“You again,” I said.
She shrugged. “I wondered if I might find you,” she said. “I hadn’t been certain, but here you are.”
“Here I am,” I said.
“You don’t have to be disappointed to see me,” she said.
“It’s not disappointment,” I said. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Then don’t let me get in the way.”
I frowned. “I’m not so sure I should be practicing around somebody else yet.”
“Why? Are you afraid you might lose control over it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I’m not concerned.”
I turned my attention back to the dragon pen, holding my hands closer together. For a moment, power flared up within me, growing more vibrant and intense, but then I eased it off, letting some of that energy fade and dissipate just a little bit as I started to wrap the connection together.
I could control it when I wove it together like that.
Interesting. Now for me to try to do different things with it.
“That reminds me of my mother,” Natalie said, scooting closer to me. She seemed unconcerned about the heat from the flames stretching off of me, though there really wasn’t much heat, just flames. I suspected they could burn, but that would require an intention to do so. I had to push harder through them in order for them to truly burn. It was a strange piece of the dragon magic I’d learned. Holding on in this way created fire, but it wasn’t traditional fire.
“How does it remind you of your mother? Was she a dragon mage?”
Natalie looked down at my hands, watching me twist my fingers as the power wove together. “She wasn’t a dragon mage. She knitted, and I still have a few of the blankets she made for me.”
There was something in the way she said it that caught my attention. “What happened to her?”
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “She was lost,” she said softly.
Like my father. “How?”
Natalie looked up, meeting my eyes. “You don’t want to hear about that. Besides, you were busy practicing. I seem to recall you saying that you didn’t necessarily want somebody watching.”
“I wasn’t trying to dissuade you from staying here,” I said.
Natalie chuckled and leaned back, resting her hands on the grass as she watched me. Her hair was loose today, and she shook her head, getting it off of her shoulders. She was dressed in a pale blue gown, far more formal than I would’ve expected for somebody attached to the Academy in any way. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. She had been coming here the last week or more studying the dragons.
Could she be the person responsible for the missing dragons?
I had a hard time thinking that, as I’d seen no sign of a connection to the dragons from her in the time that I’ve been here. If she did have one, she hid it well.
Unless she was working with someone else.
She kept coming here. That had to matter. I should be on edge, but when I was around Natalie, I found myself on edge for different reasons.
“You aren’t a part of the Academy,” I said. “Not a student, at least. You aren’t dressed like any servant I’ve seen in the Academy.” There were dozens upon dozens of servants who worked within the Academy walls. As employees, they moved around practically unseen. Most were dressed in white, though I’d seen several wearing black clothes embroidered with dragon scales to make it look as if they were wearing the dragons themselves. They tended to serve people of higher rank within the Academy.
“You can just ask me what I’m doing here,” she said.
I shrugged. “I was hoping you’d tell me.”
“I’ve been curious about the dragons,” she said. “Others within the city aren’t prevented from coming here. I think the king is more than happy to have people aware of the protections the dragons offer.”
I turned my attention back to the dragon pen, holding on to the power flowing through me. I could feel the energy stretching between my fingers, pressing out of one side and into the other. I tried to continue to hold on to that power, weaving it as much as I could, and as I did, I attempted to do something more with it. I still couldn’t.
“Have you tried stretching it out from you?”
“I’m limited on how it works,” I said. “It seems to need to cycle through me.”
“I’ve seen other dragon mages who can unleash power away from them,” she said.
“You’ve seen that?”
“I have been in the city longer than you,” she said.
“I can try, but my concern is that I don’t have enough control over it to let it flow outward.”
“You won’t know unless you try.”
She was right. In the time that I had been working with the dragon, feeling for that power, I had come to know the power came from the dragon and through me, but I hadn’t done anything with it. Maybe that was something I needed to change. I could try to see if I could loop it out and away from me.
I got to my feet. I wasn’t going to do this seated. If something happened and I lost control over the power, I wanted to be ready to run. Not only to get away from the possible explosion of power, but also to go and get help if needed.
“You might want to get up,” I said.
Natalie shrugged, staying where she was. “I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“I don’t know. I might lose control over it.”
She watched me. “You said that before, but it didn’t happen.”
“If it does, I’m going to feel bad about burning you.”
She leaned close, getting near the flames stretching out from my fingers. “Do you really think you would burn me up? That hasn’t happened so far,” she said.
I frowned. Maybe it wouldn’t burn her. But I wasn’t sure if the shift in my connection to the dragon would make a difference.
I held on to that power, connecting to it, letting it flow out from me, and feeling the energy as it worked outward. Power circled, and I stretched my hands out, tamping down the power so I could pull it around in a cycle, but also attempting to try to keep it from spreading too far from me.
