WHISPERS AMIDST THE BLAZE

Dragon’s Dawn Book 3

DAN MICHAELSON

D.K. HOLMBERG

Copyright © 2024 by ASH Publishing

Cover art by Damonza.com

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Chapter One

The doorway remained locked, though the glyph over it seemed as if it swirled, moving in a way that Laric knew was mostly his imagination. He could sense that energy radiating when he focused on some deep part of himself, feeling for the potential he knew he needed to find inside him.

“Are you just going to stand there in front of it?” Malcolm asked.

“I’m debating,” Laric said.

“What’s to debate? You either need to open it and see what’s inside, or you don’t.”

“I’m just trying to decide if there’s anything I need to do in there.”

He didn’t say it, but his concern was whether there would be anything he would be able to do. As far as he knew, Talia had returned through the portal after escaping, but she was now trapped. If it worked, she wouldn’t be able to escape from this makeshift prison, though he didn’t know if it would be enough to hold her. After all, she was a mage gifted in ways he was not.

She’d taught him some of the spellcraft forms that he knew. Well, she’d taught him all the forms that he knew. Without her, Laric wouldn’t have been able to create nearly as much power—and he might not have discovered the truth about his potential.

“Think about what your grandmother would have done here,” Malcolm said.

Laric glanced at him, a smile coming to his face. “My grandmother might not have been a part of any of this. I’m still trying to understand what she had done with it.” Had the dragon rider survived, Laric might have gotten those answers, but Malinar had sacrificed himself so that Laric and his friends could defeat the mages—and so that the dragon would survive.

He turned his attention to the glyphs on the door. After Talia had disappeared, they hesitated to go through the portal, partly because he didn’t know if there would be a way for Talia to overwhelm them. He didn’t think she would have been able to move past the glyphs—those glyphs were a type of power that even the mages didn’t know—but he worried that she might have tried to overpower them nonetheless.

“The key seems intact,” he said, though it was mostly to himself. “That was the first thing I tried to detect. If she did something here, it would show up that way. But it doesn’t seem like she did.”

“Then let’s make a point of ensuring that she won’t get out of this,” Malcolm said.

That was the first thing Laric wanted to do too, but there was a concern that even if he were to do that, he might run into a different type of danger. What if she were to figure out a way to overpower them? What would they be able to do, anyway?

The glyph-marked entrance to the cave seemed to be secured and fully locked, at least as far as he could tell. He couldn’t identify any weakness, but then again, Laric didn’t have enough experience with such things to know whether or not he was even testing it correctly. He had been trying to learn as much as possible about the glyphs, but they were still too foreign. They would need time to attempt to understand them, but given what he now knew about his grandmother and her role in everything, he was optimistic that he would be able to do so. He couldn’t help but feel like they needed to continue to test and explore and see if there was anything in the books she had left behind. Books that he suspected she had intended for him.

Finally, he pressed his hand down, using the potential to try to push that power out of him. It was the same sort of potential that he had used when he had been trying to create fire. That potential granted him the ability to test for anything more that he would be able to do with that power. He felt pressure against him, but even as he did, he wasn’t sure if the pressure that he was detecting was the kind that was going to cause a problem for him, or going to cause a problem for Talia.

“She’s still down there,” Laric said.

“Are you sure?” Malcolm asked.

He nodded. “She’s unable to get out of this. I don’t know if she might be able to figure out something, but so far, it doesn’t seem she will be able to escape.”

Malcolm let out a relieved sigh.

Laric studied him and frowned. “I didn’t realize you were so worried about all this.”

“Why wouldn’t I be worried about it? We’re talking about a powerful mage who can bring down dragons. And I don’t know that I need to remind you, but we have a dragon working with us now.”

Laric snorted. “Well, the dragon is working more with me than you.”

“That’s not funny, Laric.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Malcolm focused on the doorway. “What are we going to do with Talia, anyway? I mean, we will have to feed her at some point. How are we going to get in there and do that?”

That was a thought Laric hadn’t even considered. He suspected there would be some way that the glyphs inside the chamber would hold her, but so far, he wasn’t exactly sure what that would entail, nor did he know if he knew a technique that would work for such a thing.

“We will deal with that later.”

“Later?”

“Once we work with the dragon.”

Malcolm let out a groan, and then he nodded. “If you think so. I’m not so sure that this is the right way to go about all of this, Laric, but I’m going to trust you, and I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing.”

“That might be a mistake,” Laric said.

“Oh, I’m quite certain of that,” Malcolm said.

They turned away from the portal entrance, and from there, he headed over to where the others were waiting. Rowan continued to lean over Malinar’s fallen form, though there wasn’t anything she was going to be able to do to him. Joselle and Iveris were off to the side of the cavern, whispering to each other, and then there were the ashy remains of Daelon. Laric had difficulty mustering any feeling for him, though the man had been responsible for what had happened here. Daelon, while powerful, had attempted to destroy the town and its people. All because he and his allies wanted to take the power of the glyphs and the dragon.

Laric would have to figure out more about that and learn what his grandmother had been hiding. And if he wasn’t mistaken, his grandmother had been hiding something, though he wasn’t sure what. She had come to this town for a reason, and at this point, Laric simply didn’t know why.

He turned and watched Sashaak, who was still curled up in the back of the room.

“Are you sure that it’s going to hold?” Laric asked, approaching the dragon. “Because we don’t need her to escape. If she truly is working against us”—and it was strange that he still had his reservations about that, despite everything he had seen—“then we don’t want to run the risk of her getting out and attacking the town.”

Sashaak stretched his wings and shook out his body. It seemed as if he was waking from some slumber, but there was almost a sense of sadness and sorrow that radiated from him. Knowing what Laric did now, that the dragons were intelligent creatures that had to grant permission to somebody to use that power, he felt as if they had a connection that he should better understand.

“The power will hold,” Sashaak finally said. “You feel it.”

The weird thing was that Laric did feel it. He had placed some of the protections, and in doing so, he was able to hold on to them and secure them enough that what he had placed, and how he had placed them, meant that he could determine the origin of those glyphs and what they would do.

“I don’t want just to hold it,” Laric said. “I want to know how to pass through it and keep her from causing problems.”

“You do not need to worry,” Sashaak said.

“Well, I think we do. We’re going to have some practical problems regarding her and what she can do. We certainly don’t want to starve her.”

Rowan, who had been standing nearby, looked over to him. “We don’t?”

“Wait,” Laric said, “you want to starve her?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think that’s necessarily the worst idea.”

“Rowan,” Iveris said.

Even Laric felt a little bit surprised by that.

“I think we need answers, and I’m not sure we will be able to get them if we starve her,” he said. “I was hoping that she would volunteer them, but I think she’s going to need to struggle and suffer inside that chamber for a little while before we can coax her into telling us anything.”

Rowan let out a long, frustrated sigh. “You’re right. I… I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You’re thinking that you’ve endured enough pain because of what she did,” Laric said.

They all had, but that didn’t make it any easier on them.

He looked over to where his sister was still standing, though Joselle wasn’t watching him. A part of him suspected that she’d have some potential as well, but she would have to learn how to access it. Unlike Laric, she hadn’t had a chance to work with their grandmother, so she wouldn’t have learned about the potential similarly.

Even for Laric, learning that he was somehow dragonborn was a strange realization. He didn’t know what that would mean for him, but it connected him to a kind of power that he’d only been vaguely aware of before learning that it existed. And if he could draw on some of that power, shouldn’t he master it?

Sashaak watched him. The creature was massive. Easily as large as the shed where they’d hidden from the attack and verging on as significant as his family’s farmhouse. He could imagine Sashaak snapping forward and biting him—consuming him in a single chomp.

“You fear that I would eat you?” the dragon asked.

Laric staggered back a step. He’d been feeling at ease around a dragon and now he’d gotten close. Too close.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

That would be a terrifying thing if true.

“Do you think the emotions of humans are so complex?” Sashaak said.

Laric shrugged. He supposed that he hadn’t given any thought to the emotions of humans. The only thing he’d ever considered was that dragons were assumed to be dangerous. And given what he’d seen of the attack on his town and his people, they were unsafe.

“I guess I didn’t give it a lot of thought.”

Sashaak huffed. “You are too small. And it would not serve me well to consume you. We are to be bonded. That is what he wanted.”

There was again that sense of sadness from Sashaak. Laric thought that peculiar. All the stories he’d ever heard about Korthal suggested that they harnessed their dragons, forcing them to serve. Before the attack, Laric hadn’t known they could use the dragon power, but even in that, it made a certain sense.

“What will that mean for us?” Laric asked.

“It will mean what it means,” the dragon said.

“Does it mean I will draw potential through you?”

That was what he’d done during the attack. It had been a surprising realization, but Laric had been calling on significant power—more than he would have been able to do on his own. That power had flooded through him, and though he still struggled to direct it, there had been something to the way he’d been using that power that had allowed him to control it.

The potential. That was what it was.

But Laric needed more than potential. He would need to know how to control it, and he would need to understand what that power could do—if anything. The more he learned about that kind of power, the more he understood why the mages had feared the dragon-bonded.

“That is but the smallest part of it,” Sashaak said.

“Then what’s the larger part of it?” Laric asked.

“Knowledge.”

With that, Sashaak stood and began to stretch even more, enormous wings nearly reaching the far walls. Laric watched the dragon as he continued to stretch his wings from one side to the other, and then Sashaak crawled through the cavern. When Laric called after him, Sashaak ignored him.

Malcolm strode over to Laric, a bit of an uncomfortable expression on his face, and he looked around for a long moment before he glanced over to where Sashaak had been. “Where’s that thing think it’s going?”

“That thing?” Rowan asked, finally seeming to shake some part of the unease from her.

Malcolm crossed his arms defensively. “Well, I don’t know the dragon’s name the way that Laric does, and to be honest, I don’t even know if the dragon is going to allow me to call it by its name, but where do you think it’s going?”

“I don’t know,” Laric said.

Sashaak crawled into the opening that led out of the cave. He worked his way up, using his wings like some sort of massive bird, and then once he reached the opening, he launched himself out into the night sky.

Laric just stood there. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to do, nor was he sure whether there would be any way that he would be able to figure out what it was that Sashaak wanted from him. And he guessed that, more than anything, Sashaak did want something from him because he had a goal in mind. However, for Laric’s part, he had no idea what that was going to look like, nor did he know whether there would be anything that he would be able to do when it came to Sashaak or what he wanted from Laric. But if it was a matter of trying to understand that power and draw from it, could he master some of that potential?

As he stood there, however, something came to him.

It was almost like a series of images flooded into his mind.

He froze, transfixed.

“Laric?” Malcolm said.

He couldn’t move. He was aware of the ground flowing beneath him. He was aware of the mountains sweeping on either side of him. He was aware of places that were charred. And then he was aware of Sashaak using dragon fire. He could feel it.

It was almost as if the connection between them linked them in such a way that he was supposed to feel these things. But it was more than just what he could feel of Sashaak and how he was aware of that power. There was something almost freeing about it.

He licked his lips, and everything within him started going cold and still. Sashaak had said that Laric would have knowledge, but Laric would never have imagined that something like this would even be possible.

How could he have? The idea that he could connect and communicate with the dragon seemed almost too much to believe.

“What is it?” Rowan said, looking at him.

He didn’t know what to say.

“I can feel it,” he replied after a few moments. “I can feel the dragon. I can see what the dragon sees. I can…” He licked his lips again. “I can feel all of it.”

“How?” Rowan said.

It was dizzying, and he struggled to maintain a sense of separation, though he knew he needed to try to figure something out. What was more, there was some distant part of him that recognized that Sashaak was not giving him all of the understanding that he could. Sashaak was granting him only the slightest bit of information. There was more—much more.

“I can see what the dragon sees, and I’m feeling some of what the dragon is feeling.”

Laric was aware of the wind, the humidity, and even the heat of the air. He was aware of smells, though they were subtle. He knew how Sashaak’s wings stretched out to either side, and how he had to float, catching different currents of wind. He was aware of how Sashaak shifted his wings, doing so with slight changes so that he could adjust his position and float much more effectively. He was aware of how the dragon would hold himself, but more than that, of how Sashaak circled.

This was what Sashaak wanted him to see. This was what Sashaak wanted him to know.

“Your connection allows you to feel all of that?” Rowan asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“I guess,” he said.

“How did we ever defeat one?”

He shook his head. “We didn’t. The mages did.”

“But we were using something similar.”

“We brought down a small dragon,” Laric said. And as he said it, he felt a surge of anger flowing. It came from Sashaak, a rage and a reaction to what Laric had just said. He couldn’t help it, as he felt almost as if he wanted to withdraw, and he wanted to apologize, but what was there for him to say, especially as he couldn’t even imagine how he had done what he had done.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Sashaak continued flying, but some of the information that Laric had been getting started to fade, if only a little bit. He strained, hoping that he might be able to hold on to that information, and wishing for Sashaak to provide something more, some greater connection, but gradually, the sense of Sashaak, the sense of everything Sashaak had been offering him, disappeared to the point where there was nothing left.

And then Laric felt it fade to emptiness.

He took a deep breath and he looked at the others. “Well, now I’m not sure what to make of all that.”

“What happened?” Malcolm asked.

“It seems the dragon knew what I was saying.”

Malcolm frowned. “How could the dragon have known what you were saying when it was out there, and we were in here?”

“I have a feeling that the dragon is better connected to me—and to the others—than believed,” Laric said. “To be honest, I think that connection will probably be helpful, but I’m going to have to try to find some way of understanding what it is and figure out whether or not I’m going to be able to connect to it. That way I don’t lose some part of the dragon and it doesn’t grow increasingly frustrated with what we have done. I need the dragon to know that what we did was only out of necessity, because we didn’t know who we were working with.”

There was a bit of a flutter inside of him. But more than that, he started to recognize something else. It was almost as if Sashaak were chiding him, warning him that he should have known, and that ignorance was not an excuse. How could ignorance be an excuse when Laric would’ve been able to feel something?

And yet, did he?

He felt some of the energy here, but the real challenge, and one that he didn’t have a good answer for, was that what had taken place was tied to what had happened to him when they had been in the city. But what would he be able to do about that?

Would they be able to do anything?

He thought it was tied to the glyphs, and he thought that the familiarity that he had, the familiarity that Sashaak wanted him to have, was also tied to the glyphs. But Laric didn’t know, and unless Sashaak granted him a way of knowing, he wasn’t sure he would be able to understand anything more about what the dragon was doing, and whether or not there was anything more he could do.

Perhaps his ignorance would be the downfall of them all.

Chapter Two

“We’re going to need to use the dragon to understand what we can do with the glyphs,” Laric said.

The dragon connection still hadn’t returned, though he was growing more optimistic that it would. He kept trying to dredge up memories of what had happened in his town, and the way that the dragons had been used. Not to try to convince Sashaak that he knew something that Sashaak didn’t, but to mingle the two so that Sashaak would understand the reason Laric had done what he had.

He didn’t know if it would make a difference. When it came to dragons, it was possible that it would not.

“Why do you say that?” Joselle asked.

She tucked her hair back, and her shoulders were a little slumped. With her posture like that, she looked younger than she was. At least, she looked more inexperienced. With everything they’d been through, they were all more experienced than before. And he would need to continue to work with them to understand different spellslips.

That was something he could teach, but it would take time. Now that they had Talia secured, Laric had to hope that they had time, but there was another concern that he knew they were going to need to work on.

There were other dragons around the mountains. That was what Daelon and Malinar had said.

The other dragons would have been like this dragon. They would have been influenced by the mages and might even have been getting close to having a measure of control exerted over them.

Laric would need to better understand how the dragons could avoid that, but he didn’t know if there was going to be any way for him—as inexperienced as he was—to be able to do it.

The chamber felt strangely empty compared to what it had been before. Artifacts still lined the wall, though Laric had not spent much time examining them. He would need to, though. The walls were lit by glyphs, but he had not yet determined how that had occurred. Probably something from when Malinar had still lived.

“The dragon grants knowledge,” he said. “I don’t exactly know how it works, at least not entirely, but I think there are things we can learn from him.” Assuming that Sashaak would be willing to return and work with him again.

He kept trying to send more thoughts through to Sashaak, but there still wasn’t a connection there—nothing Laric thought he’d be able to borrow from as he attempted to make that connection more secure.

“So we’re going from learning from a mage to learning from a dragon,” Malcolm said. “Sounds like an upgrade to me.”

“We’re not going to be able to learn from the dragon,” Iveris said.

“Why not?” Malcolm asked. “We can work with the dragon the same way that Laric does.”

“Yeah, but we’re not dragonborn, so what makes you think we’ll be able to do anything that he does? Even if we can learn some spellcrafting forms, we aren’t going to be able to do close to what he does.”

Some of the irritation that Iveris had been showing over the last few weeks had faded, though it wasn’t completely gone. Laric didn’t know if it ever would be.

“You all know how to use the same spellslips that I started with,” he said. “That has to matter in some way. I don’t know what that way is,” he went on, wanting to cut off any questions that others—especially Iveris—might have, “but I think we can start with them. Work up to something more complex. Rowan is having success with the spellcraft forms, and I think that Malcolm isn’t far off from being able to do it as well.”

“Well,” Iveris said, “just because the two of you are able to do that doesn’t mean the rest of us will be able to. There are different ways of using spellslips, and we are still struggling with what they might be, and whether or not we’re going to be able to do anything. We understand that we aren’t like you.”

Rowan looked at her sister. “We will work together. Laric thinks he’ll be able to help us, and if he believes that what he has learned, and what he’s going to be able to learn, from the dragon is going to make a difference to us, then it will.”

Laric frowned. He didn’t even know if it was. For that matter, he didn’t know if Sashaak would teach him anything that would be all that useful to him. He was worried about whether the dragon would even continue to communicate with him, as more and more, Laric couldn’t help but feel as if everything that Sashaak was going through, and everything the dragon was feeling, was conflicted. Then again, how could it not be? Sashaak saw Laric as an extension of the mages. And in a certain way, perhaps that was what he and his friends were. He had learned spellcraft forms from the mages. He had come here with Talia, or at least thinking that he was coming with Talia, in order to defend this place from the dragons.

Why should Sashaak want to work with them? And maybe he didn’t. Maybe the dragon only would because he thought that was what Malinar wanted.

“I suspect that the dragon does know something,” Laric said. “And given everything he has been through, I also suspect that he isn’t going to hold out on us. But I don’t really know.”

“So we have to trust that you can convince the dragon?” Iveris asked.

“I suppose.”

“Well, then what do we do?”

“There are other dragons,” Laric said.

Iveris’s entire demeanor changed briefly. “Other dragons? Do you think that we can all⁠—”

“I doubt that we all will be able to do what Laric has done,” Rowan said. “Maybe in time, but right now, I think we should be thankful for the fact that we have access to a single dragon. The bigger issue is that the other dragons are tied to mages, haven’t they been?”

“That’s my concern,” Laric said.

“Well, maybe we can go and help the dragons,” Iveris suggested.

“How do you propose we do that?” Malcolm asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t we do the same thing and travel the same way that the dragons did with Korthal?”

Malcolm froze. He looked over to Laric. “Is that even possible?”

“I think we have to work on trust with the dragon before we think about even riding on one, though maybe?” Laric said.

The idea did appeal to him. What would it be like to ride on top of the dragon? He could imagine the sense, partly because he had been able to see through Sashaak’s eyes, and he had been able to feel what Sashaak wanted him to. He would expect to feel the wind gusting around him, the heat coming off Sashaak. He would expect to feel some of the energy that was there as well. He would expect to experience all of it, but he was not sure if he would even be able to do so.

How could he find a way to do all of that?

He breathed out a frustrated sigh and scrambled up the rock. When Rowan called after him, he looked back to her. “I want to see what the dragon is seeing,” he said. “We know that there isn’t anything down here that we have to be worried about. The dragon has dealt with that, so now it’s a matter of trying to figure out if there’s any way that I might be able to see anything more out here.”

Rowan followed.

The two of them moved faster than the others, and once they were about halfway up the rocky slope, Rowan looked over to him. “Do you think it’s possible?”

“That the rest of you might be able to connect to a dragon?”

She nodded. She glanced behind her—down toward her sister, he suspected. “She’s not wrong, you know. If it’s possible, I can see the appeal.”

“Of course you can,” Laric said. “Because anybody would be able to see the appeal in being able to access a dragon. And it might not even be necessary to be born a certain way, not if what the mages were after is true.”

Power—and the kind that would allow them to link to and control dragons. If the mages had that… Laric knew they would be too powerful then.

“I don’t know what it is that you’re able to feel,” Rowan said.

“Heat,” Laric answered, feeling a little strange as he did. “When I focus, that potential is there. It’s always been there, I suppose, but now it’s different than it was before. It’s like there’s some deep part inside of me that’s reacting in some way I had not ever anticipated. I can feel it, much like I can feel how the weight of the dragon is trying to direct me. I think that if I were to try to understand that potential, I can use it, but it just feels so vast.”

“That’s still not an answer to my question, Laric,” Rowan said.

“The answer is that I don’t know,” he said. “Possibly. Joselle would be the one that would be the most likely, I think, because she would be descended from the same people.”

“But we all have mage potential.”

“That’s true,” Laric said. Otherwise, none of them would’ve been at the school.

“So, what if you teach us the glyphs? Maybe the glyphs your grandmother was working on with you were a way of trying to claim and connect to your potential.”

Laric shrugged. “That’s entirely possible. Knowing my grandmother, that’s exactly the kind of thing I would’ve expected her to have done, and that I could easily imagine her thinking that she needed to teach me. But,” he went on, looking over, “the challenge is in knowing what it was and what my grandmother even wanted me to do. I don’t have any clue about what she was after, only that I knew she was working on certain things, and with certain types of power that she obviously thought I was going to be able to master.”

“I do think that you’re going to have to keep teaching us,” Rowan said.

“We’re going to have issues with the school.”

“That’s not the only issue we’re going to have.”

“What other issue?” he asked.

They had reached the edge of the rock, and from here, Laric was able to scramble out and see the darkness of night blooming in front of him. Everything was quiet, though there was a familiar gust of wind. He could practically smell something on that wind that reminded him of when he had flown on it.

Laric shook those thoughts away. He had not flown on the wind. That had been Sashaak. But those thoughts, and those memories, lingered inside him, almost as if Sashaak demanded that he have them.

“We still have to be concerned about what happens when other mages come,” Rowan said. “Maybe they won’t all be like Talia, but if they are, and if the mages are like her and Daelon, then we need to be cautious.”

He wanted to tell her that the mages were not going to come, but he knew that was not true. How could he tell her that they wouldn’t, especially given what they knew about the dragons, and what they now knew about the dangers they posed?

What was more, he knew that if word got out to the other mages, they would have a hard time with what they would be able to do, and how they would be able to handle the danger of the mages.

How would they hold off a couple more of them?

A dozen?

All of the Mage Society?

Laric didn’t think they’d be able to do that, which made him even more nervous about everything they were dealing with.

“I don’t have an answer,” he said softly.

Rowan took his hand. “I’m not expecting you to have an answer, but I do want you to consider the questions.”

Once out on the rock of the cave entrance, he continued to feel the strange energy that was there. It felt oddly stagnant, which he found unusual, but maybe he shouldn’t. The power that was out there seemed to come from Sashaak, but it also seemed to come from some deeper part of him, as if Sashaak were only one aspect that he was meant to be aware of.

He used a detection spellslip, and without meaning to, he found that he pulled on some of the potential. That made the spellslip much more potent, and in a way that he wouldn’t have anticipated, though perhaps he should have. That power flooded through him, and he attempted to control it. He could feel all of that energy there in him, and though it was working through him, he didn’t know what more he was going to need to do.

The potential added to the spellslip. Augmented it.

Power blossomed around him. And he could feel.

That was the only way Laric was able to describe what it was that he detected. There was a curious and diffuse energy down below, but even as he held on to it, he wasn’t sure that what he was picking up on would be anything more that he would need to be using. That energy seemed to come from different locations all around the mountains.

And what was stranger to him was how he could feel all of those different places around the mountains. It was like a map that formed in his mind.

“That’s outstanding,” he whispered. He looked over to Rowan. “Between the dragon and what I can detect using spellslips, I’m aware of so much more than I was before. It’s odd. It makes me wonder how the mages were ever able to defeat the dragons and the dragonborn. If they have this kind of a connection, I can’t imagine that anything would have been able to stop them.”

But it was more than just what he had said. Mages like Talia had a way of overpowering dragons. And if they were able to do that, what would happen to him? To the rest of them? To the dragons?

“What if there’s something our grandmother taught you that makes you safer?” Joselle asked as she and the others caught up to them. When Laric looked over to her, she shrugged. “Think of everything that she did with you. She wanted you to know things, right? It only makes sense that she might have wanted you to know things that would keep you safe if there were others who had a way of stopping you.”

He could imagine that their grandmother had taught him something like that, as strange as it might be. But he didn’t know why she wouldn’t have shared with him what she was hoping he might learn. Why not tell him what she’d wanted him to do, and why had she taught him what she had? Why keep him in the dark about the kinds of dangers that she’d faced, only to leave glyphs scattered all around?

The dragon egg had served as a way for him to understand the glyphs, but even with that, Laric wasn’t truly sure that he would know enough about what the egg could teach. Perhaps Sashaak would be willing to help, but if so, would it be safe for Laric to trust a dragon?

Even if he didn’t, it didn’t change anything that he had to do. He was going to have to deal with the trapped dragons. He wasn’t sure that he would know how to do that, or if he was strong enough to be able to handle anything like that, but he had to believe that he would need to have some role in it, even if he didn’t know exactly what that role was going to be.

“What are you thinking?” Rowan said.

Before he had an opportunity to answer, a flood of new images came to his mind. At first, he wasn’t sure what they were. Then he noticed specks in the sky. It looked like Sashaak was pursuing something. Maybe the dragon was hunting, and wanted Laric to be aware of how he was doing so.

But that didn’t seem to be the case. He had no idea what those specks were, but he had a feeling from them. It caused a stirring deep inside him. Initially, Laric struggled to understand that feeling, to know what it was that he was picking up on, but the more that he felt it, the more obvious it became that the energy was tied to dragons.

There were several of them in the sky, all getting smaller.

They were evacuating.

Chapter Three

Malcolm stood at the mouth of the cave, looking out into the distance with a darkened gaze, which Laric understood. He felt much the same way, though in his case, the reason that he felt the way he did was because he felt something as well. The sense had him somewhat unnerved, and without much in the way of an explanation.

“Where are they going?” Malcolm asked.

“Leaving,” Laric said. “But why?”

“Doesn’t your dragon tell you why?”

As Laric focused on Sashaak and attempted to make sense of whether there was some part of the dragon that he might feel, and perhaps even master, he did not know what to make of it. Sashaak had left him, but he hadn’t really left him. It was strange for him to be aware of it, but not so strange since he could feel some lingering connection to the dragon, as if there was some part of that link that had formed between the two of them that Sashaak had wanted him to feel.

Was that the way it was going to be from now on?

When Malinar had transferred the connection of Sashaak over to Laric, Laric had thought that it was simply a matter of connecting to the potential of Sashaak, not that he would be bonded to Sashaak himself in some way. And in this, he still didn’t know if what he sensed, and what he felt, was something that his grandmother had anticipated for him.

“The dragon is there, but quiet,” he said.

Rowan bit her lip. “What do we do, then?”

He shook his head. “Head back to town. Xavier might know something.”

“If he does, do you think he’s even going to share it with us? He knew something before, but he didn’t reveal it.”

“Maybe things will be different now,” Malcolm suggested.

“You’re saying that as if we’re going to tell him about what has happened,” Rowan said, rounding on Malcolm. “I’m not completely convinced that we should. He might not keep the secret.”

“Secret?” Malcolm asked, grinning. “What kind of secret is it? Laric has connected to a dragon. Think about it. We’re going to have a dragon around, and maybe we can all start to learn something about it. Can you imagine⁠—”

“Can you imagine what the people of town are going to think if they were to see the dragon?” She kept her voice soft, but it carried.

Within that, Laric understood the real challenge. He had been feeling a bit like Malcolm had been, and he had even started to permit himself to believe that the idea that he was connected to a dragon, to the potential within Sashaak, would somehow open him to something that might give him a way of defending not only himself and his friends but also the city. And perhaps it still could, but it wasn’t straightforward.

Having been attacked by dragons—and perhaps even this dragon—Laric knew that the townsfolk would feel fear that a dragon would be so close to them.

