The Summoned Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 4)

by Dan Michaelson

  I was stunned.

  But I had expected this kind of anger. I just hadn’t felt it yet. The Servant had been welcoming, at least as welcoming as somebody from his land could be with somebody like me.

  I had seen enough in my time within the Vard lands to understand the emotions she displayed. And I began to struggle with how I was going to help the kingdom recognize what had happened—how I would find a way to convince them the Vard did not need to be their enemy. I wasn’t sure such a thing would even be possible. If somebody with real authority came to these lands, I wondered if they would be able to manage greater diplomacy, but I certainly was not the right person for that.

  “I came here because I wanted to understand your people,” I said, calling after her. “I came here because I know the king was wrong.” At least, I had thought the king was wrong, but I had learned otherwise. The king was right in that the Vard had attacked the kingdom, but they had done it for a reason I thought I understood. “I came because I wanted to—”

  “You came because you wanted to steal the power of Affellah.”

  I breathed out a heavy sigh. “I have no interest in stealing the power of Affellah. I came for understanding. Your Servant wanted me to understand Affellah.”

  I couldn’t tell her about the murtar until I knew whether her people understood the danger that existed. But then, I did wonder if perhaps the Servant had sent her on her own journey at the same time as I was taking mine because he had some plan.

  She continued walking. When I followed, she cast a look back at me, glowering once again.

  “I’m looking for Affellah,” I said.

  “You won’t find Affellah. You can’t. Your kind don’t understand.”

  My kind.

  “I have a connection to the dragons.”

  She flicked her gaze behind me, up the slope and toward the distant shape of the dragon. I was aware of him, and didn’t even need to turn to sense his presence there.

  “They are not Affellah,” she said, then turned.

  “That’s what your Servant says, but what if they are?”

  She shook her head. “We know dragons. They were once in these lands, then they became corrupted. The only thing that has not been corrupted is the power of Affellah. That is something you cannot begin to understand.”

  “If you’re going to find Affellah, then I’m going with you.”

  I expected her to force me away, to yell at me, to tell me I couldn’t and shouldn’t come with her, but what she said surprised me.

  “My journey is not to bring you with me,” she said.

  “How do you know? Maybe this is the way you’re going to find Affellah. Maybe you needed an outsider to challenge you.”

  Her brow furrowed deeper. In the fading light, it made it difficult for me to see anything other than the irritation on her face. “No.”

  “How do you—”

  She brought her arms around, and I felt a surge of heat.

  When it slammed into me, it threw me back, tossing me up the slope of the mountain. It reminded me of dragon power.

  I had felt the power of Affellah from the Servant, but that was different, I realized. That was concentrated, a power formed by somebody who had served that energy in a different way. What she used struck me as something so familiar.

  It was the same heat that burned within me as I called upon the cycle of dragons.

  It was so much like the dragon.

  When her power struck me, it left a twinge of something else fluttering within me. It was like the cycle, as if it were a replica, or perhaps a copy, but made with a different touch.

  I got to my feet and found a barrier preventing me from following her.

  I moved along the barrier, but it still blocked me.

  I stretched my hands out, calling upon the power I could still detect from the dragon and cycling it through me, letting that heat fill me, and feeling only a pang of surprising guilt at doing so. I had to understand the power of this land in order to protect mine, and I wasn’t going to do that by continuing to call upon the dragons.

  But I had to get past this barrier. I had to find my way to Asanley, get through to her and understand her.

  The weave flowed from one hand to the next, and I began to twist it, forming a surging of power, and tried to pick at the barrier. None of the various techniques I had learned in my time at the Academy seemed to be fully effective. I thought there had to be a way to get through the power she had drawn, as she wasn’t even a full Servant, but I couldn’t.

  Whichever way I went, she’d prevented me from getting through.

  It was either go back upslope or wait.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darkness had fallen in full.

  I continued working my way along the barrier, but I was afraid of going too far to my left or to my right, worried I would move away from her. I had no idea how far she would’ve gone downslope, but I believed I would find her once the barrier faded. She couldn’t keep hiking throughout the night. Asanley was connected to Affellah, and having seen her connection, I had to believe her power was similar to what I possessed with the dragons. I needed to understand that power, now more than ever. If she was somehow connected to a greater power, something that did not require dragons . . .

  Maybe that would be how I could stop the murtar.

  I began to question whether she was intentionally holding back on me. There wasn’t going to be any way to push past the barrier without having access to the dragon magic, unless she chose to release it.

  So I had to wait.

  I pushed on it though.

  There was something distinctly familiar about it, though I couldn’t quite tell what it was. I held my hands upon the barrier, and I tried to press through it, but I couldn’t feel anything more.

  I was supposed to take my transformation journey. And I had a feeling the Servant wanted me to know whatever she was doing. Strangely enough, I could still tell there was an energy down the slope.

