“And you believe the Servant can end this?”
I nodded. “I hope so. I don’t know if it will work, but I suspect it will involve trading his assistance for his freedom.”
“Or we simply force him to help,” the king said, turning his attention back to a stack of papers in front of him.
“I don’t know if that will work.”
The king looked up, locking eyes with me. His expression was dark, hard. There was no dragon magic within him, but I still wanted to look away.
“I’m sure Thomas Elaron has instructed you that we have not captured one of their Servants before. This is an opportunity for us. We can finally leverage it, get the upper hand over the Vard, and perhaps keep them from attacking us again.”
“Have they attacked us recently?” The king frowned, and I pushed on. “The attack on the caravan wasn’t the Vard. Neither was the last attack here.”
He was quiet for a moment before looking up at Natalie. “They are a constant threat,” he said. “And now we can put an end to it. We will hold one of their Servants.”
“What if Affellah destroys the city?”
“It will not.”
I frowned, trying to figure out what was going on. “And I wondered why he had kept the Servant in the Vard-controlled lands. He wouldn’t have done so without a reason.” I frowned. “We’d sent Thomas off because of the Servant.” I closed my eyes. He’d been added to the cycle, and so had his dragon. I was aware of both of them, and I hadn’t focused on where they were until now. I’d believed I knew exactly what Thomas was doing—that he was heading across Vard-controlled lands in order to find the Servant to return to the Vard—but he was far closer than I would’ve expected.
“What will you do with him?”
“I’m afraid that is not for students like yourself to know,” he said, studying me for a moment.
“I’ve helped defend the kingdom from attack twice before. I can help now.”
“You have helped before, but now it feels as if you are little more than a student who is questioning my rule.”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to argue with the king, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel as if there were something off here.
He was willing to let that lava flow in order to keep the Servant?
Even if the Servant agreed to stop the attack, using whatever magic the Vard possessed, it might not be in time. How many people would suffer?
I bowed politely and turned, hurrying out of the room. Natalie followed me, locking onto my eyes as we made our way through the palace halls.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to find Thomas. He’ll be nearby. Focus on the cycle. Feel for Thomas and his dragon. They are there within the cycle.”
As I said the words, I could feel him. They were in the city. They were already here. I had suggested to Thomas to bring the Servant to the city, but that wasn’t necessary.
He had been trying to bring the Servant to the capital all this time. He had already done it. Which was where he must’ve been. But I couldn’t feel directly where Thomas was. There was a hint of him within the cycle, but not enough for me to fully detect. He had hidden himself, obscured himself from me.
Which meant he knew I’d be looking for him.
I shook my head. We hurried forward, and when I reached the dragon, I leaned forward. “I need to find Thomas and his dragon. We need to end this.”
The dragon looked over to me, and there came a pulse of power through the connection. It seemed that I should understand what he was trying to tell me, but I could not.
Natalie climbed on her dragon, and we took to the air. We circled above the city, and as I looked down, I focused on the cycle flowing out of me, through Natalie and her dragon, and tried to use that to probe for Thomas and his dragon. I couldn’t find them. The sense of them was there, but it was distant and faded.
I had to try something different.
It seemed there should be another way to uncover that power. I continued searching, holding on to as much power as I could, feeling the connection there, but I couldn’t figure out any way to bridge that connection and find where they were.
“Can you help me?” I asked the dragon.
There came a surge of energy from the dragon, and it flowed through the cycle. It was a circular drawing of power, one that went from the dragon to me, to Natalie and her dragon, and then outward as it went to each of the others in the cycle. Within that, I could feel what the dragon tried to tell me. He shared the energy of the others with me, and given how many dragons were in the city, I could feel the location of other dragons, and I could feel a proximity.
Thomas and the dragon had a distinct sense within that cycle.
What had Natalie’s father said about circles?
Trust.
In order to use a circle safely, one had to trust that others would use it safely. Thomas wouldn’t have known that. He wouldn’t have known I’d have a way of tracking through that connection. He might not even understand the full nature of the connection, only that he had gained more than what he had before.
That was what I had to take advantage of.
A dark shadow circled over us, and I looked up.
The Sharath. We joined him in the sky, circling near him, and I focused on him.
“Father?” Natalie asked.
Something influenced him. I never seen anything quite like it, other than when the dragons had had their energy drawn from them. Could the same thing