Laric looked over to Malcolm. “We should head back. We can see what Xavier might know, and then we can decide what we need to do.”

“We still have to deal with Talia,” Malcolm said, ignoring the other piece. “She’s trapped, right?” He glanced down the length of the opening leading back to the chamber. “She’s not going to be able to escape?”

“The dragon sealed it off,” Laric said. “So I’m hopeful that she won’t be able to escape.”

“I think we need to be more than just hopeful,” Malcolm muttered.

“Go get the others,” Rowan said. “It’s a walk back.”

“Why do we have to walk? We could take the portal⁠—”

“And deal with Talia?”

“Oh. That’s right,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “I’m distracted.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not,” she said.

Malcolm scrambled away, leaving Laric and Rowan together.

She stared out into the darkness. “What are you going to do?”

“I need answers.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Talia?” he asked.

“For a start, but it’s not even just her, is it? If it were, this would be harder, I think. It’s more than just Talia. It’s about the other mages and what they might do.”

Laric had allowed himself to forget about that for a moment.

He breathed out softly. “We haven’t had any response, so I don’t know that we really have to worry about them.”

“We still have to worry about them,” she said. “We don’t know what she did, and we don’t know who she talked to, but there’s a real possibility that she sent word out to the mage council. If so, you’re going to have to figure out why and what they will do.”

“You’re concerned about what they will do,” Laric said.

“Not particularly,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I think I need to be more concerned about what we have to do.”

He knew she was right. What would they have to think about, and do? He simply did not know.

He exhaled loudly and then stared ahead. “For so long, I thought mages were sort of the end-all of power.”

“They’re still powerful,” she said.

“I know. But it’s not just how powerful they are, is it? It’s what they intend to do with that power. How many of the mages are like Talia?”

Her eyes widened. “The headmaster?”

“I don’t know. But now I feel like we have to at least ask the question. And it’s a question that I never would’ve asked before.”

She stood quietly for a long moment. “Well, let’s get back to town, ask our questions, and then we can decide. First, though, maybe there’s something else that your grandmother left here that you can use.”

She wasn’t wrong. His grandmother was a glyph master, and though Laric didn’t really understand what that meant, other than the fact that she had obviously understood the glyphs that were present on the walls of the chamber beneath her shed, he did know that there would have to be something else that he could grasp from that. Perhaps it would be something she had intended for him to find. Without knowing with any certainty, he wasn’t sure if there would be anything he needed to look into. And increasingly, he couldn’t help but feel as if everything his grandmother had done had guided him in a particular direction, and it helped him find particular aspects of knowledge. How could that not be the case?

“Let’s check the artifacts,” he said.

He headed back into the cavern. He knew that they couldn’t stay here forever. Well, they could certainly stay, but he didn’t think they should stay much longer. He wanted to get back to town, and he wanted to see if there was anything there that Xavier might help them learn.

Laric looked at the wall of the artifacts that were there, but he didn’t see anything that struck him in any particular way. Joselle came over, peered around, and grabbed one of the artifacts.

“She had all these things from Korthal here, all this time? And she didn’t keep anything down below?” his sister said.

“I think that some of the artifacts that were in the lower section of her shed were Korthal artifacts, but the real question is what were they, and what were they for?”

“Maybe the real question is why she would take them out of Korthal and bring them here.”

He glanced over at Joselle. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“We know that Korthal and the mages have battled, right? So if that’s the case, then I guess it sort of makes sense that they might have wanted to evacuate things.”

“So you think these are some sort of relic that she wanted to preserve.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know her the way you did.” There was sadness in her tone. “I wish that I did, but I didn’t. And yet, it seems like the kind of thing somebody would do if they were trying to preserve an element of their culture.”

Laric hadn’t thought about it that way, but maybe his sister was right. Maybe that was what it had been about after all: preserving some aspect of the culture in order for them to do something with it. Though he didn’t quite know, he at least felt like it was one way that he might have a chance to dig into what it was that his grandmother might have found important, and perhaps take that information and use it.

It might help them better understand his grandmother, which would likely help him better understand what she had been hoping to train him for. Because in his mind, she had obviously been hoping to train him for something.

“Say,” Malcolm said, joining them. “Have the glyphs on the portal started to change, or is it just me?”

Laric hurried over to the portal. When it wasn’t active, it simply looked like a slab of stone with a series of glyphs etched into it. Vaguely, he had a sense of understanding those glyphs, though he didn’t know if that came from his grandmother or if it came from Sashaak. There did seem to be the possibility that it came from both, though he wondered how, and why, that would be the case.

“I think they’re the same as before,” Laric said.

“It’s just that this little square,” Malcolm said, pointing to a section of the wall that Laric hadn’t been focusing on, “looked like it was over here before.” He moved his hand to another section. “And this one,” he said, “was over here.”

“Do they move?” Rowan asked from behind him.

Laric gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. Honestly, I’m not even sure how the glyphs work at all. That’s something I think I still need to learn from the dragon, but the answers are distant.”

Distant didn’t mean gone, though. And as he thought about it, he couldn’t help but think that maybe there would be some way for him to find that, but it would involve him speaking more to Sashaak.

Laric wished that he had Malinar around to talk to, because he wanted an opportunity to better understand somebody who was truly dragon-bonded so that he could comprehend what it meant for him.

Or better yet, have a chance to talk to his grandmother.

What he wouldn’t give for that.

“Maybe you can make these if you start to understand the glyphs,” Malcolm suggested.

Laric snorted. “Make a portal? I think I first need to understand the glyphs. I need to understand the potential, and considering that I am somehow connected to this dragon, I feel like there’s quite a bit of potential that I really need to understand, and don’t. And then we have to…” He trailed off.

“What?” Malcolm asked.

Laric frowned. “The portals. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that my grandmother’s knowledge might help me understand how to make them and place them. Maybe that was part of the reason she was here. But if she could do this, why wouldn’t she have just placed them in Korthal, where she could bring her things back here?”

“What makes you think that she couldn’t?”

“Because she used the caravan.”

“Oh,” Malcolm said. “Not just Xavier, but my father.”

“More questions about our grandmother,” Joselle said. “How about we just get going, because I don’t really want to stay here any longer.”

Laric nodded. She was right. It was long overdue that they return to town and get some answers.

His ears began to pop, and he immediately jerked his head around, looking to see who was using spellslips or spellcraft forms. He didn’t see anybody. His gaze darted over to the portal entrance, but it was also closed.

“Rowan,” he hissed, jumping to his feet. “Something’s here. Or at least, something’s coming.”

He wished that Sashaak were still here. At least with Sashaak, there was a measure of protection that he didn’t have otherwise. But without the dragon, Laric didn’t know if there was going to be any way they would be able to keep themselves safe.

Rowan glanced at him, and then she shrugged. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Go to the entrance.”

“Come on, Laric. I’m tired. I think we all are tired. And we should be heading back. I don’t like being here, anyway. This is where Daelon and Malinar died.”

“And it’s where my grandmother was leaving relics that we need to at least understand.”

But she wasn’t wrong. He didn’t like the idea that they were stuck inside a cavern where people had died. Not only had they died, but Laric had been a participant in killing them. That was a strange thing to think about, but Daelon was somebody that he had a hard time feeling much sympathy for, especially considering everything he had done and how much he had been willing to injure others to get what he wanted.

The pressure continued to build, yet he didn’t quite know why he was feeling that.

Laric moved up the shaft leading out. He had intended for them to leave anyway, but now, more than any other time, he felt an urgency for them to get moving. Rowan joined him, and they looked up at the skyline, then down to the rock.

“I don’t see anything,” she said. “And…” She created a spellslip, moving quickly with it, and far faster than she ever would have been able to do before. As that spellslip formed, Laric felt it as her connection washed outward, giving her an opportunity to detect anything that was sweeping away from her. He focused as well, maintaining his own concentration as he attempted to see if there was anything out there that he could find.

He felt nothing, but there was still that pressure building up.

“Somebody is using a spellcraft form,” he said, keeping his voice quiet because he didn’t know if the others were coming up behind him. “And if we use this path to head back to the city, we might get caught.”

“Mages,” Rowan said.

Laric nodded.

“But it’s not Talia, is it?” Rowan looked behind her, toward the main part of the cavern. “Malcolm said that the symbols had moved. If they were moving, it’s possible that Talia might’ve figured out some way of escaping.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Laric said.

He focused again, and then he noticed the movement.

Or better yet, he supposed that what he detected came through his spellcraft form, a modification of what his grandmother had taught him a long time ago. It was a simple detection spellslip that Laric had added a spellcraft form to. The combination allowed him to probe much greater than he would’ve been able to do otherwise. It was something he had demonstrated to Talia, unfortunately, so now she would know what he was capable of doing, though he didn’t know if it would make much of a difference to her. As he probed, feeling that strangeness as it swept outward, he recognized that there was a power that was there.

“More mages,” he said. “So do we try to shield this place?”

“Can you?” Rowan asked.

“I think⁠—”

Laric didn’t get a chance to finish.

Surprisingly, he felt as if he were moving. He swayed in place until he felt Rowan’s arms on him, holding him. He was distantly aware of her voice, but even then, he didn’t know what she was saying to him. Instead, he felt everything shifting, and then he saw through Sashaak’s eyes. He was certain of it.

Anger erupted from Sashaak, who was flying nearby. Laric hadn’t even seen him, nor had he been aware of Sashaak as he had been circling. But now Laric could feel him. That was strange, but stranger still was how he could see the outlines of three figures moving along the rock. They glowed with an orange light.

He was seeing the way Sashaak did. Not just with enhanced eyesight, which the dragons were reported to have, but Sashaak could see heat. Then again, Laric had known that to be the case because when they had dealt with the dragons before, they had needed to shield themselves so that they did not get discovered.

In this case, Laric wondered if it was Xavier, or perhaps somebody else, coming at them.

Still, there was Sashaak’s anger. That seemed significant.

Then Laric felt another buildup of pressure. It came from the connection he shared with Sashaak, as if Sashaak wanted him to be aware of what he was doing and how he was doing it. Sashaak was summoning his potential, and then focusing it.

“Fire,” Laric said, not able to move.

“What?”

“Fire,” he repeated.

And then flames exploded.

They spilled out along the mountainside, near enough to them that there was a burst of fire only a couple hundred yards from where they were standing. The heat of it was enormous, and as it rushed toward them, Laric staggered back, though it didn’t even matter. He could still see what Sashaak saw. He could still feel the heat.

When the flames dispersed and the heat began to dissipate, he saw that the orange figures that had been moving along the rocks were no more.

Chapter Four

Getting back to the city was taking longer than Laric had anticipated.

He had considered asking Sashaak to give them a ride, partly because he was curious what it would be like to ride on top of Sashaak’s back, but partly because he also knew that it would be a much faster means of returning. Still, having seen what they had, and knowing that it would be difficult for the people in town to see them coming, he understood that it was not something he should do. It would only draw the wrong kind of attention to them.

Plus there was the issue of what the dragon had done to the figures who had been getting closer to the cave. Sashaak had attacked before Laric and the others had a chance to even understand who had been out there.

“I wish Xavier would’ve left us with a wagon, or horses, or something,” Iveris said, her irritation getting worse with every mile they traveled.

Laric glanced over. They had reached a flatter section of rock and were now making their way through the valley toward town. It wasn’t really that bad of a walk, he didn’t think, and he was surprised that Iveris was making such a stink about it. Then again, she had made most of the things that they were doing difficult.

“I don’t think that Xavier had anticipated that we would need to walk back,” Rowan told her sister.

“He should’ve known. He knew what was going on here.”

“I doubt it,” Laric said. And he did. He had no real reason to believe that Xavier would think there was going to be anything like that happening. The only thing he thought Xavier knew was information about the strange relics that had been brought out of Korthal, but had he known anything more than that?

Maybe something about the dragons too. If that were the case, then Laric wanted to question him about that as well.

“My feet hurt,” Malcolm said. “My back hurts. And I still can’t get the stench of the dragon burning people out of my nostrils.”

“I can’t either,” Joselle said. She looked at Laric. “Do we even know who they were?”

“Well, I’m presuming they were mages. But I don’t know.” He glanced over to Rowan.

“I think so too,” she said.

“So now we have more dead mages to deal with,” Iveris said. “We haven’t even talked about the danger of that, have we? We have Talia who’s hiding in the whatever-it-is, and we have Daelon who we ended up killing. Or you all ended up killing. And we have⁠—”

“We didn’t kill Daelon,” Rowan interrupted.

“What? I thought you used some sort of spellcraft form and incinerated him. Are you telling me that you didn’t do that? I was actually impressed by it.”

“That was Malinar,” Laric said.

“The funny little dragon guy?” Iveris asked.

Laric glanced at Rowan. Her sister was really going to be a problem.

“He wasn’t funny, and he was more than just a dragon guy,” he said. “And he sacrificed himself to save us.”

“Did he need to?”

Laric shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. Daelon was pretty powerful, and I’m not sure if we would’ve been able to escape from him otherwise. So maybe?” He thought about what they had dealt with and the power that they had encountered, and tried to think about if there had been any other way for them to have dealt with that kind of power. He wasn’t entirely sure. “I don’t know, though,” he finished.

Iveris scoffed. “So Daelon is gone, but you all didn’t kill him, and now we have three other mages that are dead. Talia is trapped, and we don’t know who else she was talking to, but it’s quite likely that she got herself involved in something.”

“Quite,” Laric said.

“I don’t know⁠—”

“Say. Is that Xavier?” Malcolm asked, pointing into the distance.

A cloud of dust hovered in the air, and within it came the movement of something racing at them.

“Why would he be out here now?” Joselle asked.

“I don’t know. I can only guess because he knew that there was something going on. Or maybe he picked up on something.” Malcolm turned to Laric. “Why do you think he would come out here?”

“I have no idea.”

Laric had expected to need to get to the city to talk to Xavier. He had not thought that the man would come out here for them.

Unless he wasn’t coming out here for them. Maybe he didn’t know what they had been dealing with.

How could he? He’d not been there. Not this time, though he obviously knew of the cave.

Laric focused on a barrier spellcraft form and readied it. He wanted to be protected just in case they were surprised by something else. A part of him wished that he had a better connection to Sashaak so he might be able to reach across that link and find some greater use of power, but he simply did not have anything within that to use.

Rowan turned toward him, as if understanding what he was doing. “Are you worried?”

“I’m not sure,” he said softly. He wished that he had a way of communicating only to her, but he couldn’t perform another spellcraft form while holding on to the one he was using now.

“Do we need to be prepared?”

“I think we should always be prepared,” he said.

She was quiet for a moment, and then Laric felt pressure behind his ear as she began to create her own spellcraft form. He didn’t know which form she chose, but he appreciated the fact that she was willing to simply do it without questioning.

As that power blossomed around him, he waited. Then he noticed that what he thought was a caravan coming at them was just a single wagon with a pair of horses. Seated on the wagon, guiding the horses, was only Xavier. Not the rest of his team.

Laric stepped forward, and once Xavier caught sight of them, he drew the horses to a stop.

“There you are,” he said, flicking his gaze around at all of them. “Just you?”

“Who else did you think we would find?” Laric asked.

“Don’t play coy. I…”

“You what? You knew something had happened? If you did, I’m curious how.”

“I can’t explain it,” Xavier said.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

Iveris pointed at Laric. “Why don’t you just tell him about the place that your grandmother had, and about the dead mage?”

Rowan’s eyes widened as she looked over to her sister.

“What?” Iveris said. “I don’t like this dancing-around-everything business. I’m tired.”

“If you’re tired, get in the back of the wagon,” Xavier said, motioning to it.

Iveris groaned, and then she marched past Xavier and climbed into the wagon. Laric looked at his sister, caught her eye, and then nodded. Joselle joined Iveris.

“So, the three of you have anything that you want to tell me?” Xavier asked.

“Do you really want to do that here?” Laric asked.

“Better here than once we get back in the city.”

“You were smuggling things for my grandmother,” Laric said. “Protecting them from mages. Why?”

Xavier frowned a moment. “I see. Well then, that’s a bit more of a conversation than I was ready for. How about we get back, and then we can talk. Climb in.”

He turned back to the wagon and waited for them.

Malcolm joined the others, while Rowan and Laric stayed put.

“Something’s wrong?” Rowan asked.

“I don’t know,” Laric said. “All of this is wrong, I suppose. It just feels like there is more going on here, too much that we don’t understand, and I’m not exactly sure what to make of it. Nor do I know if there’s going to be any other way that we’re going to be able to deal with any of this.”

“No,” she agreed. “I’m sure that we don’t know what we’re going to have to deal with, but I’m curious if there is anything here that you’re particularly concerned about. You know that your grandmother was involved. And as far as I can tell, you trust what she did.”

“I do, but I also worry about what she did and why she was keeping it from me.”

“Maybe she wasn’t keeping it from you. She was teaching you, Laric. She wanted you to know aspects of this. And she did teach you the key to it, after all.”

Maybe that was it. His grandmother had been working with him in some ways and had wanted him to know certain elements of what she could do. If she hadn’t wanted that, she would not have shown him so many of the different spellslips that were essentially spellcraft forms, and she would not have given him the means to fully understand some of the elements of power that she wielded.

“Xavier can help,” Rowan said.

“Are we sure?”

She laughed. “That’s the issue?”

“What?”

“You don’t know if you can trust him.”

“I am about out of trust right now,” Laric said. “It’s been hard to know who I can trust and who I can’t.”

She shrugged. “I get that, but I think we need to make sure that we are at least trusting each other.”

“I didn’t mean that I didn’t trust you,” he said.

“Good. So let’s get in the wagon, go back with Xavier, and see what he knows.”

Laric looked back at the mountains and focused, feeling a vague sense of the power that he was aware of. There was energy out there, and potential, he suspected. Distantly, he could feel some of that lingering connection to Sashaak, even though there was no way for him to see Sashaak. At least, not without the dragon gifting him that connection. All Sashaak would have to do would be to show Laric what he saw, but right now, that was not the case.

Once Laric and Rowan climbed into the wagon, Xavier turned the horses and started guiding them back.

“Heard reports that something was happening outside the city,” Xavier said, looking over. “Although I wasn’t expecting it to be you.”

“So you came out here to do what? Check? I wouldn’t have expected that my grandmother had given you access.”

“You’d be surprised what she gave me,” he said.

“Why?”

“You don’t think I should have access?”

“No, it’s not that,” Laric said. “I’m just curious why she trusted you.”

Xavier hesitated before answering, and when he did, he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. “What do you really know about Korthal?”

“Just the stories that we’ve heard.”

He grunted. “Stories. That’s about all that there have been. And most of them are stories that are propagated by those who have the power to decide the narrative.”

“You don’t believe the mages?”

That came from Rowan, and she had leaned forward, talking over the steady rumbling of the wagon, the thundering of the horses as they pounded the hard-packed ground, and the swirling of the wind that had started to pick up.

“I’ve been to Korthal,” Xavier said. “I know the people. I might not have seen any of the fighting, but I’ve seen the effect of it.”

“And?”

“And it’s not the same as what you have heard. Then again, I suppose that’s the case for everything. The one who wins gets to tell the story the way that they want.”

“I didn’t realize the mages were winning,” Laric said. “I always assumed that Korthal was winning because they had dragons.”

“Dragons,” Xavier said, looking over. “How many dragons do you really think they have? I know that we’ve been aware of some, but you’ve also noticed something about the dragons, haven’t you?”

Laric wanted to say no, but what could he deny? He had seen something about the dragons. Had felt something, as well.

“You’re saying that mages have a way of defeating the dragons.”

Xavier shook his head. “Have. Had. But that’s not what this is about. Not anymore. It doesn’t even take as much power as you would think to do it. Just one well-timed blow, and a dragon will be disrupted. But then, the two of you know that too.”

There was a hint of an accusation in the tone. That was new. Laric hadn’t heard that from him before, but then maybe it was warranted, especially considering what he and Rowan had done when the dragons had attacked. They had believed the dragons were everything they had heard about from stories, and they had feared them. And perhaps for good reason. The dragon that had attacked the city had been fearsome, but it also hadn’t been truly acting on its own.

“The mages have been looking for understanding of glyphs to try to control the dragons,” Laric said. “Apparently, they have also learned a few tricks. At least, that’s what Malinar told us.”

He said it without thinking, and as soon as he did, he regretted it.

Xavier’s hand slipped on the reins, and the horses picked up speed. “You talked with him?”

“You know him. I’m sorry, Xavier.”

“What are you sorry about? Where is he?”

“He’s… he’s gone,” Laric said. “He burned himself out defeating Daelon.”

Xavier was quiet for a few moments, and once he spoke, the tone in his voice had changed. Gone was some of the confidence that he always spoke with. “He wouldn’t have done that.”

“You mean sacrifice himself?”

“Well, sacrifice is something that I would believe of him, but I wouldn’t have expected it to come from him. Why?”

“He was dying,” Laric said. “Something happened, something that the mages did to him, and he knew that he wasn’t going to recover.”

“That wouldn’t have been enough,” Xavier said.

As he said it, Laric thought that he understood why Xavier was making that connection.

“He worried about his dragon,” Laric said.

Having felt the connection to the dragon, Laric could understand, but what could have happened that would have put Malinar into a situation where he thought he didn’t have any choice but to make a sacrifice?

Xavier shifted so that he could hold Laric in his gaze, while also continuing to drive them forward. “You saw the dragon.”

Rowan snorted, and Laric shot her a hard look to silence her.

Xavier looked between them. “What? You saw the dragon, didn’t you? They didn’t manage to take it. That has been their goal, after all. You saw it when they attacked the city.”

“If you knew that then, why didn’t you tell us?”

“You’re a bunch of kids,” Xavier said after a few moments passed.

Buildings came into view, and Laric found the town—and the sense of normalcy from it—to be a little disconcerting considering everything they had been dealing with. Maybe it shouldn’t be, as the town had been destroyed, with a wake of devastation left behind. But still, he felt as if some part of it was strangely normal.

It was still under construction following the attack, and eventually, it was going to need much more work to rebuild, but they could rebuild. They had time to do it. At least, he thought they did. He hoped so.

Until the mages came, that was.

“A bunch of kids that you heard defended the town,” Rowan said.

“I heard it,” Xavier said, “and I wasn’t sure how much to believe, much like I wasn’t sure how much of the stories that were out there I should believe.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m concerned.”

“Because of what you’ve been smuggling?” Laric asked.

“Because I question who’s going to be able to stand up to the mages.” He held Laric’s gaze for a moment, then he turned away, driving the horses and the wagon into town.

Xavier didn’t explain more. He didn’t need to, though. Laric understood. Who would stop the mages?

They would return. Laric believed it, especially now that he had seen the trio of mages on the mountainside that Sashaak had killed. They wouldn’t be the last ones to come. And as they came, he and the others were going to have to decide what they would do.

Laric had a vague sense of movement, and for a second, he thought he could see Sashaak, see what Sashaak was seeing, but then it passed. It was fleeting.

Could he rely upon Sashaak to help if they had to confront the mages?

And even if he could, did he even want to fight them?

Chapter Five

Once they came to a stop in the city, Laric looked all around him, experiencing a sense of unease at how everything looked and felt to him. He wasn’t sure what he wanted or needed to do, just that it all felt like he had to keep active. There was a part of him that knew if he waited too long, he was going to run out of time to deal with everything. And everything involved the mages.

Xavier worked on pulling the horses free from the wagon while Joselle and Iveris climbed out of the back. Malcolm helped both of the younger girls down as Laric and Rowan moved off to the side.

“I need to get her settled,” Rowan said to him, dropping her voice to a whisper and nodding to her sister. “And I need to have a conversation with her about everything that’s been going on. She’s probably going to want to tell our father about what’s happened, and I need to try to keep her from saying anything that we don’t want to get out.”

Laric glanced toward Joselle, wondering if he would need to do the same with his sister. “Is it really that much of an issue with her?”

“You’ve been around her. You know how anxious she can get.”

“I need to talk with Xavier. Can you take Joselle with you?”

“You might want to send her with Malcolm. Besides, I think he’s sweet on her, anyway, so he’s going to take good care of her.”

“Great,” Laric muttered.

“That’s not what I mean,” Rowan said.

He chuckled. “Oh, I know. I can have a little fun with it. I have a little fun with Malcolm too. He gets all quiet around her, which I think is somewhat entertaining. Should I find you at your home?”

“Why don’t you see what Xavier has to say? Besides, I think it’s going to be easier for you to have a conversation with him about your grandmother on your own. You might even want to include Joselle, or maybe you don’t want to? It depends on what he tells you, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think he’s going to keep anything from us now,” Laric said. “At least, not with everything that he knows. It’s just, I’m not sure what to make of any of this.”

She reached for Laric’s arm and squeezed it. “Just give him a chance to explain.”

He nodded. Then he went over to Joselle. “You mind going with Malcolm for a little while? I will meet the both of you in a bit. I need to talk to Xavier.”

Joselle frowned. “If you’re going to talk to him about our grandmother, then shouldn’t I stick around? I have the same questions that you do.”

“I’m sure you have even more questions than I do, and I agree that you should have those questions answered, but I think I need to have a little time with him to work through some things.”

“You know what,” Malcolm said to Joselle, “how about we just take a walk? I can get you back to my house, and maybe we can ask my father a few questions.” He looked over to Laric, then back to her. “Because he may have some additional insight. We can gather more information about what sort of trade your grandmother was involved in. That way when your brother comes, we will have done some more research.”

Joselle glanced from Malcolm to Laric. “Are you trying to keep me out of this?”

“Definitely not. I’m just trying to understand things first,” Laric said.

“I can be a part of it.”

“I know. But I also have a connection to the dragon,” he said, lowering his voice, “and I don’t know what else to make of all of that yet.”

“That’s what you’re concerned about?” Joselle asked.

He shrugged. “I’m trying to better understand what she knew, and what that means for us. For me, really.”

“Oh, Laric,” she said, her voice soft.

“I don’t need that; I just want to have a chance to ask some questions.”

“All right. But promise me that you will not try to exclude me?”

“I promise.”

She looped her arm through Malcolm’s, and then they set off. Rowan and Iveris left as well, leaving Laric with Xavier, who had finished brushing his horses.

“They’re leaving you, are they?” Xavier asked.

“They’re leaving me because I have to ask you a few questions. I need to know more about my grandmother and what was going on.”

“What am I supposed to tell you about your grandmother? I told you everything. I helped transport some items for her, including her⁠—”

“We both know that she didn’t need you to transport her.”

He let out a long, steady breath. “Let’s walk.”

“Walk?”

“You know, walking?” Xavier said, making his fingers wiggle to mime walking. “We can keep moving, and I will check on a few things while you stay with me. Does that sound reasonable?”

It did, and Laric didn’t want to argue with him about it, so he nodded and followed him.

“When I first returned to the city after the attack, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of everything,” Xavier said. “And once I heard about your role in it all, and the fact that you were working with a mage, I hadn’t known just how much to reveal. I still don’t, if you ask me honestly.”

“Even though I know what she was doing?”

“You know what you think she was doing, but that’s not to say that you truly know what she was doing. We don’t truly know what the mages are after.” He paused, and then he pointed into the city. Laric looked over, realizing that he was gesturing toward the school. “How many mages have come through here since you started school?”

“A couple,” Laric said quickly. “We’ve had several headmasters, and we’ve had at least one instructor who was a mage, but apparently was concealing everything else he was doing.”

“Exactly,” Xavier said. “You had people coming here. All the way out here. Think about how unusual that is. Maybe you don’t realize that, but I do. I think others would too.”

“Unusual in the fact that they came to a city out here, or unusual in the fact that they are here at all?”

“Unusual in the fact that they are here at all. What’s out here? I don’t mean that to disparage the town. I love this place. I grew up here, met my first love, and have done all that I can to make sure the town is as safe as I can make it. But unfortunately, there’s only so much I can do to ensure the safety of the town. Once mages started making their presence known—and I’ll be honest, they haven’t always done so—I knew that it was going to be a challenge.”

“I thought there was always a headmaster that came from the Mage Society.”

“There’s always been a headmaster, and when I was younger, most were about as capable as anybody who trains at the school ever gets to be. Maybe a little bit more. They probably know a few more spellslips than most. But very few people that come out of the school ever master even a single spellcraft form.”

“I don’t know if that’s because they don’t have the ability, or if they were just never taught,” Laric said.

