “If you know about the attack, then you know they’re after something,” Ty said.

  “Of course they are,” he said, sweeping his gaze around the tavern before letting it linger on Ty. “They’ve always been after something. The challenge has been figuring out what.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “There’s something your brother told me. Did he tell you the same?”

  Ty nodded. “Albion told me what he was after. He told me why he was after it.”

  “You are disappointed it’s all about the Flame.”

  “I don’t know if I’m disappointed, or… well, maybe I’m disappointed. I guess I thought that when he finally revealed himself as the Dragon Thief, his reason behind it would be something more impressive than celebrating the Flame.”

  Bingham leaned back, clasping his hands over his belly. “There it is. You are disappointed in your brother. You don’t believe that there’s any supernatural explanation for any of these things.”

  “I think we have seen there is not.”

  “You think. That’s just it, Ty. You don’t know. And that’s what your brother is chasing. He’s chasing the same sort of information, the same sort of enlightenment, that men have chased over their lives for generations. Your brother has gone about it in his own way, but that doesn’t mean that he’s wrong in pursuing it. All it means is he’s trying.”

  Ty sighed and glanced over at the singer, listening to the words of the song for a few moments before turning back to Bingham. “I thought that when he was working as the Dragon Thief there would be some other reason behind what he’d been doing. I didn’t realize it was all going to be tied to his pursuit of the Flame.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with his pursuit of the Flame,” he said.

  “I know, but—”

  “Coming from Zarinth, I would have thought that you would have a much greater attention and attachment to the Flame.”

  Ty shrugged. “What can I say? Coming from Zarinth, having lived in the jungle as I did, and having been so close to Ishantil, I don’t see it in the same way as so many others.”

  “Perhaps you should have,” he said. He leaned back and looked over at Esme, holding her gaze.

  “I might be away from the tavern for a while. We need to find this dauvern before the Order does and they learn to control the dragons.”

  Bingham frowned at him. “That’s not your responsibility, Ty. Are you suddenly one of the king’s Tecal?”

  The comment hit so close to home that he didn’t even know how to react. For a moment, his heart stopped and he felt a fluttering of unease.

  Then he forced it into motion. He could feel a faint fluttering in his belly, that of the dragon, almost as if it were trying to react to his unease, though for whatever reason the dragon didn’t want to respond to him.

  “I’m just trying to make sure that everything my brother had sent me out running for doesn’t end up in the hands of that man.”

  “I’m not so sure that you should chase a man who was willing to kill Eastley. You should leave it to the Dragon Touched—”

  “Who might be working with him, for all we know,” Ty said.

  “Then leave it to the Tecal. You are a thief. A damn good one. That’s all that you should be focused on,” Bingham said.

  Was that all that he was?

  He didn’t think so. He thought that he was something else, but maybe he really was nothing more than a thief.

  It hurt to think of himself like that.

  Ty could feel the dragon fluttering within his belly, a faint and subtle sort of sensation but enough to remind him of the power that was lingering there deep within him. Since Dorian had pressed some power through him, activating the smoke dragon, Ty had begun to feel its presence there far more easily. The next step was trying to understand what the dragon needed from him so that he could connect to it, and offer the dragon that help, but until then having a connection of any kind was enough. It had to be.

  Getting control over the dragon was next.

  But he wasn’t sure if control was the right answer. Regardless of what Dorian and Gayal said, Ty didn’t know if that was how he wanted to treat the dragon. Maybe he could find another way of helping it.

  But he couldn’t tell Bingham any of that.

  He could tell him only that he wanted the dauvern.

  He could tell him that he wanted revenge.

  “I’m a thief,” he said softly. “And this thief is going to stop the other from succeeding.”

  “Ty—”

  Ty got to his feet and looked over at Bingham. “He killed Eastley. I’m going to make sure that I stop him. I don’t care what he’s after, but I know what he has, and I know what he might be able to do. And we are going to keep him from it.”

  Ty spun away, realizing almost too late that he had said “we.” What would that suggest to Bingham? Knowing him, he probably already suspected Ty wasn’t doing it alone, but he might not know everything.

  At least, Ty didn’t think that he did. Not yet.

  He headed upstairs, unlocked his room, and he sank down on the bed.

  In the time that he’d been staying within the capital, he’d been comfortable. At least, as comfortable as he could be in a place that wasn’t his own. The home that he had in Zarinth had been his own, and he had found a measure of relaxation, despite the kind of work he had done.

