“How many of these pits are there?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I traveled along the border and found quite a few. Maybe a dozen?”
“Why would they have funneled power from Affellah along here?”
I didn’t know, but as that lava flowed, burning through the forest, I could see the direction it was heading. All of it was traveling toward the capital.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was beyond us. We were not going to be able to stop it easily. We needed help that surpassed what the dragon mages and the Djarn could offer. It was going to take an enemy to help us.
But if it kept us from attacking them . . .
I had to think it would work. I had to think Thomas would be able to get to him and bring him back, then we could end this.
I had to think we could avoid war.
We continued streaking along the forest edge.
“We need to get to the king,” I said.
“You don’t want to try to stop them?”
I looked back. From this vantage, I could see at least five different streams of lava working across the ground. Power and flame flowed through the forest, leaving trees bursting with fire.
“I have no idea what is going to stop them.”
I connected to Thomas through the cycle, sending him a sense of what we were seeing and what we needed to do, though I didn’t know if it would be effective enough for him to feel it. All I wanted was for him to recognize the power I was sending him so he could help. He needed to join us.
And without her father, we had nobody with us who was tied to the kingdom.
The king needed to know.
I had another thought, but it wasn’t one I was sure would even work. If we traveled back to the capital, we might have a chance of linking even more dragons to this cycle. I had to think that if we were able to add even more power to it, then we should be able to overwhelm the Vard.
We needed power to stop what they had done. Somehow, we had to bottle up the lava. I didn’t know if we could do it otherwise.
“Do you really believe the Servant will help?” Natalie asked softly.
I remembered what I felt when I had been with the Servant. There had been anger, but if I had been held captive in a pit in the ground within my lands, how would I have felt?
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s entirely possible the Servant will let this happen.”
With enough destructive energy, it was easy to believe that the city wouldn’t even be able to withstand this kind of attack. And if the capital fell, how long would it take to destroy the rest of the kingdom?
But that wouldn’t leave only the kingdom to deal with. There were others.
I had to believe that the Vard would see that. That the Servant would see that.
The capital loomed into view. It was the middle of the day, bright and sunny, and it didn’t feel as if we should be under attack the way we were; in fact, it felt as if all of this were little more than a dream. I guided the dragon higher and higher in the sky so I could see into the distance more clearly.
I could make out the flows of lava coming toward the city from here, angled slightly but on a direct path.
We glided down, heading straight toward the palace.
When we landed, I jumped down from the dragon and raced over to the entrance of the palace, keeping Natalie with me. She nodded to the dragon mage standing guard as he waved us past, thankfully not bothering to stop us. We ran into the palace and hurried to the throne room.
The dragon mage standing guard blocked us, and I tried to look past him. “We need to see the king,” I said. “There is danger coming to the city. It’s a danger that can’t be stopped by dragon mages. The only way to stop it is with the king’s involvement. If we don’t, then the Vard will attack in full.”
His brow furrowed. I could see the debate warring on his face, as if he were deciding whether to let us in. Finally, he frowned, turned to the door, and stepped into the throne room, leaving Natalie and I standing outside.
“Do you think he will meet with us?” she whispered.
“I’ve only seen him once,” I said.
“And?”
“I don’t know. I figured you’d know him better than I do.”
“My father. Not me. I don’t even stay in the palace.”
“If your father serves him, it seems you would be granted that freedom.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It isn’t for me.”
It occurred to me that I hadn’t yet learned where she resided. Someplace in the city, obviously, but I didn’t know exactly where.
The throne room door came open, and the dragon mage motioned for us to come in.
We followed him into a massive chamber with an enormous chair at one end. From there we were guided behind the throne. The king sat at a small table, looking at a pile of paper stacked atop it. He watched me as we approached, looking up with a sour expression.
“I understand that you have some word about the Vard?”
I glanced over to Natalie before turning my attention to him. “This wasn’t the Vard.” I went on and told him what we had encountered: how we had seen the different pits, all of them bubbling lava, and the way the dragons
