And the way he felt it, and what he felt, told him all that he needed.
Lothinal power.
That was what he detected.
That was what was coming.
And it was moving toward them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ty couldn’t move for a moment. He stared into the distance, trying to comprehend just what he saw out there that was moving toward him, but even as he stared he wasn’t able to process what he witnessed. Something was moving toward him and moving quickly.
Power, and though it was power, and though he could feel it, he didn’t know if there was anything that he could do about it.
“What do we need to do?” Gayal asked.
Ty continued staring. “All this was planned,” he said softly. He shook his head, thinking back to what Roson had said to him. “He wanted to destroy the Flame. That was what this was all about. I don’t know how he intended to do so, but all of this was about summoning the Lothinal magic and finding a way to destroy the Flame.”
Even if he managed to summon whatever it was, he had no idea what it might do or what it might mean, only that there was a considerable amount power within it and that he felt as if he needed to try to better understand it.
He focused, breathing out, and connected to the smoke dragon. The energy was there, buried deep within him, and as he reached for it he thought that he could find a way to connect to it. When he did, he could use his energy and send it away from him.
The dragon connected, and heat and warmth flowed through him, working from his head to his feet and then back up. It was a comfortable sort of warmth, a warmth that radiated through him, and a warmth that suggested there was a kind of power within him, one that came from the union of himself and the dragon. The power joined them together. He had been waiting for so long to know that sense, that it felt odd for him to feel it now. That it had taken this long.
“It might have been planned,” Dorian said, staring off into the distance, “but there is nothing we can do about it.”
Ty didn’t know if that was true or not. As he stared, he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something out there coming toward them, but it was more than just that.
He cocked his head to the side, frowning as he turned and looked behind him. “He was afraid.”
“Of the Flame,” Gayal said.
He stared down into the lava lake, what was left of it. “He was afraid of the Flame. He’s afraid of what it might mean, afraid of how to get to it.”
Ty squeezed his eyes shut and started thinking through everything that he had encountered ever since learning of the Dragon Thief. That was what this was all about, wasn’t it? It was tied to what his brother had done. It was tied to how they had used him—and he had been used.
It was tied to a power and to something more.
Ty continued focusing, working through everything that he had encountered, everything that he’d seen, and he tried to think about what he had learned.
Roson James had been looking for something.
What if he had used the egg and the eruption to prove that there was a dragon within the volcano, and then he needed the dauvern. Only then could he have been able to do what he intended, used that for the reason that he had intended, and targeted the dragon.
It didn’t make sense with what he had done at the other places of the Flame.
Unless he had intended to summon other dragons. Perhaps there were more.
If so, where they trapped like this?
Maybe there was nothing that could be done for them.
He had been looking for the origin of the Flame.
That was the reason he had searched.
All that time, everything that he’d gone through and everything that he had done had been with that purpose. He had intended to try to grasp the power of the dragon, and he had done it so that he could wreak havoc.
Ty understood that now. And in understanding it, he wondered if he might be able to use what he had learned. He stared into the distance, focusing on the lava lake.
“We have to save the dragon,” he said.
“What dragon?” Dorian asked.
“There is no way to save it,” Gayal said, getting close to him and lowering her voice. There was a heat to her words.
Ty looked up at her, locking eyes with her darkened expression, and he shook his head. “We have to save the dragon.”
“How do you expect to do that?”
Ty didn’t know.
He didn’t even know if there was any way to do so.
Still, Ishantil continued to rumble.
That might only be from the way the power had been tamped down and the lava had been solidified, but he didn’t think that was entirely it. He stared at the cooling lava lake and tried to think about what might be involved, but even as he stared at it, he couldn’t come up with anything.
“What dragon?” Dorian asked.
“Apparently, there is a dragon in the lake,” Gayal said.
“When the priests were performing the ceremony, I think I saw it,” Ty said. “At the time, I thought it was my imagination, but now that I know there is something more here, I can’t help but feel as if perhaps the dragon was showing itself to me. That’s what Roson is after.”
“He’s trying to destroy the Flame, you said,” Gayal said.
He nodded. “They are connected somehow. I don’t entirely know what it is, or how it is, but they are somehow connected. And he’s afraid. Either he’s afraid of that dragon, or he’s afraid of the power, or…” Ty focused, frowning to himself. He didn’t think the dragon could be the Flame. That didn’t seem possible at all, but maybe that dragon, the lava dragon that he had seen, was somehow the embodiment of the Flame.
It made a certain sort of sense. Not that he could truly believe that the dragon was the Flame, at least, not that he wanted to believe, but at the same time, if it was the Flame, if that was the power Roson feared, then why not draw upon it, borrow it, and see if they could use it?
He turned back. Behind him, the Lothinal magic continued to move toward them, flowing with speed and energy and darkening everything down below. When he focused on it, he could feel the fluttering of the dragon deep within him.