It created a loop of power that stretched outward. At first it did so only a little, looping out from my hands, still circling through me, but the more I held on to that energy, the more I looped the power around, the easier it was for me to feel a connection form.
I began to push it out.
It was strange to realize I had that kind of control over it, but I could send it sweeping out from my hands, in a spiral around me. I could control it.
The flames arced out about five paces from me. It was a wide band. I tried something different, attempting to restrict it, to narrow the band a little bit and see if I could tighten it.
It worked.
The band of power narrowed, constricting, and I attempted to tighten it even more. Doing so required I forced down the power within me, but that became increasingly easier the longer that I did it.
Could I force it even farther from me?
“Can you do more than one band?” Natalie asked.
I shook my head. I looked back at Natalie, my jaw set in concentration, trying to focus, but more than that, trying not to lose focus. I had the feeling that if I were to do so, I would find that power devastating.
“I don’t know. When I did it before, it was through my fingers.”
“Why would this be any different?”
It was such a practical question, and I was certain she was right. Why would it be any different?
I tried to push it out from two of my fingers, circling it back around as I pushed. When it happened, I kept focus.
Could I split power out of my other fingers?
I created two separate bands of power that circled around before looping back into me. They sizzled from my fingertips, and in doing so, stretched from one to the next, distinct lines of energy that crackled in the air, and yet I felt no heat from them. It amazed me that I was ab
le to do even this. Somehow, I had to try more.
If I could do two, could I do three?
I forced a third band from my thumbs. Doing that was increasingly difficult. I wasn’t pushing it all that far from me, but it was hard. Eventually, I would lose control, but for now it held.
The next challenge would be attempting to do something with it, to manipulate that power. I tried to maneuver it.
At first, nothing seemed to happen.
I wanted to braid it.
Then it happened slowly. I started to manipulate it from one side, twisting the power as it stretched out from me, and as it did, it gradually began to take on the form of a braided rope of flame.
When it struck my opposite hand, it was much more intense than it had been before. The pattern had done something to it. I sucked in a breath.
“What is it?” she asked me.
I glanced over to her. “I don’t know. It feels different in this form, especially when it returns to my body.”
“Could the pattern make a difference?”
I nodded. “That’s my suspicion, though I don’t entirely know how.”
“Can you change the pattern?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how to create anything other than a braid.”
“Well, there are other ways you can form three strands. Try wrapping one of them around.”
The idea that I might be able to use the flames in that way was strange, but then again, so was the idea I had braided the strands of fire.
I tamped down the power, bringing my hands together and collapsing my connection to the dragon, before stretching them out again and forcing the flames out from one hand to another. In doing so, I started to wrap the thumb strand around the other two. It happened very slowly. It was as if that strand crawled along. I continued to weave it, spiraling around it, and by the time it reached my other hand, I could barely contain it. It was incredibly powerful. I struggled to keep my hands together.
“What is it?” Natalie asked, getting close to me now. “I can see something is off.”
I couldn’t hold on to it.
My hands were forced apart. The band of power exploded out from me, shooting up into the sky in an arc of flame. I tried to control it, tried to bring my hands back together, but I couldn’t. The power and the flames were too much. I struggled. I needed to separate from the dragon.
Unfortunately, with the way I’d woven the one strand around the other two, I couldn’t anymore. I tried, attempting to loosen the connection, to unwind that power, but it didn’t seem to work.
Somehow, I was going to have to find a way. I had to release that over-woven strand.
I forced it out of my hand, tamping down the thumb strand, and then shifted focus to the other two. Without that band wrapped around them, I could ease them back. I squeezed my hands together slowly, finally bringing them back together, forcing the heat and fire out of them.
I let out a long sigh. “That’s better,” I whispered.
“It’s interesting how such a little change makes a big difference,” she said.
“I shouldn’t be doing this without having an instructor with me. I’m sure I would be chastised for attempting anything without having somebody to guide me.” Thomas would certainly reprimand me. Maybe not Donathar. When he’d worked with me, it had been almost friendly. The other instructors all seemed like they wanted me to succeed as well.
“You mean the same instructors who weren’t able to help you learn how to reach for this power in the first place?”
I chuckled. “I suppose those same instructors.”
“Then maybe they wouldn’t know.”
I didn’t know if that were true. “It’s possible,” I said.
“And if they don’t know, then why would you be concerned about appeasing them?”
“It’s not a matter of appeasing them. It’s a matter of making sure I know what I’m doing and not trying to use power that I’m not meant to.”
She laughed. “Have you always been like this? So compliant? It seems you’re looking for permission to use power you’re connected to. You don’t need to wait for somebody else to tell you what you can do. If you have that power, then you should use it.” She chuckled, grinning at me. “I would’ve thought a farmer from beyond the forest would have a little bit more independence.”
