The canopy arched high overhead, filling the dense forest with broad leaves from a variety of strange trees that were only found deep within the forest. The massive trunks towered high into the air, large branches sweeping up and over me, swaying in the hint of breeze. An occasional oak or elm managed to grow in between the other trees, but not many, and they weren’t nearly as tall as they would be in other parts of the forest.
Energy connected me to a dragon deeper in the city. As I focused on that connection, cycling the power through me, I couldn’t help but notice that it felt almost drawn away from me, carried out from the city and the dragon pens and then beyond, toward someplace distant.
It was from mesahn, animals that seemed part wolf and part forest cat who prowled with the king’s Hunters. I was sure of it. The dragons had sent me enough of a connection for me to know it was there. The mesahn weren’t rare, though the dragons had an uneasy relationship with them. I doubted the Hunters like Manuel even knew the extent of their uneasiness with each other.
That feeling pulled me.
Into the forest. Toward the Djarn.
I could feel their power, and I was fully aware of the presence of it, even though I still didn’t quite know what it meant. In the weeks since we had stopped an attack on the kingdom, I’d not uncovered anything more to help me fully understand just what role the Djarn played in the kingdom, but it certainly was more than I’d ever known.
Here I had thought the Djarn were a simple people, indigenous to the forest, but they were not. They were something more.
Much more.
Taking a deep breath, I turned away, looking out into the clearing behind me. There was movement, though I wasn’t able to make out the details of it. I could only tell there was something there. I waited and continued cycling the power through me, holding on to the energy as I did, letting that power continue to flow and roll outward.
Maybe the mesahn were hunting for evidence of additional infiltration within the kingdom, the way I was.
I would have to ask Manuel.
For now, there was something peaceful about holding on to the power of the dragons, yet I never took for granted how unusual it was for me to have this ability. How could I when it seems so fantastical, even now?
Had I not left my homeland, I would’ve still been a farmer, never having learned about my connection to the dragons, and never having learned about the cycle that existed and how I could connect to it. I would’ve lived my life always longing for something more, feeling unfulfilled. In that way, it was a blessing that I had come to learn about the cycle of dragons and my role within it.
My family likely would’ve been unfulfilled, as well. My sister would have remained on the farm until she eventually met someone and married, never doing what she wanted, and certainly never being given the opportunity to find what she valued. I had no idea what happened to my brother since I left, other than hearing that he had gone to a healer, and there was some promising change for him. I had to hope he could get what he needed. Perhaps the longer I spent within the capital, and the more I earned the king’s favor, the more likely it was I might be able to get help for him. I could imagine a time in the future when the king would send his healers to help my brother. Flying by dragon, I could probably get there quickly. Only a day or two.
There came a fluttering of power that rolled through me.
Were the mesahn moving?
If they found something, I wanted to know what it was.
Ignoring the better sense that suggested I should stay out of it if the mesahn were involved, I focused on the earliest techniques I learned to help me control that power, thinking first about my breathing, then about how to tamp down the heat within me, and finally focusing on relaxing, cycling the power in a way that would allow me to use it most effectively.
As I did, I could feel something within that power shifting, some aspect to it that granted me a greater connection than I would’ve had otherwise. It started to tremble. I let the energy flow. Flames jumped from hand to hand, completing the cycle. It was a simple thing for me to send the flames arcing from one hand to the next, and I could even twist them, splitting them so that they separated out through my fingers, creating several strands of flame that could each be manipulated. I could feel the energy roaring through me, a connection to some other great power that existed within the dragons. That connection was powerful, vast, and filled with energy—and within the cycle, it seemed almost limitless.
Movement in the forest caught my attention.
That had to be mesahn.
I lost control, and a burst of energy exploded out from my hands, pouring into the trees. It took everything in my concentration to prevent that explosion from destroying a swath of forest.
I pulled power back to me, holding on to it, but couldn’t trap it nearly as well as I wanted. Another surge of shadowy movement near me caught my attention.
Getting to my feet, I headed to the trees, moving quickly.
I didn’t want to attack the mesahn. One of the dragons in my cycle had already done that once, a fact I had not shared with anyone. I wouldn’t be the one to pit the dragons and riders against the Hunters.
Heat rolled up through my
