The Betrayed Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 2) Read online

  Power suddenly flooded through me.

  It wasn’t what I called for. I didn’t have control over it. I could feel the small green dragon pushing it toward me, as if the dragon itself were aware of what was taking place and wanted to offer me assistance. As that power flooded into me, I had no choice but to open myself to it. My time spent practicing had shown me that I had to let that power cycle through me in order for me to have any sort of control.

  I reacted and released it.

  Instead of holding my hands together, which would have confined the power in a circle through me, the energy exploded when I pushed outward toward Brandel, slamming into him and throwing him back.

  He grunted and landed on the ground near Becca and Cara.

  I looked down at my hands. Had I done that?

  I had certainly known that I’d pulled on power throughout the day, reaching for magic, but I’d never known that I could unleash it in that way.

  Brandel got to his feet, heat already beginning to build from him. I could tell anything he might do would be unpleasant.

  “Look at who figured out how to connect to the dragons,” Brandel sneered, coming toward me. “You might regret that.”

  “Listen,” I said. “All I want is to—”

  Power slammed into me, coming from Brandel. It poured out of his hands, coming from the dragon. It struck me, throwing me back, driving me toward the dragon pen, pinning me against it.

  I grunted, breath pressed out of my lungs.

  It was enough that it distracted me from my hold over the dragon. I had to try to find a way to open myself to that power, but even as I tried, I couldn’t feel anything within me that allowed me to open myself the way I needed to.

  Brandel stepped closer to me and jabbed at my chest.

  “You would do well to know not to attack me. My father—"

  “I don’t care about your father.” I stepped forward, pulling myself away from the dragon pen.

  I tried to do all the things my instructors had taught, focusing on my breathing, feeling for the heat within me, relaxing and embracing the energy of the dragons in the distance, but it didn’t happen as quickly as I needed it to. I knew that if I were to connect to it in a way that would happen quickly, it would have to become second nature. It would have to become so quick that there would be no choice but to pull upon that power in a way that would release it from me and prevent Brandel from doing anything. As it was, I was slow. I knew I was slow, and as much as I might try to grab for that power quickly, I simply could not.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to do anything.

  Brandel was a bully. I had known boys like him my entire life. I hated boys like him.

  I shoved him, slamming my fist into his chest, and he staggered back.

  He grinned at me, and power exploded.

  I felt it and reacted, trying to brace myself, holding on to the connection with the dragon. This time, I wasn’t able to push it out, but a different thought occurred to me in the moment before his power slammed into me.

  Why couldn’t I embrace that power the same way I could embrace the power of the dragons? I focused on that energy, letting that power come to me, and it flooded into me.

  I wasn’t thrown back by it. I simply absorbed the power he tossed at me.

  His eyes widened slightly.

  I stormed toward him. I was aware of the power around me—some energy coming off of the dragons, particularly the green dragon. That power flowed into me, as if the dragon wanted me to know that he was there and willing to help.

  The energy of it filled me, and I took a step back.

  I wasn’t going to attack Brandel with dragon magic.

  He glared at me. “You might think you’ve figured something out,” Brandel said, “but you’re still nothing but a boy from the Wilds. The king knows people like you are a joke. You’ll never be a real dragon mage.”

  “Leave me alone,” I said.

  Brandel looked as if he wanted to say something more, but he turned away, and motioned for Becca and Cara to go with him.

  When they left me, I breathed out, focusing on controlling the aspects of my connection to the power. I could still feel the energy of the green dragon, and I had to resist the urge to call that power through me, to unleash it. I had no interest in unloading that power in an uncontrolled fashion. I needed to make sure I was as careful with it as my instructors had always told me to be. The problem was that I didn’t know if I had enough control over it for me to do that.

  I’d lost control and lashed out at Brandel, though I may not have meant to.

  And he might be right.

  I knew Brandel’s father was some noble with ties to the king. That couldn’t be good for my standing in the Academy—or the city.

  Still, despite whatever good intentions I might’ve had, I had reached for dragon power when I’d needed it.

  I gripped the bars of the dragon pen. It was strange feeling that I had succeeded and failed at the same time.

  8

  I made a point of getting to the dragon pens earlier in the morning than I had the day before. It was still dark out when I arrived, and the morning was quiet and calm. It was early enough that I saw no one else. Most mornings, at least early mornings, when I had gotten up to take a walk around the Academy grounds, I would encounter others who were out at the same time. I wasn’t the only early riser attending the Academy. Though I wished that I could sleep in, sometimes it was easier to be up and moving before most of the others.

  The early morning light glittered off of the silvery metal of the dragon pen, and I could almost see the shapes that were worked into the metal itself, as if they were symbols or letters, though I couldn't quite make them out. Somebody with incredible skill must have formed these bars, somebody more powerful than what I could even imagine.