It was the energy of the smoke dragon.
That dragon feared the Lothinal magic.
Ty knew he should fear it as well.
If it managed to reach them, there would be nothing they could do.
That was why they had to take some sort of action and find answers. Only, he had no idea what those answers were going to be or how to find them. Ty focused on the smoke dragon.
“I’m going to need your help,” he whispered.
“You have our help,” Gayal said.
Ty shook his head. “Not yours. The dragon.”
Gayal frowned at him. “You’re trying to talk to it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know any other way to do it. And in order to get the dragon’s help, I think I need to talk to him so that I can coax him into helping.” He had no idea if it would even work, but maybe it wasn’t just about him.
He looked at the others. All of them were Tecal, and…
It might not be enough, but what if it could be? He glanced back at the spreading darkness.
“Dorian. Do you still have a connection to the wind?”
“I do.”
“Can you use that and summon the other Tecal here?”
Dorian had proven that he could use the wind to reach Gayal, so perhaps there would be another purpose of the wind. Maybe he could connect to the Tecal.
“I can try,” Dorian said.
He looked back behind him toward the cooling lava lake. Sections of it had already started to blacken and thicken, forming rock.
In time it would cool completely.
“We have to save the dragon before Lothinal magic reaches here.”
If that power were able to reach these lands, with the cooled pool of the lava lake and the dragons someho
w suppressed down inside it…
Ty didn’t want to think what might happen. He suspected he knew, though. He suspected that it was one way that they would use their power to suppress the dragon, and then it wouldn’t take much more to destroy the dragon. That was what he had to stop.
He needed to stave off that damage, and if he could, then perhaps the dragon might be able to withstand the coming of Lothinal magic. If they couldn’t, then it might not even matter. What he would have to do instead would be something else. He figured that having the Tecal here would be beneficial.
“We have to stop this or we won’t be able to save the kingdom.”
Dorian glanced at Gayal. Her shadow cloak swirled, drifting out around her, as if it were trying to determine how much of this was dangerous and how much of this was real. Ty didn’t need to show her. She was going to find out on her own.
“I think he’s right,” Gayal said.
“A half-trained man who only came to know his dragon recently is right?” Dorian asked.
“A half-trained man who has seen a dragon none of us have. A half-trained man who has been the one to help expose what Roson James and the others were doing on behalf of the Lothinal. A half-trained man who—”
“You have made your point,” Dorian said.
“I could go on,” Gayal said.
Dorian shot her a look. “That would be unnecessary.”
He turned and peered into the distance before closing his eyes. The wind began to work around him, swirling with a quick intensity, and as he stared into the distance and as the wind kicked up he held his hands up above his head.
He looked old.
When he had first met Dorian, there had been something about him that struck Ty as powerful, unique, and intriguing. Maybe it was the way that he connected to the dragons, the fact that he had control over multiple dragons, and how he had attempted to summon the power of his dragon. In this case, now that he saw him standing there, no cloak around him, wearing nothing but his jacket and pants, both of which seemed a little bit too saggy on him, he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something off about him.
Old.
How old was he?
It was not a polite question to ask, but as he stared at him, he could see the wrinkles around Dorian’s eyes deepening as he summoned the power from the dragon. Not only that. It came from him.
They were connected. Bonded, and he suspected that when the other dragons had been tossed into the lava lake, something had changed for them and had changed for him. In tearing those dragons away from him, it had tormented him. It had aged him. It had weakened him.
The wind started to fade, dying down and then disappearing altogether.
“It is done,” Dorian said softly.
“How long will it take for them to answer?”
Dorian took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and he could tell that he was tired, weakened by what he’d done, and he nodded to Gayal to answer.
“All of the dragons have ways of traveling, but some are faster than others.”
Ty looked behind him, staring into the distance, watching as the Lothinal magic continued to spread and worrying that it wouldn’t be fast enough. The darkness came toward them, washing like an avalanche streaking downhill, and though it came from a distance it was moving toward them like a fog spreading across the distant forest.
“We need to get down to the dragon,” Ty said.
Gayal just nodded and wrapped the shadows around them. With a stirring of movement, they headed down the slope. When they stepped free, they were once again on the shoreline of the lava lake.
Ty stared into the cooling lake and focused on what he could feel there. He wondered just how much of it he might be able to uncover, but there was a strange sort of energy.
What if he could call to the lava dragon?
There had to be some way to do that, didn’t there? He could feel that power, that energy, and he could feel the rumbling, and it suggested to him that there should be some way for him to reach for that, only…
Only he didn’t know how to do so.
Ty focused on the smoke dragon.
“Can you reach for that dragon?”
The smoke dragon stirred, and yet there was no real response.
Maybe there was nothing that it could do to help.
Or maybe he had to try harder and coax the dragon out of him.
