The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3) Read online

If only the dragons could talk to me. I had questions and I wanted answers. Did the dragons understand Affellah? Was there some aspect of its power that they knew? Unfortunately, without having any clear way to communicate with the dragons, I didn’t know if I’d ever have answers. Perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps the dragons didn’t want to share anything about it anyway.

  I sent a hint of pulsing power through the green dragon so he knew I was still awake and aware, and I felt a resounding pulse in return. It hit me quickly, steadily, and then it faded. The energy drifted away, heading toward the ground, toward the flames and fire, behind us.

  Strange.

  As we continued traveling south, flying ever higher, the air continuing to thin beneath me, I could feel the energy of something down below, then I noticed a flicker of light in the distance.

  It was far below us, far enough that I wasn’t exactly sure what I saw, though the brightness continued to shimmer out there in the dark night, almost as if it were calling to me, trying to alert me to something out there. As I stared into the distance, trying to ascertain what it was, there were other flickers of color and white light.

  Cities. The lights came from them, though I still wasn’t entirely sure what it was that I saw. They seemed to flicker with far brighter light than I would’ve expected.

  “Is that—”

  “This is the Vard-controlled lands,” he said.

  “It’s so bright out at night.”

  “The Vard celebrate fire.”

  “They celebrate it?”

  “Affellah,” he said.

  I had the sense that he couldn’t speak any better than I could, the thinness of the air making it difficult.

  “Can they see us up here?”

  He shook his head. “They can’t see us. That’s why we fly up here. They can feel us though.”

  “Feel?”

  He nodded. “They have a way of connecting to fire.”

  “If they have that, then how do they have any trouble defeating the dragons?”

  Thomas slowed his dragon just enough so he could get alongside me. “They don’t want to harm the dragons. They worship the power they possess.”

  “They worship the dragons?”

  I wondered what the dragons might think about that. Maybe they would appreciate it. They might actually approve of it.

  “Not the dragons themselves, but the flames within them. They view the dragons as a source of fire, and would like to claim that source for themselves.”

  Which made the attack on the city even less likely to be Vard.

  Why wouldn’t Thomas see that?

  They had used the dragons in their attack.

  Unless they had only wanted to take their power.

  Maybe I still had it wrong.

  “Why?”

  “The Vard want to be like the dragons.”

  “I don’t understand. The Vard I’ve seen in Berestal weren’t like that.”

  “You have met people who side with the Vard. Not the Vard themselves. Those who sympathize with them are different.”

  “How so?”

  “They seek something else. Perhaps freedom from the kingdom, from somebody they feel oppresses them, or perhaps they simply like anarchy. It’s difficult for me to know. But what I can tell you is that the Vard—the real Vard—are something else.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it is?”

  “I can’t tell you. I have to show you.”

  “That’s why we’re traveling through the Vard-controlled lands?”

  “Because there is only one place I can take you to show you.”

  “Where?” I asked, getting increasingly concerned.

  He didn’t answer. We continued sailing south, soaring high, and I found I didn’t want to talk, almost that I couldn’t talk. I held on to the dragon and could feel the cycle of power still flowing through him; it gave him energy, but it also gave me energy. It filled me with a certain heat, a boiling energy that rolled through some deep part of myself.

  I recognized that energy, recognized there was some other part of me that could hold on to and pull upon it. As I held on to the energy cycling, I tried to draw it up and through me. Gradually, the air no longer felt quite as thin, and the heat no longer troubled me.

  We were descending.

  We had moved far beyond the flickering flames, and had traveled for a long time, much longer than I would’ve expected Thomas to travel. Was this where he went when he left the city? If so, then I understood why he would be gone for so many days at a time.

  Gradually, we started to circle, staying above the ground. There was a single light flickering below us, and as we descended, it didn’t grow any brighter or larger, just remained a small flame. As I turned in the seat atop the dragon, I looked around, searching for any sign of anything else, but didn’t uncover anything.

  Thomas looked over to me. “You’ll have to be careful when we land,” he said.

  From there, we continued downward. He didn’t say anything else, and though I waited for him to elaborate, he did not. We circled a little bit more, then came to land on the ground.

  He hurriedly climbed from the dragon and held flames between his hands, stretching them outward, prepared as if to attack.

  I climbed off a bit more reluctantly, following him.

  I had no idea what I might find, and what we might face. It was dark all around, making it difficult for me to see anything clearly. The only thing I could make out was the fire glowing in the distance. It seemed to be coming up from the ground, as if it had been pulled from the pit, yet even with that light, I couldn’t make out anything else.

  Other than Thomas.

  The flames stretching from his hands illuminated him, making him bright against the night. He moved steadily forward, and the darkness made it difficult for me to tell where he was heading, only that he seemed to be going toward the pit of fire.

  “Thomas?” I whispered.

  I looked around and didn’t see anything. I glanced back to the dragons, and they were nothing but darkness against the night.

  Thomas stopped near the flames shooting out of the ground.

  I followed him.

