“It’s not going to matter,” I said. “I helped the dragons.”
He tapped on the vase he held. I noticed a surge of energy, and something shifted. There was a drawing of power that came off of me, siphoned from me. “Oh. I’m well aware. I’ve felt what you’ve been doing. At first, I didn’t know what it meant, but I now realize you were helping.”
Had I been helping? I had been rescuing the dragons, connecting them so they could . . .
No.
I’d made a mistake. I’d not only saved the dragons, but I’d linked them with others. With the vases, and a way of controlling the power within it, Donathar could use the power of a dozen dragons—all of whom I had attempted to control and connect to with the intention of saving and protecting them.
Donathar grinned at me. “You see, don’t you.” His face contorted in a sneer. “Soon it won’t matter. And look. You’ve brought each of them to me. I thought I was going to have to use the primary vessel to call upon the power of the other vessels, but you’ve saved me the need to do so.” He grinned at me again. “I will take the vessels now.”
“You aren’t going to have them,” I said.
“I think you are mistaken.”
A surge of energy built from him and slammed outward, cascading toward me. It took everything in my being to try to shift the call of power, but as I attempted to do so, cycling that energy through me, using the energy I felt within the vase, I could feel that he had a greater control over it.
“What do you intend to do with us?”
He grunted. “Once I have control over this power, then the city—and the king—are an easy thing to conquer. How do you think this city was conquered?”
He intended to overthrow the king.
Not Vard.
Not Djarn.
Something else. Like Elaine.
I needed to stall him while I attempted to figure out if there were some way for me to connect to the dragons that would make a difference. While I already had a connection to them, it didn’t seem strong enough to conquer Donathar’s actions.
“You’re not with the Djarn, are you?”
Donathar took a step toward me, grinning. Power flowed from him, and I did everything to resist his hold over me. It was a battle—one I didn’t think I could win.
“The Djarn? They have their uses, but their use is more in the unique connection they have to these creatures.” He glanced over to the dragon, and power began to fade from it once again. With much more time, the dragon would fade altogether. “It took me a long time to piece together the key. They thought to intervene, but their devices only delayed us a short time.”
Could that have been what Joran’s father had brought to the city?
Donathar would have known if there were Djarn here, but someone not of their people might have been able to get through.
“The king had me working with the Djarn. Can you imagine what it’s like to live among those savages?” He shook his head. “Far easier to understand the rationale for overthrowing them.”
I frowned. “It’s not the Vard either. You’re with whomever Elaine worked with.”
He chuckled. “Interesting that you would be the one to reach that conclusion. It doesn’t matter. We’ve infiltrated far more than any will ever know.”
“Whom are you with?”
“We work in the shadows. They’ll never see it until it’s too late.”
Power continued to cycle out from me and I struggled to hold on to the energy. I could feel each of the dragons, but each time power circled, all of it ended up drifting into the vases, which made it even harder to hold on to.
The dragons would fade. Not only the dragons that had initially connected to the vases, but other ones. The yellow-scaled dragon. The dragons within the dragon pen. The green dragon I had rescued.
All of them would be claimed by him and whomever he worked with.
All of them would be used to overthrow the kingdom.
I couldn’t find any way to separate him from the pull of power. He was too strong.
He had connected to the vases. Somehow, that was the key. He used that power in a way I could not.
But why couldn’t I?
I could feel the power flowing through and coming out of the vases—and the way he drew on that energy.
It flowed through me, as well.
Which meant it flowed through him.
It was a cycle of power between the two of us. I had formed it unintentionally, building it over time, but that cycle seemed to matter—only I didn’t know what to make of it. Energy continued to spill out of him, and I changed my approach.
Rather than trying to pull upon the power, and trying to regain control, I did something different. I started to focus on him. If I could affect Donathar—if I could find a way to somehow drain his power into the vase, as mine had been—I could possibly mitigate his advantage.
I worked through my lessons, realizing that they had been taught to me by Jerith, one who had intended to overthrow the king, but they were still useful despite that. I called power to me, focusing on my breathing and the heat within me—that knowing energy that made it feel as if I had swallowed smoldering coals—then relaxed.
I opened myself to that power.
The dragons flowed through me. That was easy. They had always flowed through me. I connected to their energy and felt for something more. I felt for Donathar. He was a part of the cycle, whether he