  Now he was tasked with being something other than a Dragon Thief. He had an opportunity here. If he could get control over the smoke dragon, he could learn to be a Tecal.

  He didn’t have to be a thief. Wasn�
�t that beneficial?

  It wasn’t so much that Ty cared about the ghost king or the kingdom, or anything, but he could learn how to use the dragon.

  Not only that, but the dragon might be key to getting vengeance for what happened to Eastley.

  Ty heard a knock on the door.

  “I know you’re trying to rest and you don’t want to talk to me, but I just want you to listen,” Bingham said through the door. His voice was muffled. “Be safe. Whatever you intend to do, and whoever you intend to do it with, be safe.”

  Ty had half a mind to snap at Bingham but decided against it. Bingham had been keeping things from him. Knowing how long he had been looking for his parents, he would’ve expected Bingham would have shared with him what he knew. Instead, Ty had believed himself alone.

  He had always been alone. Bingham had created something of a presence, but it wasn’t as if he had been a friend. He had taught him, trained him, and that was it. Ty had been the one to make friends.

  And now they were gone.

  But now, perhaps for the first time, he was alone in a different way.

  Ty couldn’t be the thief he had trained to be.

  He didn’t have the allies that he had acquired in his time within Zarinth. He had a dragon, but he had to find some way to connect to that smoke dragon, and if he didn’t Ty worried about what would happen to him and what would be asked of him in the future. Maybe nothing. Maybe he would never be permitted to do or be anything more.

  And without that smoke dragon…

  That was what he needed.

  Learn how to connect to the smoke dragon. Stop Roson James.

  Then he could uncover what happened to his parents.

  Finally, Ty drifted, reaching a dreamless sort of sleep, until a pounding at his door woke him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ty sat up with a start, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He had left the lantern burning on the table, and yet the light in the room was a little bit dimmer than it had been before. Not just dimmer, there were shadows swirling around the room.

  Ty jumped to his feet.

  If it was one of the Order, he had to be ready. He needed to find some way to find the smoke connection, and though he was faintly aware of that burning in his belly, doing anything more with it didn’t seem to be possible. It was there, a nagging sense buried within him, but anything more than that was faint.

  Why would they have come back for him?

  They already had the dauvern. They didn’t need him.

  He reached for his dragon-bone dagger. He had fallen asleep with it still sheathed at his side. Even though he now held it, he still didn’t feel nearly as protected as he should be.

  The darkness crept under the doorway.

  “Who is it?”

  “Open the door,” a voice said from the other side.

  It was a strange, muted voice, but it drifted through the door in a different way than it had when Bingham had been there. It was almost as if this voice was carried on a current of wind, helping force it through the door.

  Ty pulled open the door, holding up the dragon-bone dagger, to see Dorian standing on the other side. He was dressed in a black cloak, the dragons fluttering around him, the light dragon battling with the shadow dragon, and the ground beneath him practically trembling as if the stone dragon wanted to escape.

  “What is it?” He looked toward the window, but it was still dark out. He hadn’t overslept.

  These days, Ty never overslept. He had too much going on his mind, too much to work through, to even have a hope of oversleeping.

  “We need to go. I need your help.” It seemed almost pained coming from him, as if he hated to acknowledge he might need him for anything. “There has been an incident.”

  He stepped back, and it was only then that Ty realized the shadows swirled around him, obscuring him in the hallway. He suspected that with his connection to the stone dragon and the wind dragon, Dorian could completely mask his presence. Even though he’d been battering at his door to wake him up, he probably had made no noise for the rest of the tavern to hear.

  “What do you need my help with?”

  “Just come along,” he snapped.

  Ty was tempted to argue with him, but arguing wouldn’t get Ty any more information than what he already had. Instead, he grabbed for his cloak, throwing it around his shoulders, and, on a whim, he grabbed the crossbow and slipped it onto his belt as well. He had a few bolts remaining, but with enough exposure to the fake Order, he thought that he might be able to acquire more. There was something about the dragon-bone crossbow bolts that made them even more deadly and effective than the others—at least, when he wasn’t dealing with the fake Order.

  Maybe it was simply the dragon bone that made them fly true and faster, or maybe there was something about the build of the crossbow, something in it that gave the crossbow itself some power that helped enhance it. Ty hadn’t had the opportunity to study it and didn’t know if it even mattered.