  Then realized it wasn’t flames shooting out of the ground at all.

  It was power wrapped around the ground—flames held by something Thomas had done, lacing them across the ground, creating a barrier. Though there was a hole in the ground, I had no idea what he had done here, only that he had created a seal over the top of the ground. It reminded me of what I had felt Walter doing across the doorway in the training chamber, only this was a little bit different and seemed to be laced with even more power, crisscrossing over the hole in a way that trapped something inside.

  “What’s in there?” I asked.

  “What you need to see,” he said. Thomas glanced over to me. “Be ready.”

  “With what?”

  “With your connection to the dragons.”

  I looked behind me. I could feel the green dragon, and I quickly began to pull upon the power within me, cycling it through and stretching it from one hand to the other. I split it, weaving it together and creating a tighter band, ready for whatever it was Thomas intended to show me. Whatever was here had to be incredibly powerful; he had feared it enough to have placed it inside a pit at the southern edge of the Vard lands, trapped beneath flames. The band of power continued to tighten, and I split it again, weaving again, then again.

  When I was ready, Thomas watched me, nodding. “Very good.”

  He crouched down and traced his hand along the outer edge of the pit, dragging some of the flames away from it. It happened slowly and steadily, but gradually he pulled away, and when he did, the flames began to ease.

  Not entirely, though. Even though the flames were easing, I noticed something down in the distance, in the pit he removed the flames from. I stared, struggling to comprehend what I saw. There was heat and fire, but nothing more than that.

  “What am I supposed t
o see?”

  “Just wait,” Thomas said softly.

  I glanced over to him and realized he held on to a band of power around himself as well. His was tightly woven, and he had it looped out and around the entirety of the pit, enough so that I suspected he could react quickly and pull that power back to him were it necessary. I did the same, and Thomas nodded, almost as if he approved. I kept my attention on the pit, trying to stare into it, wanting to know just what it was that was down there.

  Flames started moving.

  At first, I thought it was only a flickering fire, or perhaps lava. We hadn’t seen any sign of lava this far south, and there had been no evidence of flames for a long time as we traveled, so that didn’t make sense to me. Still, I didn’t know what I was supposed to see. As I stared, struggling to comprehend what was down there, I made out a shape within the flames, a figure covered by fire.

  Not covered by fire, carrying fire.

  A scarred figure approached, and heat radiated up out of the pit.

  There came a sudden flurry of movement.

  When it happened, Thomas reacted, constricting the band of flame he held. He looped it tightly and snared it, pulling it like a rope and trapping the figure inside.

  He dragged the figure back, and when he was done, he stood out in front of us.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. The man—at least, I thought it was a man—looked grotesque. Charred and burned skin. Parts of his face seemed to be covered in oozing flame. Heat radiated off him, reminding me of the heat I felt deep inside when I attempted to pull on the power of the dragon. Still, there was a strange power to him—an energy. And there had to be, as I had no idea how this person was still alive given the way he looked.

  “What is this?” I asked Thomas.

  “This is one of the Servants of the Vard,” he said.

  8

  I couldn’t take my gaze off the Vard. He struggled against the binding of flame Thomas held around him, but couldn’t move past it. With most people, I would’ve worried the flames would cause harm, but given the way this Vard looked—the way it seemed as if he’d embraced the fire itself—it didn’t appear that the fire would even bother him at all. He continued struggling, but still couldn’t free himself. Thomas held tightly to him, calling upon power from the dragon, looping around and cycling it in a way that ensured the Vard wouldn’t go anywhere.

  All this time, I had started to convince myself that the Vard weren’t dangerous.

  My experience within Berestal had told me that those who serve the Vard mostly wanted independence for Berestal, and were not dangerous. I didn’t have Thomas’s experience, and had not feared them nearly as much as he and others who had served the kingdom did.

  Perhaps that was a mistake.

  Seeing this creature, I couldn’t help but believe they were terrifying and dangerous.

  And I understood why Thomas would have feared the Vard attacking the kingdom.

  “Why have him trapped out here?”

  “It was accidental,” he said. He didn’t take his gaze off the captured Vard. “I was patrolling not long ago. After the last attack on the kingdom, we have stepped up our patrols. We were not going to be surprised by the Vard again. While I was out, I caught sight of this one. He was difficult, but we have needed a way of understanding the Vard—not the Vard who generally attack the kingdom, but the Vard who direct them.”

  “He doesn’t look as if he could direct anything,” I said.

  Even though I couldn’t peel my eyes away, it was difficult for me to look at him. Difficult for me to stare at the heat rolling off of him, the strange fire that flowed along the cracks in his face. What looked to be charred sections of flesh might only be dried areas where the heat no longer burned out of the flesh, as if it were lava cooling.

  “Trust me. He is one of the Servants. I captured him here, and he’s far enough away from Affellah that he doesn’t have the power he would have closer to it, but he’s still dangerous.”

  “What would he be like closer to Affellah?”

