The Summoned Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 4)

by Dan Michaelson

  “I was here. And yes, I saw what they did.”

  She motioned for me to join her and took a seat by the stream. The soft burbling sound of the water running past us felt soothing. She looked over, watching me, and smiled slightly. “What is there to say?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m still trying to understand what happened here.”

  “When they were attacked, it was horrifying. I remember the heat, most of all.”

  “Did anything happen before the attack?”

  “You’ve been around the Vard before, Ashan. You know they don’t have a reason for their attacks.”

  I hadn’t really been around the Vard before. I had spent some time with them, but certainly not enough to truly understand. Not enough to know the truth. My experience with the Vard had been in Berestal, and that was not the real Vard. I wasn’t sure how to explain that to her.

  “I want to know what might’ve happened here before the attack.”

  She frowned at me. “Are you questioning whether your kingdom attacked them first?”

  I could still feel the slight influence of the murtar here. It was faint, but significant enough that I was aware of it. I didn’t know what to make of it, or whether there was anything within that power that could reactivate, but the fact I could feel it told me there had been a reason for the Vard to use Affellah here.

  “The Vard have faced a great danger.” I started picking my words carefully. I could see from Natalie’s face that she wasn’t sure whether to believe me. I hadn’t been gone so long that I should have been swayed by the Vard, but I had been gone long enough—and had experienced enough—to believe what I had seen. I trusted myself enough for that. “Their people have withstood it. They have faced down this danger. This darkness. And they have not shied away from it.”

  “You sound almost like you respect them.”

  “I am trying to understand them,” I said.

  Natalie frowned. “Even after everything they did?”

  “The people I met didn’t do anything,” I said. “Most of them wanted nothing to do with violence. They just want to live.”

  “And celebrate their god.”

  “Affellah,” I said, whispering it.

  As I did, something the Servant had said struck me.

  It was like a beacon, a warning, a welcoming.

  Somehow, there was a way for me to understand Affellah. The Servant believed that. What did it matter what I believed about myself, about my ability to grasp that power? I didn’t understand Affellah in the same way.

  But Affellah, and that power, had some purpose. That felt particularly true as I looked around here.

  “My people have known about the danger of Affellah for a long time. It’s powerful,” she said.

  “They form a cycle with it. It isn’t that dissimilar to the way you cycle with the dragons.”

  She regarded me. I could practically feel her connecting to the dragon, the heat that radiated from her. “It’s not the same.” She shifted in place for a moment, as if uncertain what to do or say. “I’ve been waiting for you to return.”

  “I can’t feel the cycle the way I did before,” I said.

  She looked over. “We’ve shielded it,” she admitted. “When you left, we didn’t know how long you’d be gone, whether you would return corrupted by that power . . .”

  “Affellah doesn’t corrupt.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve seen what the Vard have done. I’ve seen the violence they use when they attack. You’ve only been a part of all of this for a short time. You need to see the truth.”

  Perhaps that was true. I had only caught glimpses. I had seen snippets from the kingdom, even though I had grown up within it. I’d only been a part of the Academy a short time before departing. In that time, I felt as if I alone had recognized a real danger to the kingdom, one that others within the kingdom were unwilling to see. But then I had risked myself to go to the Vard. What did that mean for me? What did that mean about me?

  Maybe I was part of the problem.

  I was once nothing more than a farmer, and now I was something else. I wasn’t sure what it was. I had come to the Academy thinking I could be a dragon rider, then a dragon mage, and now . . .

  “What will it take for me to regain the cycle?”

  “Trust,” she said and looked over to me. “Then again, you’re the keystone to the cycle, though perhaps it shifted when you were gone. The one who instigates the cycle is the one who leads it—at least, according to my father. Others can join, and when the keystone leaves, or is removed, the cycle changes.”

  I closed my eyes, focusing, trying to feel for any sense of the cycle. As before, it was still there. I hadn’t been severed from it. Perhaps it wasn’t the Vard that had separated me from it.

  “When you left, I overheard my father speaking to Thomas. He’s concerned about you.”

  Having seen the dragons and what they had done to the Vard lands left me with different questions. The Vard were considered the ancient enemies of the kingdom, but I had seen they didn’t need to be that way. I had seen that perhaps the Vard could be something else. Could Natalie see the same?

  I didn’t know if she would be willing to.

  “Your father or Thomas?”

  “Thomas more than my father,” she said. “I think my father actually understands what you’re trying to do.” She looked over to me and smiled, though there was a hint of sadness in it. “It felt like you were leaving me.”

  “This wasn’t about you or me,” I said. “This was about understanding. It was about realizing that Thomas holding the Servant wasn’t the right thing either. It was about trying to know the truth.”

  “I’m not sure the dragon mages want you to learn the truth.”

