“I don’t want to encounter anything like that,” he said.
I chuckled. “We just have to be prepared.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re faster than me.”
I started to smile. “Well, I only have to outrun you.”
We continued moving away from the clearing. With each step, I felt as if I was abandoning my sister.
If we were able to catch up with that woman, then we might be able to learn new information.
We could make a plan, figure out who and what we had to deal with, then rescue Alison.
Finally, as we turned at a slight bend in the Djarn path, I saw a faint movement along the road. I paused and pointed. Joran nodded.
We crept along the forest edge, and then I stopped across the path from the figure.
For a moment, I thought it might be the young woman who had escaped from the second wagon, but the shape wasn’t quite right. She had been thin and moved quickly. This person was shorter and moved with an almost dignified manner. The Academy woman.
“You two really are stupid, aren’t you?” her voice said from the darkness. It was soft as it carried across the path to us. She strode across and grabbed both Joran and I at the same time, spinning us away from the path. She was stronger than she looked. “What do the two of you think you’re doing?”
“I thought we rescued you,” I said, shaking my arm out of her grip. “What happened back there?”
“You aren’t one of the Djarn, so what are you doing in the forest?” the woman asked.
“Did the Djarn kidnap you?” Joran asked carefully.
The woman regarded him for a moment. “What kind of stupid question is that?” She eyed Joran’s knife, then with a flash of heat and a flicker of flame, she snapped it out of his hand. “Don’t think that just because I was captured before means that you can do the same,” she said to him.
A dragon mage.
I’d never met a dragon mage. Now there was one standing in front of us.
And she’d been held captive.
“How did they capture you?” I asked, while Joran leaned down to look at the ground.
“Getting back to the same question again, are you? The Vard aren’t helpless when it comes to dragon mages. They know how to neutralize our talents.”
So it was the Vard.
“We’re looking for my sister. She was selected by the Academy—by you—in Berestal, but then we came to understand that the caravan had been attacked.”
She looked back the way we’d come. “Attacked. Destroyed. Slaughtered is more like it.”
With each word, something within me went cold. I went rigid, tensing, and Joran shook his head.
“Were there any survivors?” What if we’d ventured into the forest but Alison wasn’t even here? I hadn’t considered the possibility that she could already be dead.
I still didn’t want to consider that as a possibility.
“Only if they would be of any use,” the woman said.
“What kind of use?” Joran asked.
“Whatever kind the Vard thinks they need,” she snapped. “What do you think? It’s a wonder they kept me alive. What’s your name?” she asked, looking from me to Joran.
Joran and I shared a looked. “Joran Stone.”
“Stone? That’s a strange name for Berestal. And you?”
“Ashan Feranth.”
She pressed her lips together as she frowned. “I’m Elaine Restau, Mistress of Dragons at the Academy.”
“You’re a dragon mage, but not the one I saw at the testing,” I said.
Her eyes darkened for a moment. “That would be Thomas, Chief Dragon Mage.”
Elaine glanced toward the Djarn path. There was movement on the other side , a dark shape that weaved through the shadows. I started forward, holding on to my knife.
She grabbed my wrist, pulling me back. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she cautioned.
“Do what?”
“Think that you can attack the mesahn.”
“I wasn’t thinking of attacking anything,” I said. “I saw something moving. I don’t know if it was a wolf, camin, or even that other woman.”
Elaine turned to me. “What woman?”
“What is a mesahn?” Joran asked.
I shook my head, wanting to keep him from saying something that might upset her. Besides, that wasn’t the answer we needed.
“There was a woman in the second wagon,” I said. “I popped open the hatch, but the men had gotten too close before I had a chance to help her.”
“What did she look like? We didn’t necessarily leave our cages, so to speak.” Elaine asked me.
“Dark hair. Pale skin.”
“Where did she go?”
“Into the trees,” I said.
“Did you see which direction?”
“I didn’t see much of anything. She disappeared before I could.”
Elaine growled softly in irritation. “You’re going to have to help me find her.”
“You don’t need my help. I’m going after my sister. Do you know if she’s still…” I couldn’t finish. I didn’t want to acknowledge that Alison might be dead. “I don’t know what to tell you about your sister. It’s possible she still lives, but enough people were killed when they took us that I can’t say for certain.”
Joran watched me, as his brow furrowed. “What is a mesahn?” Joran asked again.
Elaine turned to us, glaring from one to the other with a hard stare. She wore the expression of someone accustomed to giving orders and not having her answers questioned. It was an air of authority. “A mesahn is a dangerous creature. Nearly as large as a horse, they’re like wolves, only worse. They can move silently through the forest or even out on the plains. They’re powerful creatures and have been known to hunt dragons with their owners.”
“They hunt dragons?” Joran asked. His eyes wide. “And they have owners?”
