“I can’t. I told you. I need to go after the dragon.”
“What dragon?” The road stretched in either direction, and I thought about the massive pawprint that I had seen. I was concerned that we might encounter something like that. I tried to keep my father from moving along the road, but he kept pulling. Sunlight shone down; the humidity of the day already unpleasant. Thankfully there was no thunder, no lightning, and no threat of a storm. Not yet, at least.
Exasperation filled me, more than it should. I tried to suppress it as much as I could, but even as I did, I knew that I had shown more than I had intended.
“Can’t you feel it?”
“What am I supposed to feel?” I asked. I moved so that I blocked him from making his way along the road any further. “Can’t you feel the dragon?”
“Tell me what it feels like.”
“It starts like a burning in your stomach. Like I said. You have to start with your breathing. Then it’s like you swallowed a bellyful of hot coals that are just smoldering there.” He closed his eyes, and although the description sounded awful, a serene look crossed his face . “That burning begins to build, and it sweeps out from your belly into your arms and chest, then down into your legs, all the way to your feet.” He opened his eyes. “That’s what I feel.”
“And it’s coming from there?”
“It’s coming from the east. That’s where I’m going, you know.” He lowered his voice, almost as if he were telling me a secret. “You could come with me. I won’t tell your mother. She doesn’t really understand these things, anyway. She never really did.”
“What things?”
He grinned. There was something very childlike in it when he did, and I knew this was one of his bad days. There were far too many of them lately. So many days when he was like this, exacerbating the stubborn man that he had once been.
“Dragons. The forest. The Djarn.”
I stiffened. Of course, what I had seen could have been a face, but when I had told him I hadn’t expected him to get so caught up in it.
I should have been more careful. With my father, it was all too easy for him to get wrapped up in his mind, twisting and turning things into something else. It was difficult to know when his mind was clear and when it wasn’t. If this was a time of clarity, it meant my father was keeping secrets.
Though the Djarn lived in the forest nearby, no one really knew anything about them. They were secretive and selective with who they spoke to and traded with. Some thought they used magic, or had a way of connecting to the dragons, though I’d never seen evidence of that. Having seen the scorched ground near the forest that might have been the Vard, I didn’t think the Djarn worked with the Vard, but didn’t know with certainty.
“You aren’t going to be able to get to a dragon,” I said.
“Not if you keep delaying me,” he said. “But I can feel it. I can feel the burning. They aren’t far.”
He tried to push past me, but I stood firm on the King’s Road. “We should go back,” I told him.
“Not until I do this, Ashan.”
He pushed, the suddenness of it startled me, and I tripped, getting tangled still holding on to Adela’s reins.
When I got to my feet, he was ambling down the road, moving quicker than I would’ve expected him to. I guided Adela along, cursing under my breath as I trailed after him. “What exactly do you think you’re going to find?”
“I told you what I’m going to find, Ashan.”
“I don’t feel anything out here,” I said.
“Because you’re not paying attention to it,” he said. “Focus. You have to listen. You have to allow yourself to be open to the heat. Only then will it come to you.”
“The day is hot enough as it is,” I said. I wiped my arm across my brow. I’d been working hard even when the caravan had come past, and now I was hotter than before. Part of that was the irritation stewing within me, enough that I could practically feel it burning. If I felt anything, it was only going to be just how upset with my father I had become.
Maybe I should have tried to get Alison to come with us. She would’ve had a way to talk him down. For all of her complaining about the role she had in the household, she did have a gentle touch with him. She always managed to talk him down when he got worked up like this. Were it not for her, he would have wandered off dozens of times in the past.
“If you’re just going to get in my way, you can head back,” he said.
“I’m not going to get in your way,” I told him.
Maybe it was best that I follow him, see what he intended. Maybe it was nothing and he would realize he felt nothing more than the heat of the sun. Then I could convince him to turn around.
Besides, I wasn’t going to be able to head back home until I had my father with me.
It was just another wasted day. I groaned, trailing him as we made our way along the King’s Road. He moved faster than I would’ve given him credit for. We walked for the better part of an hour, and when the road began to slope upward, he slowed, looking down toward the distant forest.
“Can you feel it now?” he whispered.
“I can’t feel anything,” I said.
“Because you haven’t opened yourself to it. I bet your sister could.”
I nodded. “I’m sure that Alison could.”
“Thenis can. He always had a connection. I’ve tried