  “He would have a different connection to power,” he said. “Unfortunately, when the Vard are closer to Affellah, they have a way of controlling it, manipulating and using that energy, which poses a danger to us. It’s why we don’t cross over the Southern Reach.”

  “You fear us,” the Vard said.

  There was something rough and raw about his voice. I marveled at the fact he could even speak. He glowered at Thomas before turning his attention to me and sneering. At least, I thought that it was a sneer. It was difficult for me to tell anything from him, only that his heat fluctuated briefly.

  “If we feared you, we wouldn’t be able to hold you,” Thomas said. He pulled upon a bit more energy flowing from the dragon, summoning more heat and cycling it through. I wondered at that though.

  If the Vard truly had the ability to use heat and fire, then what would keep him from using that heat to strengthen himself? I had no idea what the Vard were capable of, and no idea whether such a thing were even possible, but if he could somehow use the heat and fire, then there was a danger in that he might be able to call upon the power Thomas looped around him, and might even find some way of using it to escape.

  “You fear us,” the Vard said again. “You won’t be able to hold me, and when the others learn what you have done—”

  Thomas cycled power even more tightly, constricting it around him, and the Vard silenced.

  I could only watch. It was strange, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. I was captivated by the Vard, captivated by the strangeness of him, and unable to work through just what I was seeing.

  “You questioned. After what you’ve gone through, you still question. I understand. What you know of the Vard is limited to what you saw in Berestal. I thought you should know what we face,” Thomas said, looking over to me and still holding on to the power he wrapped around the Vard. “You wanted to understand just how dangerous they were.” He took a deep breath, turning his attention back to the Vard. “I had similar questions when I was younger. I didn’t know. I didn’t know whether I could believe. It wasn’t until I saw the Vard for the first time that I fully understood the threat we faced.” He squeezed the band around the Vard again. He just glared at Thomas, saying nothing, though I didn’t know if he even could. “The king keeps this image of the Vard from the people because they would fear it even more,” Thomas said.

  If the people of Berestal knew about this, how would they react?

  I suspected they wouldn’t welcome the Vard in the same way they had. I couldn’t imagine Joran and his sisters being quite so comfortable with the threat of the Vard if they knew this was what they were dealing with.

  “Others need to know,” I said.

  “Others don’t need to know. This is the kind of thing the king keeps hidden for a reason. We protect others. We protect those who could not be protected otherwise. And it is better for them not to know just how dangerous the Vard are.”

  “Why?”

  “You fear us,” the Vard said, grunting as Thomas constricted the band of power around him once again.

  “Tell me about your plans,” Thomas said.

  The Vard laughed, a painful, raw sound that echoed into the darkness of night. “My plan? Affellah does not need for you to know the plan.”

  “We control the dragons,” Thomas said.

  I looked over at him. Control? That wasn’t how I’d describe it at all.

  “You can never control fire. It burns regardless,” said the Vard.

  Strangely, I found myself agreeing with the Vard, though I didn’t think I could share that with Thomas. We didn’t control fire. We didn’t control the dragons. We didn’t control anything when it came to them. The only thing we controlled was our reaction to the dragons, and our connection to them. Through the dragons, we were able to draw upon more power, but nothing would give us the ability to hold on to them.

  “You will fail,” Thomas said. “Tell us what you p
lan.”

  “I serve Affellah.” He turned his attention to me, and there was something in the strange brightness of his eyes that left me trembling, though I didn’t reveal that to him. It was almost as if he could see into me, as if he knew something about me. Worse, it felt as if I could detect him within the cycle of the dragons.

  That shouldn’t be the case at all. There should be no additional connection to anything else, nothing other than the dragons, yet strangely, the more I was aware of him, the more I wanted to understand him.

  “How many are like this?”

  “Not many,” Thomas said. “They are held up and celebrated by those within the Vard. Priests of a sort.”

  “Priests?” The Vard cackled, his raw voice carrying out into the darkness of the night. It seemed as if it hissed and steamed, almost as if he were trying to call to others. “I am a Servant of Affellah.”

  He was trying to call to others. I could feel it in the way he tried to talk, the way he connected, and I could feel it in the use of flames. How could I feel it though?

  “Can you tell what he’s doing?” I whispered to Thomas.

  “What is he doing?”

  “I . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “You can tell something?”

  “I can feel something,” I said.

  The Vard watched me, and the darkness flared in his eyes again. “We are Servants of Affellah. You could serve Affellah as well.”

  The heat built from him again, surging even more, as if he intended to overpower the loop of flame Thomas held around him, though I didn’t know if he could. Was there any way he would manage to free himself from Thomas’s hold?

  If so, we had to put him back into the pit.

  When he flared power again and I felt it surging, I recognized that it seemed to drew upon something I could feel that reminded me of the dragons.

  “I think we need to put him back into the pit,” I said.

  “You don’t have to fear him,” Thomas said. “We are far enough away from the rest of the Vard that there is no reason to fear him.”

  “You fear,” he said, laughing again. “You should not fear Affellah, but serve.”