  When I reached the dragon pen, I wandered along the length of it, trailing my hand across the bars. Heat wafted toward me from the dragons, emanating from inside of the pen. Some of it came from stored energy within the iron bars of the pen, but most of it came from the dragons themselves.

  I paused in the middle of the dragon pen, looking through the bars at the dragons. Most of them were resting, though that wasn’t altogether surprising. Dragons had different sleep habits. Some were nocturnal, and would be much more active flying and hunting at night, while other dragons were far busier during the daytime. It wasn’t always consistent, either. I had seen that some of the dragons present in the pens during the daytime were not always the same dragons there later.

  I could feel the green dragon in the pen. He slept much of the time. From what I’d learned, smaller dragons were very active for short spurts of time, but then they would eat and sleep. I didn’t know if their activity was tied to the magic they drew upon or not, but considering how much energy I’d connected to from that dragon recently, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I’d called upon more of his power than I should have.

  I opened myself up to the energy, feeling that power. It was there, and it flowed through the dragon and into me.

  It was a vague and faint sense, but I recognized it, and found that I could call it to myself much more easily than I had been able to even yesterday morning. I let that power course through me, starting with the heat in my own core, working through my arms and cycling around.

  “Better,” a voice said behind me.

  I looked over my shoulder, careful not to release my hands from the bars where the power cycled for fear of unleashing power accidentally. Thomas was there, watching me. He had a deep frown on his face, and there was a flash of darkness in his eyes, something that left me troubled and more than a little unsettled. I wondered if he was disappointed in what I had done.

  “You must’ve been practicing.”

  “You told me to,” I said.

  “I did.” He smiled slightly. “Though I must admit I wasn’t expecting you to have done it. It has been my experience that very few devote themselve
s to their studies the way they should.”

  Turning back to the bars of the dragon pen, I ran my hands along them, feeling the heat within the iron. They were thick enough that I couldn’t close my fist around them entirely, solid enough that they would give off the appearance of protection, though in reality they did very little.

  “I needed to know whether I could do it,” I said.

  “Have you proven it to yourself?”

  I thought about what happened with Brandel the night before. “I’ve proven I can call power to me. Whether or not I do it with the measure of control I need is a different matter.”

  “Everybody has to start somewhere,” Thomas said. He was dressed in a heavy black cloak. I realized that there were what appeared to be dragon scales worked into the cloak, and it seemed to ripple as he moved, catching only the faintest hint of the wind. The king’s emblem was marked on his left chest. The hood hung back behind him.

  “Where did you start?” I asked.

  Thomas glanced over to me, joining me at the dragon pen, holding his hands up against the bars, similar to how I stood. “I started where you are, at least in a certain sense,” he said. “When I first came here, I could not call upon any more power than others. I wanted to learn to connect to the dragons, but I feared for a long time I would be nothing more than a dragon rider.”

  I grunted. “I’m not so sure that’s all bad.”

  Thomas nodded. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out much about his expression, though I could feel the heat beginning to build from him as he reached through his connection to one of the dragons inside the pen. I wondered which one he connected to, and whether or not I could feel that.

  “Not all bad,” he said. “In fact, there are times when riding is superior to anything else I have done.” He took a deep breath, and he glanced over to me. “Learning to access the connection is the first piece. What I would like for you to do is to begin to focus that power.”

  “Isn’t that what you told me not to do yesterday?”

  He looked over, grinning. “Perhaps I did. But at the time, I would have said you weren’t ready.”

  “What makes you think I’m ready today when I wasn’t yesterday?”

  “I can feel what you have done,” he said and chuckled. “Much like I could feel yesterday how you were not ready. Perhaps you will surprise me and develop fine control.”

  “What sort of fine control would you have me demonstrate?” I wondered if perhaps it would be the same as what I had done against Brandel.

  “Turn to me,” he said.

  I released the bars, turning to him, and stared for a moment. I focused on my breathing, opening myself up to the dragon. I used the green dragon, mostly because he was the easiest for my connection to reach, though I didn’t know if that was all that I needed to draw upon.

  “What do you feel when you draw that power through you?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “When you are calling upon the power of the dragons, what is it that you feel?”

  I shrugged, shaking my head. “I don’t know. I feel the torrent of power as it flows through me.”

  That seemed about as good a description as any. I could feel that energy as it worked through me, rolling through the entirety of my being. Though I could feel it, I could also tell there was some other aspect to it I needed to control. When I had dealt with Brandel, I’d seen what happened when I released my connection, letting power explode from me.

  “A torrent of power is an interesting description,” Thomas said. “Most would call it a trickle.”

  That was the way he had described it when he had called that power yesterday, but when I felt the power of the dragons rolling through me, it was not a trickle at all. It was something much more. Considerable energy raced through me, forcing me to react to it. I could barely control it.

  “Maybe it’s just my inexperience,” I said.

