Noble Dragon (The Elven-Trinity Book 2)

by Mark Albany

“Which is to say what, exactly?” I asked. I wasn’t going to try and wrap my mind around the complexities involved with what she was talking about. I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Well, Alfonse was said to be a fantastic logical thinker, being able to predict a lot of future events based on similarities in the past,” Aliana said. “So his prophecies were never actually divinations, in the truest sense, which ironically makes them the most reliable.”

  “Right,” I said, sitting down next to her and rubbing my eyes again.

  “What are you doing?” Aliana asked.

  “Sitting down since I sense that a lecture is about to come?” I replied, realizing that it hadn’t been her intention as she stood.

  “That’s for later,” she whispered, tugging me up. “We have what we came here for. The library is set to close its doors soon. I don’t think we want to be here when that happens.”

  I shook my head. I should have seen that, but my mind was exhausted and thinking straight wasn’t coming as naturally as it usually did. We made our way through the doors as Aliana quickly slipped the scroll underneath her cloak. We left as unnoticed as we had arrived and were quickly making our way through the still-thronged streets of the city back to Norel’s estate.

  Norel had returned by the time we arrived, looking almost more worn and exhausted than we were. She didn’t ask any questions about where we’d been or what we had done with our day. She seemed to know about the scroll we’d borrowed before we even made mention of it. We all sat down to dig into it as the sun set and night came down.

  “I hate this man,” Norel growled after a couple of hours had passed.

  “Did you know him?” I asked.

  “No, but all things considered, I think I would have hated him if we’d ever actually met,” Norel said, rubbing her eyes. “He was clearly human, but everything he wrote is in elvish. Not the kind that was spoken among regular folk, but the kind that was used by the scholars and intellectuals, of which very few survived the wars. That shows a pretentious man who refused to listen to the changing times, which means I would hate his guts.”

  I sighed, leaning back in my seat. “That said, is there anything in there that might tell us what Cyron is planning next?”

  Norel shrugged. “It’s hard to tell, really. Even the translation from their elvish to ours leaves a lot open to interpretation. The closest thing I can find is mention of the creation of a golem. The next logical step, he says, is that someone will rise in defense and contest, all while… collecting three of a kind and the rise of a… that could be a dragon, a minotaur or a wyrm. One of the dragon-breathing beasts, but he doesn’t specify which.”

  “A dragon?” Aliana asked, tilting her head. “Is that what it could be? A dragon?”

  Norel nodded, looking over at her sister but narrowing her eyes as the two of them stared each other down. I rubbed my eyes. Part of me wanted to dig into their pasts and find out what the source of this tension between them was, but another, more vocal part demanded a good night’s sleep since I hadn’t had much the two nights before.

  That said, it was clear that Norel was hiding something. Something Aliana wanted brought to light, a notion that Norel was staunchly and even stubbornly against, from the look she was shooting at Aliana.

  “Well, it’s pretty clear that I’m supposed to be this defender,” I said. “Interesting to note that ‘someone to rise in defense’ would be a Varion and ‘collecting three of a kind’ would be the lot of you.”

  Both of them turned to look at me. I knew their relationship as sisters was not of blood, but the confused look they shared looked nearly identical.

  “The tales tell of the Sisters Three,” I explained, rubbing my temples. “And the two of you have mentioned that there’s a third sister out there.”

  “Right.” Norel nodded.

  “But could it be right?” Aliana asked. “Does that mean our sister is alive?”

  “Hard to say,” Norel said, turning back to the scroll. “There are too many leaps in logic for me to follow them easily, although there are mentions of the three of a kind later on in his divinations.”

  “What about the talk of a dragon?” Aliana insisted.

  Norel turned to her sister, an annoyed look crossing her face. “What about it?”

  Another moment of silent contention between the two before a shaky truce seemed to be agreed upon, both too tired to dig deep into something that seemed rather close to heart.

  “Might this have anything to do with the dragon eyes we already found?” I asked, leaning forward.

  Norel shrugged, pushing herself up from her seat. She stretched and yawned before heading toward the doorway. “The hour is late, and it’s been a long day for all of us. I suggest we reconvene come morning light, when senses are less hindered.”

  The last comment seemed directed Aliana, who bristled visibly but showed no other sign that her sister’s goading affected her as Norel slipped out.

  “So,” I said as the moment of silence stretched on into unbearable lengths, “are you going to tell me about this dragon, or am I going to end up finding out the hard way?”

  “What’s the hard way?” Aliana asked, turning to face me.

  “Well, if my experience is any kind of indicator, a massive dragon is going to drop out of the sky and destroy this place like that hellhound did the other,” I replied, leaning back in my seat and propping my feet up on the table.

  “It’s a complex issue,” Aliana said cautiously, watching my expression like she couldn’t trust the shared emotions we were feeling through our connection.

  “Does it have anything to do with what we found? What Cyron was looking for with his golem?” I pressed.

  “In a way, yes,” Aliana said, finally sighing and leaning forward, speaking in a hushed voice like she was afraid Norel would hear us talking. “Norel had a dragon once, a long time ago. Back when the three of us were together for the first time. Events transpired, and in a very long and involved story, she lost it.”

