I looked behind me, but Brandel and Kane were gone.
Maybe that was for the best. I didn’t want to deal with either of them right now.
Instead, I turned my attention back to the dragon pens, staring through the bars, focusing on the dragons as I tried to open myself up to that power. There wasn’t much that I could feel. Only a hint of residual energy.
I lingered there for a while, wondering what Thomas would want from me, and whether it was going to be dangerous. At the same time, a hint of excitement filled me. If I were going to learn about how to connect to the dragons, I had to believe Thomas would be able to teach me. Probably better than anyone else I had worked with.
6
Thomas was already outside of the dragon pen when I arrived. I glanced up to the sky. It still wasn’t first light, so I didn’t think I was late, but I worried I might have been further behind than I should have been. Given that he’d offered to work with me, perhaps I should have gotten here plenty early so I wasn’t the one holding up my training.
I found Thomas dressed similarly to how he had been dressed the day before, though it seemed as if he had a metal pin worked into his jacket that wasn’t there. In the darkness, it was difficult for me to tell.
I could feel energy radiating from him, power that drifted off of him, swirling through the bars of the dragon pen toward the nearest of the dragons. I couldn’t tell which dragon he connected to, though there was something about the connection that suggested to me that it was the same brown dragon he had been connecting to when I had come here the day before.
“You came,” Thomas said without looking over.
I nodded, standing a step behind him, watching. I couldn’t necessarily see anything, though there was a pull of power I could feel. It seemed to pull upon something deep within his belly, a way of drawing that power from the dragon to him. I couldn’t tell if he was using that power in any way, or if it was simply meant to fill him.
My father had described the heat as a burning sensation within his belly, and it was something that I felt around the dragons as well, but anything more than that was still beyond my ability—so far, at least.
“You told me to meet you at first light,” I said.
He grunted, and he released his power as he turned to me. “Very good. I wasn’t sure if you would awaken in time to join me.”
“I get up early. I’m accustomed to it.”
“Are you?”
“Years spent on a farm with roosters crowing at first light has trained me to get up early.”
He smiled. “I suppose it would. You were a farmer, then? I thought you said you came from Berestal.”
I nodded. “My family owns a farm outside of Berestal. We farm on the plains.”
I had no idea whether he would even know what that meant, but he watched me for a moment, nodding slowly. “As far as I know, there are few farms out on the plains. It can be difficult with the storms.”
I regarded him for a moment. “It can be. Sometimes the storms are powerful, especially during the wet season.” Even the storms during the dry season could be incredible. We had encountered powerful storms before I had come this way, storms that were unlike most that we had out on the plains.
“Who is tending to your farm in your absence? Your father?”
“My father is gone,” I said softly.
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
I took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “An accident years ago left him addled. He began to worsen and ventured off during a particularly bad storm.”
“You lost your father because of the storms?”
I nodded. “I did. The rains forced him off of the Kings Road, and . . .” I shrugged. I didn’t really know what else happened, only that by the time I had found him, he was mostly gone. Possibly entirely gone.
“Do you have anyone else in your family caring for your farm?”
“They sold the farm now that I came to the city.”
Thomas regarded me for a moment. “And if you don’t succeed?”
The question was almost too harsh, though I honestly appreciated his bluntness. It was better than so many others within the Academy. “If I fail, then I return to my home. I find a new way.”
“That doesn’t worry you?”
“Why worry about things I can’t control?”
Thomas turned away, focusing on the dragons in the distance. “Hmm.”
He fell silent, and I could still feel the heat coming off of him, the connection that he shared with the dragon. “Do you know the plains and Berestal?”
It was a foolish question. Thomas had been in Berestal for the testing. What I should be asking about was Elaine, though since coming to the capital, no one had wanted to speak of it more than what I’d shared with Manuel.
“I am familiar with most parts of the kingdom,” he said. “I’m tasked with ensuring its safety.”
“Because you’re the king’s mage?”
Thomas turned to me, watching me for a moment. “I wasn’t sure if you recognized me.”
“I didn’t recognize you,” I admitted. “I recognized your name and only because . . .”
He chuckled. A hint of light started to emerge in the distance as dawn began to break. “You can say it.”
“Because Elaine mentioned it.”
“So you were with her.”
“Not with her,” I said, more quickly than I needed to.
Thomas watched me for another moment. “I suppose you haven’t been in the capital long enough to recognize me by sight.”
“Are you here very often?”
“Not as often as the king would like. Those requests draw me away, though in order for the kingdom to remain safe, there are things that pull me away from the capital. And things that draw me back.”
“Like the Vard.”
He turned and looked at me. “Like the