“I agree. I’ve always agreed. And once the first mage came, taking over the school, I thought that perhaps they had just decided that it made sense to have a presence out here. But I think it was about more than that.” Xavier paused at a building. “What do you see here?”

Laric looked over. “I see the glyphs.”

Some of the buildings in the city had glyphs on them. Not all, and not even that many, to be honest, but enough that they did give off a certain sense of energy about them.

And now that he knew about what his grandmother had done, and her role in everything, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he should be able to identify something from those glyphs. He suspected that if he had time with them, and perhaps if he used the egg that served as some sort of a keystone to understanding the glyphs, he might learn more about them.

“When I was younger, there weren’t so many,” Xavier said.

Laric looked over in surprise. “What?”

“No. Not so many. Not many people realize that. They just think that the glyphs were always here. And some were, but I think that if you travel—and I have traveled—you will see glyphs in many places. Never really understood it, and always had questions about that, and about why there were places that had quite a few glyphs, and places that did not.” He shrugged. “And unfortunately, I just don’t know.”

“Are you trying to imply that my grandmother placed more here?”

“I think that the timing is suspect. Your grandmother knew about the glyphs. She didn’t admit it to me, but then again, she didn’t necessarily need to admit it. I was aware. She sort of kept it to herself, not that I’m blaming her for that. In fact, I think that she probably had every reason to do so. Especially considering the fact that not many people knew anything about glyphs.”

“Why this one?” Laric asked.

“This was the first one I noticed. Take a look at it.”

He crouched down and looked at the stone. The building itself was pretty unremarkable. It was one of the other general stores in town, and he had visited it several times. The glyphs on the corner of the stone, however, were complex. There were various angular shapes that all worked together, and within them, he felt a distinct sense of power.

As he stared, he had a flicker in the back of his mind. At first, he didn’t know quite what it was, but the longer he felt that flickering, the clearer it became for him: Sashaak.

“Strength,” a faint voice said deep in his mind.

“The glyph is for strength?” Laric said, too surprised to do much else.

Xavier shrugged again. “I suppose it could be. Honestly, I don’t know much about glyphs or the purpose behind them, but I think that they all have some purpose. Why this place, though? What reason was there?” He crouched down, tracing his finger along the surface of it. As he did, Laric became aware that Xavier was doing something at the same time. It seemed as if he was forming a spellslip.

“You know magic,” Laric said.

He snorted. “Wouldn’t be much use on the road if I couldn’t protect myself.”

“Just spellslips, or can you do spellcraft forms as well?”

“I know a few spellcraft forms, though not as many as I would like.” Xavier said it as if it shouldn’t be surprising. Even a few months ago, that would have been the most shocking bit of information for Laric. “It has taken me quite a bit of time to learn them, because I didn’t have the formal training. It does, however, help me when I have encountered mages. They wouldn’t expect a simple merchant to know such things.”

“Why tell me? If that’s a secret you’re trying to keep, why reveal it to me?”

“Why reveal to me that you have connected to Malinar’s dragon?”

Laric’s brow furrowed. “I…”

Xavier chuckled. “I don’t really know the purpose of this glyph, but if you’re saying that it’s for strength, then I believe you. Maybe your grandmother saw something here and decided that rather than leaving the building to crumble, she would add some element of strength to it. Or perhaps she decided that she wanted to protect the building in some way. I don’t know. But this isn’t the only place you can find glyphs like this. There are others all throughout town, if you would only look.”

“I’ve seen quite a few glyphs throughout the town,” Laric said. “I don’t think that my grandmother would’ve done all of them. Wouldn’t somebody realize if she had?”

“How many of the glyphs here have you ever paid any attention to?”

Laric hesitated. How many had he?

Before he had even considered the possibility that there was anything he could learn about glyphs, he supposed that the number he had paid attention to had been zero. There was nothing to be done with them, after all. The knowledge of glyphs has been lost long enough ago that he had simply thought that they were all structures, and powers, that he did not have any reason to pay any mind to.

Xavier chuckled. “See? You don’t know.”

“I haven’t given them that much thought,” Laric said.

“Most people don’t. But I can assure you that mages in the city do. They probably have them cataloged, and the first time the mage came to the city—and stayed—I started to question what was going on. I followed them.”

“You followed a mage?”

“I did. Foolishly.”

As he stood there, Laric felt the sudden buildup of pressure as a spellcraft form emerged. It was not all that potent, other than the fact that it pushed Laric backward a couple of steps. The fact that it had that much potency to be able to do that was interesting.

“All right,” Laric said, holding his hands up. “So you know some spellcraft forms.”

“More than just some,” Xavier said. “But yes. I followed a mage through the city, and I noticed that they were interested in the glyphs. I don’t know if your grandmother placed any more here—assuming that your grandmother was the one responsible for all of these. All I can say is that I realized that the glyphs no longer continued to appear.” He shook his head. “So read into that whatever you want.”

“I don’t understand why she would place them, especially if she didn’t want the mages to be drawn to them.”

“There has to be some purpose behind them. Maybe you can puzzle that out.”

Could he? If he could, he could easily imagine that there would be something he might find, though what?

“I’m happy to help you learn more about what your grandmother was doing,” Xavier said. “I don’t know that I’m going to have all the answers, but ultimately, I think you need to know more about her and where she came from.”

“Korthal,” Laric said.

“I am not sure that she actually came from Korthal,” Xavier said, shrugging when Laric raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know, though it is possible. What I can tell you is that your grandmother knew the people of Korthal. When I traveled with her, she made her way through there with no issue, and she was quick to negotiate. It was easy because she knew the people in ways that I didn’t even know. And I’ve spent quite a bit of my career trying to build a rapport with the people of Korthal.”

“So if not there, then where?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should talk to that dragon,” he said, offering a hint of a smile. “Because there’s more to this than we know. More to it than even those of us who have spent any time there know.”

Laric sighed. “All right.”

“I’m going to make my arrangements, and then we should talk about what you’re going to do with that mage you’ve captured,” Xavier said.

“I’m not sure what we have to do with her. I don’t even know how long we can hold her there. She might be able to escape.”

“She’s a mage, Laric. I think that you have to consider it highly likely that she will escape.”

“The dragon wanted to incinerate her,” Laric said.

“That might not be the worst idea. I’m not saying that I condone murdering a mage, but you may have to consider being more definitive with her, because of the high possibility that others will come for her. Especially since you assisted her in reaching out to others.”

“Well, to our credit, we thought it was necessary to do after the attack. Of course, we also didn’t really understand the nature of the attack at the time, so…”

“Yes,” Xavier said. He clasped Laric on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. There are quite a few people who don’t really understand such things, and I’m fairly certain that you have at least decided to think about the implications of what you’re doing.” He chuckled. “And if you haven’t, then I will do my best to help you do so.”

After Xavier left, Laric looked at the glyphs on the building for a little while longer. His grandmother had done this. But why? And better yet, could Laric learn anything about the glyphs?

There were others in the town. That was what he needed to know now.

But it also felt like he had other things he needed to know, other things that he needed to do, and Laric didn’t know if he had time to before the mages made their next move.

Chapter Six

Laric found himself drawn by power. He wasn’t sure what it was that he was detecting, only that it struck him as energy surging through him, leaving him awash with it. It seemed to be tied to Sashaak, though at this point he wasn’t positive if that was the case, as he hadn’t been close enough to the dragon to be able to test that theory.

He had spent quite a bit of time in the city, testing whether he might come up with anything to help him know what his grandmother had been doing. Increasingly, he had to believe that she had been involved in what Xavier had claimed, but he also didn’t know the details, nor did he know if there was anything more he could even learn about it.

This was his grandmother, though.

He spent far too long walking through the streets, looking at each of the different glyph marks that were present on buildings and attempting to gauge their age. As he did, he could not find anything at all. It seemed to him that there should be something, but then again, he had always overlooked these glyphs and had never really paid much mind to what his grandmother had done—or might have been doing.

How many others had noticed what Xavier had noticed? Laric had a hard time thinking that anybody had, but if they had, perhaps he could ask about them.

At one point, he neared the school grounds. There were other glyphs in the area, which was part of the reason the school had been founded there, though Laric didn’t want to venture too close because a part of him remained somewhat concerned about the headmaster. She was a mage, after all, which meant that she was connected to the mage council in a way that he was not—and now did not want to be.

More than anything, he couldn’t help but feel as if all of this was going to be a problem for him. Eventually, Laric was going to have to decide what he wanted to do. Their town had always been connected to the rest of the kingdom, but it had also been isolated simply by nature of how far away it was from other parts, and how inaccessible it generally was. But mages had valued keeping a presence here.

Laric just hadn’t realized how short a time that had been.

By the time he finished his survey of the city, working through various detection spellslips to see if maybe he could uncover something that his grandmother had left—and failing—he was exhausted. He reached Malcolm’s home and hesitated as he debated whether he should just go inside. In the past, Malcolm’s father had told him to just head in, but he still didn’t feel quite comfortable with doing that. This was not his home, so he knocked.

When the door opened, Malcolm looked out, at first tentative, and then he rolled his eyes. “Why are you knocking?”

“Because it’s not my home.”

He snorted. “You make it difficult at times, don’t you?”

“I’m not trying to make anything difficult,” Laric said.

“Oh, I know you’re not trying to. But you are.”

He shook his head. “I learned a few things.”

“Oh?” Malcolm glanced behind him. “My father is helping get food together. Your sister is resting.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Laric said. “I’m not sure she needs to hear all of this yet.”

Malcolm stepped out. His home was one of the nicer ones on this street, and remained unharmed despite the attack. It was good that it did, but it was also surprising that so much of the city, at least the central part of it, had survived the dragon attacks. Having witnessed what the dragons were capable of doing—and honestly, feeling what the dragons could do—Laric remained curious as to why there had not been more widespread devastation. Maybe it was because the dragons had not wanted to destroy. If that were the case, then it showed a measure of restraint that might be helpful to keep in mind, and perhaps helpful for others to learn about as well.

“So?” Malcolm asked.

“Xavier told me that my grandmother was placing glyphs around the city.”

Malcolm leaned forward, and his eyes widened. “She was placing glyphs in the city? But we would’ve known, wouldn’t we?”

“Apparently, people don’t really pay attention to such things, mostly because nobody knows how to make glyphs, now do they? According to Xavier, he became aware that new glyphs had appeared, and he started trying to make sense of it. Once the mages discovered that was happening, they sent a representative here.”

“But we’ve always had mages here,” Malcolm said.

“Not according to Xavier.”

Malcolm glanced back at his house. “We could ask my father about that. He would know.”

“We can,” Laric said. “I don’t know why he would have any reason to make that detail up, so I’m inclined to believe it.”

Malcolm let out a sigh. “I suppose that we should both be. Why would that be the case, though? What would have brought them out here?”

“Presuming that they were aware of the glyphs. But I think the better question is how they had detected that there were glyphs.”

“Unless they knew something was happening out here.”

“Maybe,” Laric agreed. “I’m starting to think that there is something about this place that was significant to my grandmother, but I don’t really know why or what that might have been.”

“Not just the glyphs.”

Laric rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. He preferred to have conversations like these with Rowan because she had a good mind for such things, but Malcolm was also clever.

“If she could make glyphs,” Laric said, “she didn’t have any reason to be here because of the glyphs.”

“Unless there were specific glyphs that she couldn’t make. Think about it, Laric. Maybe she placed glyphs to try to hide the others. Or maybe she hid others so that the mages wouldn’t pick up on what was already here.”

“I think you might be reaching a bit,” Laric said.

Malcolm shrugged. “I could be. But there has to be a reason behind it. We just have to figure out what that reason is.”

“I know. I’m not sure what we need to do with this, but we are going to have to come to terms with that. And at some point, we’re going to have to deal with mages.”

“You mean the school.”

“The school. Whatever mages come in response to what Talia did. And Talia herself.”

Malcolm was quiet for a few moments. “I was thinking about it. I didn’t want to talk to my father about this, but Joselle and I were talking a bit. We could just play like we don’t know anything about what Talia was involved in. Or Daelon. And since Daelon is gone, we don’t have to worry about him. We can make it seem like Talia took off. She was doing that quite a bit anyway, so it wouldn’t be all that surprising.”

“We are still going to have to explain why we keep going to the shed,” Laric said, “assuming that we can still get into the shed. And if not there, then we’re going to have to explain why we’re going out into the mountains to use the portal.”

“Or we just leave her there,” Malcolm said.

“Both you and Rowan have made the same comment,” Laric said, shaking his head slightly.

“I don’t say it to be cruel. I’m just saying it because…”

“Because it makes sense.”

And it did. If they didn’t have Talia in the picture, they wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. So maybe in a way, it wouldn’t be wrong.

His stomach suddenly grumbled, and Malcolm grinned.

“Come on. We need to eat. Then I think that we should just get some sleep. It’s been a long few days.”

Laric didn’t argue, and followed Malcolm in. There was a warmth and a feeling of welcome inside Malcolm’s home. That had been the case ever since Laric had come to stay with them. Malcolm and his father had both been incredibly accepting of Laric and Joselle and said that they were welcome to stay with them as long as they needed. There had never been any sort of timeline on how long that might be. Laric hadn’t even started to consider the possibility of where they would go, though increasingly, he thought he was going to have to come up with an answer as to where that would be.

They couldn’t stay here forever, regardless of how welcoming Malcolm and his father were.

The dinner was delicious, and there was pleasant conversation, but by the time they wrapped up and Laric had helped clean up, he was every bit as exhausted as Malcolm had alluded to them being.

He crashed on his bed in the room he shared with Joselle, and sleep claimed him. He had dreams of movement, which Laric suspected came from the connection that he shared with Sashaak—the one that he was going to eventually have to master in some way. He also didn’t think that he could stay in town and truly come to understand that connection, as Laric thought that he was going to need to have a greater proximity to Sashaak to better learn how Sashaak could help him.

In the morning when he got up, his sister was already out of the room. Laric found the home empty. There was no sign of Malcolm, no sign of Joselle, no sign even of Malcolm’s father. That was unusual, though it spoke to how long Laric must’ve slept.

He grabbed some day-old bread, some cheese, and an apple, and hurriedly ate them. When he was done, he headed out and realized it had to be midday.

He’d slept that long? It really was a measure of his exhaustion.

Before setting out, he wondered if there was some part of the connection to Sashaak that he might use, as more and more he couldn’t help but feel as if there had to be some part of it that lingered inside his mind, but every time he attempted to do so, it felt as if there was some vague energy that came and went, pulling away from him.

Why did he feel that?

Maybe Sashaak debated whether he wanted to maintain a connection to Laric.

It had been a forced one, as Malinar had been dying and Laric had been the only one who Malinar had felt safe connecting Sashaak to, though Laric had a hard time thinking that Malinar would’ve been able to force an unwanted connection to the dragon. Sashaak had to be at least an equal partner in that, wouldn’t he?

Still, some part of the dragon lingered within Laric, and he tried to capture that connection, thinking that if nothing else, there had to be some way for him to do more than just feel that vague sense of light as Sashaak remained linked to him.

Unfortunately, Laric could not find it.

He set off and paused a few times as he tested whether there were any aspects of the glyphs that he could uncover, but every time he stopped in front of some of the glyphs, Laric found them just as impossible as they had always been. He couldn’t understand them, nor could he understand the power that he knew existed in them. For whatever reason, though he was positive there had to be something more to them, Laric couldn’t find it.

As he continued walking, thinking about returning to Malcolm’s home, somebody called his name. He turned, and everything within him went cold. He forced a smile, then tipped his head as the petite form of the headmaster came toward him, accompanied by Mr. Galinar.

“You have been given quite a bit of freedom, Mr. Mason,” the headmaster said. “I have been looking for Talia to talk to her about just how much freedom I should permit you, but it seems she’s been absent.” The expectant look in her eyes suggested that she hoped he had an answer.

The headmaster was an older woman, and from what he had learned, she was not the most talented mage. Compared to anybody in this part of the world, however, she was incredibly gifted. Mr. Galinar, on the other hand, was just a well-trained instructor who taught different spellslips as well as mathematics at the school. He had always been kind to Laric, unlike some of the other instructors.

“I thought we had agreed that Iveris and Joselle were coming along with my teaching,” Laric said.

The headmaster’s brow furrowed. “We had agreed? I believe that you convinced me of a short term assignment, nothing permanent.” Her lips pursed in a tight frown. “Though I will not deny the fact that they have progressed under your tutelage. It has been quite remarkable. Which is one more thing that I would like to talk to you about.”

Laric felt a cold sensation wash through him again. And for the first time, it seemed as if Sashaak reacted to that. Was he going to help?

The headmaster cocked her head, frowning at him for a moment. Was she aware of that connection? He would have to be very careful here. He didn’t know what most mages were trained to detect when it came to dragons, and he certainly didn’t want to reveal his connection until he better understood if it was safe for him to do so.

“What can I help you with?” Laric asked.

“You have managed to help so many of your friends, I thought that perhaps I would ask you to work with some of the other students. Now I realize that poses some challenges, especially because of your standing with some of them,” she said, and Laric suppressed a smile. He didn’t have a whole lot of standing with most of the students. His entire time in school had been about trying to avoid doing any work, at least until he had no choice in the matter. “But,” she went on, “you obviously have some insight into how you can perform your spellslips that has been useful to helping other students. I was hopeful that you might show that to others beyond Iveris and Joselle. And Malcolm, for that matter.” She glanced over to Mr. Galinar, then back to Laric. “Considering you’ve trained with Mage Talia, and you have started learning spellcraft forms, you will also have a measure of authority that I suspect most at the school will respond to.”

Laric wrinkled his nose at that. He hadn’t considered that fact, but she wasn’t necessarily wrong. “I suppose I could do that,” he said. “Can I keep working with the others?”

“I don’t have any issues with you working with Rowan and Malcolm, but I think the younger students really would benefit from returning to school. You have been training them on spellslips, and perhaps spellcraft forms,” she said, arching a brow and waiting for him to respond. When he remained impassive, she continued. “But there are other elements of study that are necessary. They need mathematics. Science. Literature. Art. All the aspects of school that must be taught for us to feel as if we are providing our students with the foundation they will need.”

Laric had the urge to tell her that he doubted that anything else they would teach would provide the foundation necessary, and that spellslips and spellcraft forms were more likely to be needed, especially considering what they were dealing with and the possibility that there were still dangers to face. But he didn’t.

“I will let them know that they should return to their studies,” he said.

“Very well. And I will expect to see you at school too, even if it’s a few times a week.”

A few times a week? That was far more than he had thought she would ask him for.

“And if you do happen to see Mage Talia, let her know that I have received word from the council, and they are sending representatives to the town.” She clasped her hands together, smiling. “They were most impressed to hear that we have so much potential developing out here.”

Laric didn’t know how to react, and so he did not react whatsoever.

“I will see you later, Mr. Mason.”

With that, she and Mr. Galinar strode away.

They were going to have to work quickly. He didn’t know what they were going to need to do, but they needed to deal with Talia before any mages came. And Laric didn’t know what that might look like.

Chapter Seven

He paused in front of the portal entrance. They’d borrowed one of Malcolm’s father’s wagons to come out to the cavern, partly because Laric had pushed for it, despite Rowan’s and Malcolm’s objections.

“We need more time before we do this,” Rowan said.

“We need answers,” Laric said, glancing over to her. “And we’ve got the headmaster now pressing me about her. Besides, how long do we have before the other mages get here?”

A flood of heat washed through him, and it took a moment for him to realize just what it was. It came from the way Sashaak was trying to grant him potential. Or maybe it was Sashaak attempting to tell him something. Whatever it was, Laric felt that heat building inside of him, and it flooded through him in such a way that he tried to fight against it, because the suddenness of that power made him fearful.

Then Sashaak came sliding down the cavern and stopped behind them, filling the space. “I will come,” Sashaak said.

“You won’t be able to fit through that portal,” Laric said.

Sashaak looked at him, and Laric experienced an extreme sensation that suggested that Sashaak was actually laughing. That was incredibly off-putting, mostly because he couldn’t even imagine how Sashaak was laughing, nor did he know what the dragon was laughing at. Was he laughing at him?

“You can fit through the portal?” Laric asked.

“Wait. The dragon plans to come with us?” Despite the surprise in Malcolm’s voice, there was also relief. “There’s no way. The dragon is just too big.”

“Open,” Sashaak said. “Then I go first.”

“If you say so,” Laric said, stepping over to the portal. Rowan took his arm and tried to pull on it, but he glanced over to her and said, “If the dragon wants to go⁠—”

“What do you think the dragon is going to do to Talia?” Joselle asked, glancing to Iveris.

Laric shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever happens to Talia might just be something she deserves.”

With the potential inside of him, he triggered the glyphs using the same technique he had used before. There was a stirring and a swirling, and the glyphs slowly started to spiral, taking on a shape.

The door opened. As soon as it did, a blast of power streaked toward them.

Laric braced, but he need not have bothered. Sashaak was already there, filling the space and protecting them from whatever it was that Talia attempted to do. He could feel that burst of energy from her and the way it flooded out, and then Sashaak slipped forward. It was strange to watch, as it seemed as if Sashaak somehow compressed downward, shrinking in some almost impossible fashion. Laric would not have believed it had he not seen it. More and more of Sashaak squeezed inward. Then the dragon was gone.

Laric stood in front of the open portal for just a moment. Then he stepped forward. There was a vague sense of movement, and then it stopped.

Once inside the glyph chamber, he saw that Sashaak had chased Talia back to the far side of the room. The glyphs in the room were once again glowing and active, seemingly pushing out a bit of pressure and power that Laric was aware of. There was a little energy here that Laric thought Sashaak had activated, though he hadn’t even realized it had happened. He could feel it, though he had no idea why he could, nor did he have any idea what he was picking up on.

“Was it always like this?” Rowan asked as she and the others stepped inside.

Laric shook his head. “Not that I remember,” he said. “This is… different.”

“The dragon, or is it you?”

“I don’t know. I would think I should have felt something if it came from the dragon.”

“Can you control it?” she asked.

That was the real question, wasn’t it? Given everything that they were dealing with, and everything he knew about this power, what Laric had to understand, and what he was going to have to decide, was whether or not he had any way to control any of it.

“The control is going to be a challenge,” he said.

“That’s what I figured,” she said. “You need knowledge.”

“I do.”

“And the dragon?”

“I don’t know if the dragon is going to offer me what I need. Maybe?” Laric said, shrugging. “I can tell something from the dragon.”

Now that he was inside this chamber, it did seem as if he had a measure of understanding that had not been there before. That surprised him.

Maybe Sashaak was giving him something, but the way Sashaak was doing so and the energy that Sashaak was granting him were controlled in some way. The challenge that he had was trying to make sense of just what it was, and just how Sashaak was attempting to control that. So far, Laric simply did not know. He began to question if there was going to be any way to understand what the dragon was doing, and whether he would be able to understand how to control such a thing.

Talia turned, and she faced them.

Within this chamber, Talia seemed small—much smaller than she had before. Her black hair was tousled, but she had a defiant glare in her dark eyes and seemed as if she was ready to fight, though Laric didn’t know if there was going to be any way that she would even be able to.

“Well,” she said, standing tall and looking from Sashaak to the rest of them. “You’ve decided to pay me a visit. Let me guess. This isn’t you coming in here to release me.”

Laric shook his head. He moved to stand alongside Sashaak, which gave him a strange sensation. Heat came from the dragon, but there was something else to it as well. The potential was there.

Inside the room, Sashaak didn’t look any smaller than he had before. Laric still didn’t know how Sashaak had managed to shrink down as much as he had in order to come into the glyph chamber. That shouldn’t have been possible, but the power had constricted. That was how Laric would describe it. And there was a part of Sashaak that had squeezed, as if the dragon were able to compress himself down to the point where he was nothing.

“We want to know what you plan,” Laric said to Talia.

“Oh?”

“Not just you. The mages. All of you.”

She smirked. “And you think I’m just going to give that up to you? You’re children, playing at something you can’t understand.”

She wasn’t completely wrong. There was much that he still didn’t understand. He remembered the very first time that they had come across Talia. They had thought that she was under attack from Sashaak, so they had helped. At the time, that was what Laric thought they needed to do, but now he couldn’t help but feel as if they had been used. Used to take advantage of the dragons. Used to control something that should not have been controlled. Used by the mages. But why?

The better question was what the mages had been doing when they had come here in the first place. They had attacked the town—well, they had made it seem like the dragons and Korthal had attacked the town. Laric didn’t know how that was even possible, though there did seem to be something in the way they had attacked that should have provided them with answers.

He wanted to know why the mages had done all this. That was what he thought they needed to know. The problem was that he didn’t think Talia was going to share.

“We are children,” Laric conceded. “And yet, we’re children who managed to stop what you were doing. How does that feel?”

A burst of pain behind his ears was the only answer he got from her. She was using spellcrafting, but the way she was using it was tightly controlled, and Laric didn’t know if there was anything he would be able to do to counter and stop it. With the amount of power that he felt from her, he didn’t think he could do anything.

A blast of dangerous energy shot toward Laric.

Sashaak swept forward, once again simply absorbing the spellcraft form that Talia generated.

That was something that Laric would have to ask Sashaak about later, if Sashaak would be willing to talk about what he was able to do and how he could do it. But for now, he wanted the kind of answers that he would only get from Talia, assuming that she would even talk to them.

“You won’t be able to stop what is coming,” Talia said, her voice little more than a whisper. “Do you really think that a single dragon is a challenge for us?”

There was a time when Laric would’ve claimed that a dragon would’ve been too much. When he would have believed that mages would’ve had a hard time with any sort of dragons, even a single one. But having seen what a lone mage could do, and then feeling the power of a second mage, Laric no longer had the same confidence that he once did.

“How long do you think you’re going to be able to hold me?” Talia asked, leaning forward, seemingly unmindful of the fact that she had a dragon standing right in her face. Sashaak towered over her, and yet Talia somehow made it seem as if she were the one holding Sashaak in this place, not the other way around. Laric had a hard time imagining how she had that amount of confidence, but then again, she was a powerful mage who didn’t believe that she should’ve been captured in the first place.

“Well, considering Daelon’s dead, I don’t think you’re going to be able to do anything to get out of here,” Iveris snapped at her, throwing the basket of food that they’d brought, along with the flask of water, which went rolling. When Rowan looked over with wide eyes, Iveris crossed her arms. “Well, he is.”

Laric watched Talia’s face. Irritation flashed in her eyes, and as it did, he couldn’t help but feel a little spite. “How many of you are so evil?”

She glared at him.

“Is it all of you?”

A smirk curled Talia’s lips. “Do you fear us?”

“Mages? Of course I fear you.”

“Good. As well you should. And once I am freed from this little inconvenience,” she went on, waving her hand, “I will personally take the dragon. Let me tell you, you will suffer.” That comment was directed toward Sashaak. “Much like your bonded had suffered.”

A surge of heat immediately flared from Sashaak, and it was directed toward Talia.

Laric cut it off. He had no idea what he was doing, only that he felt that flooding of power inside of himself, and he knew that he could not allow it to continue to build. He did not know what Sashaak was going to do, but he was convinced of the dragon’s desire to incinerate Talia before they had an opportunity to get the answers they needed.

Laric took the potential he had absorbed from Sashaak, and he funneled it downward, into the floor and into the glyphs. They started to glow, radiating their own unique energy. As they did, Sashaak seemed to react and withdraw. He started to move around the chamber, walking slowly, sniffing at the glyphs.

When Laric tried to slow down the potential that he was pulling from Sashaak, Sashaak forced him to hold on to it. It seemed to Laric that the dragon wanted him to maintain it, to reveal some of the potential, because Sashaak wanted to see what was coming through here.

“What is it?” Laric asked, looking over to him.

Talia had not moved. He had the distinct sense that Talia could not. He wasn’t sure if she was simply confined, or if there was something about the glyphs being activated that trapped her, but whatever it was, she was just standing there, waiting and watching and seemingly ready for her opportunity.

Thankfully, Laric did not feel any additional pressure behind his ears, no popping sensation that would suggest that she was drawing on her typical mage power.

“I knew this dragon,” Sashaak said.

“What?”

Sashaak sniffed, drawing in a deeper, more dangerous breath. “I knew this dragon.”

Laric frowned, glancing at Rowan and holding her gaze for a moment, before trying to focus once again on Sashaak. The dragon didn’t say anything else, so Laric didn’t know if there was going to be more that he was going to learn.

Instead, he turned his attention back to Talia. “We’re not going to let you go.”

“And I don’t think that you’re going to be able to hold me,” she said.

