The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3)

by Dan Michaelson

  I had to focus on that dragon.

  As far as I knew, her father’s dragon was part of a massive cycle of dragons, one that connected him to not only his dragon, but others from the Djarn people.

  “What do you detect when you try to reach for your father?” I asked. We continued circling, staying high above the ground, and I couldn’t help but feel as if there were something down there I needed to find, but I couldn’t detect what it was. I didn’t understand what we were seeing and feeling, only that there had to be something down there.

  “I don’t feel anything,” she said. “I’ve tried, but I can’t.” She looked over at me then stared at her dragon a moment. “I shouldn’t be a part of this circle.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to help you.”

  “I don’t blame you. I think you were right. I think I needed to be a part of this, and I didn’t have much in the way of a choice, but I had always wanted to be a part of the people.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood what that meant, but I suspected it had something to do with the fact that she couldn’t be a part of the circle with the Djarn if she were a part of my cycle.

  And if that were the case, then what I had done had somehow limited her possibilities. I didn’t like having had done that, but what choice did I have?

  A dark shadow moved overhead, and I looked up.

  For a moment, I thought it was her father and his dragon, but there was another dragon. And Thomas.

  “We have to get to him,” I said.

  Even before we started moving, I could see the dragon descending. Thomas wasn’t going to be fast enough.

  I motioned to the green dragon. “Can we help him?” I whispered.

  There came a pulse of power through the connection.

  Natalie looked over to me, frowning. “I felt that.”

  “I think the dragon tries to communicate with me, though I don’t know what it means.”

  “Perhaps it’s a way of telling you that he approves of what you’re doing.”

  I had to act quickly. I could help Thomas’s dragon, but it meant that Thomas would lose his connection. Another part of the cycle.

  I pulled on power, cycling it through the dragons, and I added it to Thomas’s dragon. In doing so, I forced increasingly more power into the cycle, feeling that energy as it flowed outward and radiated. It continued to burst outward, then the dragon was sealed within the cycle. From there, I had to funnel even more power into it, continuing to feel the way that energy flowed, and feeling the explosion as it struck the dragon.

  Thomas looked at me. “Ashan? What are you doing here?”

  “I know you believe it’s the Vard, but that’s not what this is. It’s the same kind of attack we dealt with in the city before. It’s the same kind of magic, even, only on a different scale altogether.”

  “I saw the Vard moving. You were there,” Thomas said. “They were moving north. Across the reach. They were trying to join with the others.”

  “It’s not the Vard. Not like you think.” I had to get him to see that before he convinced the king and they destroyed Berestal.

  It might be somewhat tied to the Vard—there was no doubt that Thomas’s capturing of the Servant had probably changed things, maybe even influenced things in a way that had created an increased challenge for us—but it wasn’t the only explanation. There was something else taking place here.

  “I don’t know what this is, all I know is that they have started to target the dragons.”

  Thomas frowned before turning to me. “What happened to the dragon? Why can’t I reach his power?”

  I could help Thomas, but it meant I’d be adding him to the cycle, as well. Is that what I wanted? He served the king. I was certain of it. And I served the king.

  “I had to help the dragon. There was only one way I could do that.”

  “By stealing power from me?”

  “I didn’t steal power from you. I was connecting the dragon to the cycle so he would be protected.”

  “The cycle?”

  I nodded. “I can explain, but—”

  The lava down below suddenly spouted from the ground, shooting upward, and then it began to run through the forest.

  That was what they were after.

  That power came from the dragons. I could feel the sudden surge, the way they were pulling on that power, almost as if they were trying to draw upon Affellah by using it.

  Trying to make it look like the Vard had attacked.

  “They’ve redirected Affellah,” Natalie said.

  “They shouldn’t be able to do that,” Thomas said.

  “We have heard stories about Affellah suddenly appearing in places it should not. It has been tied to the Vard and places they have overthrown,” Natalie said.

  My breath caught. I thought about what Manuel had told me, the way he had described the power appearing in cities, and how that resulted in a need to destroy those cities.

  Now I understood why the king had felt so certain that he needed to destroy the cities. It wasn’t about the people serving there. It was about destroying the lava, and the connection the Vard might have to Affellah.

  It was also the reason the Vard couldn’t have attacked. If they had been responsible for it, then we would not have seen an attack like this. This was the first time there had been anything like this in ages.

  But now . . .

  Now it would be difficult to convince the king and others that it wasn’t the Vard.

  Despite what I had felt, and despite what I knew.

  It looked bad.

  It looked like the Vard.

  And then the king would destroy it like he had before.

  “That’s what you were telling me,” I said to Thomas, remembering how lava had appeared in places. That was why the king had aggressively destroyed the Vard.

  To stop this.

  “You didn’t need to know,” he said.

  “How many know this?”

