The Caged Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 1) Dan Michaelson (online e reader .TXT) 📖

they were connected. Maybe there was something that tied the Djarn and the dragons together. There had certainly been rumors about that over the years. And given what I now knew of the Djarn, I could easily believe there was something to it.

I had to believe Elaine would come for us—or at least come for the dragon. She was with the Academy, and she knew that my sister had been captured. She would have to recognize that she owed us and needed to rescue us. It was because of the Academy that Alison was even here in the first place. Unless she hadn’t survived. That was a possibility. Despite her power, the Vard obviously had some way of neutralizing it, otherwise they wouldn’t have managed to capture her in the first place. If she was dead…

“I don’t know,” Alison said. “All I know is the Academy fought to protect it. That’s why the others that were with me during the selection were captured. The Academy was more concerned about the dragon than about us. They did all they could to protect the wagon that the dragon was in. We were left to fend for ourselves.”

“What did you do during the attack?”

“I was in another wagon when the attack came, but there wasn’t anything I could do other than stay hidden. They made it clear we had to keep down. They warned us that if we didn’t, the Vard would take all of us.”

It bothered me that the Academy wouldn’t have done more to protect those that they’d selected, but maybe there wasn’t anything they could have done. With the Vard, the Academy might’ve been helpless, but there had been a dragon mage there.

“We just have to keep our focus,” I said. “We will find a way out of here.”

I could feel Joran watching me and the way that he was looking at me, as if he wanted to question just what I thought I might be able to do to get us out of here. I didn’t have the answer. But I was determined not to allow the Vard to keep us.

“Be ready. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but we’ll get away from the Vard.”

“Quiet,” one of the Vard hissed again.

I turned, staring into the darkness, trying to find where he was hidden, but I didn’t see him. I was going to need to figure out how many of the Vard there were. Once I did, then I would know just what I needed to do in order to take them down.

I had to treat them like they were unruly livestock.

17

The wagons rolled along the path. I could feel the steady swaying, but nothing else. I was confined in a small wagon, nothing more than the four walls around me. At least I was trapped with Joran, though that was no real consolation at this point. I banged my head again as the wagons tipped, and cursed under my breath, pushing myself up so that I could stabilize myself in the center. I glanced up at the hatch. That was going to be our way out, but first we had to get a plan together.

“I’m sorry,” Joran said.

I looked over to him. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

He shook his head. “I do. And more than that, you think I do. So, I’m sorry.”

“If you didn’t know about the Vard’s plan, then none of this is your fault.”

He watched me for a moment. “I didn’t know.”

“How did you find the wreckage so quickly?”

Joran turned away from him. “My father.”

“You said your father wasn’t a Vard sympathizer.”

“He isn’t. At least, I don’t think he is. He was the one who brought us up there.”

“Did he know you came for me?”

“They didn’t want me to go anywhere. They wanted me to stay at the house, to finish my chores, but I remembered what you’d said about your sister.”

I got to my knees and pushed my hands up overhead. We’d managed to untie ourselves inside the wagon. The hatch didn’t open. It had been such a simple thing to pop open from above, but once inside it was almost impossible to get it to budge at all.

There had to be some way to get the hatch open, I just wasn’t finding it.

“I tried that already,” Joran said.

“I’m going to keep trying,” I said. “What choice do we have?”

“Even if you manage to open the hatch, what do you intend to do? We're in the forest, surrounded by the gods only knows how many Vard. Not to mention we don't even know which wagon Alison is in, and—”

“I know the situation,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I have to give up hope.”

Joran shook his head.

Maybe he had given up hope.

His family might have ties to the Vard, but I had a feeling he hadn’t expected anything like this. “We’ll get out of this,” I said softly.

“Will we?” he whispered.

The wagon rocked again, tipping the sides of the wagon. I slammed against the floor harder than I had the last time, and I shoved myself up, irritated, as I tried to stabilize myself. Joran said nothing.

We veered around a bend in the path, and it slammed me into the side of the wagon again. I braced myself, protecting my head so that I didn’t slam into it as I had the last few times, and managed to avoid the worst of it. We turned again.

I looked over to Joran. “Where do you think they are taking us?”

Joran looked around, and he took a deep breath, as if to push away his own fear. I had worked through mine as much as I could.

“It seems like we’re going deeper into the forest. I don’t know much about the Vard.” When I arched a brow, he shook his head. “My mother and sister might be sympathizers, but it’s not like I’m involved in some high-level information network about the Vard. Either way, I haven’t heard anything about them and the