“Maybe not,” Laric said. “But we aren’t going to let you go, so either we get answers from you, or I let the dragon eat you.”

She laughed roughly. “Such empty threats. It shows how little you know.”

“Oh?”

“The last time that a dragon ate a human must’ve been centuries ago.”

“You can’t know that,” Rowan said.

Talia turned to her. “And you know so much about dragons? Has your small amount of time spent around this creature been enough for you to know everything about what dragons would do? I can assure you that I know far more than you about what they do and about the way they use their power. I have been studying them my entire career. It is how we have ensured that the dragons have not posed a danger.” She grinned. “And it is how we will come to control their power.”

“We?” Laric looked around the chamber. “You aren’t controlling anything. You aren’t even getting out of here.”

Talia just watched him in silence for a few moments. “As I said, others will come. How long will you be able to hold me?” she asked again.

Laric didn’t think he was going to be able to get any more answers. Sashaak was still making his way around the space, sniffing and moving from glyph to glyph as if searching for something.

He tested the staircase, made sure that it was still secured, and then debated. The portal was the only way that they were going to be able to get out of here without Talia attacking, and the only way that he thought they would be able to escape without her reacting to them. But why?

He kept thinking about what Sashaak had said. Sashaak knew this dragon.

His grandmother had been here. But his grandmother wasn’t a dragon. At least, Laric didn’t think that she had been. He started to shake the thought away, but maybe his grandmother had been bonded to a dragon? That was a real possibility, especially given everything he had learned about the dragons and about those from Korthal.

“We should go,” Laric said, turning to the portal and activating it. “We will be in touch, Talia. Once you’re willing to answer a few more questions…”

He frowned as he trailed off. He didn’t have the answers he needed, and he wasn’t sure that he could get them. But he knew that Talia wasn’t wrong. It wouldn’t be long before the mages came. They had seen three others evacuating. And once more of them came, this time with reinforcements, would he and the others be able to do much to push them back?

Laric and the others went through the doorway. Sashaak lingered for a few moments, and when the dragon finally squeezed back through the door, a strange bit of energy followed. He could feel it flooding from Sashaak, almost as if the dragon was draining something from the room.

There was a flash, and once Sashaak came through, Laric caught a glimpse of the other chamber. The glyphs were all gone. Had Sashaak stolen them, somehow?

Laric turned to the portal and shut it down once again. Once it did, he returned his focus to Sashaak.

“What was that about?”

“That was a place of dragons,” Sashaak said. The creature breathed out, and then as he did, the glyphs that had been in the other chamber were suddenly placed inside this one. It was remarkable. Laric felt some sort of tugging sensation inside of him as the power—and the potential, he had to admit—simply drained out of Sashaak and floated out into the room. The glyphs were simply deposited.

And as he felt that, he couldn’t help but wonder if this was how glyphs were formed in the first place. What did he know about them, anyway?

His grandmother was some sort of a glyph master, right? But how was she a glyph master like this?

“What do you mean that that was a place of dragons?” Laric asked.

Sashaak lay down in the middle of the chamber, and there was a little flood of power, and something of an energy that seemed to diminish, floating outward. As Laric recognized it, he wondered if maybe there would be some part of it that he could feel, or maybe it was not meant to radiate to him.

“It was a place of dragons,” Sashaak said simply.

“This is a place of dragons?” Laric asked.

“You mean the dragons left the glyphs?” Rowan asked. She was seemingly much more comfortable with Sashaak than she had been before. Laric was glad. He was going to need her to be comfortable.

“I mean that it is a place of dragon death.”

Chapter Eight

Sashaak had curled up, and he seemed as if he didn’t want to have any sort of conversation about what he had meant. Laric took a moment to make his way around the cave and study the glyphs. They looked to be the same as they had been before, though he couldn’t be certain.

Rowan followed him. “What did the dragon mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“You were saying something about these glyphs. What was it?”

Laric frowned as he paused in front of one section of the glyphs. There didn’t seem to be anything obvious that was going to help him identify anything else about the glyphs, but that was what he needed so that he could understand the truth of them. “I don’t get how the dragon was able to transport the glyphs like this. It’s like he simply took them in, held them as we came through the portal, and then left them here.”

“That seems exactly like what he did,” Rowan said.

She was looking at Sashaak, and there was a curiosity to her gaze that Laric couldn’t quite interpret. Was she thinking about what it might be like if she were to have the same dragon connection? That was something Laric would understand, as he couldn’t help but feel as if the others needed to have something like that.

“He said he knew the dragon,” Laric said. He kept his voice soft, not wanting the words to carry too far because he didn’t want to upset anyone, but he thought that he needed to get something across to her. “Which meant that there had been a dragon in that place before. I already learned that my grandmother had some connection to Korthal, so what if she also had a connection to dragons?”

“You know that she did,” Rowan said, turning to face him. “You’re just struggling with it. You don’t have to, though. You have someone—or something—you can ask now. The dragon knows things. And if he’s willing to talk to you, it seems that he would be willing to explain to you more about your family. That is, if you want to learn.”

There was no question in Laric’s mind that he wanted to learn. He’d never known that his grandmother had been hiding some secret from him. She was just his grandmother. But learning what he had about her left him wondering if there might be a way for him to know more about what she had done before she had come to their town. Maybe she had come with a specific purpose.

“Let me have a few minutes to talk to the dragon,” Laric said.

Rowan nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“I think I need to see what the dragon is willing to share if I go to him on my own. That is, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I understand that you need to do this—just know that we’re here for you. And once you do this, we’re going to have to figure out what our next step will be.”

She was right, and Laric knew that she was right. They couldn’t stay here indefinitely, even though he felt as if there was so much that he needed to learn. He was going to have to figure out where they were going to go. Whether that was going back to town, or hunting for more dragons, or trying to make sense of what the mages were doing, they were going to need to have some plan in place once he had an opportunity to talk to Sashaak and better understand everything the dragon had been doing and why he had come here.

“See what the others think,” Laric told her.

She nodded and headed away from him.

Laric approached Sashaak carefully, vaguely aware of some strangeness coming off him. Most of that sense seemed to be radiating from the fact that Sashaak was all curled up, and seemed as if he were trying to protect something. Laric had no idea what it was, only that the dragon had wrapped himself around some section of the glyphs and looked like he was just waiting, though Laric didn’t know what he was waiting for. He hesitated a moment, but then Sashaak growled. It was an odd, almost violent sound.

“I’m not trying to do anything to upset you,” Laric said. “I just came here to see if you could help me understand what you were going on about in there.”

Sashaak breathed out, and steam and a bit of flame trickled out of his nostrils. “It is nothing,” the dragon said.

“You said that place was a place of dragon death.”

“Yes,” Sashaak said.

“What does that mean?”

Sashaak turned his head, looking over to Laric. “You do not understand death?”

“I understand death perfectly well,” Laric said. Irritation flared inside him. It had been doing that more often of late. “I understand it quite well these days because of how other dragons destroyed most of my town and killed people I cared about. So yes, I understand death.”

Sashaak growled again, then lowered his head to the ground. “That was a place where the dragon lost its life.”

“And you knew that dragon?”

“Yes.”

“My grandmother knew about that place,” Laric said, approaching carefully again, and starting to question whether he needed to be more cautious with this dragon. He didn’t think that he did, but then again, he didn’t know if Sashaak was going to cause any problems for him, or if he would just be willing to listen.

“I do not know who she was,” Sashaak said.

“I’m still trying to know more about who she was myself. I think there is something about her I can understand. She was trying to teach me about glyphs and help me understand what they were doing. She was also teaching me about spellslips⁠—”

“Not spellslips,” Sashaak said. “About your true potential.”

“There it is again,” Laric said. “You referring to potential. That’s what other people have referred to it as, but at this point, I don’t even know what that means. What do you imply when you talk about potential?”

Sashaak shuffled, moving slightly until he positioned so that he looked at Laric. His eyes seemed to radiate heat, glowing with a bit of an orange light. He couldn’t tell if Sashaak was angry with him.

“Do dragons leave glyphs behind when they die?”

“Only the most powerful,” Sashaak said.

Laric frowned. “Why only the most powerful?”

“Because they are the ones who reach the greatest potential.”

“Tell me about that dragon.”

“The dragon was once powerful,” Sashaak said. “And that is all I can tell you.”

“Right,” Laric said. “The dragon was powerful, and of course it was, because it left behind glyphs, but I’m trying to understand more about what it was. I’m trying to understand more about my grandmother, who obviously knew this dragon, and might be able to help me understand more about my family so that I can know more about what it is that we’re doing in this town. Is there a reason that a dragon would leave the rest of its kind? Is there a reason that somebody would abandon everything they know and head to a place like this?”

“There is not,” Sashaak said.

“Then help me understand what it is that my grandmother might’ve done. Help me understand⁠—”

“That is not my purpose.”

There had to be another approach to use on Sashaak, but even if there was, would it convince Sashaak to work with him and to teach him? It seemed to Laric that was the key here. There were things he needed to know, things he needed to understand, and without Malinar or another like him, how would Laric ever know what he needed to?

“Can you explain it to me as if there is something that would help me?”

“These glyphs are marks of power,” Sashaak said, “and they are bound to that potential.”

“Potential,” Laric said. “I don’t really understand what it means, even when others have talked about it, but I’m trying to. I was hoping that maybe you would be able to offer⁠—”

“I am not here to provide you with answers that you should have had already.”

“Even though I came from a different place?” Laric asked.

“I am not here to provide you with answers,” the dragon repeated.

“I think Malinar would’ve wanted you to do that.”

Sashaak turned to him, and a bit more irritation flashed in his eyes. There was something about the way that Sashaak was looking at him, something about his expression, that seemed as if it were filled with the kind of rage that the dragon had not had before.

“Do not speak of what you do not understand,” Sashaak said.

“There is much I don’t understand.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know how much time we would have before the mages come.”

This seemed to cause Sashaak to pause, which Laric figured was a good thing.

“Talia was working with others who were trying to master what it would take to control the dragons,” Laric said. “If they passed information onward, the dragons are not going to be safe. They will come and claim you, or others. You can either help me understand, or you can run from them.”

“There is only so far that one can run,” Sashaak said.

And then strange images appeared in Laric’s mind. A flood of them. They seemed to come from Sashaak, as he had a sense of flight. He didn’t know if it was this dragon or another, but as he focused, he was able to see movement, as if Sashaak were flying with him but also flying ahead of something. And then Laric felt it. The sense was different than what he experienced when he felt the magic of a mage, but similar enough.

He felt another burst. Then another.

And he felt the fear coming from Sashaak.

Given the power of Sashaak—a vast absorption of heat and flame that Laric was aware of in this form—he would have expected that Sashaak would be able to withstand all of this. The dragon certainly had more power than the mages coming toward him.

Memory of the pain bloomed inside of Sashaak. Curiously, Laric thought that he recognized the spellcraft form that had been used to cause the pain. It was a strange variant, but it was tied to earth. He could feel the way the form had been created.

How?

It was gone before he could even react.

There was another attack, this time wind. It whipped at Sashaak, which caused the dragon to rage. Anger bubbled within Sashaak, hot and violent, and was shared with Laric.

Laric could almost feel something of the dragonborn.

Malinar?

How was that even possible? Then again, he didn’t know how any of this was. It shouldn’t be possible for him to have this much of a connection to something that he hadn’t experienced himself, and yet he was aware of it. He could feel it, and he could feel the way that the power was building, surging through him.

And he knew that Sashaak wanted him to know.

The wind spellcraft form swept toward them. Laric tried to brace for it, but this time, the form was too potent.

It clipped Sashaak’s wings.

Laric suspected this was all a memory, but even as a memory, he was seeing and feeling too much, to the point that it felt overwhelming. He couldn’t shake the power; he couldn’t shake the anger. He couldn’t shake the fear.

All of that bloomed in him.

But he tried to ignore it.

He wasn’t sure if the reason Sashaak was showing all of this to him was so that he would know what Sashaak had experienced when it came to the mages, but there was something else that Laric hoped to learn from it.

There were forms here. If Laric could see and experience them even a little, then he had to hope that maybe he would be able to draw on that power in a way that would let him know what the mages were doing. Why would he need a mage instructor if he had a dragon that could show him memories? Talia would be angry, but then, Talia deserved to be angry.

The vision shifted again.

This time, Laric tried to track the flow of it, and he tried to make sense of what it was that he was seeing: Sashaak was descending. He could feel heat and flame, but the images were too difficult to follow.

He focused instead on the spellcraft form that was happening around him. Laric couldn’t tell exactly what it was that was building around him, only that there did seem to be a bit of a structure to it. The spellcraft forms carried power, and the heat was the key, the cornerstone, of what he was picking up on. Somehow, he had to master more of that.

The attack came too quickly, though it didn’t come from the spellcraft form but from someplace else. The answer, when it hit him, surprised him: the dragonborn riding atop Sashaak. Malinar.

He felt the heat, and he felt the burning energy. And he felt something else.

There had been fear—Sashaak’s—but now there was a different sort of fear.

Why was he experiencing Malinar’s memories mingled with Sashaak’s? How was that even possible?

He focused, and even as he did, he continued to feel that strange fear bubbling out of Sashaak, that strange energy that seemed to dissipate. As he focused on that potential, Laric was increasingly aware of how that power was escaping from Sashaak, and there wasn’t anything that Sashaak was going to be able to do.

Other than hide. That thought came through Sashaak, almost as if the dragon was trying to ensure that he and his bonded knew exactly what it was that they were going to need to do. They had to hide; otherwise they were going to die.

And though Sashaak didn’t fear, he feared for the dragonborn.

The image fluttered through him. And then it disappeared altogether.

Laric tried to stay focused on it, and he tried to keep his mind locked on what he was seeing and what he was feeling, but even as he did, he didn’t know if there was going to be anything more that he would be able to identify within it. The images had flashed so quickly, slammed into him with such a ferocity, that he couldn’t help but blink and stagger away.

Then he was back in the cave. Back with Sashaak. And still without any greater understanding.

“Why?” Laric asked him. “Why did you show me that?”

“So you can know.”

“What am I supposed to know?”

Laric took a step toward Sashaak. They had to understand each other, he knew. The dragon wanted that.

Sashaak remained curled up and quiet. “You wanted to understand the purpose behind the connection.”

“I do,” Laric said.

“That is the purpose,” Sashaak said.

“The purpose is for you to show me images like that?”

“The purpose is to share.”

“And you did. But you shared with me an attack. You shared with me violence.”

“I shared with you the loss of my last.”

“I still don’t understand,” Laric said.

“No,” Sashaak said. “Which is why I will not share more.”

Chapter Nine

Laric and the others were quiet. He had moved to the edge of the cave, and he was looking out at the darkness of night, his mind racing with whether or not there was going to be anything he would be able to detect, but he had not been able to pick up on anything. He kept coming back to some of the memories Sashaak had shared with him, and he kept trying to piece together what it was that Sashaak wanted him to know.

There were different spellcraft forms that had come through those images, and Laric had to try to better understand what the spellcraft forms were and whether there was going to be anything within them that he might be able to use. Increasingly, Laric couldn’t help but feel as if that was the key to all of this. If he was able to somehow control some part of that, then why shouldn’t he draw upon and use it? And perhaps even master it.

“You’ve been quiet for a while,” Rowan said.

He let out a heavy sigh. “The dragon was showing me images,” Laric said. “And to be honest, I don’t even know the purpose behind most of those images. I thought that he was showing me what he was showing me so that I could understand something about the dragons, but all I saw was a series of images about him and the dragon rider and the attack by the mages.”

“And?”

“That’s about it.”

“But you’ve been up here doing some sort of spellcraft form,” she said.

“You could tell?”

“I could tell you were doing something, but I couldn’t tell what it is that you’re doing,” Rowan said. “I suspected that it was some type of spellcraft form. You have this look on your face when you do that. I don’t even know what it is that you’re working on, or whether or not there’s anything I might be able to help with, or if any of the others of us can, but you don’t have to do this alone.”

“The connection between the dragonborn and the dragon is strange,” Laric said finally. “I felt what the dragon felt. I felt what the dragonborn felt.”

“How is that even possible?”

“I don’t know. Everything was blurring. The dragon wanted me to have an idea about the attack. At first, it came from the attack the mages used on the dragon. I was aware of it. I could feel the different textures. There was an earth-based spellcraft form I tried to use.”

“That’s what you’ve been practicing,” she said.

Laric nodded, as there was no point in denying that.

“But that’s not the only spellcraft form you’ve been working on.”

“There was one for wind, and one for fire,” Laric said.

“And what about them?” Rowan asked.

“Just that I could feel them. It’s weird. I was aware of the contours, almost as if I recognized the spellcraft form. And…” He frowned. He was still struggling to process the elements of the memory that were coming through, as if it was far too complicated for him to be able to identify every aspect of that memory, only that he could still feel some part of it that bloomed in his mind. Some part of that dragon image that was there. “I think the images came from Malinar.”

“So through the dragon, you have access to Malinar’s memories,” she said.

“It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

“Probably no more ridiculous than you now having a connection to a dragon.”

“And my grandmother. She knew glyphs, had a powerful dragon connected to her, and would’ve shared knowledge with that dragon.”

“If you’re saying so,” she said.

Laric started to pace as a different series of thoughts came to him—thoughts he hadn’t even considered before, but maybe he should have. Maybe that was the purpose of Sashaak showing him those images. There was a merging of memories from dragons and dragonborn, wasn’t there?

Sashaak had left some part of himself behind.

“If there’s a merging of memories,” Laric said to her, “and the dragon expresses the memories and death in the form of glyphs, then what if I could use these glyphs to help me understand my grandmother?” he asked, waving his hand behind him.

If so, all he needed was to find some way to use those memories.

But how?

They reached the main part of the cavern. Laric wondered what way Xavier had used to get in here in the past. He and the others had climbed up here once again, which had taken a while, but now that they’d done it more than once, it had become easier to replicate.

The others were sitting around, and all of them looked as if they were working on different types of spellslips. The forms were simple, but they were ones Laric had been working with them on. That surprised him.

Spellslips were an interesting type of magic, primarily requiring the user to know a specific pattern the magic would take, and then to distribute some of that power out from themselves as they held on to the spellslip. A bit of internal energy was required, which was why not everyone was capable of a spellslip, but the amount of power wasn’t that much.

Laric had demonstrated these spellslips to them early on when they had been practicing. They were all getting more skilled, which was good. He hoped that the spellslips would be enough, but eventually they would all have to start learning spellcraft forms. They would have to know the magic of mages.

“Look,” Iveris said excitedly. “I’ve figured out how to make this earth one work the way you were showing us.”

She formed the spellslip, and the ground in front of her began to crumble, and as it did, there was a faint shaking sensation. It was subtle, and had Laric not been paying attention to it—and, truth be told, using a bit of a detection spellslip himself—he might not have been able to identify what she did.

Rowan smiled. “Very good. Now, if you move your hand like this,” she said, taking a seat and showing her sister a part of the spellslip, “you can harness the effect a little bit better. And if you do it that way, you can usually control where it goes.”

She was far more patient than Laric would’ve been.

“Now you can see. If you notice,” she said, looking from Iveris to Joselle, though her gaze also partly swept over Malcolm, who was still working on some of these basic spellslips as well, “small changes of your hand position will lead to great changes in what the spellslip can do.”

“I’m able to do that one just fine,” Malcolm said, seemingly recognizing that Rowan was looking at him too.

This was what Laric had taught them. This was also what the headmaster wanted him to teach others in town.

Was he willing to do that?

It meant sharing what his grandmother had shared with him. And that was something he wasn’t sure he wanted to get back to the mages.

Laric took a seat farther away from them and started to work on the earth spellcraft form, which was a bit complex. It required more mental focus, and he was mixing an earth spellslip with it. He concentrated on his own form of earth spellslip, thinking about the way that his grandmother had used a detection spellslip, and how that detection spellslip seemed to be a combination of another form. The combination had been the key.

That was odd, but then again, it made a certain sort of sense, especially given everything he had seen with different spellcraft forms and the way the power would flow. If that was how it was going to work, then he had to think that perhaps there would have to be another aspect of her that he would be able to draw upon, and some other way for him to better understand the different spellcraft forms and the kind of power that was there.

As he worked on his form, he attempted to master the connection.

“You are doing it wrong,” Sashaak said.

“How am I doing it wrong?” Laric asked.

“You are not controlling the focus.”

How much could he learn from Sashaak? Those visions and those memories might be all that he needed to understand the power that he now had access to—and the potential.

“The focus is what you were shown.”

“Fine,” Laric said, and he shifted, moving so that he could get away from Sashaak a little bit. “If you want me to focus, then give me some idea about how it is I’m supposed to focus.”

He sat quietly, waiting for an answer. For a moment, he didn’t think the dragon was going to share anything, but then he saw another image. Laric wasn’t sure what to make of it, but this one was far more focused than the last ones had been. The image flooded into his mind suddenly, and with crystal clarity.

Once again, Sashaak was flying. Only this time, the dragon was flying over what looked to be a grassy plain. It was difficult for Laric to identify because from above, everything was a blur. There were occasional dots of flowers, but he was mostly aware of the green beneath them. He realized that what he was seeing was through Sashaak’s eyesight. That itself was strange, but then again, maybe Sashaak was trying to give him something else.

Then he felt something different. A use of power. A spellcraft form.

It was chasing him.

He wondered if Malinar was there with Sashaak at this point, if he was riding on his back, and if he was the one who recognized the spellcraft form more so than Sashaak. It was difficult for Laric to know if it was one or the other, but then again, he also didn’t know if it made all that much difference. The only thing that really mattered was the fact that he could feel it.

Sashaak chased, and Laric had to focus. That was what Sashaak wanted.

He recognized what Malinar was doing. It had to be him. He was drawing upon the potential of Sashaak, and he was fortifying it, but he was also shearing off some of the magic of the attack.

And as the attack was thwarted, Laric recognized how that magic had been formulated in the first place. It was not all that complex.

Then the image was gone. Laric snapped back into where he was, and the way he was there with Sashaak, and he could feel everything.

“Now, repeat.”

Chapter Ten

Laric spent most of that night practicing.

They’d talked about heading back, but there was a quiet comfort found in the cavern, and here they could practice without fear of someone seeing what they were doing. They also had plenty of time to return to town.

For all of Sashaak’s reluctance to be an instructor, he was a far more eager and willing one than Laric expected. Laric had already learned about a half dozen different spellcraft forms.

The easiest one was the spellcraft form that targeted earth. It had been used against Sashaak, but it had also been fairly useless against him. But it was one that many mages—and Laric assumed that it was mages who were targeting Sashaak—had used on Sashaak. But so far, none of them had been effective.

Why had the one that Laric had been given first been effective?

There were several others he learned too. Wind had also been a common tactic used against Sashaak, but so far, most of those wind attacks had also been relatively useless because the dragon knew ways of countering them. And he could feel how Sashaak used his power. He could feel the elements of fire.

Laric now had three different uses of fire. He could create a beam of flame, but it was not a very thick one, and it ended in a puff of smoke. He could also create a stretch of fire that shot away from him, lasting about two feet before it dissipated altogether. And then there was the smoke. That seemed to be the most useful, since Laric could create a hazy smoke that covered everything. It was also the easiest for him to do, as apparently it took the least amount of potential and was still a useful technique. That was one that Laric wanted to better understand, because he couldn’t help but feel that if he were able to use smoke in that manner, he might be able to find a way to conceal all of them.

There was also the possibility that he might be able to mix what he was learning here with something else.

He had used a concealment spellslip that his grandmother had taught him, but he still didn’t know if the spellslip could combine with Sashaak’s potential all that well or not. He suspected that many of his spellslips could, but they all required a different kind of power. And until he knew how to push through all of that, he didn’t know if the potential that he could summon would even make much of a difference based on what he had seen.

The others spent the night working on spellslips, with Rowan leading the lessons. Everyone was a relatively eager student until the middle of the night, when Iveris announced that she was tired and that she was going to sleep. She glared at Laric before curling up on her jacket in a huff.

“What was that about?” Laric asked Rowan.

She shrugged. “I think she’s disappointed that your magic doesn’t allow you to simply make a bed for her.”

“That’s not how this power works.”

“Oh, I know it, and she knows it. But she’s just⁠—”

“Being Iveris?”

Rowan laughed. “Pretty much. Though why wouldn’t you be able to use a bit of wind to harness that power so you can create something of a mattress out of it?”

“I suppose it would work,” he said, “but the technique might not have much permanence to it.”

“We’re not looking for permanence, are we? Just a little power that you can push through.”

“Temporary permanence,” he said with a chuckle.

They continued to practice, and after a while, he moved on to helping Rowan with some of the different spellcraft forms. Either she was getting better at them, or Laric was getting better at teaching them. Neither knew which it was. But the tethering of a spellslip to the form seemed to be the most significant change that either of them had accomplished. He wasn’t sure why it had worked, only that it had.

When he said as much to her, she frowned. “I think the form is easier knowing that there’s something holding it, if that makes any sort of sense.”

“I think it does,” he said, “but it shouldn’t, should it? We should be able to make this form hold regardless.”

“We should be able to, but it doesn’t necessarily work that way.”

They kept practicing a series of different spellcraft forms that he hoped she would be able to master, but the longer they worked on them, the more those forms proved to be a challenge.

After a while, Rowan grew tired, much like Iveris had, and she curled up along the edge of the cave to rest with her sister. Malcolm smiled and went over to them, leaning his back up against the stone. He claimed that he was going over there to watch over them, to make sure that nothing happened to them, but Laric knew better. Malcolm was just going over there to sleep, but then again, he couldn’t blame him. Malcolm needed rest, the same way that all of them did.

Laric focused on mastering the smoke spellcraft form. Sashaak constantly corrected him and made a point of telling him just how poorly he was making the spellcraft form, but then the dragon guided him on what he needed to alter in order to use that spellcraft form in the way Sashaak thought he needed.

Joselle shuffled closer to Laric and sat next to him. “I never would’ve imagined that we would be in a cave with a dragon, learning mage magic,” she said, smiling slightly as she did.

“It’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Ridiculous?” She shook her head, her gaze lingering on Sashaak. “It’s amazing.”

“I think there is still quite a bit that we need to understand about the dragons, like what connection we have with them and what connection our grandmother did. I’m not sure what we’re going to be able to learn, if anything, and I can’t help but feel as if there has to be some other aspect to it that we can learn.”

“Well, if our grandmother knew anything about the dragons, then maybe there are other places around the town we can hunt down.”

“We’ve been doing that,” Laric said.

“I know that you and Rowan have been, but I haven’t been a part of it,” Joselle said.

Laric sensed her disappointment in that and realized that maybe he had been making a mistake. He had not been including his sister the way she deserved. And he had not been including her the way that she needed to be. That was a problem.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I need to include you more.”

“Do you really think…” She went quiet for a moment. “Do you really think that I could learn this same magic?”

Laric breathed out heavily. “I have no idea,” he said. “Probably. Had our grandmother still been around as you’d gotten older, she probably would have taught you. I think that what we can do is unique to who we are.”

“From Korthal,” she said.

Laric nodded. “I think so. I’m happy to keep working with you. I’m happy to keep trying to teach what I can, and to see if there’s going to be any way that we might be able to master some aspect of what the dragon is teaching me. You need to understand this, so that we can be…”

“Like our grandmother.”

“I don’t even know,” Laric said. Did he want to be like her?

For so long, that would’ve been an easy question to answer, but now he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know how he felt about his grandmother, about what she was able to do and what she had and had not taught him. He wanted to know, though. He wanted to know more about her and why she had not shared what she was.

“It’s about the glyphs,” Joselle said.

“You really aren’t missing anything, are you?”

“You really aren’t all that good at hiding what you’re after,” she said.

Laric chuckled. “I haven’t been intending to hide anything.”

“Like I said, you’re not doing a very good job at it either way.”

“The glyphs will help us understand her. It’s all about the dragon. About dragon memories. About the dragon-bonded and the connection that they have. There is a blurring between the two. Those glyphs represent the dying dragon’s memories, at least from what my dragon says. But if our grandmother was connected to a dragon, those glyphs will also create some sort of connection to her, and to what she knows.

“And you think we might be able to use that?”

“I think that I might be able to learn more about her and why it brought her out to our town.”

She had been hiding from something. Laric was certain of it. Maybe it was about storing artifacts, but there might’ve been something else to it.