  It wasn’t so far away from me.

  It was likely from her, her connection to Affellah, and whatever power she possessed, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I needed to make my way down the slope to uncover the truth. Her power had pressed into me with a significant force. And it was still there.

  It was different from what I had learned in the Academy, different from the way I had learned to create patterns of power that would press away from me. But at the same time, it was similar enough that I thought I could understand.

  My experience in this place had shown me that, regardless of the time of day, the heat and energy continued to radiate, but I could tolerate it. Maybe that came from my connection to the dragons and how long I had been using that power.

  I was thirsty, and I was all too aware I hadn’t had anything to drink since the morning. But as I focused, I felt the heat deep within me bubbling toward the surface, as if Affellah wanted to provide for me.

  Fatigue from the day finally caught up with me, and I felt like I was trying to accomplish something impossible. When I sat down, I fell asleep without meaning to.

  Dreams of my family came to me, in which I saw my sister, Alison, and thought she was on the farm, but then I saw her in Berestal, the massive vista of the city stretching in front of us, Marshall’s Tower looming ahead as she looked up at it. It was almost as if Alison knew I was there and had gone to the tower when the dragons had returned, or perhaps she had known I had gone to visit Joran and his family. If she had known, what would she have thought? Would she be angry I hadn’t gone to see her and our mother and brother?

  The dream flickered, moving on, but at least Alison was well in the dream.

  From there, I saw my mother. She was sitting next to a fire, a crackling hearth radiating heat, her arms wrapped around her legs, tears welling in her eyes, and a bucket in front of her. She had a brush in one hand while her other gripped a raggedy dress. Mother didn’t deserve to suffer. She might have wanted to be free of the constraints of c
aring for my father and brother, but she deserved more than this.

  It was a dream, nothing more than that, but it felt so real. I had been angry with my mother when I had left her—because of how she treated my brother and my sister, and the way she had wanted to hold us back, wanting us to stay so she could have the life she wanted, one where she did not have to care for our father.

  And then I saw my brother.

  He was resting on a bed with colorful, vivid flowers set into vases on either side of him. I could almost smell them. I breathed in, and as I did, heat began to radiate, as if murtar began to pour out from each breath and flow into those flowers, contaminating them in the dream.

  “Not him,” I breathed out.

  It was a dream—it had to be—but there was something too real within it. I had never seen these images before. It was as if Affellah were giving me glimpses into a possible future. Or perhaps this was the present. I hadn’t seen my family, and maybe this was just my mind and my dreams telling me it was time to search for them.

  I should be able to offer them a greater protection than I had. I was a dragon mage now, serving the king, filled with the power of dragons, so I should offer them whatever help I could. Only I had not.

  Guilt filled me.

  Then there was my friend Joran and his family. In the dream, I called out to him. For a moment, it seemed almost as if he heard me, as if Joran turned toward the fire, as if he could see through it and could see me.

  Then he was gone and other images flashed into my mind. I saw Natalie in front of the dragon pen, sitting on a bench, the same one where she and I had first met. She was especially beautiful in that dream, with her black hair, smooth skin, and navy-blue cloak. She leaned forward as she focused on the dragons, on their power, trying to connect to them and failing.

  I had been to the kingdom recently and had seen Natalie, seen the dragons we were connected to, and knew there was something missing there. Perhaps this was just a memory. Perhaps it was nothing but my mind trying to make sense of something.

  But in this case, I felt something else—Natalie’s cycle. Not only that, but she was connected to another cycle. The Djarn cycle was there. She was one of the people, one of the Djarn, and she would be forever able to remain connected to it. I pushed the thought away.

  It was a dream. Nothing else.

  And then Thomas.

  He had been my first mentor.

  He sat atop a dragon, looking down along the ground. In the distance, there was the glowing light of Affellah, though he never got too close to it. He circled above the Southern Reach and seemed to know that if he had tried to get too close, it would lead to danger for him.

  I should be connected to him, as I had linked him into the cycle. It was because of me that Thomas had come to learn about a greater connection with the dragons, and I should be able to use that connection to reach him. I had forged that cycle. It was because of me that the dragons and dragon mages were united in a way they hadn’t been before. It was because of me that . . .

  Heat flared within me. The images shifted and blurred.

  There was Berestal. Heat burned around the city, and for a moment, buildings were raging with fire, then it faded.

  Heat flared within me again, and another image appeared. Trees were erupting in flames in the forest and dragon fire spewed into the sky. The power of a dragon mage battering at the sky, and something else . . .

  Power—a different kind of power.

  I tried to focus on the heat flaring within me, tried to understand and control it, but even as I did, there came something else. I wanted to fight back, to refuse it, but couldn’t.

  How could I refuse that heat? How could I refuse the energy there?

  Power continued to batter and fill me, and as heat slammed into me, I stirred out of the dream.