“They have a man working with them. Trainers, such as they might be. And the mesahn have been known to hunt dragons. Not that they do. Generally, they are not found in these lands.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” he said, turning to me.
There were the pawprints that I’d seen and the strange growling that I had noticed. When I had come into the forest before, I could’ve sworn that I had seen something. Maybe that was this creature.
“The mesahn was trying to attack the caravan,” I said, thinking of the scratch marks that I had seen on the wagons. “Those men were concerned about it.”
“As they should be,” she said. “The mesahn are dangerous and unpredictable. Come on. You saw the woman leave?” Elaine asked, eyeing me.
I nodded in response.
“I need your help finding her. She’s from the Wilds,” Elaine said.
“No one lives in the Wilds,” Joran said, starting to laugh.
“Just like no one lives in the forest here? Just because you haven’t seen it and experienced it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. And I need to find her.”
“We need to help his sister, not some random woman.”
And who would probably end up being captured by the Djarn if anything.
That might be better than running into the Vard.
She pressed her lips into a tight frown. “Seeing as how you got me out of there, I might as well give you some answers. At least explain why it would be a fool’s errand to go after that caravan and your sister, if she’s even still alive.”
“She’s still alive,” I said softly.
There was a dark expression in her eyes as she swept her gaze around the forest before turning her attention back to me. “I hope for your sake she is.”
13
We followed Elaine through the forest, heading in the general direction of the wagons, though not quite following the Djarn path like we had before. As we navigated through the trees, I couldn’t help but feel as if I was overlook
ing something.
I looked over to Joran, but he kept his gaze fixed on her. “What is it?”
“Something’s not quite right,” he said.
“Obviously. The Vard decided to attack the Academy caravan on the plains and capture a dragon mage.” I shook my head, thinking of the power that I’d seen back in the city during the testing. How could anyone overpower that? “And we are somehow stuck in the middle of it.”
“ We’ve chosen to get into the middle of it. And I’m starting to think that maybe we need to get away.” Joran’s voice had taken on more of an edge to it. Fear filled his voice.
“Not until we get Alison back.”
“If she can’t get Alison back, then no one can. I know that going to the marshal might not make a lot of sense to you, but that seems better to me.” He looked at me, practically begging me to leave the forest. “At least the marshal can get word to the king about the Vard attack. They need to know.”
“I’m going after Alison.”
“You can’t do that. We need to get help.”
I stopped and looked over at him. “You wanted us to get help. This seems to me better help than going to the marshal,” I said.
“Is it?” He nodded to Elaine. “Look at her. You saw what she did. How do you think that the Vard managed to grab ahold of her? What do you think they’ll do if they get a hold of one of us?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know.”
“And then they destroyed the entire caravan.” He looked over to me. “When my mother talked about the Vard, she never mentioned anything like that before.”
“What do you mean? ”
Joran looked away.
I grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at me. “Joran? What are you keeping from me?”
Joran looked over for a moment before looking down at the ground, as if unwilling to meet my gaze. “I’m not keeping anything from you.”
“It seems like you are.” I frowned, thinking of some of the conversations that I’d had with him and some of the conversations that I’d overheard. “Your mother is one of the Vard sympathizers, isn’t she?”
He let out a soft sigh. “I don’t know if I would call her a sympathizer or actually one of the Vard,” he said, making a point of not looking at me, but keeping his voice low enough that Elaine couldn’t hear it. Joran glanced over. “Not everybody wants to be a part of the kingdom. My mother is from an older generation. She misses when we were independent, when we were allowed to rule ourselves.”
Elaine glanced back at us, shooting us an annoyed look. “Would the two of you be quiet? We must find that girl before the Vard capture her again.”
“Did you know what they were planning? Did you know they’d go after my sister?”
“I don’t think she was a part of what happened to your sister,” Joran said. “I don’t really know what they do, other than talk about what they consider a time before, when they didn’t have to worry about the king.”
“The king leaves us well enough alone.”
“Out on the plains, maybe, but it’s different in Berestal,” Joran said.
“But you live out on the plains,” I said. It felt ridiculous that I had to have this conversation with him now, and in this place.
“I do. My mother came from the city, though. It’s different for her. She still has family there. I told you about my family, what happened with them and the—” he lowered his voice “—the Vard. We were nobles. I don’t think my mother ever gave up on that.”
We reached a small clearing as Elaine motioned for us to stop. I glanced over to Joran, not sure how to feel about what he shared. I knew some of the people of Berestal viewed the king as a dangerous influence. Maybe he was. I didn’t have a strong feeling one way or the other. I didn’t know what to make of what he’d told me, but now wasn’t the time to try and process all of it. I had to keep my focus on finding Alison. Elaine gathered a pile of small branches before holding her hands out in front of them, and then a small fire began to crackle. “Take a seat,” she said.
I flicked a gaze to Joran briefly. “Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” I asked.
