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

cave, but at the same time, I had slept outside plenty of times in my life, and I wasn’t afraid of it. It was just that the cave itself wasn’t comfortable.

I could stay in the larger chamber while waiting. I rested up against the wall, my head propped up, and sat, thoughts racing through my mind.

With nothing else to do, I decided to practice. What better way to spend my time? I thought about what Eleanor had shown me. If I could create that pattern, then I could loop power outward enough to create a barrier that would protect me, and perhaps even seal off the entrance to the cave, should I need to do so. I focused on it, spiraling power out from me, throwing it toward the opening of the cave. Each time I did, I thought it would hold, but it still never did.

I didn’t have the right technique, and I wasn’t sure what it would take for me to have it, but it seemed I was somehow close.

What had she done differently?

I wasn’t sure of that either. There was something about the way she threw power at the wall. That was what I had to replicate, only each time I tried, I could tell some aspect of it didn’t work. Eleanor had used a single band of power. I had been there when she’d done it, and had seen the way she threw that power from her hands outward.

Unless she hadn’t.

Could she have divided it, braided it, and then used it?

I hadn’t attempted to do that. Maybe that was the key. It was possible the reason that I had failed so far was not so much because of my inability to create the spiraling pattern, but more about how I had not quite replicated what she had done yet.

Hadn’t I seen her using the division before?

When she had placed the crisscrossing pattern over the opening of the cave, that power had divided away from her. It suggested to me she had enough control over the power so she could also use it to remove the seal.

Smiling to myself, I got to my feet and split the strands out of my hands, twisting them together. I didn’t think she had done anything more complicated than that. Once that was done, I looped it, sending it spiraling out from me, and then pushed it at the entrance to the cave.

It stuck, and in that moment, I thought I was going to succeed, but then it faded again. Either the spiraling pattern wasn’t quite right, or she had added more to it than I had realized.

What if I tried a third strand?

I pulled on that power, twisting it together, and then sent it spiraling out from me. When it struck the opening to the cave, it stuck, lingering for the briefest of moments.

This time was longer than the last, but still not long enough.

I doubted she had woven many more strands into it than that. Splitting the power was a difficult technique, and had she done so, I expected I would have seen it.

Wouldn’t I have?

The way she had formed the crisscrossing pattern over the opening to the cave suggested she had a tight control. Perhaps it was even more tightly controlled than what I gave her credit for.

I split the bands into five different strands, twisted them together into a more powerful band, and then spiraled it out before throwing it at the entrance to the cave. I didn’t expect it would do anything. I had failed so many times now that one more failure wouldn’t surprise me, but this time, it stuck and solidified.

My breath caught.

The pattern held, remaining stout and in place.

I headed over to it, traced my fingers around the spiraling pattern that formed a barrier over the entrance. As I pushed on it, I could feel resistance pushing back against me.

Five strands were the key, at least for me. Maybe they weren’t the key for her, though. I still didn’t know if Eleanor had that much control, though if she did, she hid it well.

It made me uncomfortable when the Academy instructors hid things, especially as we had already dealt with too many who had done so. At what point would we start to run out of instructors who were not corrupted?

Now that I had placed the seal around the opening to the cave, I needed to see if I could remove it.

I focused on the power, and pulled it toward me. There was a bit of resistance, as if something within the pattern made it challenging, but it faded, gradually unraveling as it rejoined the cycle of the other dragons, and flowed out from me and into them.

It had worked. I had placed my own barrier. Then I had removed it.

Could I do it again?

Taking a seat, I focused again on the five bands of power stretched between my hands, twisting them together. They stretched from each of my fingers, streaming out, and as I rotated one hand, the entire band twisted around itself. I took that, looping outward, and created the spiraling pattern I threw toward the opening in the cave.

When it attached, it held again.

I got to my feet and headed over to it, pulling it away as I had the first time. Drawing that much power off and forcing it back into the cycle should be more challenging than it was, but perhaps it was because of how many dragons were now a part of the cycle, all of them connected, and all of them sharing the distribution of power.

What about the other technique she had mentioned? If I could create something similar to that, I might be able to send out something that would be slightly more defensive.

I focused on it and sent a swirl of power out from me, but used a bit of a different technique than the last time. In this case, I spiraled it outward, and held the tightest path closer to me. When I