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

bit worried that it was still out there. Even as I felt for it, I couldn’t tell whether it was something to fear.

As I neared the edge of the buildings, another explosion suddenly thundered.

It wasn’t something I heard, but something I felt. It came from deep within me.

Heat and fire, power that built, left me unsettled. It was different from what I had felt around the Servant. Even if this were the Vard, it didn’t feel the same as it had when we had been chasing that danger. Still, I had to be ready.

I rounded the side of the Academy and still saw nothing.

I jogged toward the dragon pens in the distance, feeling the energy coming off of them and the cycle of fire coming off of the dragons. That power coursed through me, and it filled me with enough energy that I could detect the movement.

A little farther.

Another explosion.

I stopped running and turned off to the distance, looking toward the forest, as that was where it came from. The energy was out in the forest, out in the trees, and it radiated toward me.

What was it though?

Maybe I was wrong. The Vard wouldn’t be out in the forest. There was the strangeness I had detected out in the forest earlier. The same strangeness Manuel had been trying to understand, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it. That had been real.

What if it were both the Vard and this other threat?

They would attack in a different way. They would target the city. Anything in the forest was the Djarn.

I started toward it, feeling for the surging of heat, aware of that energy, but not sure if there was anything I could do about it. All I could tell was that the power continued to build.

I needed to head into the forest to investigate.

But I didn’t have to do it alone.

I needed to get to the dragons. I could take the green dragon, and we could fly. It would be the first time I went on my own, but I felt it necessary to do. At this point, what other choice did I have but to go and investigate?

I looked back to the Academy. There were plenty of other choices I could make, but without Thomas here, I wasn’t sure what else to do. He’d restricted knowledge of the attack on the city, sharing it with only a few others. That made it difficult for me to go and get any sort of help. It made it difficult for me to know who I could go to for help.

I waited another moment, but another surge of power didn’t come, so I turned and jogged toward the dragon pen. When I neared it, I smiled at the dragons. I could see the green dragon curled up in the middle of the pen, resting. When I approached, he looked up, as if he knew I was coming, which made sense given the dragon’s central position within the cycle. I nodded to him, keeping my attention on him, and approached carefully.

“We need to go and investigate,” I said.

I stepped into the pen, and realized I wasn’t alone.

There was another darkened shape inside.

I hesitated, hurriedly reaching for power. It might only be another instructor. Certainly, I wasn’t the only one who had detected something happening out in the forest.

The person turned toward me. They had a hood over their head, and I could make out nothing else in the darkness. I wrapped power outward, looping it for a moment, and sent it sweeping toward this other person. When I did, I could feel something change.

“Natalie,” I said.

She pulled the hood of her cloak back, then looked over to me, nodding. “Ashan. I didn’t realize you were here.”

“What are you doing with the dragons?” I asked.

She stood next to one of the dragons—and it took me a moment to realize it was the dragon that had been used to form the barrier around the cave. Now that he was a part of the cycle, I was fully aware of the dragon himself, aware of how that power flowed out from him, and I could feel something within it.

“I came out here when I detected something,” she said. She eyed me strangely, cocking her head to the side and frowning. “And it was probably the same thing you did.”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know what I detected.”

There had been the explosions, but now that I was out here, I didn’t see where they had been. When I’d been in the tunnel, I had felt it. I was certain of it.

I hurriedly cycled power through the dragons.

There was nothing nearby. The dragons would have alerted me.

Which meant it wasn’t close, but still near enough that I had picked up on it within the cycle. I approached the green dragon, holding my hand out for him, and he lifted his head, locking eyes with me before swiveling so he could look at Natalie.

“I think you do,” she said.

I didn’t really know. It might be the Vard, but it might be something else.

As I watched her, I couldn’t help but feel as if she wouldn’t believe me.

“Maybe it’s the Vard,” I said softly.

She nodded. “They’ve been moving.”

“Toward the city?” Even as I said it, I didn’t think that was quite right. If the Vard had been attacking the city, I didn’t think I’d detect them the way I had. I didn’t think they would detect them where I did. Whatever else was happening, it was away from the city, away from us here, someplace else.

She shook her head. “Not in the city.”

“Then it’s the forest.”

“That is my fear,” she said.

“Do you think they’re attacking your people?”

She shrugged. “I don’t really know. It’s possible they are.”

“But you don’t know.”

She shook her head again, running her hand along the dragon’s side, as if she were trying to connect to it.

“This isn’t something you should be a part of, Ashan.”

“Not you, too,” I said.

She frowned at me. “What does that