  He pulled the door closed behind him, locking it, and looked over at Dorian. “How long are we going to be gone?”

  “Until we finish this assignment,” he said. “If you are going to continue your training, then you…” Dorian let out a frustrated breath. “Until we protect the dragons. Is that enough for you?”

  Ty nodded.

  Dorian turned to Ty and stretched his hands out to his sides. He clenched his jaw. The shadow dragon swirled around him, a hint of the ground rumbling, and the wind fluttered. Even as he did, there came a stirring as he attempted to pull the smoke dragon from him.

  It resisted.

  Having felt the smoke dragon reacting within him, Ty knew he could resist now, and he fought against the way that Dorian pulled on it, dragging the dragon back, solidifying it deep in his belly once again.

  “If you need the dragon so much, then just say it.”

  He regarded Ty a moment, then marched down the hallway. He waited for him in the main part of the tavern. It was darkened, and the only hint of light came from the light dragon streaming out from beneath his shadow cloak. The light shifted outward, giving just a hint of energy, enough for Ty to see the inside of the tavern. Chairs had been tipped up, resting on top of the tables, and the floorboards had been swept. Esme was neat, if nothing else.

  He pulled open the door to the tavern, stepping out into the night.

  Ty looked around the inside of the tavern a moment. This was a place of safety, at least relative safety, and as soon as he stepped out into the street, he was putting himself in danger, and for what reason?

  It wasn’t that he believed he was serving the king. Maybe he didn’t have to serve the king. Maybe what he needed to focus on was serving the dragons. He followed Dorian out and closed the door behind him.

  The night air was cool, and there was a hint of wind that gusted through, though Dorian’s cloak didn’t move with the wind the way that it should. Certainly not the way that Ty’s cloak moved. The wind was more than Dorian’s wind dragon could control, or maybe he didn’t even bother trying to control it.

  Dorian marched along the street.

  He was considerably older than Ty, but he had a sense from him of power and strength that came from more than just his connection to the dragons. There was something within Dorian himself that exuded that power and energy. He caught up to him, looking him over. He continued to try to feel for the burning within his belly.

  “Once I have the sense of the smoke dragon, how do I call on it?”

  Dorian glanced over to him. “You need to find your way of connecting. It is unique with each dragon.”

  “What about your dragons?”

  “Mine have their own uniqueness, and if I tell you the secret to how I have connect to them, then I betray that.”

  He fell silent, and Ty followed him along the street.

  “I presume the attack was with the dauvern. Otherwise you would have not needed me.”

  He frowned at him. “Why would you assum
e that?”

  Ty shrugged. “I don’t have a feeling you have that much use for me otherwise. I’m not fully trained, and I can’t use… this,” he said, swirling his hand around him and careful about not saying the word dragon out in the open, “and even if I could, I don’t have a feeling that’s what you need from me. What you need is somebody who has seen and knows the dauvern.”

  “You would be wrong,” he said softly.

  They marched forward, and in the darkness the towering form of the Dragon’s Jaw loomed over them, casting even stranger shadows than they did during the day. It was the City of Shadows at all times, but there was something else about it that was stranger still.

  Now it was the city of darkness, a place cast into almost pure night, and whether that came from Dorian and his dragon or whether that came from something with the Dragon’s Jaw radiating energy out over the street, he didn’t know.

  He was thankful he wasn’t alone.

  In Zarinth, there was always a bit of light. The city was illuminated by streetlights, but there was also movement, lanterns within windows, and there was the promise of Ishantil up in the distance, the occasional glimpse of the glowing lava pool that radiated outward, giving off enough light for anyone to make out its power in the distance.

  In the capital, there was nothing like that. There was nothing other than the threat of darkness, the threat of danger, and a reminder of the attack that he had faced when he had headed toward his brother.

  Maybe that was what troubled him the most. Maybe it had nothing to do with the darkness, but a memory of what he’d faced. He was afraid.

  The smoke dragon fluttered within him again.

  Fear?

  Did the dragon react to that?

  Why now, and why not before?

  He couldn’t get past that. As he followed Dorian through the streets, trailing after him along a narrow cobblestone path, he couldn’t shake the question he had about the dragon. Why hadn’t he responded to him? Why hadn’t he wanted to answer and help him when he had been in danger? What had prevented him from getting his help when he had needed it?

  Did he simply not care? Ty had been near death, so that didn’t make any sense.