The way he said it suggested it was something other than the Vard.
He didn’t say it, but given my experience in the forest, and seeing Manuel, I worried it was the Djarn. With Joran making his way to the capital, I worried he’d find danger. His father believed he had a connection to the Djarn. So few in the kingdom did, and what was known about them—at least, widely known—wasn’t enough to make anyone feel completely safe in their forest.
“Manuel said Elaine and Barton were after a dragon—that they have been after dragons.” I was careful not to call them Vard. I still didn’t know if they were.
“It would make their assault upon the kingdom more effective,” he said. “If the Vard had dragons to terrorize our outlying territories, it would be easier for them. That is part of the reason the king has his hunters patrolling, trying to ensure any dragons are brought to the kingdom for training.”
Joran claimed the Vard despised dragons. They wouldn’t want to use them.
“That’s what Manuel and the mesahn do?”
He watched me again. “It is interesting how much you know, along with how little you know. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. You have a unique experience compared to most who come from the traditional kingdom.”
“I didn’t realize anything was traditional.”
“You’d be surprised.” He smiled tightly. “Now. I think that rather than continuing to talk about the Vard and their continued threat upon the kingdom, we should begin to focus on what you might learn from me. I don’t know how much time I might have to train you, so we should begin.”
I regarded him for some time. I still didn’t know why he had chosen to work with me at all, only that he seemed interested in my ability to detect which dragon he had connected to. Somehow that mattered to him, though I couldn’t help but wonder why.
“I’ve not been able to do anything other than open myself up to the connection to the dragons. I can feel the energy of them, but I haven’t been able to summon that power and use it in any way that is useful.”
He looked over, smiling tightly. “I imagine we can change that.”
“I don’t know. Jerith suggested I might have come to the Academy too late to gain any meaningful control.”
Thomas’s face wrinkled slightly as I said it, and he glanced back to the Academy building in the distance. In the growing morning light, it took on a pale yellow glow, making it almost appear as if the Academy itself summoned the power of the dragons. The main building had a massive open lawn that separated it from the dragon pens, but the entrance to the Academy was visible from here.
“Anyone with your ability to detect the power of the dragons can learn the control necessary. Do not think you don’t have the capability.”
I shrugged. “I’ve tried. They taught me about opening myself up to that power. I tried to do so, using the techniques they taught, but it’s not always fully effective. When I attempt to do it, I can feel that power, but I can’t concentrate it within me.”
“If you can feel it, then you can concentrate it. We will try, and I will see just what it is that you’re capable of.”
I looked over, waiting for him to say something more, but he didn’t. I started through the progression. First breathing, then the heat, then the relaxation. When I did, my connection to the distant dragon in the dragon pen flowed to me. I could feel his power, even though there was nothing about it that I felt I could use. I breathed in that energy, trying to call it to me, but as usual, I failed.
“I can tell you’ve opened yourself to it. Why don’t we try something else.” Thomas turned toward me, and he pressed the tips of his fingers together, his arms stretched in front of him. “Do this.”
I held my hands out and brought my fingers together the way Thomas demonstrated.
“As you feel that power within yourself, what you need to do is open yourself in the way you have been doing, and the way I can feel you doing effectively, and then begin to draw through your hands. Try to focus on what comes through you and move it back around to you.”
I started to smile. It all sounded impossible, but then again, there was a time when I would’ve believed that my ability to connect to the dragons was impossible. Here I was, holding on to power I could never have imagined.
I pressed the tips of my fingers tightly together. It went against the relaxation part of connecting to the dragon, but strangely, it let me feel as if I were tied to the dragon, in a way.
I opened myself to the dragon. The connection was there. It was faint, at least at first. Slowly, I could feel that power building, the energy of the green dragon out there in the yard, and I reached for that heat within myself. When I did, I focused on the connection I shared between my fingers. That was the step that was different. There came a strange stirring deep within me.
I opened my eyes and glanced over at Thomas, then started to say something when he shook his head.
“Don’t speak,” he said. “I can see the way the power is beginning to manifest. Continue with what you are doing.”
I struggled to concentrate again. I had disrupted whatever was happening, and by opening my mouth to speak, I’d run the risk of disrupting the connection to power.
Now I needed to find a way to reach that again.
I held on to the power, holding energy within me. That power flowed, coming from