  Thomas frowned. There was very little light around us, only a hint of the moonlight that still streamed down, casting a silver shadow across his face. The darkness and the shadows worked around him, making him seem even more irritated than he probably was. “Inexperience can lead to many things. Unfortunately, lack of control is one of the most dangerous, especially for those who are connected to power.”

  “I would never have known that power before yesterday,” I said.

  “Everybody has their own techniques,” he said. “In your case, I wonder if it is merely a matter of you finding some other way of connecting to the dragons. Perhaps that is all you need. Or perhaps it is a matter of time.”

  “Why did you decide to work with me?”

  “Because you recognized my connection to the dragons.” He motioned for me to follow, and we headed along the dragon pen to resume our position from the previous day. He took a seat on the ground and waited for me to follow him. When I did, he held my gaze. “What I want for you to do is to hold on to the power within. When you’re ready, let me know.”

  I started to focus on the energy of the dragon, letting that power fill me. It flowed through me, striking the heat within my belly, cycling through my hands pressed together in front of me.

  I could feel the energy roiling through me. There was nothing trickling about it.

  Maybe it was simply a matter of my inexperience. Given my relatively advanced age coming to the Academy, it wouldn’t be altogether surprising that I would feel things were more complicated than they probably were.

  “Do you have it?”

  I nodded. “The power is there.”

  Thomas leaned closer. Faint light gleamed across one of his cheeks. “Is it a torrent of power?”

  I regretted using that term with him. “It is.”

  “Try to tamp that torrent down,” he said.

  “How?”

  “You need to have control over it before you can use it. Most of the instructors within the Academy would like to tell people that they must simply unleash power without having any way of controlling it. They often overlook the key to limiting power at first. They are far too eager to explode that magic from them rather than understanding how it works before they do so.”

  “How do I tamp it down?”

  “What have they taught you about reaching for the connection to the dragons?”

  I looked up, meeting his gaze. “I’m sure it’s the same as it always has been. Focus on breathing. Feel for the heat within me. Then relax.”

  “It never changes,” Thomas said softly.

  “If it works, then why change it?”

  “Do you think it works?”

  I shrugged. “I suppose I don’t know.”

  “What I would suggest is trying to find someplace within you that you can push that power.”

  I had tried that once before, and when I had, I had felt the way that power had bottled up within me, almost leaving me overwhelmed with it. Then again, I had also absorbed power from Brandel the night before. I suspected the green dragon had assisted with that, though I wasn’t entirely sure.

  As that power rolled through me, cycling, I started to focus on the heat within me. That seemed to be some part of me I could regulate. I couldn’t control the power coming from the dragon, at least not without harming myself. When I had attempted to do that yesterday, all I had found was that I had ended up with the power losing control, blasting out of me. In this case, I thought I could stuff some of that energy down, deep into my core, and hold on to it.

  As I began to focus on pushing the power down, I could feel it starting to flow deeper into me. It was still a torrent, but the more I pushed, sending the energy deeper and deeper into the heat within me, the more I could gain a sense of control over the power that flowed throughout me.

  Gradually, control came to me. I felt it slowing.

  The torrent eased.

  It was still a heavy flow of power coming from the green dragon, almost some sort of a line I could feel, racing through me, but it wasn’t nearly what it had been
. It seemed as if it dissipated as it flowed throughout me, drifting into some deep and buried part of me before flowing from one arm to the next.

  “I can sense you gaining some measure of control,” Thomas said.

  “It’s strange,” I said. “I feel like I need to force it into the heat within me.”

  “Everybody has a different way of control,” Thomas said.

  Even as he said it, I sensed that he was a bit discomforted by it, as if he were troubled by my way of controlling power. Was there something wrong with how I access that magic?

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now you must continue to hold that focus. This is the next step in your understanding of the magic. Feel it flowing through you, control the power within you, and be ready to use it when we work the next time.”

  He got to his feet and I frowned at him. “That’s it?”

  “That is it for today. Were you expecting more?”

  “I guess I expected I would try to learn a little bit more than that.”

  “There are steps that must be completed.”

  He started to move away, reaching a point along the backside of the dragon pen. I heard a scraping of metal, and then he was inside of the dragon pen.

  I stared into the darkness, trying to make out what he was doing and where he was going, but I couldn’t see anything. I could feel his connection to the dragons, though. I recognized he was heading through the dragon pen, reaching for something, though I had no idea what it was or why he was doing it.

  As he made his way across the yard, he suddenly stopped. There was still a connection within him, still some energy that filled him, and as I felt that, I could feel the way that he was using that power, along with how he was forcing that energy out from him.

  I still couldn’t tell what it was that he did, though—only that I could feel it.

  Suddenly, there came a blast of heat. The dragon, whichever one that Thomas had gone to, along with Thomas himself, launched into the air, taking flight.

  I could practically see him flying away, drifting into the distance, though I could make out nothing other than a blackened shadow. It was more that I could feel him and the energy he radiated, growing ever more distant as he retreated.