I needed more training, but unfortunately there hadn’t been time for that. I had been focused instead on everything else that was taking place, like the attack on the city and trying to learn whether there was anything more I might be able to do to help so that I could offer my service on behalf of the king.
We had stopped two attacks now, but I struggled afterward. I still remained unconvinced that the Vard were responsible for them, despite what others thought.
But if it wasn’t the Vard, then what was it?
I didn’t have that answer either.
Most within the city were comfortable believing the Vard responsible. Even the king and his Sharath advisor. It was easier that way. I understood that. Many of the dragon mages had faced the Vard over the years, and they had experienced the dangers that they posed, but what we had encountered was something different. I was sure of it.
I tried to push those thoughts away.
There was more movement ahead of me.
I tracked a little farther, still holding on to the connection to the dragon.
Another flicker of movement, this one farther from me.
It wasn’t a dragon, and it wasn’t anybody connected to the dragons. If it had been, I would have known about it.
I called on even more power, trying to cycle through more of the dragons. The advantage I had was that I could cycle through many of the dragons at one time, expanding my power. I had linked them. It had been done originally to save several dragons, but it had also done something to me, binding me to them and their power, and permitted me the ability to let power flow far more greatly than I had when I was cycling through a single dragon.
I could feel the movement, as if the dragons wanted me to know.
It was a strange pressure against me. Something uncomfortable.
Almost an irritant, as if it were burning against the cycle.
It had to be mesahn. If it wasn’t, then I had to wonder if maybe it was one of these others who’d attacked the kingdom.
I would do my part to stop the attacks. The dragons would help.
Strangely, as I had continued to work with the dragons, I had a feeling from them that they wanted me to expand that power, the connection, and it had given me something I hadn’t been able to achieve before.
A connection. A feeling of belonging. Something I needed to have. It was odd to feel like I was lost despite having been surrounded by so many within the city. It was massive—a sprawling, immense city set within the forest, as if space had been carved out by the trees themselves to allow the city to thrive. Despite thousands of people crowding its streets, I didn’t always feel as if I were comfortable there.
I didn’t have a family here. I didn’t always feel as if I belonged within the Academy.
But the dragons . . . the dragons gave me a place that I belonged.
I moved farther forward, staying in the shadows around me.
It might be nothing more than one of the mesahn. I knew some of them prowled through the forest, hunting for evidence of the Vard influence around the kingdom, though this close would be far less likely.
I caught sight of another bit of movement and raced forward. Without meaning to, I called upon dragon energy, and it propelled me.
Then I came to a stop. A hooded figure remained near a tree, hand resting on his side, enormous wolflike creature prowling behind him. The mesahn was massive, almost the size of a horse, with a broad head, ears that perked up and seemed to swivel as if listening to everything, and a blunted snout that sniffed at the air. Its brown fur looked coarse, though Manuel spoke of its incredible softness.
“Manuel.” It had been a mesahn, but one I knew. “Have you been hunting me?”
“Consider it practice,” the other man said, stepping forward and pulling his hood back. He had a lean face and dark eyes that seemed to blend into the shadows of the forest. There was something about him that always seemed mysterious, ever since the first time I’d met him passing through our lands. “I hadn’t expected you to be able to reach us quite so easily,” he said.
“I was just out here . . .” I shook my head, frowning to myself. “To be honest, I’m not really sure what I was out here doing.”
“Practicing?” Manuel asked, glancing at my hands.
I looked down, noticing that I held fire between them. It had been instinctive, a bonding of fire that jumped from one hand to the next. The power had stayed with me. I hadn’t even been aware I’d maintained a connection like that. I released it, tapping and forcing that power down where it rejoined the other cycle that flowed out from me.
“Perhaps practice,” I said. “Mostly to relax.” I didn’t want to reveal the real reason I’d come out here. I wasn’t sure how he’d take it.
“Relax?” Manuel glanced around the forest. There was something in his gaze that suggested danger. The mesahn pushed up against his hand for a moment before racing off into the trees, disappearing altogether.
The only reason I’d seen the mesahn was because Manuel had wanted me to. Otherwise, the mesahn would have disappeared, and I wouldn’t have been aware of it at all.
“I find the forest relaxing. There’s something about the canopy of the trees, the darkness around me, the feel of the forest itself.”
It was strange to think like that, especially as I had never really been a forest person before having connected to the dragons. Before I had always felt comfortable out in
