The Betrayed Dragon (Cycle of Dragons Book 2) by Dan Michaelson (best free ereader TXT) 📕

I laughed, shaking my head. “Now you need me to buy your food, too?”

“Well . . .”

“They do provide a stipend, so this time I will, but let’s not make it a habit.”

He grinned and we started off.

For some reason, even as we headed away, I felt my attention drawn back to the forest, back toward the trees, and felt my mind drawn back to the Djarn. I had no idea if there was anything there that I should be concerned about, other than the fact that they had shown themselves to me during my testing. But now with Joran and his father having come to the city, on whatever mission that the Djarn had asked of them, I was left with a worried knot in the pit of my stomach.

There was something at play here.

There was Thomas’s sudden appearance in the city, Manuel and his mesahn, and then there was what Manuel had said to me about missing dragons.

What if all of this was tied to the Djarn?

Joran looked over at me, frowning again, and I forced a smile. I wasn’t going to let him think that I wasn’t thrilled to see him. I was. I had been waiting to see him ever since getting that letter from my sister, and I wasn’t going to let any strange questions that I might have spoil our time together.

We headed away, into the city, and I forced myself to ignore everything else. I forced myself to push away the thoughts that had started to plague me, as there was no point in them, no point in trying to think about what might be; instead, I chose to focus on what was.

10

My spirit remained buoyed from my days spent with Joran. We had taken the entirety of the day to wander through the city. I had shown him as many of its sights as I could, including the palace itself, getting close to the gleaming white stone that towered over much of the rest of the city, giving off an aura that I could practically feel throughout the whole city, as if it were a dragon that radiated some massive, powerful energy. Throughout it all, there was a sense of something different that I couldn’t quite shake. It was the reassurance that I was spending time with a friend, but it was more than that—it was a feeling of normalcy, even if we were in a different city.

I hurried out to the dragon pens first thing in the morning, not wanting to miss Thomas again. I had promised Joran that we could meet again, but I couldn’t keep missing my training, and so I committed myself to working as much as I could. Besides, if I managed to demonstrate significant skill with Thomas, or with one of the other instructors, I might even be able to show Joran and impress him.

Darkness surrounded me, though this time I wasn’t beholden to it. I summoned the energy from the dragon, letting it course through me, and as I tamped it down, I felt it build—until I could finally release it, pouring it out from one finger to the next, feeling it stretching between me. The flames built, and I recognized the power that was there, the energy that filled in between my fingers, the power that coursed from the green dragon to me.

Despite the darkness, I could see the outline of the forest just beyond the dragon pens. The wind gusted, carrying a soft rustling through the trees and a shaking of the leaves, giving me a hint of the energy that came from the forest itself—more than what I had noticed before. It was there, real and unsettling.

But did it need to be?

I could call upon the flames now.

It gave me the ability to understand that I was no longer helpless here.

Strange to think that I had ever been helpless, but coming to the Academy had given me that feeling, making me aware of my deficiencies in a way that I had never anticipated. When I had been in my homeland, on the farms, I had never thought that I had any real deficiency. I had been a farmer. I had needed to be practical, but I had also known that I had nothing to fear. Now, since coming here, I no longer knew if that were true.

“You continue to progress,” Thomas said, approaching from the darkness.

I lowered my hands, pushing away the connection to the green dragon, trying to separate it from myself. I didn’t want to sever it altogether, wanting to maintain some semblance of that connection so that I could hold on to it, but I didn’t want to hold too tightly to it, either.

“I worked with it the last few days.”

“Again, you have proven yourself an interesting student,” he said.

“I was trying,” I said.

He nodded to me. “Show me.”

I focused on the power flowing through me, the energy that rolled up through the connection shared with the green dragon, letting that power swirl. In doing so, I tamped it down, finding that the more I suppressed the power deeper into me, the easier it was for me to feel it building into something I had to release. It was a strange thing to be aware of, though the more I did it, the easier it became to have some control over.

When I did, I found I didn’t need to tamp it all the way down to create a thin band of power, which took the form of flames. For me to have a wider band of flame, I had to tamp even more down into myself, as if the more power I stored translated to a greater connection.

“Interesting,” Thomas said, watching me. The light from the flames allowed me to see his face, though there no emotion on it that told me how he was feeling.

“I don’t know what else I can do with it though,” I said.

Thomas smiled. “Then you lack creativity.”

“I’m just