Then again, I’d thought I could learn from Jerith and he’d betrayed the kingdom.
Would Walter do the same?
I had to push those thoughts aside as I focused.
He controlled the narrow bands over him, and they began to twist, weaving together, forming a mesh above him. “This is a bit of an advanced technique, but if he has you pulling on multiple strands, I think it’s time for you to learn it.”
“You don’t think Thomas could teach me this?”
Walter glanced briefly to me before turning his attention back to the weave of flame above him. “I’m quite certain he could. The matter is whether or not he would. Thomas is an incredibly gifted dragon mage. There is no doubt about that. He has succeeded because of that. My concern is that Thomas sees more value in the offense, and less value in the defense.”
“This is a defensive use of power?”
I found myself drawn toward Walter and started calling power through me, letting it flow up my arms and trying to push it up my shoulders. It was a strange use of energy, and one I had never attempted before. As I called power up along my body, pushing up my shoulders and beyond, I felt a resistance. It was as if it didn’t want to cooperate with me. I pushed even more, and as I did, I recognized something. Pushing power from my shoulders naturally caused those strands of power to divide. It reached a resistance within my body, and from there I could force it upward and form those strands.
“Very good,” Walter said. “I wasn’t quite sure if Thomas had demonstrated this to you. It’s not his preferred technique.”
“It’s not what he’s taught me,” I admitted.
He glanced over. “Then what has he taught you?”
I pulled the power back into me. It was a matter of forcing it down into some deep part of myself, and from there it cycled back to the dragons, circling around so that it maintained a connection to them. I didn’t give up the power, merely shifted it.
There were other ways of using that power, and I’d learned I could deplete the dragons, to a certain extent. Over time, they would regain that magic again, but it took time for them to restore it. Connected as I now was to multiple dragons, nearly a dozen, the depletion wasn’t nearly as dramatic. I could call on power and it seemed almost limitless. The only barrier was me. There were limits to how much power I could hold, and how long I could hold it.
“He taught me how to create separate draws of power this way,” I said, pulling the power through my fingers and sending it streaking out from each individual finger into narrow bands that I wove together into tighter and tighter ropes. As I did, I could feel the energy building. It was as Walter had claimed—more of an offensive use of power. Strangely, I felt drawn to that use of power, which might be the reason Thomas had helped me. Maybe he recognized I was drawn to more offensive uses of magic rather than defensive ones. Unless he hadn’t known.
Walter watched me, something unreadable in his expression. “That is impressive,” he finally said. “There are very few dragon mages who can weave power from their hands in that manner,” he said.
“I thought it was something that most could do,” I said.
He shook his head. “There are other natural split points for power. As you’ve seen, the shoulders will divide the power for you. What you’re doing is going through your hands.” He forced power out from his hands, and it weaved from one to the other, a thick band of power. He split it, and it went from three fingers on one side to three fingers on the other side, and the remaining two fingers on either hand connected another band of power. “The hands aren’t a natural divider of power. It requires the dragon mage himself—or herself, I should say, as there are many powerful female dragon mages—to divide that power as they hold it. It is an incredibly difficult technique.”
“How many ways can you split it?”
I had a suspicion I already knew the answer.
Walter shrugged. “Unfortunately, I have not tested that. I can see why Thomas would have been drawn to you though. Using multiple strands, such as you are now, allows you to be much more offensive with your connection to the dragons.”
I had known that splitting the power allowed me to use it in a way I couldn’t otherwise. I could force even more power from my fingers, twisting the strands together, and somehow that augmented it.
“This isn’t what you wanted to show me though,” I said.
Walter smiled. “It is not.” The flames disappeared from his hands and shot back out through his shoulders, stretching high above his head, where they split, and then immediately coalesced overhead into a tight weave. The precision with which he managed to do it was incredible. I had seen other dragon mages use their power, and had recognized that there were varying levels of ability, but seeing this left me marveling at him. “What I wanted to show you was a different way to use the power of the dragons. As you can see, the shoulders are one of your natural split points. As you stream the flames up from you, you can curve them overhead, and when you do, you can bring them together in a way that allows you to create something much more impressive.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“This?” He swirled around, spreading the weave outward, creating a cage around him. “Use one of Thomas’s techniques.”
“Walter?”
He smiled. “Do not fear, Ashan.”
I shifted the power I was holding, no longer trying to force it up to my shoulders to mimic what he was doing, and created a band of power from one hand to the next. I didn’t weave it