  It was an odd comment, but perhaps she was right. Perhaps they were worried about what I might think now that I was back. Perhaps they were afraid of my experience, and what I had seen, but more than that, they might be afraid of what I might do.

  “What were you doing out here?” I asked.

  “I felt something,” she said and held my gaze. “I’ve been waiting for you. I wasn’t sure when—or if—you intended to return, so I’ve been searching.”

  I hadn’t realized the impact of my departure on Natalie. She seemed more subdued than she had been before. It might just be my imagination, or perhaps she was more upset with me than she was letting on. I suspected I deserved some of that.

  “What do you plan to do now?” she asked.

  Murtar had been here. I could still feel that pressure, though I wasn’t sure what more I needed to do with it—perhaps reconnect to the dragons and the cycle. If I did that, perhaps I could determine if it remained active.

  “I think it’s time for me to return. I need to speak to Thomas, see if I can’t get to the king,” I said, looking to her and knowing she and her father were my access to him, “because there is some danger here.”

  “Tied to this city.”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know what you think you can find or explain, but . . . I’m glad to have you back.”

  She headed to her dragon, climbed atop him, and took to the air.

  I watched her for a moment before turning back to the green dragon and cycling power through me and through him, still feeling the connection between us. The rest of the connection had been taken from me by those who feared the Vard—and what the Vard might do to me.

  Natalie looked back, and I couldn’t read the expression in her eyes. Worry, I thought.

  Was it about me?

  There was more going on here, I suspected. But then, there had always been more going on.

  As we took to the air, I felt uneasy—and full of questions that had come to me from my brief time with the Vard. Could they have influenced me?

  Natalie continued to watch me, and I wondered if the same question filled her, but I didn’t have an answer to it.

  Chapter Nine

  We circled above t
he forest, and I continued looking down at the ground spreading out around me. After my time in the Vard lands, seeing the vibrant green of the forest was almost overwhelming. It probably shouldn’t have been, as the forest, the plains, and everything within the kingdom had been all I had known my entire life, but my brief time in the Vard lands had left a lasting impression on me.

  I focused on the dragon, feeling my connection with him. The rest of my cycle was still off. Natalie should be connected to it though, so I focused on her and her dragon, pushing through my connection to the green dragon.

  Natalie motioned down below me. “You wanted to see this.”

  I noticed a mound of damaged earth, frowning as I stared. “What is it?”

  “This is a place of your people—or was.”

  “This was one of the kingdom cities?”

  “Long ago. It was one of the first to fall to the Vard.”

  We were too far to the north. We had traveled south, then we had veered north, following the contours of the forest. It didn’t seem quite right. The Vard would have stayed south, near Affellah. They wouldn’t have come all this way, and they certainly wouldn’t have attacked here.

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Within the last fifty years,” she said. “My people have tried to stay out of the fighting, but when it reached the forest . . .”

  “You were given no choice,” I said.

  “We were not,” she said.

  Was that the reason she and her father had tried to embed within the kingdom? Her father still served the Djarn, but he seemed to have another reason for what he did. He served as an advisor to the king, but that was only part of his role.

  And the dragons contributed their own cycle, their own power, in a way that only those who were a part of the cycle could know. Natalie’s father and the Djarn were connected to each other in their cycle, but none within the kingdom had known anything about it . . . until I had revealed it.

  “Can we land?” I asked.

  “There isn’t anything down here anymore. It’s been gone for so long,” Natalie called above the sound of the wind whistling around us.

  I circled, bringing the dragon down; thankfully, he didn’t have the same resistance to land here as he did in other places.

  There was nothing left. This was another place the Vard had destroyed.

  I had seen Oranash and Thalar, and I knew the Vard had their influence in those places. Despite what I had seen in the Vard lands, and the attacks I had been a part of in these lands, I knew that the Vard were not innocent. But then, I had started to feel as if the Vard had a reason for how they had acted. If the murtar was as dangerous as I had seen, then shouldn’t they have attacked?

  When we landed, I could feel the energy of my dragon along with something else.

  It took me a moment, but I began to recognize it. Pressure. It was the same familiar pressure I had detected when I had been with the Servant.

  “Not here,” I whispered.

  Natalie hopped off her dragon, making her way over toward me while brushing her black hair away from her brow. “What was that?”

  I shook my head, focusing around me. “There’s something here. I know this is where the Vard attacked the kingdom, but there was a reason, I think.” She frowned at me, but said nothing. I borrowed from the dragon, using his power to push outward, stretching out a faint cycle that flowed between us.

  “The ground has reclaimed the city.” She looked over to me. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to convince me this is tied to this attack you claim you found in their lands.”

  “They called it murtar,” I said.

  “And you believe them?”

  “I believe they experienced something,” I said. “Much like I believe they were right to be concerned by it.”

  “But what about you?”