“We could make Talia help us,” she said. “The dragon holds her just fine. Or maybe we just let the dragon have her.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Laric said. When her eyes widened, he went on. “I was there. I saw what happened to our town. I saw what the mages were willing to do—and now that I know it was the mages, I can’t imagine doing nothing. I saw, and I can’t forget.”

There were times when those memories came back to him and drifted into the forefront of his mind. They made it difficult for him to think about anything else. He wasn’t going to tell his sister that, though. She didn’t deserve to have all of that horror revisited, so he said nothing.

They sat quietly inside the cavern. A soft and steady buildup of wind came through, and though it wasn’t much, there was something soothing to it. As the silence between him and his sister stretched, he looked over to see that she’d fallen asleep. Laric smiled at that. She needed her rest the same as everyone else did.

He moved away, taking a seat across from Sashaak. “I am not Malinar.”

“No.”

“And I don’t think that I can be, but I do think that Malinar wanted you to work with me. That was what he had seemingly implied before he… did whatever it was that he did.”

“He inverted his potential,” Sashaak said.

“He did what?”

“That is what it is called. If you focus on the potential inside yourself, you can feel how it sits there. It can be inverted, but the effect of it is to create a significant blaze of power, and the dragonborn are not able to withstand it. And they cannot survive.”

“So you knew what he was going to do,” Laric said.

“I knew.”

“But it seemed to me that he was already not going to get better. We tried to do something to help him, but he made it seem like there wasn’t going to be anything that would make a difference for him.”

“There would not have been,” Sashaak said.

“What if he had been in your lands?”

“The only difference is that he would not have been targeted there.”

There was a quiet that stretched on for some time. It seemed as if Sashaak was sleeping, or trying to. Laric wasn’t exactly tired, as his mind kept working over the memories that Sashaak had given him and the possibility that he might be able to find something more within those that would help him know what they needed to do.

“Why did you come to these lands?” Laric asked, even though he didn’t think he would get an answer. And if he did, he wasn’t sure that the answer would be one that would help him all that much. He understood that there were things that the dragons had been through that they couldn’t change.

“We were chased,” Sashaak said.

“By mages?”

Sashaak breathed out, a bit of heat swirling from his nostrils as he did. In that heat, Laric could almost make out some of the different shapes that were there, as if Sashaak were using something that was very much like a spellcraft form, though with differences. He wasn’t sure how—or why—only that it seemed as if there was a current of energy there.

When Sashaak didn’t answer, Laric turned to focusing on the different spellcraft forms that he had learned. He used the one that created smoke, and it curled around him, then seemed to be absorbed by Sashaak.

The effect of the smoke was quite lovely, almost, and as he felt the smoke swirling around Sashaak, he also wondered if there was going to be something about it that he was even able to identify.

Finally, Sashaak stirred and looked over. “What was your last question?” the dragon asked.

“You said that you were chased. I asked if you were chased by mages.”

“No. Something worse.”

Laric pursed his lips. He hadn’t expected that.

“What’s worse than a mage?”

That was not the kind of thing that Laric would’ve ever asked before all this. He had always trusted and believed in the mages. But now, after having experienced everything he had with the mages, and after having felt the way they were willing to fight and chase them and target Sashaak, Laric couldn’t help but feel as if the mages were worse than anything else he could’ve dealt with.

“There are many worse things. And many other things that have power,” Sashaak said.

“And they are in your land?”

“They are⁠—”

Sashaak was interrupted by a sudden boom.

Laric wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt pressure behind his ears. He tried to brace himself, immediately readying for the possibility of an attack, having no idea what it was except that he could tell the source of that power, even if he couldn’t see where it was.

Magic. Spellcraft forms.

Worse, it was close.

He got to his feet and hurried over to the others, though none of them were getting up. There was another buildup of power, this time a steady force against him.

It was behind the portal.

Sashaak shuffled closer to him, and Laric recognized that Sashaak was doing something, granting him something. The dragon pushed some of his potential out from him and toward Laric. Power began to build slowly and steadily.

The portal was about to open.

“Can you stop this?” Laric asked, looking over at Sashaak.

“Yes.”

“What would it cost you?”

That seemed to be the more important question, after all.

“Perhaps everything.”

And so Laric readied for the door to explode, for the attack to come after, and he braced for everything in it, as he could feel some part of it growing stronger. Though he had no idea what the attack would look like, he recognized that Talia was attempting to break free.

Chapter Eleven

Laric wasn’t fully ready for the moment the door exploded.

It didn’t do so with a massive burst of power or any sort of loud explosion, but rather with what felt like an almost innocuous pop. That left a faint trail of energy in the back of his mind and behind his ears, as he had been struggling to figure out what he might be able to do to counter the power that was there.

Sashaak had stepped in front of the door so that he could try to deflect anything that was going to come through, but that wasn’t necessary. Nothing emerged.

“What was that?” Malcolm asked, stirring from where he was resting. He had curled up against the wall and had his arm tucked under his head and knees up to his chest. When he spoke, he barely moved his position, as if he were just asking about a dream he’d been having.

“Talia,” Laric said.

Rowan shot up, and she raced over to him. The spellslip that she was forming was already nearly prepared by the time she got to him, though she didn’t need to release it. “Is she coming through?”

Laric shook his head. “Doesn’t seem like it. I’m not exactly sure what she’s done here, but I think it has more to do with how she’s escaping on the other side.”

He watched and waited.

There was a part of him that wished he would have dealt with her when they had been inside the chamber. Or just left her to rot. Not that Laric knew how he would have dealt with her, only that he wished that he would have done something. She didn’t deserve a chance to be out here in the open with them—and potentially causing problems for them.

But then, he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to do anything to her. That wasn’t him. Maybe he could hold her in that prison, but that was it. Or he should have taken her to someone in town who would have been better able to bring her to justice.

Now they wouldn’t be able to.

“She’s gone?” Malcolm asked. He had finally gotten up and made it over to them. He still seemed as if he were half-asleep, though Laric understood. Having not slept at all, he felt like there was a part of him that hadn’t fully come around either.

“We need to prove it, but I think so,” Laric said.

“So we just… go through?” Rowan asked.

“We did that before, so I think that makes sense. We can ask the dragon to go ahead of us and keep us safe.” Laric turned to Sashaak. “Will you do that?”

“That is not a place for me, nor should it be a place for you.”

Laric saw a flicker of images—glyphs, primarily—that told him why. They showed him what Sashaak believed of that place.

Laric didn’t say anything more, and he looked at the others. Iveris and Joselle were still sleeping, despite everything that was happening. He supposed he shouldn’t be terribly surprised because they were all exhausted, having spent so much time working, but he was still a little amazed that neither of them had awoken.

“Let’s get them up,” he said. “And then we cross over.”

It didn’t take long before the two were awake, and then he was standing in front of the portal. He was staring at it, and yet, even as he used his detection spellslips, he didn’t pick up on anything that was coming through the door. He attempted something more, a spellcraft form, thinking that maybe there would be some way that he could pick up on the energy that was there, but even as he tried to place more advanced spellcraft forms, there wasn’t anything that worked for him.

He felt nothing.

It wasn’t just that he didn’t pick up on anything from the other side, it was that he felt nothing whatsoever. He worried what that meant, wondering if there was some link to what had happened that he needed to better understand.

He stood in front of the portal, and then he activated the door.

Sashaak’s enormous form slipped forward, and like the last time, the dragon managed to shrink down into a much smaller, more compact shape, and work his way through the doorway. Laric was left marveling at the kind of power he was using. It was almost as if Sashaak was pressing some part of his potential downward.

And if that was possible for Sashaak, Laric had to wonder if that was possible for himself, as well. He didn’t know if the potential, the power that he was feeling, was connected in any way. He didn’t know if it was all linked, but he had to believe that there would be some technique that would allow him to be able to use all that power.

He felt the energy all around him. Then he stepped inside.

When Rowan came behind him, she sucked in a sharp breath. “It’s all different,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Malcolm asked.

But Laric knew what she meant. It wasn’t just about the glyphs that had been on the walls and floor. Those were gone. Then again, he had known that those were going to be gone.

Now there was something else. He saw it at the end of the room.

“I think we’re feeling her spellcraft form,” Laric said.

“Where do you think she would’ve gone?” Joselle asked, shuffling up behind them.

“I don’t know,” Laric said. “Back to the town?”

And if Talia had, it might not be safe for them to return.

He looked over to where Sashaak was working his way around the chamber, sniffing at the walls. Every so often, the dragon would pause in place and then slam his head against the stone. It was a bizarre thing to see, but once Sashaak’s head moved, Laric noticed that another glyph was placed.

Were the glyphs some way for the dragons to communicate?

He hesitated in front of the stairs leading up to the ruins of the shed above them. There was no sense of anything here. Just an emptiness.

“I think she’s just gone,” Laric said.

“She didn’t just disappear. Is she not trying to hide something from us?” Malcolm said. “You did have that way of concealing herself. Do you think she could have done something along that line?”

“Oh, I’m sure she could’ve done something like that, but I don’t think that she did this time,” Laric said. “I don’t know where she went, but I don’t sense anything.”

“Would you even know?” Iveris rubbed a knuckle in her eye and looked around sleepily. “I mean that in the most respectful way, but would you know?”

“Maybe,” Laric said. “But it’s entirely possible I wouldn’t have been able to pick up on it, especially if she was using a considerable spellcraft form that allows her to conceal herself. She had a way of hiding herself from the dragons, after all.”

“Did she, though?” Rowan asked.

Laric glanced over at her, and she shrugged.

“Well, we’re going on what she told us. She claimed that she had a way of protecting herself from a dragon, but what if she really didn’t?”

Laric hesitated, and as he focused, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that was true. He hadn’t even thought about that before.

As he approached the stairs that had been damaged, Laric knew that he needed to be careful. He didn’t want to do anything that might give Talia a chance to attack them, but he also didn’t want to be overly cautious.

The debris that had formed where she’d made her way up the stairs was mostly damaged stone. There wasn’t anything here that looked like it was related to the glyphs, but then, when they had come down here before, there had been glyphs all through this space, so he was surprised that there would be something here other than glyphs.

“She basically blasted through the floor,” Malcolm muttered.

“Which is impressive,” Rowan said.

Laric agreed. It was impressive. And it suggested a significant use of power—more than he imagined that Talia was capable of doing. At least, on her own.

What if she still had help? Or what if the other mages had come? There had been others coming, yet he didn’t know if they had made it to them yet. He had thought they still had time, but what if they didn’t?

When they got up to the shed level, Laric saw that it had been mostly demolished. The walls were generally intact, but that was about it. Everything that had been his grandmother’s was now gone. Destroyed.

“It looks like a dragon came through here,” Malcolm said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“This is different,” Laric said.

“The walls are still standing, so that much is different from what we have seen with the dragons. But it looks like she did whatever she could to make sure that you weren’t going to be able to find anything from your grandmother.”

That was exactly what it felt like, though Laric didn’t know if Talia had done it out of spite, or if there was something here that she wanted to keep hidden.

Maybe a bit of both, he decided.

Sashaak poked his head up through the opening once everyone else had climbed out. Laric gave him space, thinking that the dragon was going to step out into the remains of the shed, but he didn’t.

“This was a place of reverence,” Sashaak said.

“The shed?” Laric asked.

“This was once a place of reverence. Now it feels different. I do not know why that is, only that I can feel that some part of it has left.”

Was that his grandmother’s departure that Sashaak picked up on, or was there something else? And did it matter?

Maybe not to Laric. At this point, the only thing that he thought mattered was learning what Talia intended. And he was certain that she intended something.

“We need to go over to the town, and we need to see what else she’s done,” Laric said, looking at Sashaak.

“I cannot stay here.”

“Do you need me to open the portal for you?” Laric didn’t want Sashaak to leave and then get seen by someone from the town. But he didn’t want the dragon to leave at all, either.

“You will open the portal,” Sashaak said.

Laric said nothing about the command, but opened it as directed. He withdrew, and then there was a strange buildup inside Laric, before the sense of Sashaak changed.

“What now?” Rowan asked.

“Now we go back to town,” Laric said. “We see if Talia returned. We watch for mages. We stay alert. And…”

“And what?”

Laric didn’t know what to say.

What would they do?

They could wait. But waiting felt like they were waiting for punishment.

Laric wanted to be proactive, only he wasn’t sure how to do it.

Chapter Twelve

Laric remained near the quarry. They had returned to the town but found no sign of Talia. If she’d returned, no one had seen her, which was frustratingly common with her. But this time, Laric thought that was for the best.

That didn’t mean he had to stop his search.

He thought he had a way of looking for her, but it involved the dragon. Laric had been thankful for the connection to Sashaak—however faint it remained. That was what he needed now. He hoped to have a chance to glimpse through Sashaak’s eyes, though he wasn’t entirely sure it would work the way that he anticipated. He kept focusing and tried to grasp more information from it, but Sashaak would occasionally shift directions, making it harder for Laric to see much other than the clouds around him. It was a little disorienting, and disconcerting.

“Anything?” Rowan asked, dropping onto one of the piles of boulders next to him.

“Not particularly,” he said. “She’s hiding.”

“She probably knows that we’re looking for her.”

“Do you really think Talia is afraid of us?”

“Well, not particularly,” she said. “But if she knows that we’re looking for her, it’s likely that she’s trying to uncover something different.”

Laric grunted. “Different. You know, I’ve been waiting for her to do something different for a while. And between her escape and the fact that we know there are mages on their way to the city, I don’t know how long we have before this becomes a real issue.”

“What are you saying?” Rowan asked.

He wasn’t too sure what he was saying. He didn’t know what to do or what to make of it. The only thing he knew with any certainty was that there was going to be a change coming.

“You can still see what the dragon sees?” Rowan asked.

“Careful,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. “I don’t know how much we want to share that with anybody else.”

“We’re not sharing.”

“Well, you’re not keeping it quiet either, are you?”

She scowled. “Sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”

Laric snorted. “I know. And I’m not saying that to be a problem for you.”

“I know,” she said.

He closed his eyes and focused on Sashaak. The dragon had started to circle outward, and as he had, Laric could see from a different vantage. For one, he could make out the town. That part was easy enough for him to see, even from above. It had taken him a little while to identify why he could observe that from Sashaak’s viewpoint as clearly as he could, but once he recognized the reason, realization swept through him with a sudden, surprising power.

It was because of him. Laric could see his own potential through Sashaak’s eyes.

That was strange and astonishing to him.

And if he was looking at potential, then maybe he could view it in a different way and monitor for other aspects of it. He hadn’t considered that as a possibility, but if he could look from a different angle, maybe Laric could follow it.

“You’re concentrating,” Rowan said.

“I am,” he said. “So just give me a moment.”

She was quiet.

Potential. That was what it seemed to be tied to. And maybe there was something to all of that potential that he could and should have noticed from the very beginning. He thought about what he had been seeing from Sashaak and how he had been observing what it was that Sashaak was trying to do, but Laric did not know everything.

Surprisingly, his potential in the town was not the only one that existed.

“The dragon can see you,” Laric whispered to Rowan.

“I thought you wanted me to be careful saying that.”

“Sorry. You’re right. I see your potential.”

“And that means what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that means you can do what I do.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Rowan said.

He avoided the urge to open his eyes and look over to her. “You don’t want it?”

“I’m not sure that I do,” Rowan said. “Your sister does. She’s been talking about it with Iveris. The two of them have been plotting what it might be like if they were to have access to one of them.”

Laric snickered. “Why am I not surprised by that. Joselle always wanted to know more about our grandmother. She felt like she should have been taught the spellslips from her as well. And when I went to school and she didn’t have the opportunity, she was jealous. I’ve been trying to help her learn all of them, but⁠—”

“But you’re also teaching others those same spellslips, so they aren’t as unique or special.”

“They are still our grandmother’s spellslips.”

He stared through Sashaak’s vision, noticing the steady sliding of power down below as Sashaak continued to circle. What he wouldn’t give to actually ride on the dragon’s back. Could he?

Malinar certainly had, so it made sense that such a thing could and should be possible, but Laric didn’t know if he would ever be granted such an opportunity. Sashaak would have to permit it, for one, and Laric would have to be capable of staying on Sashaak’s back. All it would take would be one wind gust to rip him free, and he’d go tumbling.

Maybe that was the reason Sashaak had hesitated sharing some of this with him.

“I see other potential,” Laric said, keeping his voice quiet. “And… Wait. There.”

It was north of the city. Quite a ways north, he thought, but he could see it. It was a faint glow, and a little bit of energy.

Laric blinked his eyes open, getting to his feet. “I think I know where she went.”

“What do you want to do?” Rowan asked.

“I want to just leave it alone, but I don’t know that we can do so safely.”

“So do we get the others?”

“How about this. We talk to Malcolm, let him know what we are going to do, and then we decide what to do about her. That is, assuming that she really is out there where I can detect her. But Joselle and Iveris should stay here.”

“Good,” Rowan said. “I thought that you might actually try to bring them with us. I don’t want them involved if we can avoid it. Not with this. Not until we have a better way of ensuring that they aren’t going to get caught up in something they really aren’t ready for.”

“I don’t want that for them either,” he said. “Especially until they have a chance. Well, not even until they have a chance. I’d rather keep them out of this, and not just because of Talia.”

“Why, then?”

He had been giving it some thought, and still wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase it in a way that didn’t sound fatalistic, though he felt like he owed Rowan an explanation.

“It’s about the mages. About Talia. When they come to the town, if we haven’t dealt with Talia, there’s the possibility that our sisters might get pulled into all of this. I’d rather keep them separate.”

“You think you can protect them from Talia now?” Rowan started to laugh. “I think it’s a little late for that, Laric. She knows about them. She’s seen them with us.”

“I’d like to give them a bit more deniability. If something happens, I want them not to be a part of it.”

“You want to protect them from this, but I don’t know if you can.”

“I don’t know if I can either,” Laric said.

It took him a little while to reach Malcolm’s home, where he was helping his father make arrangements for his next trade route—and recovering the wagon they’d left behind. Laric was surprised that Malcolm’s father was heading back out again, but after Xavier had stated that the route was clear, the other merchants in town had all decided that it was important for them to get moving again. The only routes he shared with other merchants were deeper into the kingdom, which Laric wasn’t sure was wise until they knew the extent of the danger from mages.

“Of course, we need trade for our town to thrive,” Malcolm’s father explained. “We have to make sure that we get supplies and that we can send some of our ceramic and wool to other places that value it.”

“Are you sure that it’s safe?” Laric asked.

“We aren’t going unguarded. We will be taking every responsible measure for caution that we can, and we will ensure that there is nothing more to be concerned about as we venture beyond our borders. It’s not as if we have to deal with the dragons,” he said with a bit of a smile.

Laric wanted to tell Malcolm’s father more about what they were really going to have to deal with, but he also didn’t know if he could. Malcolm just watched Laric, shaking his head slightly, so Laric knew that he couldn’t, and shouldn’t, tell Mr. Essan anything.

He pulled Malcolm off to the side of the road and looked across to the wagons that were arranged.

“If you need to go with your father, I understand,” Laric said.

“Why? What are you planning?”

“I saw something north of town. Well, I didn’t see it, but I had a way of seeing it, if you know what I mean.”

“I get it. You don’t want to just say it⁠—”

“No,” Laric said. “I don’t want to just say that.”

“You found her?” Malcolm asked, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“I think so. I don’t know. I’m looking for something, and it seems like when I use what he can see, I capture glimpses of potential.”

“Really? You can see that?”

“He can. I can’t,” Laric clarified.

“That’s fascinating. I wonder if there’s anything to that potential that you might be able to take advantage of.”

“Not that I can tell. Although if you come with me, maybe he would be able to identify how much potential you have.”

Malcolm snorted, shaking his head. “Oh, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I should stay with my father. Besides, I don’t think he’s going to, but he really has been advocating for having somebody who can use spellslips to guide him.”

“You aren’t going to stay with the girls?” Laric asked.

“They will be in school.”

“And you won’t?”

Malcolm took a deep breath, then glanced over to his father. “I’ve been giving it some thought, but I don’t know that it makes sense for me to return. I went to school, stayed in school, because I wanted to learn as much as I could to help him. And there was a part of me that didn’t want to be a merchant. At least when I first started training. I suppose that’s changed a little bit.”

“I get it.”

“Do you?” Malcolm said.

In a way, Laric was actually relieved. He had started to question what was going to happen to his friends, and to others in town, as they continued to work through all of the strangeness that they had been dealing with. Increasingly, he’d started to think that he wouldn’t be able to stay here. Even if they took care of Talia, there were other mages that were going to be a danger. And with Sashaak, Laric wasn’t positive that he was going to be able to do much with him.

He also couldn’t shake the fact that he wanted to know more.

He needed answers. He wanted to learn about his grandmother and what she had known. So maybe what he needed to do was deal with Talia, and then leave town so he could get those answers in some fashion.

“You want to have some normalcy,” Laric said.

“I don’t know if there’s going to be normalcy again,” Malcolm said. “At this point, the only thing I’m hoping for is to help my father. I know more spellslips than I ever expected to know leaving school, and considering that I have come to experience the possibility of spellcraft forms, I think that I can actually help him and some of the other merchants.” He grinned at that. “I can be… I don’t know. Something more here.”

Laric smiled. “Go with your father. I’m going to go with Rowan, and we’re just going to see if there’s anything out there.”

“Don’t do anything foolish.”

“Who said I would do that?”

Malcolm scoffed. “It’s you. Just be smart. Wait. Who am I talking to? Just do something that Rowan would think is smart.”

“Thanks,” Laric said. “But I don’t think we have to worry too much. We have a weapon that I don’t think even Talia can prepare for.”

“You and I both know that’s not true, much like you and I both know that there is no telling what she has prepared for.”

They said their goodbyes, and Laric headed toward Rowan’s home to meet her. They needed to move quickly because he didn’t know how long they had before that potential he’d caught a glimpse of would move. Every so often, Laric would still see something from Sashaak that would show him that Talia remained in place, or at least what he thought was Talia. But then it would fade. Perhaps it was just that his connection to Sashaak had faded, making it difficult for him to see much more, but the link to him from Sashaak had started to shift a little bit.

“You look like you’ve got a purpose.”

He turned to see Xavier leading a trio of horses down the road, heading in Laric’s direction.

“I might have something of a purpose, why?”

Xavier snorted. “A man has a purpose like that, it suggests he’s going to do something, and it might be dangerous. Curious what you have decided to set off and do.”

“I am going to deal with a threat to the town.”

“Sure you can do that?”

Laric shrugged. “I’m sure that I need to. Not sure that I want to.”

Xavier offered a hint of a smile. “Good. I brought the horses.”

“Why?”

“Figured you were going to leave, especially after I saw you talking to Essan and his boy. Kind of thing that makes me think you’re going to do something foolish. But then, with you, I’m not so sure that would be foolish, now would it?”

“Why would you come with us?” Laric asked.

“Because I know what you’re thinking. You’re worried about what this mage might do to the town. I’m sure you’re worried about the possibility of others like her coming, and while there isn’t a whole lot we can do about that, we know that this one certainly poses a threat. That about the long and the short of it?”

“That’s about it,” Laric agreed.

“So I’m going to guide you—figure someone who knows the land might be useful—and I’ll let you and your new friend deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. Besides, I consider it a bit of a curiosity in what you can now do.”

“I’m not so sure that I do anything.”

“Well, that’s the curiosity.”

“And what about you? What can you do?” Laric asked.

Xavier winked. “We’re going to have to see, aren’t we? Now, are we going to go and get Miss Adams, or are you going to make me do it on my own?”

Chapter Thirteen

As Laric and Xavier headed toward Rowan’s home, Laric could still see—and feel, for that matter—some element of Sashaak circling, as if Sashaak were just waiting, prepared for what Laric wanted to do. As he stared through the dragon’s eyes, he did not see anything more. Everything seemed empty.

Increasingly, however, he couldn’t help but feel as if that emptiness might be a problem. It might mean that Talia had gone somewhere else.

“I never much cared for Adams,” Xavier said, though he said it mostly to himself as they approached Rowan’s home and paused outside. It was a nicer house, in a quiet section of the city. Smaller than Malcolm’s, but closer to their family shop.

“Why not?” Laric asked.

Xavier offered just the slightest shrug. “Selfish, I figure. He’s always a pain to deal with when it comes to trade. Always too eager to try to get the best of us, and never knows the dance.” He looked over to Laric. “You know what I mean by the dance, don’t you?”

“Malcolm’s father made mention of it at one point. He said that when trading, a merchant needs to try to find the best for both parties, especially if you’re going to keep doing trade with those parties.”

Xavier nodded. “Exactly. You don’t burn bridges, as the phrase goes. You want to make sure that you continue to build. Adams never really cared much for that, and so it started to bite him in the ass. Not that he ever saw that.”

“Why?”

“He always got last choice of items.” Xavier gave a small chuckle. “Took him a while to notice, but I think he got the hint. Not that it changed his way of doing business. Anyway, maybe you should go and knock.”

Laric headed to the door, where he hesitated. He heard shouting inside, and for a moment, he tested with a detection spellslip, but he didn’t pick up on anything he needed to do about it.

He knocked, and the shouting cut off immediately. When Mr. Adams came to the door, he glowered at Laric. “I’m sorry, but my daughter is indisposed at this time. Both of them are. And I think it’s time that they get back to more traditional⁠—”

“I’m going with him,” Rowan said from behind her father.

Mr. Adams turned, facing her. “You are not leaving here without my permission. And I do not give it to you to go running around with some boy in town, doing who knows what, and who knows where, for hours—and even days—at a time.”

“We’re studying,” Rowan said, which Laric was thankful for. He had known that there was a difficult relationship at home, and he had seen it to a certain extent, but Rowan had always been quiet around her father and never talked about him much. This bit of spine was good to see from her, and he knew that it was for the best. “And we’re going to keep studying, because we helped keep the city safe. Now, if you don’t want the city to be safe, maybe I can alert⁠—”

Her father rushed toward her.

A wave of panic worked through Laric as he thought that her father might do something terrible. Then he felt the spellcraft form build. There was a strange feeling of resistance, and Mr. Adams grunted.

“You are not going to lay hands on me again,” Rowan said.

“No daughter of mine will talk to me like that.”

There was another buildup of the spellcraft form. “You are not going to lay hands on me, or Iveris, again. Do you understand?”

“You do not tell me⁠—”

As that spellcraft form was released, Laric recognized the power. A flash of heat exploded outward, slamming into her father. Laric couldn’t help but feel a measure of pride, but also a bit of alarm at the reason she was doing it and what it might mean for her.

Her father staggered back.

“Iveris,” Rowan said, “go stay with Malcolm and Joselle while I am gone.” She stormed past her father, with Iveris just behind her. She paused and looked over to him. “You will not touch me. Or her.”

With that, she stepped out, pulled the door closed with a fury, and turned to Laric. A conflicted expression crossed over her face before she shook it away.

“Are we going?” she said.

“Are you sure about this? If you need to make sure that your sister is⁠—”

“I am fine,” Iveris said. “And honestly, Rowan didn’t even need to do that for me. It’s not like I don’t know how to form my own spellslips now. All she did was a little fancy light spellslip. You made sure that we can do the same fancy light spellslip, Laric.”

He laughed. He had, in fact, helped ensure that they could do the same fancy light spellslip, as she wanted to call it. That was an incredibly useful one, but he was concerned that she wouldn’t have the ability to do so on demand, nor as quickly as Rowan could.

“And it was good that he did,” Rowan said. “Will you go stay with Joselle and Malcolm?”

Iveris sighed. “I can, but I don’t know why you’re making me go there. I could come with you.”

“You could,” she agreed. “But not until we figure out what’s going on here.”

“If you’re going after her, I think the rest of us want to have a chance.”

“The rest of you,” Rowan said, glancing over to Laric and then back to her sister, “don’t have enough control to make sure we don’t have to keep her off of you.”

“Thanks,” Iveris muttered. She pointed to Xavier. “So what is he doing here, then?”

“I brought the horses,” Xavier said. “And while I do appreciate the opportunity, I also think that I’m a little better equipped to do some of the things that might need to be done.” He chuckled and then turned to Iveris. “Although I’ve been where you are and have had others tell me that I’m not quite ready. You know what I did?”

“Went anyway?” Iveris asked.

He looked back to the horses as if to say that without a horse, she wasn’t going to be able to keep up. Which was true, though Laric had a hard time thinking that Iveris was going to be dissuaded so easily.