  “Only a few. The king. The Sharath. The chief dragon mage.”

  I watched the flames continuing to burst from the lava spout—Affellah redirected. The lava would continue to flow. Down below, trees caught fire. The lava traveled north—almost directly north.

  I had a sense of where it was going.

  “The capital,” I whispered.

  On the ground below, the flow of lava traveled straight toward the dragons.

  “We have to stop this,” I said. “We have to figure out some way to redirect Affellah.” We might not know how, but Thomas knew somebody who did. “We need to get to the Servant. If there’s anybody who can stop this, it’s going to be one of the Vard.”

  “We can’t release him,” Thomas said. “You don’t understand, Ashan, but it has been almost impossible to even come across one of the Servants. Capturing one . . .”

  I looked at him. “How did you capture it?”

  “What?”

  That troubled me. “How did you capture the Servant?”

  “We can talk about that another time.”

  I felt that was important, yet I knew we didn’t have too much time to stand here and discuss it. With the lava flowing, making its way toward the city, we had to be quick or everything would be destroyed.

  “Look at it this way,” I said to Thomas. “If it is the Vard, then we still have to stop it.” I took a deep breath. “And if it’s not the Vard, the only one who can stop it is going to be one of the Servants and their connection to Affellah. We don’t have the necessary power.”

  “The Vard don’t work like that,” Thomas said.

  “They might not, but we have to force them to.”

  “How do you propose we do it?” Thomas asked.

  “I don’t know. We have to get the Servant here, then we can figure that part out.”

  I looked over to Natalie, hoping that we would have some answers in the time it took Thomas to get the Servant and return, but I didn’t know if that would be the case.

  �
��I won’t be able to free him and bring him here,” Thomas said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have no connection to the dragon.”

  “I might be able to help with that,” I said.

  18

  We circled above the ground for a moment, looking at those dark pits, when I noticed a solitary figure. They didn’t look like one of the Servants. They were standing next to the pit, looking down at the lava bubbling up, and doing something with dragon magic. I could feel it pulling on me.

  I pointed, and Natalie nodded. Both of us knew that if we didn’t try to do something, the attack wouldn’t stop, and we would continue to face more and more destruction.

  The dragon dove.

  The figure seemed to notice us and turned his attention to us. Dragon power surged—a considerable amount of it.

  More than I would’ve expected from one person.

  Had they learned to cycle dragons?

  I ignored it. I laced a pattern, borrowing what I learned from Eleanor, and sent it lancing outward, striking the man, throwing him into the pit of lava.

  That was powerful. I don’t think Eleanor intended me to use the power that way, but at the same time, it had been useful.

  “We need to keep trying,” Natalie said.

  We circled and came across another pit, and this time, there were three people there. Natalie and I pushed all of them into the pit. I tried not to think about how I was forcing men and women to their deaths. While I had a hard time shaking that feeling, I knew that if we didn’t act, it would lead to the deaths of so many more.

  We swept along the line of these strange pits, each of them marked with symbols, and destroyed them. It was simple.

  Almost too simple.

  The lava didn’t stop, but rather continued to flow from each of the pits toward the capital.

  Natalie and I circled above the ground, staring down at the growing lava spout, watching as the lava poured across the ground, heading through the forest; there, it touched trees, igniting them immediately, causing them to burst into flames. The heat was incredible. It left me marveling at its power, and I didn’t feel I could do anything about it other than sit atop the dragon and wait.

  We needed to take action, but I didn’t know what it would require.

  “How long do you think he’ll be gone?” Natalie asked.

  Strangely, now that Thomas and the dragon were connected to the cycle, I figured we both knew the answer. I could feel it, and I suspected she could, as well.

  “Not long, unless the Servant gives him a challenge.”

  “We need to find my father.”

  “I know we do, and I keep thinking he should have been able to free himself, but . . .”

  And he should have been able to free himself. We’d been able to free ourselves, along with the dragons attacked by the Vard. Given what the Sharath had said about his connection to the Djarn, and the cycles he was a part of, he should have been freed as well.

  “Could he have disappeared?” I asked.

  “He would not have gone,” she said.

  “Where would he have—”

  A stirring on the ground caught my attention, and I focused, pulling upon the energy of the cycle.

  I could feel dragon energy. But I could feel something else. I could feel power that wasn’t part of my dragons.

  “There are other dragons out there,” I whispered.

  “He brought them?”

  I didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe her father had been convinced to let the Vard attack, or make it look like the Vard had attacked.

  Or maybe he simply didn’t care.

  I didn’t know him, and I didn’t know how much he despised the Vard if he even did. There were too many of them who did.

  “My father and his dragons won’t be able to do anything,” Natalie said. “They will try, but they won’t be strong enough to stop this.”