  I could sense her uncertainty, and had I not spent the time I had in the Vard lands, I might have shared that uncertainty, questioning whether the Vard had been trying to convince me of a danger that didn’t exist. But I knew it did. I had seen it. Felt it. The memory of that stuck with me, lingering and reminding me of the dangers that might reach these lands.

  “There’s something to be concerned about,” I told her. What I felt here . . . That had to be murtar, didn’t it?

  I could tell she remained hesitant. I looked over to her and found her watching me, a question burning in her eyes.

  “You weren’t even gone that long,” she said.

  I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean it wasn’t enough time for you to be coerced by them. But here you are. You—”

  “I wasn’t coerced by them. I’m stating what I saw, what I felt, and I know it.”

  “Even with what you saw here? Even with what you know happened in Oranash and Thalar?”

  I walked across the uneven ground. It was all grass, though there was something about this place that didn’t feel quite right, almost reminding me of what we had seen in other places. Maybe it was only that this place had been claimed by the forest, or nearly so.

  “This used to be our land,” she said. “Until the kingdom decided to found their cities here. And then we moved. We had so much of the forest that we didn’t need to fight.” She looked at me, and I could see the accusation. But they didn’t need to fight, not like the Vard.

  “How many of these places were in parts of the forest you’d lived before?”

  “Quite a few,” she said.

  “And they were all here before?”

  “Generations ago, Ashan. It was so long ago, I can’t even tell you anything about it.” She took a deep breath, letting it out, and held her hand up, focusing on the dragon. “I can feel something when I come here though,” she said. “It’s like a memory of my people.” She smiled slightly. “They lived in this place a long time before the kingdom decided to claim it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She shook her head. “It was before me. Before you. There’s something here that reminds me of when I was younger. My father has been working with the kingdom for a long time, long enough that it’s all I’ve really known. I haven’t known my people the way I would have if I had been raised among them, but here . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, and I noticed a hint of power flowing along her skin, as if she were summoning the flame of the dragons, though it retreated quickly.

  “What do you feel?” I asked.

  “I can feel what I told you, Ashan. A memory.”

  She had reminded me of what the Servant had said—the way he had described the power that had been in the Vard-controlled lands. A memory. That was all that was left of the murtar.

  Still, I had seen the effect of that memory. I had seen the influence it had, and the danger it posed. Even a memory could cause damage.

  I headed to the edge of the forest.

  It was a strange demarcation. From above, it looked like an undulating sort of line, but down below, now that I was close to it, it seemed to be much more regular. There was some aspect of the forest that shifted, as if receding.

  I stepped into the trees.

  When I did, a power flowed into me.

  At first, I thought maybe it was something dangerous, but I realized it came from the dragon, who had pushed through the cycle and connected to me. There was a faint fluttering in the back of my mind, a distant awareness of something more, as if all I needed was to reach to reclaim the full connection to my cycle.

  The dragon slithered through the trees nearby, watching. I was aware of him, as I was of Natalie and her dragon.

  Heat bloomed, connecting to me from the dragon, but it was within me as well.

  I had to steady my breathing, something I had learned to do quite well. And from there, I had to focus on the heat I could still feel burning within me. My awareness of it increased with my focus on it, making it easier to tap into that power.

  The green dragon was comfortable and content, yet there was something not qu
ite right. Perhaps it was this place, everything we saw and felt. The dragon was aware of it in the same way I was. It felt wrong, too much like the memory of what we had experienced within the Vard lands, the danger of the threat of murtar that was there—a threat that had nearly overpowered the Servant.

  I shouldn’t be surprised that that threat was already here. There was nothing about this land that would have protected these lands any better than the Vard lands had been protected, though the Vard seemed to have a different connection to their god than the people here did. There was no celebration of fire and no worship of Affellah, only the dragons.

  But even that might not be enough.

  “Ashan?”

  Natalie’s voice carried through the trees and over to me.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “I can’t see you. There was a time when I thought the cycle should have revealed you to me, but I think the Vard separated that from you. You’re going to have to reestablish your control over the cycle. We shielded you from the cycle at Thomas’s request, but it’s possible he will permit you to access it once again now that you’re back.”

  Thomas was responsible for that?

  I had been the one who had brought him into the cycle in the first place, and this was how he repaid me?

  I couldn’t think like that. I had to push away that irritation. I was coming at this from a dangerous space.

  “Ever since I went to the Vard lands, I’ve felt as if a part of the cycle has been missing.” I looked up at her. “Is the cycle still there for you?”

  “For the most part,” she said.

  “What changed?”

  “I don’t know. I can still feel the cycle from the Djarn. That’s no different. My father permits me to access that. But the cycle you joined me to feels different than it did. I don’t know quite what to make of it.”

  I didn’t think it was the Vard, but perhaps my leaving had somehow made a difference. I had been the one to create the cycle, hadn’t I? Could it be me who was integral to the cycle? I looked down, feeling the energy.