  “How does one lose a dragon?” I asked curiously.

  “In a long and involved story in which certain events transpired,” Aliana repeated in a low voice, clearly not willing to dig into the topic at the moment. “The separation hurt her deeply. Deeper, I think, than she will ever let show on the outside. It broke her in too many ways to count. I remember the feeling since at the time, the three of us were connected in a way similar to what you and I share now.”

  I nodded. I had more questions, plenty more, but from the way Aliana spoke I could tell that Norel hadn’t been the only one to feel the effects of losing that dragon. I could feel a very sharp and living pain through our connection, like a sharp spike digging into one’s body. It seemed like the kind of thing that could wait until morning to discuss.

  I pushed myself out of my chair and went over to Aliana. I offered her my hand to help her up and pulled her into a warm embrace, wrapping my arms around her for a long minute. She smiled, pulling me close and burying her face in my chest.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “I needed that.”

  “Let’s get some sleep,” I said, stroking her hair. “I have a feeling another long day awaits us in the morning.”

  4

  Over the next week or so, I sensed a change in Norel. She was pulling away from us, spending more and more time away from the estate. Sometimes she didn’t even bother to return home at night, only came back the morning after looking worse than before. She wouldn’t talk with me, acting aloof and almost annoyed at my presence in her house. All her conversations with Aliana were brusque, and usually devolved into heated arguments in their language that I was intentionally left out of.

  Her actions were affecting Aliana in turn, who was having a hard time watching her sister become more distant.

  “We need to pull her in to join us, now more than ever,” Aliana said when we were in bed together a few days after our visit to the library.

  “Join us in what?” I asked
, propping myself up on my elbow to look at her.

  She didn’t respond verbally, simply biting her lip and looking over my naked body. No more needed to be said as her sense of arousal spread over to me in a wave.

  “What?” I asked, sounding incredulous. “What makes you think she needs that? Much less wants it?”

  “Do you trust me, Grant?” she asked as she reached over to run her fingertips across my chest.

  “You know I do,” I replied.

  “Then you should trust that I know my sister, a woman I’ve known for years,” she asserted, leaning in to press her lips where her fingers had been touching. “She wants you. Believe me when I say that. And you should believe me when I say she needs you too, now more than ever before.”

  I opened my mouth, but as I thought out my response, shut it again. I didn’t really know anything about Norel, whereas Aliana had spent centuries with the woman, bound in a connection closer than family. What did I know about her that Aliana hadn’t spent decades dealing with?

  I finally let out a deep sigh before rolling onto my back. “Well, I trust you and your instincts. My only question is, how do you plan on getting her to join in?”

  “Well, we have to make the temptation too great to resist,” Aliana said, moving over to me and continuing to kiss my chest. I looked at her, licking my lips, openly enjoying the delicious view of her naked body moving over mine. Even if I couldn’t feel her arousal starting to bleed over through our connection, the way her nipples pressed against me as she started kissing her way down my body told me that Norel wasn’t the only one who wanted me.

  She moved lower, pressing her breasts around my hardening cock and pumping me between them slowly, looking up into my eyes. “Letting her watch you with me has put her in the mood before. Since she doesn’t seem to be coming to us to see it anymore, I would say that it’s time for us to bring it out for her to find on her own.”

  “Shhh,” I murmured, taking hold of the back of her head and guiding it down to where my cock was protruding from between her breasts. “You’ll have to tell me more later. Your mouth has more important matters to attend to at the moment.”

  She nodded with a grin as I pushed her down, barely giving her time to part her lips before I pushed myself between them. I filled her mouth then felt her throat constrict as the head slipped into it. A moment of hesitation on my part was quickly done away with as she gripped my hips and pulled me in all the way until my balls were fondling her chin. She looked up at me and let me feel her arousal in turn as she watched me take control, holding her firmly and bobbing her head on my shaft, fucking her mouth as roughly as I had her pussy. She encouraged me every step of the way with her soft moans, which were interrupted each time I filled her throat and quickly resumed when I withdrew. My eyes rolled back as pleasure washed over me, making me moan in response.

  All told, we were both late for our daily training session. It didn’t really matter since she was the instructor and I the student, but there was ground to make up. Norel had left earlier in the morning to keep a lookout for what Cyron might be considering as a next move, leaving the estate to us for practice.

  “I’d like to focus on something different today, if you don’t mind,” Aliana said as we stepped out into one of the larger gardens on the estate. It was an interesting part of the house, I noticed, and not one that I’d seen before. There were no clear walls outside. While it was clearly connected to the property, it seemed to open out into a field that would, if one were to follow an indirect route around the estate itself, lead back out into the city.

  There was a babbling stream under the cover of the vines and fruit trees growing in the garden that led out into the field as well, emptying into a larger river outside the property. I assumed that any entrance into the estate itself was guarded by too many wards to count, but at the moment I couldn’t see any. I moved into the garden, taking in the sight before turning back to Aliana.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we’ve been focusing on combat magic this entire time,” Aliana explained, moving around to stand in front of me. “And while that is a vital process for someone in your particular situation, I thought there might be something to be gained from other forms of magic. Spell casting, for instance.”

