“You don’t feel as if you are?
“I feel like I’ve been told I’m important to the king, and the role I play is important, but I also feel as if when I want to be involved, I’m told otherwise.”
With everything I had encountered in the kingdom and the dangers that had occurred, and now with my connection to the dragons, I wanted to help the kingdom. I felt my connection should enable me to do something more. It should enable me to be a dragon mage. Wasn’t that what I wanted?
“It’s a dangerous game,” Thomas said, his voice lowered. “And I think those who understand the nature of it are trying to protect those who don’t.”
“Why must it be a game at all?” I asked.
Thomas frowned at me. “I didn’t mean it was—”
I shook my head. “I’m not trying to challenge you, Thomas. I’m trying to let you know I can be a part of more than what I’ve been permitted so far.” If the Vard were going to attack, then I needed to help as much as I could. “I’m concerned about my family,” I said. “It’s something Manuel and Thomas both mentioned. They said the Vard were moving, and there was some danger to them, and that—”
“Manuel is always concerned about the Vard moving around the perimeter of the kingdom,” Thomas said. “That’s the purpose of the Hunters. They need to prove their worth, and part of how they do so is by showing they can make a difference when it comes to the attacks. They need to sniff out, as it were, anything that might befall the kingdom.”
I didn’t have that feeling from Manuel. In fact, I didn’t have the feeling that he wanted to sniff out anything, only that he was trying to serve the kingdom in the same way Thomas did.
“You don’t think we have to be concerned about the Vard attacking the outskirts of the kingdom?”
“Is that what he told you?”
“He told me about an attack on the edge of the kingdom years ago.”
Thomas shook his head. “He should not have spoken of that.”
“You don’t want me to know?”
“It has nothing to do with me wanting you to know. It has everything to do with whether or not there is any value in discussing it. It happened so long ago that it does not matter. Not anymore. All that matters is that we continue to protect the kingdom.”
“If the king . . .”
I realized what I was saying and lowered my voice before looking around. I was having a debate with Thomas inside the Academy, a place where others already wanted to discredit me, which meant I had to be careful here. I knew all too well what Brandel might do if he were to hear this conversation. He would use it against me, and whether it would be effective or not was a different matter. Brandel’s comments shouldn’t matter, and it shouldn’t be effective against me, especially given what I had done on behalf of the kingdom already, but it might matter to him.
“You were saying?” Thomas said.
I shook my head, looking around me. “I wasn’t trying to say anything. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Perhaps not.” Thomas glanced toward the door. I followed the direction of his gaze and saw Eleanor watching us.
“If something is taking place, I want to be a part of it,” I said.
“I understand what you want, but I’m not convinced it’s necessary,” he said.
“Because it’s happening outside the city?”
“Yes. And you’re not ready.”
“If I could get ready?”
The instructors hadn’t shared with me what I needed to do to eventually serve independently as a dragon mage. Maybe now was a time to ask that question. I hadn’t been here long enough for me to feel as if I should be given that autonomy, but I was getting closer.
“If you could get ready, then perhaps. As it is, we need those who are fully trained to handle any Vard threat.”
I was less concerned about the Vard than I was about the possibility of others infiltrating us, but I would let Thomas think I shared his concern. “Where are they moving?”
Thomas shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to reveal that.”
“Because you don’t want to, or because you can’t?”
Thomas watched me for a moment, saying nothing.
“I see,” I said. “This is something you don’t want me to be a part of.”
“I wouldn’t want you to be a part of what happened in the city before,” he said. “But I did what was necessary.” He looked as if he wanted to walk away without talking about it any further.
“I’m not convinced it was,” I told him.
“It’s a good thing you don’t make decisions on behalf of the king,” he said.
I opened my mouth to say something more, but Thomas spun, then headed up and out of the main level of the Academy, into the upper levels. I was tempted to follow, but decided against it. There wasn’t much point in that now anyway. As I turned away, I caught sight of Eleanor and decided I didn’t want to visit with her, either.
That left me with only one option. I took the stairs into the lower level of the Academy and found myself in the massive chamber where I began to practice.
What else did I have to do?
Thomas didn’t want to include me, and Manuel had left me worried about my family, even though I wasn’t sure if I really did need to be concerned about them. I stood in the center of the room, feeling the flow of dragon magic working through me, swirling from me to the dragons, then back.
I was acutely aware of the addition of the other dragons now, as if standing here, using the power I was holding, had somehow shifted things for me, making me much more aware of the way that power flowed. I looped bands of power around me, pushing them outward, creating flames that streamed over my head.