  “There’s only one thing we can do to stop it.” I frowned as I started to turn. “They are a part of the cycle, aren’t they?”

  Natalie nodded.

  “What can you share about the cycle of the people?”

  “The circle is a secret guarded by the people. We hold it tight to ourselves, and only those who are granted access to it gain an understanding of it.”

  “How many dragons are part of it?”

  “Many dragons,” she said, her voice soft and filled with a longing. “There are layer. Circles of people in their own cities, and then there are circles of those who lead.”

  “So you could leave mine.”

  “No,” she said. “Once you’re part of a circle, you’re a part of it indefinitely. You could join another, though.”

  “How many is your father connected to?”

  “Many,” she said.

  “That should make him powerful enough to withstand the Vard attack.”

  “I would have thought so.”

  Which was why his coming and bringing the power to the people out here made sense. He should have been able to summon that energy, and he should have been able to protect them.

  We flew quickly, staying just above the surface of the forest, and traveled from one of the pits to another. Each one we stopped at was the same. Each pit had a dragon resting next to it. I looked over to the green dragon, pulsing power through the cycle to test whether or not we could do anything to try to help the captured dragon, but each time, the other dragons sent back a strange response through the cycle that suggested we should not.

  “How many of these pits are there?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I traveled along the border and found quite a few. Maybe a dozen?”

  “Why would they have funneled power from Affellah along here?”

  I didn’t know, but as that lava flowed, burning through the forest, I could see the direction it was heading. All of it was traveling toward the capital.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was beyond us. We were not going to be able to stop it easily. We needed help that surpassed what the dragon mages and the Djarn could offer. It was going to take an enemy to help us.

  But if it kept us from attacking them . . .

  I had to think it would work. I had to think Thomas would be able to get to him and bring him back, then we could end this.

  I had to think we could avoid war.

  We continued streaking along the forest edge.

  “We need to get to the king,” I said.

  “You don’t want to try to stop them?”

  I looked back. From this vantage, I could see at least five different streams of lava working across the ground. Power and flame flowed through the forest, leaving trees bursting with fire.

  “I have no idea what is going to stop them.”

  I connected to Thomas through the cycle, sending him a sense of what we were seeing and what we needed to do, though I didn’t know if it would be effective enough for him to feel it. All I wanted was for him to recognize the power I was sending him so he could help. He needed to join us.

  And without her father, we had nobody with us who was tied to the kingdom.

  The king needed to know.

  I had another thought, but it wasn’t one I was sure would even work. If we traveled back to the capital, we might have a chance of linking even more dragons to this cycle. I had to think that if we were able to add even more power to it, then we should be able to overwhelm the Vard.

  We needed power to stop what they had done. Somehow, we had to bottle up the lava. I didn’t know if we could do it otherwise.

  “Do you really believe the Servant will help?” Natalie asked softly.

  I remembered what I felt when I had been with the Servant. There had been anger, but if I had been held captive in a pit in the ground within my lands, how would I have felt?

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s entirely possible the Servant will let this happen.”

  With enough destructive energy, it was easy to
believe that the city wouldn’t even be able to withstand this kind of attack. And if the capital fell, how long would it take to destroy the rest of the kingdom?

  But that wouldn’t leave only the kingdom to deal with. There were others.

  I had to believe that the Vard would see that. That the Servant would see that.

  The capital loomed into view. It was the middle of the day, bright and sunny, and it didn’t feel as if we should be under attack the way we were; in fact, it felt as if all of this were little more than a dream. I guided the dragon higher and higher in the sky so I could see into the distance more clearly.

  I could make out the flows of lava coming toward the city from here, angled slightly but on a direct path.

  We glided down, heading straight toward the palace.

  When we landed, I jumped down from the dragon and raced over to the entrance of the palace, keeping Natalie with me. She nodded to the dragon mage standing guard as he waved us past, thankfully not bothering to stop us. We ran into the palace and hurried to the throne room.

  The dragon mage standing guard blocked us, and I tried to look past him. “We need to see the king,” I said. “There is danger coming to the city. It’s a danger that can’t be stopped by dragon mages. The only way to stop it is with the king’s involvement. If we don’t, then the Vard will attack in full.”

  His brow furrowed. I could see the debate warring on his face, as if he were deciding whether to let us in. Finally, he frowned, turned to the door, and stepped into the throne room, leaving Natalie and I standing outside.

  “Do you think he will meet with us?” she whispered.

  “I’ve only seen him once,” I said.

  “And?”

  “I don’t know. I figured you’d know him better than I do.”

  “My father. Not me. I don’t even stay in the palace.”

  “If your father serves him, it seems you would be granted that freedom.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It isn’t for me.”

  It occurred to me that I hadn’t yet learned where she resided. Someplace in the city, obviously, but I didn’t know exactly where.