The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3) Dan Michaelson (free novels .TXT) 📖

said. “To be honest, I didn’t know I could even do it until I got to the Academy. They were trying to teach me how to reach for that power, to see if I had potential, or whether I was only destined to connect well enough to the dragons to ride them, and . . .”

“And you proved you can,” he said, laughing again.

Tara just watched me, and I tried to see what it was that troubled her, but I couldn’t figure it out from the expression on her face. Something bothered her, even if she didn’t want to say it.

“Why aren’t you talking?” Joran asked.

“I was letting the two of you talk,” she said.

“When have you ever let me talk?” he asked, grinning at her. “Besides, the last time Ashan was here, you couldn’t stop yourself from butting in and saying your piece.”

“Joran . . .” I said to him.

“Fine. Why don’t the two of you work this out? I’m going to get some of that sausage.” He glanced down at the plate. “Maybe I should get more than I usually would. Especially if you’re as hungry as it seems you are,” he said, grinning at me.

He disappeared into the kitchen, and Tara took a seat across from me. She fidgeted where she sat, looking over to me every so often.

“I need to know what you know about the Vard,” I said. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just trying to understand.”

“It’s just a movement, Ashan, nothing more than that. It’s just a collection of people who want freedom for Berestal.”

I frowned at her. “You and I both know it’s more than that.”

I might have believed her if I hadn’t yet seen the Servant.

Now I couldn’t.

There was another danger to the kingdom, but the Vard remained a real threat.

For too long I’d believed otherwise. Thomas had opened my eyes.

“It’s not though. It’s only a movement to gain greater independence within the city. Even you can understand that.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “I don’t mean anything by it, Ashan. All I mean is that it’s just a movement, nothing more, and I think even you can understand that, now that you’ve gone to the capital, connected to the dragons, and serve the kingdom.”

That fit with what Thomas had said about the Vard, his comment about what the people who served them felt. If that were the case, then why would the king have felt the need to destroy the cities in the east?

Thomas wouldn’t share anything about that with me. There was more to it, some aspect of it that troubled me, and I felt I needed to know more.

“How many Vard are active within the city.”

She shook her head, glancing down toward the floor. “I don’t know. They don’t let me know those things.”

“Somebody knows,” I said.

“Ashan—”

I leaned forward, settling my hands on the table. Heat flowed through me, and I worried that I might release it without meaning to. I had to hold on to that power and control it. I couldn’t lose my grip on it. There was a danger in it, and a danger in me suddenly drawing too much power. I breathed slowly, focusing on the earliest lessons I had been given at the Academy, thinking about what it would take for me to maintain control.

Many of my very first lessons came from Manuel, as we traveled back to the city in the first place. He had described ways of breathing and focusing, ways that involved gaining control over myself, but at the time, it hadn’t been difficult for me to do, but then he hadn’t been teaching me to connect to the dragons.

“I need to know what you know about the Vard,” I repeated.

“Why?”

I smiled to myself. She had a bit more fortitude than I would’ve expected, though she was a plains woman, somebody accustomed to living out beyond the edge of the forest, and she had known me for a long time. “There have been a couple attacks on the kingdom. Not Vard—at least, I don’t think so, but others aren’t convinced. I need to know what the Vard intend.”

“Because you’re a dragon mage.”

“In training.”

“The king wouldn’t have sent a dragon mage in training out here to investigate the Vard. Something else happened. That’s why you’re here.”

“You mean, something happened beyond what happened when I was still here? Beyond the attack on my sister?”

“Joran said they had nothing to do with that,” she said again.

“I know. Others don’t. That’s why I want to know what you can tell me. Everything you know.”

It was possible that she knew only some of the Vard workings. I very much doubted that she knew anything about the way the Vard celebrated the Servants of Affellah. If she did, and she still served them, it suggested that she was a much greater part of the Vard than I’d ever have imagined.

“I don’t know if I can tell you much of anything. Those in Berestal have been trying to understand what the Vard want, but the connections have been difficult lately.”

That was news to me; it left me wondering why.

“How difficult?”

“We’ve a camp set up in the Southern Reach—”

She clamped a hand over her mouth, as if she had said more than she intended.

“I didn’t see any camp in the Southern Reach,” I said. Of course, I hadn’t investigated the entirety of the Southern Reach, so it was possible there was something I hadn’t yet uncovered. “Where would it be?” If I could find that camp, then I could see what the Vard were doing, maybe learn whether these attacks were Vard or not. Between the camp and the strange pits I had uncovered, I had to share that with Thomas when I returned.

“You were in the Southern Reach?”

“I traveled through there,” I admitted.

“What was it like?”

I frowned at her. “What was it like? Do you think that your involvement in the Vard is some game you’re playing at? I can assure you they aren’t playing. If