I pushed power through my shoulders, using the technique Walter had demonstrated, and could feel it splitting up over my head, curving above me. From there, I felt how it parted, creating a barrier around me, swirling around my head and over my shoulders. I tried to create something more with it, but could not feel anything distinct. It felt as if it were moving far too slowly for me. As I held on to it, I tried to force even more power out from me, but with each time attempt, I could feel the resistance within me, the nature of the power seeming to struggle against my ability to form the same weave Walter had demonstrated. I could do it, but not with any speed, and that was what troubled me. If I wanted to use it, wanted to have any benefit to this pattern, I needed to find some way to do so that would allow me to call it quickly. Otherwise, there was no chance I could use it how I needed.
I paused in the center of the room, calling upon the power within me, feeling the dragons flowing, their power coming together as I held on to it. I focused as I pushed that power up through my shoulders, creating the explosion and the split of power over my head. It became something different. I continued weaving that power, letting it swoop over me, until I could feel some aspect of it shifting.
It might have only been my imagination, but it might have been something tied to the dragons, and the way they pulled on that power. I wanted to call upon it. I wanted to—
“You have improved quickly.”
I lost control of the weave and turned to see Walter watching in the doorway.
He stood in place, continuing to watch me but saying nothing. For a moment, I worried I had made a mistake by the way I had been holding on to the weave. Perhaps I hadn’t been controlling it nearly as well as I had thought. Here I believed I had improved upon some aspect of the weave, thinking that the way I held on to it had given me an understanding of how to continue to twist it, but perhaps I had not.
“I’ve been trying to use it the way you instructed,” I said.
He nodded, approaching slowly. He closed the door behind him and sealed it with a hint of power. I barely noticed that he used dragon power to do so, creating a pattern in front of the door.
Some distant part of me became concerned about why he felt the need to close me inside the room with him, but I pushed it away. Walter had bee
n the one to show me this weave, and had wanted me to learn it so that I’d be prepared for any defensive magic needs. With what we’d encountered in the Academy, I was on edge, but I didn’t think there was any reason to distrust him.
“I would like you to form that again,” he said, approaching me.
“I don’t know if I can. I’m getting tired, and I—”
“Form it again.”
He stopped in front of me, arms crossed in front of him, intense gaze in his eyes.
I didn’t need to debate him about this. At this point, I thought it made sense for me to try to do anything I could in order to hold on to the type of weave he wanted, if only so that I could demonstrate my ability with it. If I could show I knew how to create the right kind of weave, and I could use it in the way he had demonstrated, then I might be able to learn other techniques.
Still, even though I’d been holding on to the weave, and I’d been working with it, trying to master the technique, I still hadn’t controlled it as well as I wanted to.
He waited.
Focusing on the energy of the dragons, I called power up through me, pushing it up through my shoulders, and then felt it split. When the weave formed, it did so over my head, and I began to work one strand under the other, twisting it in a way that brought it together, forming the binding, slipping the ends around each other and sealing it all together.
“Very good,” he said, watching. “You have a bit of hesitation. When you can get past that, you will have mastered an even more difficult aspect of this.”
“It’s not so much hesitation as it is a difficulty in ensuring I have the weave properly made,” I said.
He stepped off to the side, and within barely more than a blink of an eye, Walter formed the same weave I’d been working on, creating a cage around himself.
“It is practice, nothing else.”
“Thomas tells me you use this as a test.”
“Did he now?”
“He also told me he isn’t able to make this weave nearly as quickly as you.”
Walter nodded slowly, tapping his hands on his protuberant belly. “Very few within the Academy have ever mastered the weave as quickly. It is a particularly complex pattern, though as I have continually told others, there is great value in mastering it, especially as it permits the one who can do so to defend themselves in ways others cannot. There have been countless times that my weave has protected me when others have suffered.”
“Such as when?”
“Well, there was a time when I was on the eastern edge of the country. It has been many years, thankfully. I’m not one to enjoy conflict. There are others who are much better equipped for such things than myself.” He smiled slightly. “As you can well understand,” he said.
“Where was it?”
Walter waved his hand, and he continued to hold on to the weave around him, forming the cage that held him inside. “It doesn’t matter. I found myself needing a protective defense quite more frequently than I ever had before, and thankfully I had mastered this one during my training. It was one that had permitted me to pass to my instructor level.”
I had to believe he was referring to the same time and events Manuel had mentioned, but why wouldn’t Walter talk about it?
“I heard the king suppressed a Vard insurrection out in the eastern part of the country many years ago,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, his face drawn, eyes taking on a hint of darkness. He didn’t want to talk about it. “That is where this was.”
“What was it like?”
He regarded me for a long moment. “What was it like? Dangerous. Bloody. I have never seen anything quite like it before.”
“The Vard were violent?” Maybe they were behind more than I realized.
“They were. They stirred up anger at the kingdom, and the people . . .” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. At this point, all that matters is that we continue to protect the peace.” He nodded. “Since you have mastered this early weave, I suggest we try an alternative. It is no less complex, but you might find more value in it.”
