The dragon continued to fade, and there was a surge of urgency coming from the other dragons I’d connected to. I searched through the inside of the palace, trying to ignore the thundering of my own heart, the quick breathing in my lungs, and everything within me that told me to turn away. What was I thinking?
This was not a fight I could have anything to do with. This was not a fight I should have anything to do with.
This was dangerous.
The sense of a dragon called me forward, though, and I was helpless to ignore it. I didn’t know if I were pushed toward it because of my own desire to help or because of the dragons I was connected to. Either way, there was energy, and that energy filled me, guiding me and flowing from me.
There was a staircase, though it was narrow. I raced over to it and started down. The stairs spiraled around, seeming to squeeze closer together. If this did bring me down to the dragon, I couldn’t help but wonder how the dragon would have ended up down here.
I had to keep going. I had to get as far as I could. I had to find some way. I had to—
There.
The stairs ended. In the distance, I detected the fading energy of a dragon, the heat coming off of it, and the fading energy that seemed to call to me. There were flickering lights up ahead, either from lanterns or the dragon itself. If they were from the dragon, the flickering suggested that whatever power the dragon had would soon be gone.
I stumbled, slipping over something, and looked down to see a body.
It took my tired mind a moment to recognize what I saw.
I stepped back, putting the light behind me, and stared.
“Manuel?”
Manuel had come to warn the king. Why would he be here?
I crouched next to him, then reached out and checked his neck. He was still breathing, and he still had a pulse. When I touched him, he moaned softly, stirring and looking up at me before his eyes closed again.
My heart hammered.
What was I falling into?
I had to keep going.
Not only because of Manuel, but also because of the dragon and what I felt coming from him. He needed my help.
I raced toward him. I could feel a pulling power, but there was the same pause in power that I’d felt before, something that suggested an injury to him. Then I saw the dragon.
The hallway opened into a massive chamber, its wall sloping to a roof that stretched high overhead. How was this place situated beneath the palace? It seemed impossible. It was enormous, as if this would rival the palace itself. There was an energy here, as well, and it did not take long for me to find its source.
Situated in the center of the chamber was a dragon larger than any within the dragon pens. It was an enormous, black-scaled dragon, curled up, his head resting along his side, his tail wrapped around its body. Massive spikes protruded along the length of his torso. As I approached, I didn’t feel any sense of heat or energy coming off of him.
The dragon faded.
A faint scratching sound caught my attention.
I moved closer to the dragon and stumbled again, pressing my hand up against his cool side. As I did, I focused, feeling for the connection of the others, and the power that surged out of them as it flowed to me. The other dragons pushed through me, channeling my connection, and formed a bond to this one. It cycled through no differently than the others had cycled. That power struck the dragon. In this case, I was not in control.
Heat started to build within the dragon. There was another vase. All I had to do was interrupt that flow of power. I found it, though rather than sitting off to the side like it had been with the other dragons, this time the interruption seemed to be directly beneath the dragon.
“You’re going to need to move,” I whispered. There was still the issue of the soft scraping sound I had heard. I had no idea where that had come from, only that it had to be nearby.
The dragon didn’t move.
“I’m going to need you to get up,” I urged. “If you don’t, I’m not sure I can—”
The scraping sound came again.
It was a strange draw of power, though it wasn’t the same kind of power I detected from a dragon mage. This was similar to what I had detected outside of the palace. It was a loop of energy, though surprisingly, it didn’t connect to any dragon.
Not even the dragon directly in front of us.
A figure appeared in front of me and began to glow with energy. I tried to hold on to the power of the dragons, but I didn’t have nearly enough strength.
I was tired—I had been helping the dragons and linking them to my cycle, and the dragons themselves had been pulling upon my own energy. I was just as much a part of that cycle as they were, and because of it, I could no longer fight. I would fail here.
“Look at this,” the voice said. There was a familiar quality to it. I had heard it before. It took me a moment to realize where.
When I did, I started to get to my feet, still clutching the vases against me. It probably didn’t matter. The figure approaching had a vase of his own. The one I had given to Manuel.
“The little apprentice.”
I recognized the voice from the exchange with Jerith, when they were talking about the dragon. At the time, I hadn’t known who it was. Now I did.
Donathar.
“I know what you and Jerith were planning.”
He chuckled. “Jerith has his uses. Just like the Djarn have their uses.” He looked down at