“When I was on the farm, I did. I had to. You have to get the work done.”
“Why is this so different?”
I looked down at my hands, at the power I could feel still there. There was a faint sense of pressure from the dragon, the connection that seemed to want to course outward, stretching between my hands, flowing from one side of me to the other as it drifted from the dragon.
“You should use the connection you have. Figure it out by yourself. And if your teachers can help you, let them, but maybe you shouldn’t be afraid of what you might learn on your own.”
Behind me came a mournful howl.
I recognized that sound. It was that of a mesahn.
Natalie sat up and turned to look into the forest.
“That’s just one of the mesahn,” I said softly.
“You recognize them?”
I nodded. “I’ve seen one before. I know they’re powerful. If there are mesahn, it means the king’s Hunters are out there. Probably hunting for the dragons that’ve been missing.”
There was a surprising lack of reaction from her. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said, settling back to the ground. She still sat with a bit of tension in her, and I wanted to try to reassure her, but I didn’t know if I could say anything that would.
Instead, I started to practice with the flames again. As soon as I did, she turned her attention back to me, focusing on the way that I wrapped fire around itself. I wanted to master that technique a bit before heading in for the night—if I could, then perhaps I could use that when I worked with Thomas or any of the other instructors again.
“You might see if you can add a fourth strand,” she said softly. “You can do more with it than you can with three.”
I frowned. So far, my attempts of pushing out strands of power had been tied to using my fingers, and I wondered if I could focus power that way.
Start small.
Three strands had worked, but could I do four? What about five?
I harnessed the power, focusing on it as it passed from one hand to the next, and gradually began to separate my hands. When I did, those five strands formed. I smiled to myself.
It was difficult holding on to that connection well enough that I could maintain each individual strand, but as I separated my hands, I began to push power out from one hand to the next, and tried to twist that power. I wasn’t attempting to weave it in any way, but merely to twist it. It was not going to be a complicated wrap at all. Even twisting it, though, left a considerable burst of power going from one hand to the next.
I had to loosen the way that I twisted it, not wanting to force quite so much out from me. In doing so, I could feel the pressure beginning to ease.
What would happen if I extended how far I pushed it from myself?
I trembled, trying to pull my hands apart, using that power so I could call more magic through the dragon. I connected to the power, holding my hands apart, letting each strand stretch between my fingers. It worked slowly, and I struggled to hold on to the power, trying to twist it in a way that allowed the energy to flow between my fingers. As I held my hands apart, I could feel the power forming, and I hoped that my attempt to twist it would permit me to use it more effectively. Unfortunately, even though I pulled on that magic, I didn’t have enough focus for it.
I sagged back, holding the heat between me, tamping down the flow from the dragon through one side of me and to the other. As I did, I began to feel a steady simmering deep within me—heat and energy and magic, all of it threatening to bubble up.
“That’s it?” Natalie asked.
“I’ve done about as much as I can,” I said. “I hav
en’t used it this much . . . well, ever.” I held my hands out, feeling for the power and heat that radiated from the dragon, through me, and breathed out slowly. “I’m trying to control it, but it’s too much.”
“Maybe you’ll impress your instructor when you see him next.”
I breathed out, holding on to the power within me, feeling that energy as it flowed up through me, trying to push it from one hand to another, but gave up when I recognized that the power was too faint.
Looking to the Academy, I sighed.
Natalie followed, standing and looking at me. “Are you going?” She took my hand. “We could walk.”
“Walk?”
She chuckled. “You know, by using our legs. I imagine a dragon mage such as yourself would much prefer to ride atop a dragon, but some of us aren’t quite that lucky.”
I laughed softly. “I’ve only ridden on a dragon once, and that was a bit terrifying, if I’m being honest.”
“But you have ridden a dragon,” she said.
I closed my eyes, thinking about how it had felt when I had soared with the dragon. “When I was a child, I wanted to know what it would be like to ride on a dragon. I remember the first time I saw one of them, and the king’s riders, and I remembered just how impressive they were. At that time, I dreamed I would one day be able to be a rider like that.”
“And now you are,” Natalie said, guiding me around the dragon pen and toward the road leading away from the Academy.
“What about you? What did you dream of when you were younger?”
“Many things,” she said. “Mostly, I wanted normalcy.”
I frowned. “Normalcy?”
She nodded. “My life has not always been what you would consider straightforward. We moved around quite a bit, and that made it difficult to make friends.”
“How long have you been in the city?” I asked.
“Well, not nearly as long as some, but longer than you,” she said, chuckling again.
I shook my head. “I didn’t realize you haven’t been in the city that long.”
The Betrayed Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 2) Page 15