“Well, that, and I pushed myself,” Xavier said. “It was only fitting, right? Take an opportunity, make it my own, and use that to become what they said I was not.” He gestured to Rowan. “While I suspect your sister has much faith in you, you’re young. There’s no doubting that. So take this as a chance to prove to her that you can do what she claims you can’t.”

“Is that necessary?” Rowan asked him. “Honestly. It’s not like I’m trying to keep her away because it makes me feel better. I’m trying to help her, and we have already seen what Talia is willing to do to get what she’s after.”

“She’s after his dragon,” Iveris said, glancing in Laric’s direction.

“Can you at least keep it quiet,” Rowan snapped.

That seemed to calm Iveris just a little. “I’m sorry.” She turned to Laric. “Sorry, Laric.”

He shrugged. “We can move faster when it’s just a few of us. I know you can help. You were great when we had to deal with her in the cavern, but we don’t want to put you in danger if we don’t have to. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to keep teaching you and trying to get you and Joselle and even Malcolm to the place where Rowan and I are.”

“You mean where you are,” Iveris said, and her eyes darted to her sister. “Sorry, sis, you aren’t quite where he is.”

“I know,” Rowan said. “Can you go find Joselle?”

“Fine. Then she, Malcolm, and I are going to plan our own strategy sessions while you are gone.”

“Wonderful. I think that would be fantastic. So you do that, and I’m going off to do my own thing.”

Iveris stuck her tongue out and then strode down the street.

“I like her,” Xavier said. “She’d probably have made quite the merchant.”

“She would have made quite the mage,” Rowan said.

“Would have?”

“I’m not so sure that any of us want to be a mage now,” she said.

“You still want to learn what it means,” Xavier suggested.

Rowan shrugged. “We want to learn what it means, but we also recognize the danger in what they are and what they represent.”

“Interesting. Well. Shall we?”

They guided the horses to the edge of the town and then quickly got settled on them. Laric didn’t have a lot of experience on a horse, though it seemed as if Rowan was far more comfortable. She looked over, chuckling, which elicited a deep frown from him.

“Don’t be like that. You can’t be great at everything,” she said.

“I don’t really feel like I’m great at all that much,” he said.

“You are good at enough. Although I think a lot of what you’re good at has been tied to your grandmother, hasn’t it?”

“See?” Laric said. “I’m not even good at all that much to make you think that I’m good at all that much.”

She shook her head. “Let’s go.”

Xavier set out, and they kept pace. They hadn’t gone far before he motioned to an old ruin that was just to the north of the city.

“I checked this place out before,” he said to Laric. “In case you were wondering. Your grandmother used to visit places like this all around the city. Never really understood it at the time, but if she was placing glyphs, then I wondered if there might be some here that would help explain what she was doing.”

“No glyphs, then?” Rowan asked.

“Nothing that I would consider new. That’s not to say that there is nothing here, though.” Xavier frowned. “Although when it comes to what she’d been doing and what she had been placing, it was difficult to know what was new and what was not.”

Laric nodded, and they rode close to the ruins. He found his gaze skimming across them, testing whether there was anything there whatsoever. He focused on what he could feel, yet there was nothing that struck him in any sort of way that would make him think there was anything to be said about this.

Distantly, he grew more aware of Sashaak. It seemed as if leaving town and heading north allowed Sashaak to create a greater connection to him. That was a disorienting feeling for Laric to experience, partly because that connection made it seem like he was up in the clouds with Sashaak, enough that he felt a swirling bit of power with each sense of movement. It was more than a little disconcerting.

At one point, Rowan nudged him. Laric blinked, glancing in her direction.

“You need to be careful,” she said.

“I just feel like I’m floating.”

“I get that. Obviously, the dragon is trying to keep a strong connection to you. But you still need to be careful.”

She wasn’t wrong, and he wondered if there would be any way that he could master the connection that he had.

He was going to need to do something. Sashaak had taught him different spellcraft forms, which Laric had continued to practice, ensuring that he knew more and more about what Sashaak wanted him to understand, but he also felt a growing uncertainty that the link that he shared to the dragon was more than just about spellcraft forms. It was about the potential that Sashaak offered him, which allowed Laric to tap into something greater inside of himself.

“You haven’t ridden the dragon?” Xavier asked as they moved past the ruins.

“I’m not so sure the dragon is open to me riding him. I have a connection, but…” Laric felt a little strange sharing that much, especially with somebody who was not part of the core group he had been working with. More and more, though, he’d been feeling like he at least needed to share something with Xavier, who had been helpful. “But the connection is different for me, and I think for the dragon. He had more with Malinar.”

“It was a longer bond,” Xavier said. “At least a decade, probably longer, so that’s not terribly surprising. I would imagine you just have to continue to build that relationship.”

Laric wasn’t sure what that would feel like, and the idea that he would build any sort of relationship with Sashaak seemed odd. But the connection to Sashaak still felt strange to him. The fact that he was connected to a dragon was strange to him. And as time went on, he couldn’t help but feel as if everything that he was encountering with Sashaak was going to be that way.

“I won’t be able to do that here, though,” Laric said, guiding his horse closer to Xavier.

“Doubtful,” the man said.

Rowan watched Laric. “But you have known that, haven’t you?” she said.

Laric nodded. “I’ve known that I won’t be able to stay with the dragon, so I’m going to have to either choose to go with the dragon wherever he wants to take me, or I’m going to have to ignore the connection that I have.”

“Could you do that?” Rowan asked.

“I think so. I don’t know. I don’t get the feeling that the dragon is going to force me to hold on to a connection to him. It’s just there. And it’s not even just about the connection I have. It’s more about the potential that I feel, and the power that exists within it as I pick up on certain elements of that.”

“That’s interesting,” she said. “Can you use that potential from a distance?”

“Sometimes I think I can,” Laric said. “But other times it feels like the distance is insurmountable. I’m aware of it, but awareness doesn’t equate to an understanding.”

He wished that it did, and increasingly, he started to wonder if maybe there wasn’t going to be any way for him to do more than what he already had. He felt this emptiness when he didn’t draw on or connect to that potential. Laric knew that if he ignored the connection he had to Sashaak and the potential it gave him, he would come to regret it.

And that made everything harder.

“Let’s push ahead,” Xavier said. “Because if she’s not where you think, I want to have time to hunt her down so that she doesn’t surprise us. And if you can, ask that dragon of yours to keep an eye out for her so she doesn’t slip behind us and get into town while we are unaware.”

Laric looked back toward the town, which was growing ever more distant behind them. He hadn’t even considered that, but Xavier was right. That was a possibility.

“Maybe we should have warned Malcolm and the others to be careful,” he said.

Xavier shook his head. “I doubt she’s going to attack the city. Not when she needs something. She doesn’t want the mages to look like they’re responsible. I suspect that what she really wants is to make it look like you are responsible, especially now that you have this dragon connection. You are going to need to be careful, more than anything else. So, as I said, let’s get moving, stay ahead of whatever she intends, and deal with this mage.” He looked over to Laric. “And then you can take care of the rest of what you will need to do.”

Chapter Fourteen

Sashaak continued to circle.

Laric felt the presence of the dragon with an increasing certainty, as the longer that Sashaak circled, the more that Laric started to make out elements of what Sashaak was able to see. Those elements seemed to bloom inside his mind in a way that alerted him to the various types of potential that Sashaak had begun to pick up on.

Still, even though he saw that potential, he had not been able to see anything that suggested to him where he might find Talia. And that was what he needed, though he also did not know what that was going to look like.

Rowan remained quiet. She was riding more comfortably than he was, seated atop the horse. They passed by several small, twisted trees, and the land sloped gently upward. Laric was thankful that he was on the horse, which was trotting at a reasonable pace, because it would’ve taken him quite a bit longer to walk all this way. Periodically, Laric couldn’t shake the thought that it might have been so much easier for him to fly by dragonback, if only Sashaak were willing. He had no idea if Sashaak would be willing, though.

Rowan’s gaze darted all around as she skimmed the horizon and searched for any signs of movement. Laric assumed she was using a spellslip, or perhaps even a spellcraft form, though he wasn’t sure. He could feel the steady, occasional buildup of pressure that came from her and from what she was doing, but he had not been able to identify much else from that.

Even Xavier was doing something, he realized. That was strange, partly because Laric could feel it, and partly because he questioned what, in particular, it was that he had started to feel.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Laric asked.

Xavier looked over. “You can tell?”

“There are certain features that are recognizable when you are attempting spellslips, but I don’t even know if what you’re doing is a spellslip. It might be more along the lines of a spellcraft form.”

“I had an old friend show me a few things,” Xavier said with a shrug. “After I helped them for a little while.”

“Was it his grandmother?” Rowan asked, turning in her saddle and looking over to Xavier. “If it is, there’s no reason to hide it from him, or from us, because Laric is eventually going to recognize his grandmother’s spellslips and spellcraft forms.”

Could it have been? But then, it did make sense, didn’t it? Xavier had known Laric’s grandmother, which meant that he might have learned from her. If so, he would definitely have to keep that from Joselle.

She was becoming more and more upset about the fact that she had not had an opportunity to study with their grandmother, nor to learn from her the same things Laric had. He had tried to reassure Joselle that had she been older, it wouldn’t have been an issue whatsoever, and that their grandmother would have almost certainly taught her the same things she had taught him.

Almost certainly.

There was the nagging, doubting part of him that left him wondering if perhaps that was not true. Why had she taught him in the first place? And why had she not revealed more about who she was and where she had come from?

Those were the kinds of answers that Laric increasingly couldn’t help but feel as if he needed, so that he could better understand more about who he was and what he could do.

It went beyond that, though. His mother could have had that same sort of potential, at least before she had fallen sick. So why had his grandmother not taught her?

“It was your grandmother,” Xavier eventually said, shaking his head. “At first, it was me just watching her when we were traveling. She never admitted what she could do. At least, never admitted to the complexity of what she could do. Not at first. I knew her as someone who was talented, but more of the kind of person with a natural gift. The kind of person who didn’t need to study at school, or with the mages, to have her natural talent. Over time, however, I started to suspect that she was equally as capable as any mage, though she denied it.”

“She would’ve been more powerful than any mage,” Rowan said.

“I never saw that,” Laric said.

“Well, if she could do the things that Malinar can do, and if she was connected to a dragon, then it would only seem that she had to be, right?”

Rowan wasn’t necessarily wrong. If that were the case, then what did that mean? Why had there been no sign of his grandmother’s dragon?

“I never saw her dragon,” Xavier said by way of answer. “And I suspect that is what you have started to wonder.”

“I think the dragon died,” Laric said. “Well, that’s what the dragon I’ve talked to has said. And I don’t know how, but it doesn’t seem like any mage killed the dragon.”

“That you know,” Xavier said.

It was a strange qualification, but he wasn’t wrong. That Laric knew of.

What if the mages had done something similar to his grandmother’s dragon like they had done to Malinar, something that would have ultimately been fatal and would have meant that the dragon could not survive it, so it had chosen to hide and leave memories in the form of the glyphs behind?

“How much did she show you?” Laric asked Xavier.

“Mostly basic spellslips. Or at least, what she called basic spellslips. Some things to detect. Some things to defend. That sort of thing. Minor magic, or what I had always considered minor. I never had an opportunity to formally train at one of the schools, and never really thought that I had the ability, but your grandmother said that some people were just born to it. She must’ve seen something in me, because she decided to work with me a little bit.”

“Only her?” Laric asked.

“Not only her. I took what I learned from her and I expanded on it. When I was around mages, I would observe them, ask a few probing questions,” Xavier said, smiling to himself, “because I was just a simple merchant.”

Rowan arched a brow. “And they just answered?”

“You would be surprised at what people say when they think you’re incapable,” Xavier said. “And mages, by and large, are more than comfortable talking about themselves, and talking about what they can do—which had been good, for the most part. Although I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the mages talking about what they can do was simply their way of trying to cause a different sort of problem.”

“What sort of a problem?”

“Fear. Intimidation. They make it seem like they are more capable than they are.”

“You don’t think that they’re nearly as capable as what they claim?” Rowan asked. “We’ve seen what Talia can do. We saw what Daelon could do. They were able to deal with a dragon.”

Laric locked eyes with her for a moment. It wasn’t just the mages who had been able to deal with a dragon, unfortunately. It had also been students. He and Rowan had been able to do the exact same thing, and though he wouldn’t do it now—not with what he knew—the simple fact of the matter was that it took very basic magic to bring down a dragon.

“You were able to take down a dragon because I suspect the dragons were not fully connected to those they were working with. The mages have been trying to take that bond for themselves for quite some time. That is not something that I know personally, but it’s what I have heard from those who have dealt with it.”

“Korthal,” Laric said.

“Korthal, but others as well. Korthal is a strange place, Laric. And maybe once you deal with Talia, you will need to understand why. It’s the kind of place that is not only a single people.” He shrugged. “When I first started going there, I would trade in some of the outer villages and towns. Mostly because I could trade for what people here would consider exotic, but what the people in Korthal felt were just the necessities of life. Gradually, though, I spent more time delving deeper into Korthal. Some of those settlements were different. Some were abandoned,” he went on, frowning as he did, his brow furrowing, “and others were more securely guarded.”

“How so?” Rowan asked. There was a curiosity in her eyes, and Laric understood it. Neither of them knew all that much about Korthal. There were stories, and that was it. And in all the stories they had learned about it, Korthal had always been the enemy. Up until recently, that had been the way Laric had felt about them. Then again, he had also felt like the dragons were the enemy, and he no longer could feel that way.

“Using powers that I could never learn.” Xavier shrugged. “Most people here think that Korthal has only the dragons and that they don’t do any other magic. Isn’t that what you had believed?”

Laric frowned, but Xavier wasn’t wrong. When he had learned about the Korthal invasion, the one advantage he’d thought they had was that they understood spellslips and spellcraft forms. That was a distinguishing factor between them and what the dragon riders of Korthal could do. But he had started to learn otherwise—not just about that, but also about what the dragons themselves could teach. Given his connection to the dragon and what Laric could see from it, he had been able to learn spellcraft forms that he would not have known otherwise.

“No,” Laric said. “They have other power, but they try to keep it hidden.”

“I’m not so sure that they try to keep it hidden as much as it is that the mages try to keep that truth hidden,” Xavier said. “For everybody who is learning spellslips or some of the more basic magic, it is meant to keep you believing that what you have learned is going to be effective.”

They rounded another hillside, and in the distance, the ground became rockier.

“So mages have been hiding from that? What else did you find in Korthal?” Laric asked.

“I found welcoming people. I was generally kept to the periphery of Korthal. It wasn’t safe, they claimed. I always believe that it was tied to the dragons, but when I encountered anybody who was connected to the dragons—such as Malinar—I came to learn that didn’t seem to be quite right. I wasn’t exactly sure why that was, but I avoided pushing too hard because I didn’t want to upset anyone or be seen as overstepping.”

“Because you didn’t want to lose your access to trade,” Rowan said.

He shrugged again. “No. I did not. Korthal made me successful. My access to those lands made me valuable. And while I’m not the only person who has that access, I certainly am one of the few who was welcomed among their people in ways that many others were not. That’s how I knew that Korthal was not the enemy we were often told they were. Though you know that as well now.” He breathed out, and he shifted in his saddle. “Which is my roundabout way of saying that my education has come from Laric’s grandmother, mages, and even a few people in Korthal who tried to deny the fact that they knew things, but they obviously did.”

Xavier fell silent.

Laric wondered if Xavier would show him what he had learned, but he also didn’t know if it made any difference. Even if Xavier tried to demonstrate any of the spellslips that he knew, or even the spellcraft forms, none of them would really be all that significant for Laric, especially since there were other patterns, and forms, and lessons that he could glean from Sashaak. He did not need to have someone like Xavier, or even Talia, show him such things.

Assuming that Sashaak would keep talking to him and keep demonstrating certain abilities.

“Does your dragon know where Talia is?” Xavier asked. “Because the last time that you told me anything, we were getting close. I would like to believe that we are nearing where we will find her, and then we can deal with her.”

Rowan arched a brow. “You’re so eager to do so?”

“Eager has nothing to do with it. I would just like this task dealt with.”

“You’re worried about what might get back around about you, as well,” she said.

Xavier glanced in her direction. “Yes. I won’t deny that.”

“But in order to do that, you’re going to have to keep Talia from reporting anything.”

“Yes. And?”

Laric thought he understood what she was getting at. In order to keep Talia from sharing anything, they were going to have to kill her.

And maybe Xavier had assumed that was what they were going to do.

Laric still did not know what he planned on doing with Talia. Truth be told, he had not really planned anything. He had come out here thinking they would capture Talia, but perhaps capture was not going to be possible.

“Let’s just find her first,” he said. He looked over to Rowan, who was quiet, then glanced over to Xavier, who just stared straight ahead and also said nothing. “And the dragon makes it seem like she shouldn’t be very far from here. I don’t quite know, but it seems like there is a flash of potential not far.”

“If she’s not far, then we must start making our own preparations,” Xavier said.

“And what are those going to be?” Rowan asked.

“Those are going to be you setting some traps, maybe facilitating them, and perhaps the dragon dealing with her.” He glanced up at the sky. Sashaak was so high up that none of them could really see him, though Laric did have that vague sense of awareness that connected him to the dragon, and that made it so he felt like he should be able to pick up on something. “But in order for us to do it, we need to identify where she is and be ready.”

As Laric prepared to ask how they could do that and what that was going to look like, he noticed something.

The ground around them felt odd. At first, he thought that he had only imagined it, but increasingly, he realized that was not imagined. There was something unusual here.

A strange sense of pressure.

Rowan looked up, and her eyes widened at the same time that Xavier stiffened. Then they both slumped in their saddles.

Laric tried to move and found that he could not. Even the horses came to a stop.

It was a trap, but it was Talia’s trap. And they had fallen into it.

Chapter Fifteen

There was little that Laric could do. He felt the overwhelming sense of the pressure that he had been detecting before, and everything within him went cold, as if a wave of ice water had washed over him. He could scarcely think of doing anything other than just staying where he was, despite the fact that he felt as if he needed to move somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Motionless as he was, he attempted to summon the power that he had, trying to find some way to create a spellcraft form, or even a spellslip. But without the ability to move, none of what he tried would form as fully as it needed. He was held helpless, and he couldn’t help but feel frustration building within him.

Distantly, Laric was also aware of Sashaak, and he felt the creature circling high overhead, but even though he was aware of the dragon, Laric did not think there was anything he could do to tap into that power or connect to it the way he felt he needed to. It was there, like a taunt that lingered, just out of reach.

He tried to cry out through the strangeness that he was feeling, but he could not even move his lips to talk.

He tried to see where Rowan was, but even as he looked in her direction, he was not aware of anything more than what he had already seen. She was there, but she was not there.

What of Xavier?

He didn’t know where Xavier had ended up. Laric couldn’t hear anything from him, and the fact that Xavier was next to him, either still mounted or not, might not even matter. He wasn’t able to reach the other man.

And then he heard movement.

It was close, getting closer.

Laric had little doubt that this was Talia’s doing. This had to be some way of trapping them based on her awareness of what they had been doing, and of using them in some fashion.

Despite everything in his body telling him that he needed to.

Sashaak needed to help him. Laric knew that, but what could he do, and how was he going to get help from Sashaak? Maybe the dragon would sense something from him? But Laric didn’t know what that was going to involve, nor did he know how he could fight past this.

“Interesting,” Talia’s distinct voice said from nearby. Laric tried to move again, but nothing within him worked. “When I had established my little perimeter, I had not anticipated that I would catch such critters within it.”

What could he do? Laric found himself thinking back to some of the lessons that his grandmother had taught him. There had to be something in what she had described of some of the spellslips that he might be able to use to get free from this trap in some fashion. But so far, nothing that he could think of made any sort of sense.

He noticed a figure moving, though it wasn’t getting closer. That had to be significant, but why? Was Talia afraid of getting too close to them? Maybe she worried that they might be able to break free.

“You really can’t move, can you? I suppose I’m not terribly surprised to see the two of you,” Talia said, and Laric assumed that she was talking to him and Rowan, “but bringing a merchant into this is another matter altogether. Then again, this merchant isn’t quite a merchant, is he?”

The shadowy form of Talia started to loom closer.

Laric felt frustration rising within him. And then he realized that it wasn’t just frustration within him—he was feeling the potential within him. It seemed as if some part of it was getting stronger, more concrete.

Not his potential, though.

Sashaak’s.

Sashaak was getting closer.

He tried to filter what he could see out and into Sashaak, though Laric didn’t know if the way he was seeing everything would even be useful to the dragon. Sashaak had been the one to give him a glimpse of where to find Talia, so Sashaak should know something, shouldn’t he?

“Has he revealed that he is responsible for what happened to her?” Talia said, gesturing to Xavier.

Laric wanted to turn, wanted to look over at Xavier. What was she getting at?

It might be a good thing that he couldn’t speak, because if he could, he might have actually said something. He had realized that there were things that Xavier was keeping from him.

“Oh, probably not,” she continued, “because doing so would involve him revealing that he knew so much more than he was letting on. A challenge for someone like him, someone who wants to maintain his innocence and an air of mystery about his role in such things. That is, until he just so happens to return after the attack.”

“There was nothing about what I just so happened to do,” Xavier said.

Laric blinked. He couldn’t speak, but Xavier could?

That peculiar sense of Sashaak started to loom more potently, and though it was there, it still remained distant in such a way that Laric could not quite grasp it.

Talia stopped moving closer, and she stared at Xavier. “More tricks than I would have anticipated.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “But then, you come bearing gifts, don’t you? You aren’t so empty-handed here.”

“You will release us,” Xavier said.

“Will I? And if I don’t, what do you think is going to happen?” Talia cackled. How could Laric have ever thought that she was helpful to them? There was a real darkness, and a bitterness, to the way she laughed. “Do you believe that I am in any way afraid of what you might try? Others will come soon. I have seen to that, so it is just a matter of time. And I have the time to spare. Soon the entire council will be upon you. Then what will you do? What will your town do?”

“You won’t harm those people,” Xavier said, but even as he did, Laric didn’t know what else he would be able to do, if anything.

“I already have proven what I am willing to do,” Talia whispered.

She had suggested that there was something more to what they’d planned here, but what? Power, maybe? If there was power, what kind of power was it? What was its purpose and its source? There had to be some aspect of it that mattered, some way for them to better understand what she was doing and how she had captured them in the first place. Laric tried to focus, tried to hold on to some of that power, tried to understand what it was that he was feeling, but even as he did, it was too much for him. The power that rippled around him was too much.

He had been struggling with it. He did not know if there was going to be any way for him to fight past what was happening here, nor if there was another way for him to be able to do anything, short of just trying to break free in some fashion, yet it felt… He wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but he could feel something.

Then Sashaak’s magic blossomed vibrantly.

And what was more, it seemed as if there was a structure to that potential. It was as if Laric could see that structure, could see the way that it needed to form, and recognized how he had to allow that structure to spill out from him. He had no idea what that was going to require, and he didn’t know if there was anything he could do with it, just that he could see it warming brightly in his mind.

A single word formed with it: “Release.”

He heard it from Sashaak. Laric didn’t know why he heard the word, but he had an awareness of it.

Release?

Sashaak wanted him to release that power. And was Laric the one responsible for holding on to it? It felt like this was Sashaak’s potential, but maybe Laric’s potential was bound up in Sashaak’s, and between the two of them it was somehow linked together.

But he had to release it.

Doing so could be dangerous. Yet not doing so… Not doing so would be even more dangerous.

Laric clung to that for just a moment, then Talia started to come closer.

He felt that potential inside of him, and he let it go. In doing so, it spilled out of him, and away from him, exploding into thundering bits of energy that rippled outward.

There was a gasp, and then Laric could move. He jerked his head around, already starting to think about one of the other spellslips that he could form—before immediately changing from a spellslip into one of the spellcraft forms that he had learned from Sashaak. He was not going to suffer here because Talia thought to hold them hostage.

He couldn’t see where she had gone, but he could feel that power expanding inside of him, that bit of potential, and he began to create a haze of heat that formed in front of him, gifted by Sashaak in some manner.

“Release,” Sashaak said again.

And again that energy spilled from him.

Laric allowed that power to continue to flow outward, and as it radiated, there was something of a rhythm of energy that spread away from him and became almost uncontrollable.

He couldn’t detect anything more. He was merely wielding this power wildly.

A part of him thrummed with excitement, the idea that he had this kind of power within him and knowing that he might be able to keep using it. Spilling that energy out and feeling how it rippled away from him left him thinking that he could—and should—continue to do so, that this was his right, that everything should simply burn.

Laric blinked. That was coming from Sashaak. That was not him.

“Please,” he said. “I don’t want that much of your potential.”

“Release,” the voice said again.

Once more, Laric felt the buildup of potential. He didn’t know what Sashaak was trying to get from him, but he was concerned about the fact that he was holding on to it this way, concerned about what might happen.

Something touched him.

Laric jerked back. He looked over to see Xavier there, hands held up in a placating gesture, but there was some clear power coming from him. Xavier obviously had placed a spellcraft form around himself, some sort of a protective bubble that Laric wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to form.

“Take it easy,” Xavier said. “I don’t know what’s happening, and I don’t know what the dragon is doing to you but take it easy. She’s gone.”

“And Rowan?” Laric asked.

“Still on her horse and waiting for you to relax. I have her protected, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to maintain this. You are drawing on something more than I have ever felt before.”

“I’m trying to hold it,” Laric said.

“No,” Xavier said, and there was a real sense of urgency from him, “it seems like you are trying to let it go. You keep talking about releasing, and I’m asking you not to do that.”

In the back of his mind, Laric could feel Sashaak’s anger. Release.

Sashaak wanted to burn everything down. Sashaak wanted all of that power to spill out from Laric. Sashaak wanted Laric to use that connection, to allow that power to flow from him.

Why had he not known that before?

When Laric had first discovered that he had this link to the dragon and started to learn about the different spellcraft forms that Sashaak could teach him, he had not known that Sashaak would want to burn everything. But maybe it wasn’t everything that he wanted to burn. Sashaak only wanted to burn the ones responsible. Talia. The mages.

And Laric had to have a measure of control.

He felt that potential inside of him. It wasn’t only his.

His grandmother had wanted him to have potential. She had spoken of it in glowing terms and had told him that he could do so much with it. Laric had never really understood it, not until now. And now he felt that potential. Not just Sashaak’s, but his own. He had a measure of potential, and Laric had to take advantage of it, and he had to separate what Sashaak was feeling so that he did not get overwhelmed by it.

Slowly, Laric began to ease that away. That connection was there, a link of power, and though it was, there still seemed to be some part of it that was difficult for him to separate from.

Yet he knew that he needed to.

“Better,” Xavier said, letting out a shaky breath. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Laric felt the sense of Sashaak growing more distant.

“Talia,” he said.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” Xavier said. “Probably used some sort of shielding magic and managed to get away. But I need to know what happened to you. Care to share?”

“I… I don’t know if I have any answers. I can feel something.”

Xavier started to laugh, and there was a bit of an edge to it. “Something? I would say that was something. I haven’t experienced such an overwhelming sense in… I suppose ever. Even when I was around Malinar. But then, Malinar was an old dragon-bonded and never really lost control. Makes you wonder, though.”

“What makes you wonder?” Rowan asked, and hearing her voice helped Laric relax even more. He had almost lost control around her, almost lost control of this power and likely almost harmed her.

“Makes you wonder how the mages ever had a chance of overwhelming the dragon-bonded.” Xavier breathed out. “Don’t worry. We can still go looking for her, but I’m afraid that she’s probably gone from here.”

“This was a trap,” Laric said.

“Seems like it. I also wonder if she thought she was going to capture you, or someone else.”

“What do you mean, ‘someone else’?” Laric asked.

“Well, you’re not the only one bonded to a dragon, now are you?”

“Who else is out there?”

Laric found his gaze drifting across the sky, and though he could see the distant dragon and could still feel him, he saw nothing else.

“I don’t know,” Xavier said, “but I fear we need to find out. And we must do so before…”

Laric didn’t need him to finish. He knew what “before” meant.

Before mages arrived in the city.

Chapter Sixteen

Laric had the distinct feeling that Talia had been out here for a very specific reason, but he wasn’t sure what that was. She had been looking for… something. But what?

When he said as much to Xavier, the merchant just shook his head. “I can’t say with any certainty what she was doing out here. There was likely a purpose behind it, but it might have been as simple as her trying to set a trap to try to draw you, or both of us, into it.”

“Unless she was looking for something that would help her with what she plans once the mages come?” Rowan said.