  For a moment, I lay there, trying to push away those thoughts. Everything seemed so real, as if it were burned within my mind, as if it wanted to show me some secret truth that I had never imagined possible. The memories of those dreams had not faded. I could still feel them, see them, and was all too aware of what I had witnessed.

  If any of it was real . . .

  It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

  I forced my eyes open and more heat slammed into me.

  That was real.

  I sat up, looking around. It was dark. Impossibly so.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had been outside at night when there was no moon, no stars, and no wind. There was nothing. Just the heat.

  At first, I started to think the energy I felt maybe came from Affellah, from someplace below the ground, but then that sense began to fade. It wasn’t coming from beneath me.

  I could feel something else. It had to be Asanley.

  I called upon the green dragon, the awareness of him suddenly there, granting me his connection to heat, but still no connection to the cycle. I pushed outward.

  It was just brute force. There was nothing skillful about it—not the way I had learned within the Academy. There, it had been a matter of learning how to form weaves of power, using technique to twist them, but this was different. It was me pushing against that heat so I was not overwhelmed.

  The barrier was still there, but it trembled.

  The heat I felt was like something alive.

  This wasn’t Affellah, nor was it a dragon. Asanley, as I susepcte, and powerful.

  I pushed on the barrier and focused on the heat within me. I remembered the way that charred room felt, the way Affellah felt. I remembered the murmured words deep in my mind: the words that came from the Servant along with words that came from somewhere else—perhaps from somewhere inside me.

  Open myself to Affellah.

  I needed to, but I couldn’t, as the unyielding, overwhelming heat continued to batter me, then exploded through me. I fell forward, collapsing through the barrier and tumbling, as if some power was pulling me down the mountainside, as if Affellah had a plan. I scrambled, grabbing for rocks and branches, then finally, my head slammed into a rock. I looked up, trying to make sense of what I saw, of the nearby glowing, then everything went black.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As I came awake, I felt somebody looking over me. There was an energy all around me that I couldn’t quite make sense of, but I felt I needed to. I could still feel the heat, but it was different now—a trembling, too, which was also different. The air had a strange smoky quality to it, and a hot breeze ruffled around me, pressing down upon my flesh, searing through me.

  I tried to move, but my head throbbed, and I wasn’t able to do anything.

  “You shouldn’t move. Not yet.”

  It was Asanley’s voice. Why was she helping me?

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “You fell into me,” she said. “You very nearly crashed onto me.”

  “I was trying to get away from something. Heat, I guess,” I said.

  “You would run from Affellah?”

  I shook my head, but immediately wished I hadn’t. As soon as I did, pain flowed through it, leaving me awash with agony and a rolling nausea.

  “It wasn’t Affellah,” I said.

  I tried to sit up, but couldn’t.

  At least the heat no longer slammed into me.

  It had come over and over again. I remembered it, much like I remembered the dream. I had never had a dream like that before, a dream that had felt so real, as if I were seeing something beyond anything I had experienced. A vision rather than a dream.

  “Are you helping me?” I murmured.

  “Not by choice,” she said.

  I felt something damp wash across my face.

  Water.

  I looked at it, and she shoved me on my shoulder.

  Pain surged, hot and burning, and I opened my eyes to see a glowing light radiating around me and her face looming above me.

  “What was that for?”

  “You should force me to give you my water,” she said.

>   “It’s just water,” I said.

  “Maybe for your kind,” she snapped, “but not for mine. Water is sacred. It is lifeblood.”

  “Water is water.” I tried to move, but my head continued to throb and hum, a pain deep within my skull.

  Her people had water. I had seen the villages, had seen their wells, so if water was somehow sacred, then why had they shared it so willingly? The answer came to me easily, but the pounding in my head made it feel more difficult than it should have felt.

  Because of the Servant.

  “Where am I?”

  “You fell into my campsite,” she snapped.

  “And you decided to help?”

  “Not by choice. That was not going to be my journey.”

  “What if your journey is helping others?” I muttered.

  I could only see her as a blurry outline around me, but I could feel her anger and recognized how upset she was with me.

  “Fine,” I said.” It’s not your journey.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure quite how much to tell her, especially as I was not sure how much of it was tied to injuries sustained during my initial fall, but decided that for me to form some connection to her, something I thought would be necessary, I would have to reveal some part of myself. I would have to open myself to her just like I was supposed to open myself to Affellah.

  So I shared what happened. The visions. The heat. Then my fall.

  She pressed something to my lips again, and I waited.

  This time I recognized she didn’t want me to drink too fast. She had a strangely shaped waterskin, oblong and pointed on one end, with the leather twisted in a way that made it take on something of a spiraling shape—a flame, I realized. Water dripped from it, working its way slowly across my lips and down my throat. It still had the same coppery mineral flavor of the water in the Servant’s home, but it somehow wasn’t quite as warm.