Given everything that they gone through so far, he didn’t know if he had the necessary strength. It was possible that he was too tired, too exhausted, and that the dragon needed more energy than he had available.
He tried again, focusing on the energy within him, but there was nothing. No reaction. No change to the smoke dragon, only the faint stirring within him that told him that he was there, that he understood that he needed help, but that he refused to respond.
A chill whipped in the air, and he looked over to see a grizzled man arriving. He had silver hair, flat blue eyes, and looked even older than Dorian had suddenly looked. He was dressed in a jacket of pale blue or almost white and matching pants, and a fog swirled around him.
He looked at Dorian first, frowning. “What happened?” the man snapped. He had a deep, booming voice, and it carried with it the sound that suggested he was accustomed to command.
“We were attacked,” Dorian said. “I lost three of my dragons.”
“How?”
“They were Lothinal and used their magic.”
The man frowned again. “They should not have been able to do so.”
“They’ve slaughtered the king’s dragons as well,” Gayal said.
The newcomer nodded to Ty. “And who is he?”
“A new recruit,” Gayal said. “He has potential.”
“Are you sure this is the right place for him?”
“You can ask me,” Ty said. He took a step toward him, frowning, and focused on the energy of the smoke dragon swirling within him. There had to be something that he could call upon, but… “Let me see. You have a fog dragon?”
The man scoffed, turning and looking at Dorian. “Is this a game? You sent word, which is most unusual.”
“Most,” Dorian said. “As is everything else.” He motioned to the lava lake. “Look.”
The man turned, shrugging. “I’ve seen similar. Why should we be concerned with that?”
“Because according to him, there is a fully formed dragon inside the lava. Or, there had been. Now we don’t know if there is, and we don’t know if the cooling lava will have harmed the dragon.”
Ty suspected that whatever had happened would have impacted the dragon, but he didn’t say anything to them. There was no point in continuing to argue.
“I told you what I saw,” he said to Dorian.
“Why are we here?” the man asked.
“You are here, Icarn, because the Dragon Touched have been infiltrated by Lothinal, and they now are attempting to destroy the kingdom using a dragon that’s been hiding in the volcano Ishantil.” Dorian glanced over to Ty for a moment. “I think that about sums it up.”
Thunder rumbled and there came a streak of lightning, and a small, almost delicate-appearing woman strode forward. She had on a yellow jacket and pants, and the cloak that swirled behind her shoulders struck Ty as the hazy mist of a fog.
“Dorian. Icarn.” She glanced over at Gayal. “And Gayal. Of course.”
“Oliana.” Gayal nodded to Ty before striding across and joining him.
“They have such interesting dragons,” Ty said.
Gayal glanced at him. “You might have to ignore the dragons. It will be many Tecal, and many dragons. At least, as many as there can be.”
The other newcomer, Oliana, frowned.
“What is—”
Dorian interrupted her and shared the same story that he had imparted to the others.
“How is it that there have been dragons of such power that we have not seen before? It is unusual, isn’t it?” Oliana asked.
“Perhaps
they have hidden,” Dorian said softly.
Or perhaps they were dormant, waiting.
And given what the priests believed about the Manifestation of the Flame, Ty wondered if there was some connection to it.
Ty had only known about the dragon in the lava because his brother had tossed the egg there, as if he had known that it would hatch, that it would somehow become a part of the power of the volcano. Maybe he had. Albion did serve the Flame, perhaps more so than most who claimed to do so.
Ty had needed to be here. He needed answers.
He just wished that he didn’t feel so out of his depth.
If he had a better connection to the smoke dragon, perhaps he wouldn’t feel that way.
If he had not come here, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to stop Roson James. And then he wouldn’t have uncovered some truths about his mother, perhaps about his family.
Several others arrived. There were two other men and two other women, and each of them had strange cloaks of energy that swirled around them, power that suggested it came from dragons.
If only he could somehow use a cloak in the same way.
Every so often, a rumbling erupted, an echoing of power that came from someplace nearby, near enough that he knew he needed to be concerned about it. Every so often, he could feel it coming up from Ishantil itself, buried deep as if it were going to erupt. This time, Ty didn’t know if there would be any way to stop the eruption. Maybe Zarinth would be destroyed entirely.
The others of the Tecal began to surround the lava lake, though he didn’t have a feeling that they did so with any sort of intentionality. He could feel the energy coming off them, but there was nothing more that he could identify. Just the power that was there, some energy that existed, something that suggested that there was a burst of magic, only Ty had no idea whether that magic would be effective.
Somehow, he knew they needed to stop the attack on the lava dragon.
“Ty?”
He glanced back to see Gayal watching him. “I can feel something,” he said.
“You need to be careful,” she said.
He frowned, looking out into the distance toward the center of the lava lake. The lava there had hardened completely around the platform.
Smoke and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Progression Series (The Dragon Thief Book 3) Page 26
