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

Sharath said. “Perhaps you were wise getting his help.” He looked up to the sky before turning his attention back to us. “Come along, now. We should go. We should be ready.”

He took to the sky, the dragon hurriedly streaking up into the air, then disappearing over the forest. Natalie stared after her father for a long moment before shaking her head, climbing atop the dragon, and taking off.

I stood next to the green dragon for a moment, lingering, feeling a growing unease. I had no idea if what we intended was safe. All I knew was I felt out of my comfort zone. Looking over to the Academy, I smiled to myself. At least it wouldn’t be the first time I was out of my comfort zone. Hopefully this time would go a little better than the last.

As I climbed onto the dragon, I glanced to the dragon pens, focusing on the dragons there—before thinking too much of it, I joined them to the cycle. It was enormous now, nearly twenty dragons in total—enough for me to hope that I could withstand any attack from the Vard, but I didn’t know for sure that it would be enough. I couldn’t shake the feeling I had when we were attacked before, the feeling I had known when the Vard attempted to bring their danger to us.

As we circled up into the sky, and started after Natalie and her father, I prepared for whatever we might face. The Servants of Affellah, or the Vard, or worse—perhaps even dragons that had been claimed by the Vard, dragons that should serve the kingdom.

I had to be ready for any and all of it, but what would it require? What would happen if we didn’t act quickly enough? How many would suffer if we didn’t take the time needed to act?

As I chased after the other two dragons, a pressure started to build within me. It built upon the cycle of dragons that flowed through me. It was familiar. I thought it might be the Vard, but that didn’t seem to be the case. This was something else, familiar for a different reason.

I pulsed power through the dragon, drawing from the others in the cycle, and giving the green dragon even more power for us to fly. We had to hurry. We had to get to the familiar dragon I sensed before the Vard were aware of us.

If I didn’t reach Thomas first, I had no idea what he would do.

17

We didn’t travel far before I started to feel the pull on me even stronger than I had before. It started to build quickly, even though we hadn’t gone all that far from the city. I looked over to Natalie, checking to see if she detected anything, but as far as I could tell, she didn’t feel anything either.

I continued cycling power to the dragons, holding on to that energy, using as much as I could to maintain my connection to them. I could feel the heat and the power flowing through me, and I summoned as much of it as possible so I could feel the dragons.

I looked over to Natalie. There was danger in her being here.

I guided the dragon even faster, and we caught up to the Sharath. “Should she be here?” I asked, yelling across the distance.

I tried to ignore the way Natalie looked at me and felt some guilt at making a comment like that, knowing she wanted to be here, felt as if she had every right to be here, but I knew there was some danger in her decision. She was only connected to a single dragon. That mattered more than it should when resisting the way the Vard interacted with us.

“She’s in no danger by being here,” the Sharath said.

“I’m not so sure. When I was here before, I could feel the way the dragon power was drawn away as the Vard called upon it. If they can do that to me, as connected to the cycle as I am, then they can do it to her.”

The Sharath shook his head. “She is as safe as she can be here.”

I frowned. “Have you added her to your circle?”

“No.”

“Then how is she ‘as safe as she can be’?”

The Sharath didn’t answer.

We continued flying above the forest, the darkness there beneath us, the sense of power building. I focused on that power, trying to use what I could to figure out just what was out there, whether there was any danger to me, but I could only feel a steady pulling.

I hadn’t seen Thomas yet. I could feel him, though. There was a heat and an energy to him, something that suggested he was nearing us, but I didn’t know how much longer it would take for him to reach us. Every so often, I’d scan the horizon, looking across the sky, but couldn’t see anything more than what I had already detected.

“We should look for Thomas,” I said.

The Sharath shook his head, looking over to me. “I’m not so sure we should.”

“I don’t know what happened to him, but I think we need to go after him.”

I could feel the energy coming off of Thomas’s dragon, and for a moment, I debated whether or not I should try to add that power to the cycle of dragons, though I didn’t know if I could even do it, not with the way I could feel power flowing and not without Thomas’s permission. As he had already connected to the dragon, it was possible he might have a way of resisting my attempt to influence it.

I could still feel the calling of power, the energy that came off of the Vard, the way they were pulling on the dragon cycle.

“Do you feel what I’m feeling?” I asked the Sharath.

“I feel the Vard,” he said. He looked over to Natalie, and there was a concerned look on his face that hadn’t been there before.

“You didn’t think they were that