For his part, Laric tried to concentrate on Sashaak and on maintaining some link to him, but even as he did, there remained an aspect of the connection he had to the dragon that posed a challenge for him. While he had an awareness of Sashaak, he simply could not see anything through his eyes the way that he had been able to before. It was as if Sashaak had decided to stop showing him things. Laric wondered why, and what it was that Sashaak had decided to do differently. Maybe the effort of trying to battle with what Talia had intended had been too much.

“It is possible that there is an old ruin of a place out here,” Xavier said. He glanced over to Laric. “Honestly, I haven’t spent much time out here. I did a little bit when I was younger, but not a lot. It’s pretty bleak and empty.”

“It’s like that around the town in general,” Laric said.

“Not entirely. Most of the surrounding area is suitable for farmland, and you have the quarry, but beyond that…” Xavier shrugged. He still seemed a bit shaken by what Talia had done and just how easily she had almost overwhelmed them.

Laric understood the hesitation that he had because, for his part, he also shared in some of the concern about what Talia had been able to do, and he worried about what she might continue to do to them. He knew that she was not gone. Not really. And when she reappeared, he was going to have to be ready.

Increasingly, he started to wonder what he had to be ready for. Was it to leave?

That was a very real possibility. If Talia, as well as the mages, returned to the city and came after Sashaak, Laric might not have any choice but to depart. It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to have an opportunity to stay. To help his sister. To help Malcolm, for that matter. And then there was Rowan.

That had been a growing friendship, and maybe a little bit more, ever since the attack. Laric had never had anybody in his life like her before. He and his sister had always had a good relationship, but it was isolating to live outside the city, and even more isolating in that Laric had never taken his education seriously, so he had always been something of an outsider. Even in his classes, he had been something of an outsider. It was self-inflicted, he knew, but it didn’t change the fact that it was still isolating.

Ever since the attack, Laric had felt connected to people, and maybe even to the town, in ways he had not before.

“Does the dragon show you anything?” Rowan asked.

“Not really,” he said. “I can see a little bit through the dragon’s eyes, but it’s more of a blur. I think part of it is tied to the fact that the dragon feels…” He shrugged.

What was it that Sashaak felt? He didn’t even know. He couldn’t feel anything from Sashaak, but he was aware of some element that seemed to come from him, nonetheless. Rowan watched him as though trying to gauge his reaction.

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

Laric tested a few things. He didn’t need Sashaak, did he? He had learned to work spellslips and spellcraft forms, even before he had ever learned that he had some sort of connection to the dragons. That was significant now, he thought. And if he could take advantage of it, then shouldn’t he?

He focused, and then he began to let the first of his spellslips flow out from him. It was a basic detection spellslip, one that his grandmother had taught him. He modified it, turning it into more of a spellcraft form, and used an element within it that seemed to be drawing on a little more of Sashaak’s potential. He had to be careful, he suspected, because he didn’t know if it was possible for him to drain Sashaak’s potential. He didn’t think so, or at least didn’t think it was possible to do so easily, because of what Malinar had claimed about the dragon’s potential and how much was there, but it was more than just that. Laric had also seen some of that potential inside the vision that Sashaak had granted him. That alone was enough reason for him to believe that it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for him to tap into that power too significantly.

“There’s something up here,” Laric said.

He kicked his heels into the horse’s side, and they started forward.

Laric was not a skilled rider, and he wobbled a bit as he tried to clutch the reins of the horse. Xavier had no difficulty catching up to them, and neither did Rowan, and they both looked toward him.

“I haven’t picked up on anything,” Rowan said.

“I felt something through a detection spellcraft form,” Laric said. “It was a rippling of energy against me. It’s like there’s residual power somewhere.”

“Out here?”

“I don’t know what else to say.”

“All right,” she muttered, and then she followed him.

It didn’t take long before they found a pile of boulders that blocked the entrance to a cave on the far side of the hill. Laric climbed down from the horse, looped the reins around a small but stout tree, and stood in front of the boulders.

“This was what I was feeling,” he said. “I don’t really know what it is, but I can pick up on some element that is here, and it seems to be pushing on me.” He glanced over to Xavier. “I don’t suppose you can detect anything here?”

Xavier stared at the boulders, shaking his head.

“What if it’s another place like the cave in the mountains?” Rowan asked.

“She would’ve told me,” Xavier said.

“Unless there were certain things that she didn’t want even you to have access to,” Rowan said.

Xavier nodded slowly. “I still don’t know the purpose behind most of the artifacts she had me moving. I’m guessing that it was a matter of protecting something, but I can’t say with any certainty. When she first had me exporting them, I thought it was just a matter of moving something valuable for her. I did that often enough for others, so it wasn’t terribly surprising.”

“Smuggling,” Rowan said, watching him closely.

“Rescuing,” Xavier said.

Laric laughed. “And here I thought you wanted to make your name as an honest merchant.”

“Oh, I was—and am—an honest merchant. But there are some jobs that you take because it’s the right thing to do. In this case, it was the right thing to do. I stand by it.”

Rowan looked over to Laric. “If she was out here, and she left glyphs…”

That was his thought as well.

“I wonder if the dragon could help,” Laric said.

“It’s probably safe to have the dragon come down here,” Rowan said.

Laric focused, trying to gain a measure of connection to Sashaak. And then, distantly, there was a link. He showed Sashaak, inasmuch as he could, what it was that he was looking at, and tried to call to him. There was a moment of nothing, and then a surge of power.

It didn’t take long before Sashaak came diving toward them. At first the dragon appeared as a black speck, but gradually loomed larger and larger, his shadow spreading across the ground. Rowan sucked in a sharp breath, and even Xavier stiffened. The horses seemed as if they were going to panic, but Xavier did something surprising: He used a spellslip to calm them.

Then Sashaak came to a heavy landing on the ground not far from them. Up close, he was gigantic. He had scaled sides, his eyes blazed with almost an orange light, and his spiked tail swung from side to side, as if readying to attack. His wings tucked in, and he rested on massive, curled forelegs. Everything about Sashaak spoke of power and menace, which was a strange, sharp contrast to what Laric felt from him when he had a mental connection to him.

“Something is here,” Laric said, speaking the words aloud. He knew Sashaak would not, but the others would at least know what Laric was telling Sashaak.

“This was her place,” Sashaak said, his voice a deep rumble in Laric’s mind.

“Can you help me get inside?”

“You must use a key.”

A key. That wasn’t the first time Laric had heard that turn of phrase, and he stepped forward, forming the spellslip of a key—though it might actually be more of a spellcraft form. In doing so, he felt a lingering bit of power sweep out from him. As it did so, Laric recognized that there was an element of energy, and potency, that radiated from Sashaak that almost matched what Laric was doing.

Within it, however, was something else. A tremble. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was that he picked up on, just that there was a vibrancy to it.

Then the boulders outside the cave began to tremble as well.

But the cave wasn’t stable.

Laric could feel it, though he wasn’t sure why he could.

Sashaak startled him by sliding up behind him and jabbing his enormous tail forward, using it like a probe and slamming it into the stone. There was a crumpling of rock, and then debris rained down around Sashaak’s tail, creating an opening inside.

“You will go,” Sashaak said.

Laric hesitated, then glanced at Rowan. “We’re supposed to go inside.” He nodded to Xavier. “You can certainly come with us, unless you need to stay out here with the horses.”

Xavier flicked his gaze from Sashaak to the horses, and then over to Laric. “I should probably stay here.”

“Is it safe for you?” Laric asked, speaking through his connection to Sashaak this time. “I trust him, but I also don’t know if you can trust him.”

“He knew Malinar,” Sashaak said.

“And did you trust him?”

“Malinar did.”

That seemed to be significant for Sashaak.

“All right. We won’t be long,” Laric said.

“I will keep here.”

Laric stepped into the cave. Once inside, he found himself using a fire spellslip to illuminate everything around him. The walls had collapsed, so whatever structure the cave once had was long since gone.

Rowan stayed behind him, keeping close.

“You know, if this all crumbles in, we are going to be crushed,” she said.

“That’s a lovely thought. But if it does start to crumble in, we just get underneath the dragon’s tail, and we should be fine.”

“Assuming the dragon will keep his tail in place.”

“Then we follow the tail out. It’s pretty easy, Rowan.”

She laughed. “I love how you view things as easy, even when they are almost certainly not.”

They reached the main part of the cave, which was a chamber about five feet wide and maybe a dozen or so feet long. It was low enough that Laric had to keep his head ducked down, but there was evidence that somebody had been here. There were no glyphs—not as he had expected, or had hoped. If there had been something here, Laric thought that he would’ve been able to find something that would help him know more about what his grandmother had done.

But there was, however, a small trunk along the wall. It was the only item other than the dust and debris.

He hurried over to it, and Rowan crouched down next to him as he flipped it open.

“What is it?”

Inside was…

“It’s another egg,” he said, looking over to her. “Why would she have placed it here?”

This had to be his grandmother again. But why all the way out here?

“Unless the first one was taken? What is the purpose behind them, anyway?” Rowan said.

“I think the egg is some sort of way to decode the glyphs. But what other glyphs would my grandmother have been trying to decode?”

She shook her head. “You knew her much better than I did.”

Laric stared into the trunk, reached for the egg, and traced his hand along the surface of it. The thing was slightly scaled, unlike the previous one, which had been smooth, unlike the others which had indentations of glyphs on it. It also had an innate warmth to it. In the fading light of his spellslip, he was able to see striations of color along it, a hint of orange and red, making it look almost metallic.

“I thought I knew her, but now I’m not so sure,” he said. “There is far, far too much about her that I never knew.”

“So you have two eggs.”

“And the glyphs that we don’t have any answer to, and…” He sighed heavily. “And I wonder what else my grandmother might have been hiding.”

“Was this what the dragon had seen?” Rowan asked.

Laric shook his head. “This was buried.”

“No. I mean the potential. You said that you saw a burst of potential down on the ground, and you assumed that it was Talia. What if it wasn’t? What if this was what the dragon had actually seen?”

Laric stared at the egg. Finally, he pulled it out of the trunk and held it. As he did, he thought about what he had done with the other one. He thought about that one’s purpose, and power, and benefit. He also wondered if maybe there would be something more that he could do with it.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask⁠—”

Laric didn’t get to finish saying that he was going to have to ask Sashaak once they stepped out.

The ground trembled. The walls around them began to crack, crumbling down even further, and he immediately began to focus on a spellcraft form, trying to use a bit of earth to firm up the walls. Even as he attempted to do so, Laric didn’t know if the spellcraft form was going to be potent enough. He could feel it washing outward, holding up the walls, but they might not have time to make it out.

“Go,” he shouted at Rowan. “Get out of here.”

“Not without you,” she said.

“I cannot hold it,” Sashaak said, breaking into his mind. “You must find your way.”

All around them, the stone continued to crumble.

Chapter Seventeen

Laric focused on the spellcraft form, trying to hold on to what he thought would be necessary in order for him to push upward to keep the structure of the cavern in place. Gradually, as he did, he could feel the power around him starting to settle, but only a little bit. There was enough still lingering here that it made it difficult for him to do all that much. He could feel the power, but so far, he hadn’t been able to do anything with it, and increasingly, he worried that he wasn’t going to be strong enough to withstand the collapse of this space.

Withstanding it was what he needed to do.

“Go,” he urged, pushing Rowan forward.

“I told you that I’m not going without you.”

“I don’t know that I can hold on to this,” he said, the pressure getting to him. “I feel the power of this, but I can’t maintain it the way that I think I need to.”

“Then just hold it around you. Well, and me.”

He wasn’t sure how to do that. He wasn’t sure if he could do that. And more and more, he started to wonder if it was even going to be effective for him. He needed to try something here, didn’t he? Hold on to it in a way that would allow him to control what was happening, and maybe try to trap it. But even if he were to do that, he didn’t know if it would hold.

The spellcraft form was one of stone, of earth, and it was something that Talia had taught him. Strangely, however, it was one that felt fortified by something that Sashaak was giving him. Laric wasn’t entirely sure if the power was going to be enough for him, and he didn’t know if there was going to be a part of it that would be effective here, as he questioned if Talia’s spellcraft form was going to work. But maybe it didn’t even need to—not the way she had done it. Maybe all he really needed was to use the same spellcraft form that he had learned from Sashaak.

And distantly, while he had that connection to Sashaak, he was even better connected to an aspect of it that he had not anticipated.

There was a part of it that bloomed in his mind, gifting him more of the potential that seemed to linger there with him, allowing him to trap some element of that as well.

And he used it.

Everything fell still.

It was black around him. The stone had collapsed, leaving them in darkness.

“I don’t suppose you can use a light spellslip,” he said, looking over to Rowan. “I can’t do more than one at the same time.”

“I can try. Will it make a difference?”

He shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea, but I want to see where we are and what’s around us.”

She nodded. Far too gradually, the light spellslip that she formed began to drive away some of the darkness.

He felt the pressure pushing down on him, and when he looked around, he saw that his spellcraft form had created little more than a dome that had sealed shut around them. Had he not formed it, they would’ve been crushed by the cavern walls.

“Can you dig us out?” she asked.

“I’m still trying to hold on to this one,” he said. “It’s difficult to do.”

“Then can you try to shift how you’re holding it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Try to redirect more of it upward,” Rowan said.

It was a good idea. “Even if I do,” he said, “there’s no guarantee that it’s going to release us. We have to…”

What did they have to do? Wait?

Sashaak was outside, he knew, and in a way, he couldn’t help but feel as if maybe Sashaak could break in and get them free. But Laric was not as bonded to the dragon as Malinar had been, and he didn’t know if Sashaak would care enough to help him.

Without the dragon’s help, what could they do?

Would Xavier come for them?

Xavier might not even know enough spellcraft forms to be able to rescue them. He had trained with Laric’s grandmother, but that wasn’t a guarantee that he understood enough of that power to break through stone.

“I’m scared,” Rowan said. “I don’t want this to be the end.”

“It’s not,” he said.

“I thought we were going to die when Korthal attacked.” She laughed, and in the confined space, with his spellcraft form pressing in on him, he felt as if that laugh was almost too loud. “When we first saw the dragon, I thought… Well, you know what I thought. You were thinking the same thing.”

He couldn’t help but smile at that. “I was actually thinking that it was pretty amazing that we had an opportunity to see a dragon.”

She frowned, tilting her head as she regarded him. “Really?”

He shrugged. “I know, I know, it’s ridiculous, but I had never even thought that I would have a chance to do that. And now…”

“Well, now you are connected to a dragon. So that’s even more impressive, I suppose,” Rowan said.

“It’s only impressive if I can use that power to get us out of here.”

“You have the dragon’s potential, so use it.”

“It’s not so simple as that. I think it’s the dragon’s potential that’s allowing me to hold this.”

He couldn’t imagine the weight of what he was holding upward.

“Do you think Talia triggered this?” Rowan asked.

“I have no idea how she would’ve been able to do anything like that,” he said. “I just don’t see her having that ability. But maybe I’m just too naive.”

“I don’t know if it’s about being too naive,” she said. “I think it’s about whether or not she has any ability to trap us like this.”

“She would have to have known about the egg here. And if she had, she wouldn’t have left it. She was after it all along.”

Rowan nodded. “She really had been. So what, then?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was just that the dragon helped us get inside. Or maybe the protections on this place had faded. Or maybe…”

Laric had so many different maybes without answers that he wasn’t sure what to say about it. Instead, he took a deep breath, let it out, and looked around.

It was dark other than the space where they had created the light. And increasingly, he couldn’t help but feel as if they needed to work their way past that, but he didn’t know what that was going to be like or if there was going to be any way to break free of this. The only thing he knew with any certainty was that this power continued to press down on him, and though he had the link to Sashaak, it was faltering.

“You know, if you had some way of creating one of those portals, we could just create one here,” Rowan said.

“Well, now you’re giving me all these ideas, but it’s too late,” he said.

She chuckled. “Too late, but I still think that the dragon has to be able to help us. It has to know something.”

“I think that it does, but the problem is that I have to have an opportunity to learn it, and when I do that, I also lose track of certain things.” He wasn’t sure how to describe that to her without telling her exactly what it was that happened. “When the dragon gifts me information, it sort of comes in the back of my mind, and it’s more than a little distracting.”

“So you lose something?”

He nodded. “I’m not sure what to make of it, but it seems as if I have to focus on the part that is there and buried.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to do that without losing control of it.

The stone creaked and groaned, and it continued to press down on him. Every time it made that sound, Laric feared that it was going to be too much, that it was going to collapse down on him again.

He couldn’t move.

He didn’t dare to.

But then he began to feel a faint sense in the back of his mind.

It was a surge that came from Sashaak, he was certain of it, but the dragon was not comfortable, somehow. Laric wasn’t sure why, and he didn’t know what it meant, just that he could feel a vague sense of uneasiness from Sashaak.

“I need your help. If there’s anything you can do,” Laric said to him.

“Attack,” Sashaak said.

“You want me to attack the stone?”

“We… are under attack.”

And with that, Laric understood a different reason for the difficulty with drawing on more of that potential.

Talia. Maybe she wasn’t even alone any longer. And if that were the case, how was he going to be able to get free?

He looked over to Rowan. “So it seems as if the dragon and Xavier might be under attack. I’m not positive what Talia is doing, but there is something taking place there.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

He nodded. “Right. I don’t know what’s happening, and I don’t know whether there is anything that we need to be doing differently, but I don’t have access to that same potential.”

“We have to get out there. If they are under attack, we need to help them.”

“I’m well aware,” he said.

“Can you share with me any way of exploding out of here? Or digging out. Or⁠—”

“Fire,” Sashaak said.

“Fire is just going to burn us up,” Laric said.

It was one of the first thoughts that he’d had the moment they had been trapped, as he had started to wonder if there was a way that any of the other spellcraft forms that Sashaak had shown him would be effective. Especially because he knew that they seemed to work best with Sashaak’s natural potential. But none of that seemed to hold for him, and any time he thought about building up a fire, he was concerned that he would end up just baking himself and Rowan.

“Fire,” Sashaak said again.

Laric struggled with the idea, and he tried to figure out if there was going to be a way to get past this. He did not know if there was, but he needed to try, didn’t he?

Fire?

What was that going to take?

Laric didn’t think that he could hold on to fire while also wielding the stone form here. But did he have to?

He looked over to Rowan. “All right,” he said. “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to help with this, but it might be useful. What I’d like for you to do is use an earth-based spellcraft form that Talia showed us⁠—”

“If I try to do that, it’s going to collapse on us,” she said. “I don’t want to be crushed in here.”

“I’m going to do it as well, but I want to see how long you can.”

“How long? I won’t be able to hold this.” She motioned with her hand.

Laric could feel himself growing tired. He possessed only so much natural potential of his own, and there was a very real possibility that it was going to crumble under the weight of the stone anyway.

“I just need to hold it long enough for me to shift to fire,” he said. “I don’t think I can do them both.”

It would be nicer if he could, and maybe with more training, he might be able to.

Rowan looked as if she wanted to argue, but then nodded. The shadows on her face flickered as the light dimmed, until it disappeared altogether. They were cast back in darkness. The stone overhead cracked and groaned, and Laric could feel it bearing down on him, but thankfully, it did not crush them.

“Let me know when you’re in place,” he said.

“I’m just going to bridge us,” she replied.

“All right.”

“And I’m going to try to create something of an archway. It distributes weight, and⁠—”

“I don’t need to hear your technique,” Laric said, his voice growing tighter. “Although I appreciate that. It’s useful to know,” he added, not wanting to upset her.

He could feel something change. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, just that the pressure on him started to ease just a little bit. It was subtle, but it was enough that he could feel the weight beginning to slowly, gradually fade away until it was little more than just a minor pressure.

“All right,” he said, and the cracking of stone around them began again. Rowan’s eyes widened, and Laric hurriedly fortified it. Then he smiled. “It’s okay. I’m going to go quickly. What I’m going to do is blast upward with fire. If this works the way that the dragon says, it’s going to explode upward, and hopefully will free us.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Well, if it doesn’t, then I just made an oven for us.”

She blinked. “Are you serious?”

“Maybe.”

She licked her lips and swallowed. Then she nodded.

He slowly began to ease away, but he realized that was a mistake and hurriedly withdrew, shifting to the most explosive form of fire that Sashaak had shown him, and he lashed upward with it. The moment that it struck the stone, Laric felt the stone beginning to crack, and yet it wasn’t enough.

The rock started pressing down. Rowan cried out. He felt the weight of it starting to push down on him, and he sank to his knees.

Next to him, Rowan did the same thing. He tried to hold his hands up, but he didn’t dare let go of the fire. He needed to explode outward. If he could do so, he could relieve some of the weight on them. He focused on harnessing the fire, and then he concentrated the potential that he could borrow from Sashaak—and from himself—into a tight band of flame. The heat around them began to intensify. Everything within him was growing hotter and hotter, and he didn’t know if he could withstand it.

As the stone started to collapse, compressing them, he felt the heat become overwhelming. And then the stone exploded upward in a torrent.

Debris rained down, but he had hurriedly shifted back to his protective magic and deflected most of it. Cool air drifted down, and then he felt heat bloom again.

At first, he thought that it was something he had done, but he realized that wasn’t the case. This was Sashaak’s heat. And through the connection that he had—and through the connection that had fortified the moment he had broken through—he could see what the dragon was doing.

He was burning those responsible.

And Sashaak roared.

Chapter Eighteen

Laric managed to crawl out of the remains of the cave, immediately feeling the heat that washed over him. Everything within him was on edge, and he wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, except that he had felt some bit of that power that had erupted around him.

Rowan crawled behind him, staying quiet, but he sensed her unease—one that matched his own.

Sashaak continued to roar overhead, and within it, Laric had a vague sense of the power from the dragon, and a vague sense of what he was capable of doing.

He found Xavier curled up on the ground not too far away.

“Xavier?”

The man’s eyes were shut, and he looked to be breathing, but he wasn’t moving. Laric hurried over to him and rested his hands on him, testing whether there was anything that he could detect, but there wasn’t. Xavier was out.

Rowan gave Laric a slight shove.

“I think I can help him, but you’re going to have to let me get in here,” she said.

“Please,” he said.

“I don’t know how well the spellslip is going to work, but it’s one that you showed me.”

“Then maybe I should do it,” he said, smiling.

“No. Let me do this. You have been doing too much already.”

That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? She was concerned about the fact that he had already been wielding some of his potential, and about the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to continue to wield anything more.

And so he stood off to the side. She crouched down and worked on Xavier while Laric continued to look around. Sashaak had taken to the air, and there was a bit of heat and energy that emanated from Sashaak as he circled.

“Something’s not quite right,” Rowan said.

“Is it that he’s not responding?”

“It’s more than that. I don’t know what it is. It feels like… It feels like something isn’t quite right with him.”

Laric turned back to her. “I can try to help, but I don’t know if I have the strength, just like you said.”

He wanted to. More than anything, he felt as if he needed to do whatever he could to help Xavier. Xavier had made it clear that they were going to have his help in getting out here, and if Laric could do nothing, then he… Well, Laric wasn’t sure what it was that he needed to do, but he felt a surge of desire to help him.

Xavier had known Laric’s grandmother. More than anything, that was a thought that lingered within him. Laric had wanted to have a connection to that past, wanted to better understand more so that he could truly come to know what that meant for him and whether there would be any way for him to know his past, and more about himself.

And without having Xavier around, Laric simply didn’t know if there would be a way for him to get those answers.

“What are you chasing?” Laric asked Sashaak.

He saw the dragon circling, but he wasn’t just circling. Laric tried to focus on the connection he shared to Sashaak, hoping it would grant him a better way to make out what was happening.

Sashaak could certainly gift him something, couldn’t he? At this point, that was what Laric needed. He wanted to see what Sashaak could see. The dragon could show him, but he had to be willing to do it.

He focused, straining, trying to make out some element that was there, but it was difficult for him to see much. And the more that he struggled to see, the more that he felt the strange pressure on him that suggested that while he attempted to use the connection, Sashaak seemed to be fighting him.

“Let me help,” Laric said.

Sashaak didn’t respond.

He didn’t know why he felt a surge of frustration at that, but he did. Maybe it was just that he thought Sashaak should be interested in helping him, or willing to allow Laric to know what was going on. Or maybe it was just that he couldn’t help but feel as if he should be doing more. Maybe it was all of that, or none of it.

Still, Sashaak remained quiet.

And through that quiet, Laric caught something, but it was little more than a glimpse. Movement.

It felt faded and faint, as if Sashaak was having a hard time showing him anything. Why would that be the case? Sashaak shouldn’t have any trouble showing him what was happening, should he?

But he did. For whatever reason, the dragon was having difficulty revealing something.

A flare appeared in Laric’s mind.

Not only that, but he saw a shape. It was hazy, but he was certain of what he saw.

Another dragon.

With a startling understanding, he knew what had happened.

“Oh no,” he said, breathing out heavily.

He hurried over to where Rowan was crouched over Xavier. She pulled power through one of the spellslips, and it was, as she claimed, one of the ones he had helped her learn, the same way he had helped others learn it as well. It was a spellslip that was designed to create an aspect of power, and it drew on an element of water, which should create a healing wave. In fact, it was something that Laric had even used on Talia.

That thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. What he wouldn’t give to have that moment back. What he wouldn’t give to take away what he had gifted to Talia. It would’ve made all of this easier, and better.

“I think mages came here on a dragon,” he said.

Rowan’s eyes widened. She finished with her spellslip and then sat back, pulling her hands away from Xavier. He was breathing a bit more easily now, and as she turned Xavier ever so slightly toward Laric, he caught a glimpse of a bruised and bloodied cheek.

“They traveled on a dragon?” she asked.

“Seems that way,” he said. “I’m guessing that my dragon is chasing them.”

“Chasing the mages, or chasing the other dragon?”

“The dragon.”

“So the mages succeeded,” Rowan said. She sounded disappointed, though Laric understood that.

“Seems that way,” he said.

“What do we do, then?”

“We do what we’ve been doing.”

“No,” she said, looking around.

The horses had scattered, but they hadn’t run terribly far. Laric wondered how much of that was because of what Xavier had done to calm them. Some sort of a soothing spellslip, Laric suspected. He had to admit that it was an impressive use of that kind of power. And it was the kind of thing he could see plenty of use for.

“We can’t keep doing what we have been doing. If the mages are coming in response to Talia, then…”

Laric looked over the charred section of ground near them. He was lucky to have survived, but he guessed that it was because they had been pushing up with his own flame at the same time as Sashaak was pushing down with his, and they had combined in some way to do… Well, he wasn’t entirely sure what it was that they combined to do, but it seemed to have worked to burn up the mages.

“These mages aren’t going to be a problem for us any longer,” he said.

“These aren’t, but how many more will be? We don’t know how deep this goes. Talia made it seem like it was just Daelon, but we know that not to be true. So what if this is all the mages?”

“I think she made it quite clear that it was more than just Daelon, and that all mages want to gain control over the dragons,” he said.

Rowan nodded. “Right. All mages want to gain control over the dragons.”

Xavier groaned before they had a chance to work through what that might mean for them. Rowan reached for him, and again she attempted to form a spellslip, but this one didn’t feel nearly as potent. Laric didn’t know if he was feeling it correctly, though.

“Xavier?”

“How?” He breathed out. “There were three of them. They shouldn’t have been able to get here.”

“Dragon,” Laric said. “But I thought you would’ve seen that.”

“Saw. How am I still here?”

“Seems like the dragon got mad.”

“They were calming it,” Xavier said, sitting up. His eyes were wide, and a little wild. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. When you talked about them having some control over such things, I hadn’t expected it. I think if they had more mages with them, they might have been able to overpower the dragon. I tried to disrupt whatever it was they were doing, but I didn’t know enough.”

“Maybe had I not been drawing on the dragon’s potential, it wouldn’t have been a problem,” Laric said.

Sashaak had known. He had warned Laric.

“There was another artifact inside the cavern,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s my grandmother’s, but I assume it was. Probably some way to interpret the glyphs that she left behind.”

Xavier let out a heavy sigh. “Well, that’s valuable. I wonder how many other places like that she left.”

“You think she left others?” Rowan asked.

Xavier shrugged. “Don’t know. Seems like a logical thought, though. All we know about her was that she had been traveling to and from Korthal and dealing with some of these different relics, right? So if she had been dealing with relics, then maybe she decided that she needed to ensure that they were secured. But this means that she was trying to hide them from me.”