The sudden change of topic left me reeling for a moment. Why didn’t he want to talk about what had happened in the eastern part of the country?
Maybe for the same reason Manuel didn’t want to talk about it. Something had happened there that troubled him. From what Manuel had said, it had been violent, and then with the destruction of the cities themselves, it would’ve been difficult for anybody, especially somebody like Walter who had made it quite clear he didn’t want to be involved in such violence.
I needed to be a full dragon mage to learn what I wanted.
He stood in the center of the room and continued to pull upon power, shooting it up from his shoulders, sending it streaking over his head. When he did, the weave that formed was different from the others. It started slowly, and this time, rather than building up and over itself, it seemed as if he formed one layer, then began to slip the other around it and through it. The weave left the air sizzling, a strange energy that continued to build, and then he pushed it out.
Rather than forming a cage around him, this one created a sphere that circled outward and radiated away from him. It seemed to create some sort of barrier that pressed farther and farther away. I had to step back, uncertain what would happen when he pushed that toward me, and as he continued to push it, I found myself forming a barrier to try to react to what he did.
Walter smiled tightly. “You will see this one is both defensive and offensive. It is similar to the other one, in that the weave itself is critical, but it is not nearly as powerful a defensive measure. It has its uses though.”
“Did you use this one out east as well?” I wasn’t sure if he’d answer, but if he did, I wanted to know what else he had experienced.
“We were tasked with clearing the streets,” he said.
“And then what?”
“I was not there.”
“I heard the dragons were used to decimate the city.”
Walter released his barrier. “Perhaps they were,” he said. “Given what the Vard had done, it was necessary, I should think. They turned the entire populace against the king, and that is something that simply cannot be tolerated, especially given how much the king had done for these people.”
“Has he done anything similar anywhere else?”
“The Vard haven’t taken hold nearly so much anywhere else.”
“What if they did?”
“Then I wouldn’t be surprised if the king decided that he needed to intervene.” Walter shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him. “The king has an obligation to his people to ensure they are protected. He doesn’t do them any favors by allowing the Vard access to the kingdom to continue to stir up problems for the king.”
The only thing I could think of was Berestal. What would happen if he believed the Vard had taken hold there? What would happen to my sister, my mother, and my brother? What would happen to Joran and his family? Would they be destroyed? If the king believed the Vard were moving, then it seemed to me that it would be dangerous.
“Thomas has returned,” I said.
“I understand he did,” Walter said. “And you told me he remarked upon your progress.”
I nodded. “He did. He said you had other patterns you could teach me.”
“I do, but I think you should start with these two. They are similar enough that working on one will help you work on another, but different enough that they have other uses for you. The more you practice them, the more your skill will improve. You need to get to the point where they become second nature to you, where instinct drives you in how you pull upon the pattern. It should become habit, little more than muscle memory. You should be able to create if you were to be attacked.”
“You can do that?”
“As quickly as needed,” Walter said.
I wondered if that were true. I thought about pulling upon an offensive technique, and debated it for a moment before deciding against
it. If I were to attack Walter, then it might not be fast enough. With my connection to the dragons, with the cycle I had, it posed a danger, but perhaps not so much as what I believed. Maybe Walter really was better protected than what I’d given him credit for, despite his unassuming nature.
I decided to take the opportunity to see if I might discover anything about those who’d infiltrated the Academy. It didn’t feel like others were as concerned as me.
“How long have you been a teacher at the Academy?” I asked.
“Many years.”
“Why aren’t there as many dragon mages as there are riders?”
Walter frowned. “That is something the king has studied over the years. Well, not the king, but the Academy has studied it. There are many of us who have questioned why the number of dragon mages remains relatively inconsistent. We find a few who have potential every now and again, though none with much power. Every so often we come across one who has considerable potential.” He glanced over to me, nodding. “Unfortunately, not all with potential make progress the way they should. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“When I was on the farm, we had horses that looked like they would be fast—and they were when we let them free to run, but they didn’t learn what they needed when we tried to train them.”
Walter nodded, tapping on his head. “Very good comparison. I suppose it is something similar to that. Although I don’t much care for being compared to a horse.”
“In that analogy, you would be compared to the horse trainer,” I said.
He frowned. “Perhaps that is better.”
I shook my head. “My family is in Berestal.”
“And?”
“And I heard that there has been some unrest in that part of the country,” I said.
Walter held my gaze for a long moment before shaking his head. “I doubt that Berestal would be treated the same way as the eastern cities. For one, Berestal is an ancient city, and has some longstanding connection to the Wilds.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Because the king needs to ensure trade through the Wilds. If he were to target the Wilds, then he would run the risk of losing the trade. If that were to happen, he would find access to many of the goods our people have come to take advantage of, and take for granted, would be limited.” He shook his head. “I think the king would treat the Vard in Berestal much different.”
The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3) Page 8