  I nodded. I hadn’t questioned her methods before, and I’d come rather further over these few months than in all the years I’d spent under Vis’ tutelage. I wasn’t about to start now.

  “What do I have to do?” I asked.

  She smiled at my lack of questioning. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  I looked around, not finding any seats, so I just dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged. Aliana quickly joined me, sitting in front of me.

  “We’ve not pushed this yet, and we should have,” Aliana said, her voice taking on a soft, almost hypnotic quality. “If you are to stand against the darkness that is coming, we must know what you are capable of. Vis saw something in you, and we’ve fucked enough to have shared a suitable amount of my power. Let us see what is brought out in you.”

  She leaned down, tracing her finger through the dirt, writing a sentence. It looked like a sentence, anyways, but in elvish, it could just as easily have been full paragraphs for all I knew.

  “This is a simple spell,” Aliana explained once she was finished, dipping her finger in the stream directly behind us to clean it. “Sort of a groundwork incantation that lets you reach into yourself for the power.”

  “I thought I already knew how to do that?” I said, tilting my head and wincing as the midday sun caught my eye.

  “Yes,” Aliana nodded. “In the same way that you just learned to swim, but lack the knowledge of how one could dive into the deep for clams.”

  “What?” I asked. They didn’t have clams in the lake, the only major body of water in the region, and I’d never taken to the delicacy enough to care how they were collected.

  “You dip into your power for simple physical manifestations of it,” she explained, trying not to look exasperated. “But there are depths you have yet to reach for. This incantation should allow you to do so.”

  I thought I understood. Either way, I’d learned that the best way for me to get the hang of what I was supposed to be doing was to dive right into the instruction and past the explanation.

  She taught me how to recite the incantation until I was pronouncing it properly. After a few tries I looked up at her, confused.

  “I don’t feel any different,” I admitted.

  “It’s not a simple spell, it’s an incantation,” Aliana explained. “Or, in simpler terms, a chant. As you chant it, you dip into a trance, which allows you to dive deep within yourself for the power you have.”

  I nodded, taking a deep breath as I started mouthing the words slowly. I’d gone over trances and chants with Vis, even seen him go into one before, so I knew the basics well enough. While pronunciation was important, the most vital part of it was supposed to be the actual focusing on the state of mind you were supposed to be in.

  I could feel myself slowly achieving the focus I needed the longer I spent there, sitting in the dirt with my eyes closed, lips quickly moving as I repeated the elvish words over and over again. I reached down, the way I had before when I was trying to access my power, but this time, instead of grabbing it, I could feel my consciousness slipping down into it. I could feel it coming to me naturally instead of fighting my grasp every step of the way, and as it did, I could feel myself slipping out of the confines of my body. Keeping my breathing even seemed to pulse my expansion, reaching out and further soaking into my environment. I reached out to touch on the trees, the grass, even the tiny little fish that had made the stream their home.

  As I did, I found something I wasn’t expecting. There was a terracotta bowl filled with dark, rich earth. As I reached inside it, I could feel a faint pulse of life. There was a seed planted deep—too deep. It was dying, even as tiny roots spilled out from it. It was trying to reach toward t
he sunlight but the distance was too great.

  Why shouldn’t I help it out? I wondered to myself, pushing my consciousness into the bowl, feeding and nurturing the tiny seed, feeding it with life force. That seemed like it was all it needed, just the gentlest of encouragements to push up through the dirt and up into the sunlight. Tiny leaves blossomed. It was going to be a beautiful tree, I realized with a small smile.

  Why not help it some more?

  More leaves came out into the open, gratefully soaking in the sunlight that it had so desperately needed. Flowers blossomed. They drew in insects, not all friendly. I scowled, feeling them bite and gnaw at the tiny, struggling tree. Thicker skin was needed. The bark became thicker, and the roots dug deeper for more nutrients. They crashed into the borders of the bowl, restricting growth. I tilted my head, pushing my power into the roots, strengthening them to force cracks into the clay, forcing it apart to allow my tiny little tree the space it needed to grow more.

  I could feel the depths of my powers being drained. I could do more, I thought. Needed to do more. My little tree needed my help. I reached out into the world, looking for help. Who else could help my little tree?

  A few answers came, and marched closer, gently reaching out their own meager powers to supply my own. Much appreciated, I thought, but not enough.

  A new power source suddenly joined its forces with mine, pressing in gently, helpfully, replenishing my nearly-expired powers. The tree continued to grow. More branches were needed, more leaves, more sunlight. More flowers bloomed. More insects, and in turn, thicker bark. I smiled, feeling the tree growing and pulsing with life, entwining its power with mine, growing more and more powerful as it continued to spread its shade over us.

  My consciousness was brought back sharply as I felt a hand touching my shoulder. The surprise of the contact made me lose grip on the power I was trying to use, and my mind flooded back into my body, the shock making me suck in a gasp as my eyes opened again.

  Something was wrong. Different, rather, not quite wrong. The sun wasn’t in my eyes anymore. It had shifted away. Then I realized we weren’t out in the open anymore. Something was casting a shadow around us.