The Lost Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 3) by Dan Michaelson (good summer reads .txt) 📗

you will succeed. For now, I need you to do this for me. I need you to help me.”

I licked my lips, swallowing.

Here he thought my concern was passing and becoming a dragon mage. Perhaps that was part of it. I did want to know what it would take for me to be a dragon mage, but I wasn’t particularly concerned I would fail.

I had already accomplished more than I had ever imagined I could. Now, I believed that regardless of what else happened, I would always have my connection to the dragons. The cycle had formed, and made me more than what I had been.

For now, I needed to help Thomas.

I shook my head. “I don’t like it.”

“There is nothing to like.”

I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. We didn’t have much time. “Is he that valuable?”

“We have never captured one of the Vard before,” he said.

Which meant he was. I had to do my part.

I served the king, didn’t I?

And I wanted to be a dragon mage.

I didn’t want the Vard to succeed in dragging any more of our people away. I didn’t want them to succeed in infiltrating our kingdom any longer. And I didn’t want the Vard planning any future attacks.

The only way to ensure that would be to take action—and the only action I could take would be to do something now. I needed to pull off the approaching Vard.

“When this is done, you’re going to have to show me what you did, so I know how to conceal dragon magic myself.”

Thomas looked at me and nodded. “I will show you what I can.”

“You will have to make sure that Berestal is protected.”

“Why is that necessary?”

“Because my family is there,” I said.

Thomas nodded again.

I hurried over to the dragon, hopped up onto his back, and shook my head. What I was thinking of doing was foolish—possibly even worse than foolish. I could be in danger. I had no idea whether they would do what we needed, or if they would follow, but I had to try.

“We’re going to have to work quickly,” I said. “I don’t know if you know what I’m saying, but we have to draw the Vard off.”

The dragon looked over at me. In that moment, I had a feeling from him, a sense that he did understand. If he did, then hopefully he would know what we needed to do in order for us to succeed—for us to survive.

The dragon took to the air.

As soon as he did, he circled, continuing to do so for another moment, nothing more than that. We continued circling, spinning in place, and finally I focused on the Vard. It looked like a smear of fire across the ground, similar to the way the lava had flowed; it was terrifying, but I thought I could do something with that.

Once we moved away, I could try to draw the Vard away, but I had to do it in a way that made it seem as if we were not here.

How was I going to do that?

I thought about my options, and how they might work, and decided the best way would be to come from behind them. We circled higher and higher, getting into the thin air once again, and from there, we went even higher. The dragon handled the altitude without any difficulty. Wind whipped past me, cold and biting, and I had to ignore it, focusing only on the Vard far below me.

Once we were high enough, I tapped on the dragon’s side. I pushed a pulse of power through me and through the dragon, cycling it through so he would be aware of what I wanted. I had no idea whether or not he could understand me, but I was determined to try.

The dragon roared. Heat suddenly poured from his mouth, flames shooting across the night sky. The suddenness of it was almost alarming, but as I looked down, the stream of fire stopped heading toward the distant pit.

Instead, it targeted us.

Strangely, I could feel a drawing, a pulling of power.

“Can you feel that?” I asked the dragon. There came another pulse of power that flowed out from him, through me, as if he were trying to respond. It suggested to me the dragon did feel it, and he knew. “We have to fight it.”

The dragon roared again.

The pull upon us intensified, the vibrancy of it becoming hotter, more painful, and it seemed like the dragon were summoning some source of energy I couldn’t quite place.

As it did, I held on to the cycle a little bit longer within myself. I needed to, as I was afraid that if I did not, the cycle would resist me in some way.

I could feel the dragon opposing me. There was some part of power that seemed to pull away from me. It was as if the heat were drawn off, and the others tore it away from me, the energy coming from the Vard trying to make it so I wouldn’t be able to maintain my hold.

Gradually, we started to descend.

The dragon struggled.

We were pulled, drawn by whatever was happening, by the Vard, and some sort of attention the Vard used against us.

I forced power into the dragon, cycling it out of myself, and even had to add the touch of other dragons within it.

The connection solidified; the dragon circled higher again.

For a moment, it seemed like I felt a flicker of relief coming from the dragon, but then the pull upon us came again.

The dragon roared.

Flames streaked from his mouth, illuminating the night sky. They came brighter and brighter, a painful light.

I wrapped flames through me as well, drawing them like a weapon, calling them up through me in order to continue to summon that power, holding on to as much as I could to prepare for the possibility that I would have to resist the Vard.

It surged again.

Power flowed through me. Within me.

Within that power, I felt the other dragons of the