“You know what’s going on,” she said. This time, she watched Joran, her gaze lingering on him, almost as if she knew that Joran had admitted his family was sympathetic to the Vard cause. Maybe she had overheard it.
Joran settled down on a fallen log near the edge of the clearing. If it came down to us needing to get out of here without Elaine’s help, I wasn’t sure that we would be able to do it.
“We traveled out here to see if there were any people with potential as riders. Not that most of us expected there to be. To be honest, the Academy has chosen to avoid the outskirts of the kingdom for that reason. It’s unlikely that anyone with that potential will be found out here, let alone anyone able to become a mage. I was as surprised as the rest of them when we uncovered a few, though they are most likely going to be riders, or nothing at all.”
“They won’t be dragon mages?” I asked. The sudden change in conversation was enough to make me question more than I would have otherwise.
Elaine shot me a hard look. “Dragon mages take a specific talent. There is power within them, and if they were to possess such power, we would have known by now. Unfortunately, coming out here has drawn the attention of the Vard. They thought we would be an easy target.”
“Have you ever faced the Vard before?” Joran asked.
“All within the kingdom have faced them before.” She pressed her lips together, frowning deeply. “They have proven a terrible danger for those who want to keep the kingdom safe.”
I glanced from Joran to Elaine. I needed to know about Alison, not this.
“Why did you think you would find those with potential in Berestal?” I asked, looking out into the trees.
“I didn’t,” she said.
I turned to frown at her. “Somebody did. Why?”
“You’ve seen how different your lands are.”
“We’re only different because we’re isolated,” I said.
“You have the Wilds on one side, and this forest on another. I think others have decided that there has been enough mystery. Perhaps they were right. I would never have guessed that your lands would have so much potential.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” I said.
“We came. Is that not enough? Were there any belief that your people were somehow substandard, we would not have come. The king certainly wouldn’t have put his dragons at risk out here.”
“He hasn’t risked his dragons,” I said. Still, the conversation I had with my father came drifting back to me. Maybe there had been more taking place in these lands than I ever realized. “At least, not recently.”
“Not recently.”
“He’s not after the Wilds.” I looked at Elaine, but she had an unreadable expression on her face. “Is he?”
“Would you oppose the idea? You shouldn’t forget that you live in the kingdom. Were it not for your king, you might find yourself under attack from the Vard more often than you have.”
I looked to her, a question in my eyes going unasked.
Joran knew me well enough to know what I wondered, though. And he would likely answer me, but not with a dragon mage sitting across from us.
“Like the attack on the wagons,” he said. “We saw the wagons. The fire. We knew something had happened.” He looked at me with a pointed gaze.
Did he fear I didn’t trust him or his family?
Joran’s family might sympathize with the Vard, but I doubted they would do anything to harm me or my family. I’d known them too long to think that.
“What happened during the attack?” I asked. Maybe I could figure out what happened to Alison that way.
“We were ambushed. I didn’t see much. Just a flash of power.”
“A flash of power?” I asked, perking up. I didn’t think the Vard had power. “Did they have a dragon mage?”
“No dragon
mage.”
“What was it, then?”
“Maybe it was that mesahn,” Joran said. “You said they’re dangerous.”
“It is dangerous,” Elaine said.
I frowned at her. “There was another attack recently. A wagon was destroyed. Do you know anything about that?”
“Are you sure a wagon was destroyed?”
I found Joran looking at me. “I’m not entirely sure. I think so. We found the remains.” It had to have been a wagon, right? It looked like it had been destroyed by a dragon. There must have been more dragon attacks than we had realized. “Have the Vard been moving?”
“More than you realize,” Elaine said softly.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I told her.
“To what?”
“How did they catch you?”
“I never saw. They came up behind me, incapacitated me, and threw me in that box you found me in,” Elaine said. “Almost worse than getting killed.”
Joran grunted. “What’s worse than getting killed?”
“Being captured and controlled,” Elaine said softly. Elaine watched me for a long moment, wrinkling her brow as she studied me. “One thing I know about the Vard, they want those with particular potential. If your sister was selected by the Academy, then it’s possible they thought they might be able to use her.”
I knew it was her way of trying to placate me, but it did nothing.
“What kind of potential?” Joran asked.
“Dragon magic.” She leaned forward. “They’ve wanted those who have a connection to the dragons for a long time. They don’t have that naturally.”
Joran leaned close to me. “I didn’t know the Vard would attack.”
“I know.”
He held my gaze. “I want to make sure you believe me. My mother wanted us to go into the city, but mostly she wanted Tara to go. She’s been the most sympathetic of any of us. I didn’t really have much of an interest. All I want to do is work on the farm, live that life, and nothing else. Tara… well, you know Tara.”
I understood what she was going through, and I understood what he meant. She’d made no attempt to hide how she sympathized with the Vard.
I let out a frustrated sigh.
The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) Page 14