“Actually, I think she was securing them for something else,” Laric said.

He felt another surge from Sashaak. That was unusual, and more than a little unexpected. He had not anticipated that the dragon would still try to reach him, but that was the way it felt to him now. Sashaak was attempting to speak, or if nothing else, trying to share something with him. He couldn’t tell what it was. All he knew with any real certainty was that he felt some element of Sashaak, and he felt the way the dragon was there in his mind, almost as if he were waiting on Laric.

“I think she wanted me to understand the glyphs.”

Xavier got to his feet, wincing. “I broke my leg,” he muttered.

“You might have,” Rowan said. She stood, dusting her hands on her pants. “I don’t have much control over that spellslip, so from what I understand, it sort of heals everything that gets in its way. If you had a broken leg, then it would’ve gotten in its way.”

Xavier whistled. “Well, is that an impressive use of magic. Never seen a mage do that.”

Rowan flushed, apparently pleased by the compliment.

Xavier turned to Laric. “So she wanted you to understand the glyphs? But was she teaching you how to read the glyphs?”

“Well, no,” Laric said.

“Maybe it wasn’t for you.”

That hit Laric like a slap. Rowan looked over, and she seemed to recognize how much that comment hurt him.

“She wanted you to know what she knew,” Rowan said, her voice soft. “She was working with you. She was training you. She just didn’t have an opportunity to show you enough. Maybe these eggs were her way of storing knowledge so that she could one day leave it for you.”

Laric just nodded. Maybe that was all it was.

Or perhaps there was something else.

“Did she tell you anything?” he asked Xavier.

“We talked more business,” Xavier said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. We talked about some of the different spellslips she was teaching. And I suppose we talked about our past. She told me that things were difficult before she came out to the farm. She liked her life out there. She said it was nice. Peaceful, even.” He shrugged. “Not sure about that, though. Especially not sure about the peaceful part. She was running to Korthal too often for it to be peaceful, at least in my mind. I think it was just relatively peaceful.”

“Maybe she was involved in the war,” Rowan said.

Xavier had started walking away, wobbling as he went, which forced Rowan to catch up to him.

“Why don’t you sit down?” she said.

“Need to get the horses,” Xavier said. “Doubt they will respond well to you. So we can keep talking about it, but I’m going to get the horses.”

She looked as if she wanted to yell at him, but instead she just shook her head. “Let me help, then.”

She kept her arm around his waist, and though he staggered a little bit, she managed to keep him steadier. Laric hurried after them and slipped his arm around Xavier’s waist too, balancing him in between the two of them.

“So,” Laric said, “if my grandmother was still involved in the war, then maybe there was some reason she was trapping that knowledge here. Maybe she needed to do it so that she could protect it because of the war.”

Xavier nodded slowly. “Maybe. Could be.” He stumbled, and Laric and Rowan both had to catch him under his arms, causing him to grunt. “Well, don’t know how much use I’m going to be if the mages come back.”

“They aren’t coming back,” Laric said.

Xavier arched a brow. “No? There were three here. Three. All the way out here. And I realize that they traveled by dragon, but how many more do you think they were able to suppress?”

Laric didn’t have a good answer to that. He wasn’t sure that there was a good answer to that really.

“I don’t know. We will deal with it, though.”

“Right,” Xavier said. “We.”

“We can get you back to town, and you can just relax.”

“I’m not leaving you both to deal with all of this on your own.”

Rowan looked over at Xavier, then locked eyes with Laric for just a moment. Laric understood. Xavier was far too weak to be able to do much.

“How about we get back to the city,” Laric said, “and then we can see if there are any other places like this. Once the dragon is done chasing whatever he’s chasing, then we can see if there is anything that the dragon can show us about other places of potential.”

Rowan frowned deeply. “Are you sure?”

“Not particularly, but at this point, I think we need to. It’s likely that there is something else, and if that’s the case, then maybe there are other eggs, or other places where my grandmother stashed things.”

If that was true, then maybe he could get more answers.

That was the thought that lingered within him, and it was hard for him to consider any alternative. Hard for him to know what to do about his grandmother, and what to do about how little he knew about her. The only thing that Laric thought he could do was to keep chasing those answers, to try to find some way to learn more about her and what she had done before coming to the town out on the outskirts of nothingness.

As they gathered the horses together, he had those thoughts working through him, those thoughts and no others.

They helped Xavier into the saddle and had to configure a way of binding him in place.

“I thought my healing would’ve been able to help him more than that,” Rowan said to Laric.

“You probably did. He was probably much worse off than we realized. Talia made it seem like healing with that magic can be dangerous, and a little bit tenuous, even. Maybe it drains some part of him through the healing process.”

Xavier’s head sagged down on the horse’s neck.

“I’ll hold his reins,” Rowan said. “Better me than you. I don’t want you to yank them too hard and send him toppling off. I don’t know that I could help him again.”

Laric wanted to argue, but she wasn’t wrong.

“Let’s just get back,” he said, looking up to see if Sashaak was still up there. Laric felt a vague, distant sense of Sashaak, but not enough that he thought he could tell if Sashaak remained connected to him quite as much as before. That sensation lingered, but nothing more than that.

“I can help once we do,” she said.

“I would appreciate it.”

“The others might want to as well.”

Laric sighed. “I wanted to keep them safe. All of them. And you.”

“By preventing them from doing anything?” Rowan asked.

“I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think we were going to have to fight mages.”

“Well, if we side with Korthal, that might be what we have to do.”

He frowned as he climbed into the saddle, gathering himself. Was that what they had done? He hadn’t even considered that, but perhaps Rowan was right. Maybe they had sided with Korthal.

But if that was the case, then they might already be on the losing side.

Chapter Nineteen

By the time they reached the outskirts of town, Xavier had started to come around. He was moving a little slowly, and there was a quietness to him that left Laric a bit concerned. How injured had he actually been?

Laric knew that they had to be careful with him, and they had to be careful explaining to others what had happened to Xavier because that injury was going to raise questions about what they had been off doing. People had probably seen them leaving town.

“Where should we get him help?” Rowan asked.

“No help,” Xavier said, stirring long enough to sit upright in the saddle. “I’m well enough. I can feel myself getting better. I’m just… exhausted.”

Rowan shared a look with Laric. “Maybe that’s the effect of the healing? I honestly don’t know. I know that it takes something from the person, but I thought it was supposed to take something from me, not from him.”

It was one more thing that Laric wished he would’ve had an opportunity to ask Talia about, one more thing that would’ve been helpful for them to know more about when it came to power—what it meant and how to use it effectively. But even though Talia might have been teaching them about magic, Laric increasingly couldn’t help but feel as if she had been doling out information in such a way that would prevent them from learning as much as they wanted and needed to.

“I’m not sure either,” Laric said. “But if he wants us to take him home, then we can just take him home.”

“What about the horses?” Rowan asked.

“I have my stable,” Xavier said, attempting to punctuate each word with an emphasis but only managing to slur them, making it sound as if he had been in a tavern drinking too much ale.

Laric just shrugged, and between the two of them, they guided Xavier into town until they finally reached his home. Laric hadn’t spent any time here. It was one of the many homes that had suffered no damage during the dragon attack, which now left Laric wondering if perhaps Xavier owning the place had somehow influenced the dragon, even though the dragon had, in turn, been influenced by mages. It was possible that the dragon had still tried to fight and resist being used, but then again, it had only attacked the outskirts of town in the first place. There had been no attempt to destroy the main part of the city.

“Open the gate,” Xavier said. “I’m having a hard time getting my feet out of the straps.”

Laric scrambled down from the horse, thankful to be off its back. He thought about Malinar flying atop Sashaak, those images of the two of them traveling together that had come to him from Sashaak. Would that be how he would feel climbing off Sashaak as well?

And yet, the idea that he could fly on the dragon’s back seemed…

Well, it seemed impossible.

The only thing that Laric had been able to do with Sashaak so far had been to see through his eyes, and not to actually fly. He didn’t even have the sense that Sashaak wanted him to fly with him. In fact, the only sense that Laric really had was that Sashaak was aware of him and would gift him potential, but that was about it.

And now, in the time that they’d been back in town, he had a vague feeling from Sashaak, but nothing quite as clear as he had before. Maybe Sashaak had been off chasing the other dragon, hoping to try to save it?

Laric shook those thoughts away, reaching the gate in front of Xavier’s home and finding that it was not just locked, but there was power over it.

He glanced back at Xavier. “I need your key.”

“Oh,” Xavier muttered, and then he shook himself, managing to sit upright and then looking toward the side of his horse for just a moment. “I think I’m going to have to climb down and help. I don’t have a traditional sort of key.”

“Try your grandmother’s,” Rowan said to Laric.

“He wouldn’t know how to lock it the same way, would he?”

“Just try it,” she said.

Laric shrugged, then attempted to use his grandmother’s key, and surprisingly—though maybe not surprisingly—the lock popped open.

Maybe his grandmother had shown him some sort of universal key that would open any lock that was magically closed.

“See?” Xavier said. “You can do it.”

Laric locked eyes with Rowan again before shaking his head. “He really needs help.”

“I need sleep,” Xavier said. “And then we can talk.”

“What is there to talk about?” Laric asked. “Because right now, the only thing I think you need to do is get some rest, and then we need to…”

Laric wasn’t exactly sure what it was that they needed to do, but increasingly, he couldn’t help but feel as if maybe they should follow the other dragon, hunt down the mages, and find where they might be hiding. Why shouldn’t they?

He certainly didn’t want to wait for the mages to reach them, and he wasn’t sure how long he had before Talia, or some other mage, managed to surprise them. If that happened, what would—and could—he even do?

He let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. There were no answers to that. No answers to anything other than what he had been doing, and what he needed to keep doing.

Xavier’s home was expansive, much more so than Laric would’ve expected. The building was made of stone, and unsurprisingly, Laric saw a series of glyphs marked on the stone that he had never seen before. As he stared at them, he wondered if perhaps he should recognize them.

Rowan guided the horses forward, with Xavier still seated atop his, until they were just on the other side of the wall. She climbed down and closed the gate behind them.

“How many of these glyphs are there at my grandmother’s place?” Laric asked.

“They don’t do anything,” Xavier said, shaking his head. “I thought they did, and I tried to make them work, but I can’t get them to function.” He managed to sit upright well enough, and long enough, that he could look at them. “Oh. There they are. Maybe you can help.”

“I don’t think I can do anything with glyphs,” Laric said. “I’m trying to see if there’s anything I can do with them, but right now…”

“Let’s get inside,” Rowan said, and then she nodded at Xavier. “I don’t think he’s thinking particularly clearly.”

She and Laric both helped Xavier down from the horse, and he managed to stand steady enough that Laric didn’t have to support him. Laric motioned to Rowan to take Xavier to the house while he led the horses to the stable.

“Just be careful in there,” Xavier called back to him. “It’s dark. And… I suppose I should tell you this—I did store a few things of your grandmother’s there.”

“In your stable?” Laric asked.

How could that be safe? His grandmother had been bringing items from Korthal, and all of those would be dangerous for somebody like Xavier to keep.

“There is something there that helps,” he said. “Once you see it, you’ll know.”

Laric frowned, then arched a brow at Rowan. “Get him settled, and then come and join me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

She guided Xavier toward his home, and the merchant kept muttering to himself, though Laric stopped listening once they got too far. Instead, he brought the horses around the side of the house, where he found the stable, which was really more of a small barn. The door was closed and locked. Laric approached it, and he used his spellslip to unlock it. That magic seemed to truly be a universal key. The moment he slid the door open, the smell of hay, horse manure, and oats drifted out to him. It was unpleasant, but not terribly so.

He brought the horses inside and found a stall for each of them. There were two other horses in here that had been left behind. It surprised him that Xavier would have these here in the heart of the city, but he was also surprised by how much wealth Xavier obviously possessed. Maybe it shouldn’t because Laric had seen that he was quite well-to-do, and his trade with Korthal would have made it easier for him to earn more than almost anybody else.

Laric worked quickly to remove the saddles, and when he was done, he paused and looked around. Xavier had said something about keeping some of his grandmother’s things here and how Laric would recognize something.

What would there be?

Most of the barn was newer, with wooden walls and wooden stalls and a stone floor, but the back of it was older, its stone a faded gray. There was also a little dampness to it, reminding him of some of the older buildings inside town. As he approached that area, he found the darkness to be overwhelming, and he formed a light spellslip that pushed back the shadows. The light rippled along the walls, and it seemed as if it became caught in specific indentations.

Not indentations. Glyphs. Old glyphs.

This place in the barn had been tied to his grandmother. It had to be.

Laric approached it, a growing trepidation rising within him, as he didn’t really know what he was going to find here. He was increasingly concerned about whether he was misreading this, or if what he saw was real. But as he looked down at it, he saw a series of glyphs. The markings reminded him of what he had seen in the cavern where they had first met Sashaak, as well as of his grandmother’s place beneath the shed.

That couldn’t be coincidence, he knew.

“Laric?”

He glanced back and saw Rowan as she came into the barn.

“Back here.”

She joined him. “As soon as I set him down on his bed, he was asleep. He was tired, just like he said.”

“Probably good that he’s getting some rest, then,” Laric said. “But look at this.” He waved his hand toward the markings. “Does it remind you of anything?”

“Your grandmother’s place.”

He nodded. “That was sort of what I was thinking.”

“So is it the same?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe it is. Regardless, it’s strange. He said that he had brought things that belonged to my grandmother here.”

“Do you see anything like that? I’m assuming we’re talking about the relics like we found in the cave and beneath the shed, and⁠—”

“Like the egg,” he said.

Rowan’s brow furrowed. “Do you think that would be the same?”

“I have no idea. Maybe?” He gave a small shrug. “The egg’s not open, though, and I don’t know how to make it work. The markings on it are different.”

“So we need to see if there’s some sort of a key,” Rowan said, looking over and smiling at him.

“Right,” he said, and then he laughed. “Some sort of a key. I don’t know that my grandmother’s universal key is going to work here.”

“There’s only one way to know for sure, Laric.”

He stared at the markings, tracing his hand around them for just a moment, and as he did, he tested them, curious if he could pick up on anything. So far, there was nothing. No sense of energy. No sense of power within it.

He focused on the key, however. If that was going to be the way he would uncover something, then he needed to try to draw on that spellslip’s power. He focused and used what his grandmother had given him.

And waited.

Nothing happened. Nothing changed.

He glanced over to Rowan. “It doesn’t look like it’s doing anything.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe my mistake.”

“It’s not really a mistake. It’s more about understanding what she had here, right? These glyphs are the key, but right now I’m not particularly sure I can identify it. I feel something, though.” He shook his head. “And I realize how that sounds.”

“It sounds the way it has sounded from the very beginning. Unfortunately, we don’t know.”

It would be so much easier if they did. So much easier if they could just keep on working how they had been, and perhaps find answers.

“I’m a little worried,” Laric admitted, looking over to Rowan. “We had three mages attack us. We had Talia attack us. I don’t know how many others are out there, and I don’t know what we are going to be able to do if she continues to attack. I don’t know how to stay ahead of her.”

Rowan was quiet for a few moments. “I don’t either,” she said. “But I don’t know that we have to know.” She turned to him and looked him in the eye. “All of this that’s been happening, everything that we have encountered, is beyond us. But we don’t have to do it by ourselves.”

“The problem is that if we stay⁠—”

“Can we leave, though?”

The strength of her question and the way she said it made him doubt. Could they leave?

“I know you have to be considering what it might be like to go,” she said. “You’re starting to wonder if you can remain, and if there is going to be any way that you can protect your sister, Malcolm, me… and maybe even Xavier. But even if you go—and I don’t know where you would go—do you think that changes anything? Talia has shown a willingness to be involved in an attack on our town already. Daelon was with her. We know that. If she decides to take that same approach and turn it against us, you leaving isn’t going to make a difference. It can’t.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just feel like maybe I need to see something else. I need to try to understand what my grandmother was doing. I need to try to make sense of all of this. But I don’t know how.”

“There’s something you haven’t considered, Laric.”

“Which is?”

“Talking to the dragon.”

He started to smile, but Rowan shook her head.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “I know how it sounds. I know it seems a little ridiculous, but think about it. You haven’t considered talking to the dragon.”

“I don’t know that talking to the dragon is going to make that much of a difference.”

“You don’t know until you try.”

“It’s not safe to do too close to town,” Laric said.

“Go out to your grandmother’s place. I could come with you, or you can do this by yourself. It’s going to be safe enough out there, right? Or maybe go to the cave in the mountains, but that will probably take too long to get there.” She looked over her shoulder at the horses that were stabled. “Unless you decide to take one of Xavier’s horses with you, and then maybe it won’t take quite so long.”

“No,” he said, “maybe you’re right. Maybe I do need to go out to the shed and see what she has out there. I need an answer.”

“You really do. And there’s one more thing that you haven’t fully considered, but I think you need to.”

“And that is?” he asked.

“That is that you, and we, have a weapon they don’t.”

He grinned. “The dragon.”

Rowan nodded. “Exactly. They have to use spellcraft forms to try to force the dragon to do their bidding, right? But whatever connection you have to the dragon doesn’t involve that. Not that we know about.”

And as Laric thought about it, he knew that she was probably right.

“Maybe I’ll go in the morning,” he said. “I need some sleep. Actually, I’d like to clean up. Then sleep.”

“Yeah,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You do have a bit of a stink to you.”

“You don’t smell like flowers yourself.”

Rowan crossed her arms. “Well, we were almost incinerated by a dragon, almost crushed under the weight of a cave, and we’re standing in the middle of a barn. So I think I deserve a pass.”

He laughed. But even as he did, he couldn’t shake the troubled thought that lingered.

This wasn’t over. They still had to deal with the mages. They would still have to find some way to make sure they were safe, assuming that he decided to stay. And at this point, he simply was not sure that was wise to do. A part of him wondered if he needed to learn more about Korthal and about the war with the mages, because what he had known was clearly not the truth.

But first, as he’d told Rowan, he needed sleep.

Chapter Twenty

Laric felt better rested in the morning. He slept in, and by the time he got up, his sister was already gone—off to school, from what he had learned from Malcolm’s father.

“I think that I will be taking a trip north later today, or tomorrow,” Malcolm’s father said as Laric ate breakfast. “Malcolm has decided to offer his protection. I am quite pleased that he has done so. It is long past time that he take more of an interest in the workings of the caravan.”

Laric smiled tightly, rubbed some sleep out of his eyes, and just nodded. “That’s great. I know that he has been looking forward to working with you.”

“Well, yes. I think he was somewhat hopeful that perhaps you might come along.”

Laric shook his head. “There are still some dangers here that I’m trying to work out.”

“I hope no dragons,” Mr. Essan said, and then he laughed a little.

Laric didn’t say anything. What could he say, after all?

Instead, he thanked him for the food, then headed out. The day was bright and warm, and he felt much better. He had an awareness of Sashaak, though he wasn’t quite sure where to find him. The sense of Sashaak lingered somewhere distant, but not so distant as to be difficult for him to feel, and it left him thinking that maybe the dragon had decided to stay closer.

He kept coming back to the idea of flying on Sashaak. He imagined what it would be like, if he could even tolerate it. He had to question if he would have the strength, stamina, and the ability to stay on the massive creature.

He set off, making steady time. As he passed the quarry, he found his gaze drifting over toward it, curiosity leading him to look at it and wonder about why his grandmother had always seemed to have a special place for the quarry. He didn’t know what it was about it, but she had always been drawn to it. It was, however, where they had found the first egg. Maybe she had left it there to try to hide it, or to protect it. Either way, it had been useful to her.

As he got closer to the shed, he slowed. It had been damaged during Talia’s escape. An unsettling feeling overcame him as he neared it, partly because he felt the strange energy within it, but also because there was some part of him that seemed as if it were reacting to it. As he had been walking, Laric had been focusing on some of the spellslips and spellcraft forms that he had learned from his grandmother, but also some of the different patterns he had learned from Sashaak.

Those techniques were ones that he needed to know. And yet, they seemed to linger within him in a different way. It was almost as if some part of him rebelled against it, or at least rebelled against the idea of it.

He wondered if Sashaak could send something to him, a way of reaching that power, and maybe even to understand why he was out here, but vaguely, he didn’t have the sense from Sashaak that he needed to do so.

By the time he reached the damaged remains of the shed, he felt at ease.

Until a bit of pressure began to form in his ears.

Laric had felt that far too often lately. Often enough that he thought he knew the source of it. Either one of his friends had followed him—and he didn’t think so, because he would’ve noticed them—or there was a mage here.

After quickly forming a detection spellcraft form, Laric swept it in a sharp arc away from him but came up with nothing. He didn’t feel anything, and he didn’t detect anything whatsoever. Just an emptiness.

It didn’t change the potential that began to build, swelling deep inside him, as if it were just waiting for an opportunity to explode outward. Why would that be there now?

He approached the shed more cautiously.

“If you’re there, I could certainly use your help,” he said to Sashaak. “I don’t know what’s out here, and I don’t know if it’s anything to be worried about, but I would appreciate you joining me. And I have some questions for you, anyway.”

He didn’t feel anything except that Sashaak seemed distant. Laric continued to focus, stretching outward to try to reach for the dragon, but the sense of Sashaak remained vague.

Laric picked his way over the pile of debris. It was easy enough to find his way down into the ruins of the shed now that the opening had been blasted free, and so he climbed down into the lower level, toward the main part of the cavern. At one point, this had been a place where he had thought that maybe he could learn some secret of his grandmother, and while he still felt that way, he no longer believed that this was the only secret she had left behind for him.

The pressure that he’d been feeling persisted, though.

Why?

He stepped into the chamber, sweeping his gaze around while searching for anything that might’ve been here. Maybe Talia, or some of the other mages who had been moving through here, had returned. He didn’t know if he would even be able to detect it if they did, and doubted that his ability to use detection spellcraft forms would even come up with an answer, but he felt as if he needed to at least try.

But then he noticed something amiss.

The glyphs on the portal were arranged strangely.

How was that possible?

The glyphs should not have changed. Unless…

Sashaak certainly could absorb glyphs and place them somewhere else, as Laric had seen. If that was the case, then the real question was why Sashaak would’ve chosen to do that here, and why he had chosen to do that now.

“Sashaak,” Laric said.

It felt a little ridiculous to be speaking aloud, especially with the chamber empty like this, and trying to communicate with a dragon that wasn’t here. But he was talking instead to the portal, hoping that something might allow him to gain access to it to reach Sashaak, and perhaps Sashaak might be able to trigger an opening so that he could come through. Laric had no real idea whether that was even possible, and at this point, if it was, he didn’t even know if it would open the way he wanted it to. But he was still willing to try.

“Sashaak,” he said again.

This time, he also tried something else. He felt the potential within himself and began to pull on it. It reminded him of what he did when he was trying to use a spellcraft form or a spellslip, except rather than either of those, Laric simply held on to that power inside himself.

There was no response.

But the glyphs started to move.

Then the portal came open with an odd sort of swirling, shimmering energy.

There wasn’t time for Laric to understand what was making its way through the portal. He feared for the worst but knew that he had to be ready for whatever might try to climb through the opening—and be ready to stop it.

Pressure began to build within him.

That much, at least, was familiar to Laric. He had felt that pressure before and had come to know that strange energy as it had worked through him—all because of Sashaak. That was the same sense that he was picking up on now, only it wasn’t his dragon.

That worried him.

Laric began to back away. He knew what was coming.

As the dragon squeezed through the portal, reminding him all too much of how his dragon had done so in the past, Laric didn’t know if he should be concerned or not. Part of him hoped that maybe he would be able to somehow use this dragon. There would be potential within the creature, but he knew that feeling the potential and having the ability to reach—and use—that potential were different matters. He wasn’t sure he would be capable of drawing on the potential of a different dragon.

Why not, though?

Hadn’t he drawn on the potential from a dragon before? Could he do the same with this dragon—and this potential?

He reached out for it, recognizing what he did with the dragon and beginning to fill with additional potential, fortifying the smoky haze building around him.

The dragon roared.

Pain surged through Laric, and he cried out.

Then the dragon slithered past him. The thing continued to swell and grow, power expanding and filling the entirety of the dragon, and an enormous amount of potential spilled out from the dragon. Laric could scarcely keep track of that, and he didn’t know if there was anything that he should try, other than to fight.

The dragon ignored him altogether.

Laric glanced toward the portal. The doorway looked different than it had before. The glyphs had taken on different shapes and positions, which suggested to him that it had opened to a different place.

How was that possible? What had the mages learned to do?

“You don’t have to fight,” a voice said, curling through the haze.

The smoke in the air lingered, and he worried about it. He didn’t have control over it the way he had at first. It felt as if something—and someone, he suspected—had ripped that control free from him, making it so that he no longer had power over it.

“You do not have to fight us.”

Laric backed toward the portal, and he wondered if there would be any way he could activate it.

“We can help you.” A note of something like urgency was evident in the voice.

Somebody strode forward. They were shrouded in the smoky haze, making it difficult for Laric to see much of anything. He tried to stare through it while focusing on the potential, thinking about different spellcraft forms and different spellslips that might be useful here.

Nothing came to mind that would work.

The man was tall, and about Laric’s height, and had a slight build. His eyes were deep, intense, and every so often it seemed as if there was a bit of fire that flashed in them. Those eyes terrified him.

“You have some potential,” the man said.

“You aren’t going to hold me here,” Laric spat.

The man flicked his gaze around the chamber. “Hold you? Where were you going to go?”

“Through the portal.”

The man snorted. Laric was aware of others who were with him, but they didn’t come forward. They were still shrouded in the smoke he had generated.

“How did you learn to do all this?” The man gestured to the haze around him.

Laric felt the portal behind him. He was hesitant, yet he couldn’t help but feel as if he needed to try to open it. At least staying close to it would give him an opportunity to open it if it came down to it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Well, it matters a little,” the man said. He shuffled slightly farther forward. “I’m just looking to see where you learned this. A bit different than a mage trick.”

“A mage trick?”

The man shrugged. “It takes control. It takes an understanding of the link. And it takes an understanding of drawing on that potential. So I’m asking you where you learned it.”

The tone of the question was different than Laric had expected. He had thought that this man was with the mages, and that he had captured the dragon. Hadn’t he?

Now Laric was not nearly as certain.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Well, that’s a very different sort of question now, isn’t it? You’re here in my space, and⁠—”

“It’s not your space,” Laric said.

The man arched one brow. It made him look almost playful, rather than dangerous. “Yours?”

“It was my grandmother’s, but it’s mine now. And you’re not taking it.”

He felt that strongly and deep inside himself, though Laric wasn’t entirely sure why he felt so passionately about it. Even though it was his grandmother’s space, she had abandoned it, leaving it to him. But it was the only thing he had left of her, and the only way that he thought he would be able to remember her.

Sashaak had already taken away the glyphs that had been here. But then, considering what Sashaak had claimed, maybe the glyphs did not belong to his grandmother—or Laric—anyway.

“It keeps getting more and more interesting.” The man swept his gaze around the chamber. “I imagine there was more here at one time?”

Laric said nothing.

“Where did it go?” Now the man’s tone had a real hardness to it.

“Where did what go?” Laric asked.

The man chuckled softly. “A little steel to your spine. That is useful, especially if you can learn to use it. I’m going to ask you one more time. Where did it go?”

“I didn’t damage anything here. I wouldn’t. This was my grandmother’s place, and I wouldn’t do anything to harm her memory.”

The man did… something. Laric wasn’t quite sure what it was, only that he began to feel something tugging inside him. It was almost as if he was tugging on Laric’s potential in some way. When he did, there was a strange, fluttering surge of power that coursed through him, a reaction to what the man was doing.

Then he felt the ground flow with a bit of heat. It was an unusual use of fire, as it wasn’t necessarily a weapon so much as it was merely a way of trying to spread heat down on the ground. To influence. From there, Laric could make out some of that influence and the way it was spreading, and he could make out just what this was intended to do.

He wondered if he could influence it, feeling that power as it flowed.

Gradually, a series of golden, glowing glyphs began to form all over the floor. It was as if someone had traced what had been there before. Laric knew with a startling certainty that these were similar to, if not the same as, the glyphs that had been here in the past.

“The memory exists,” the man said, but he wasn’t saying it to Laric. “They haven’t destroyed that.”

“I told you, I wasn’t going to destroy anything.”

“Only remove them. Why?” The man approached Laric, and now there was a real edge to him. Laric took an involuntary step back, alarmed by the speed with which the man came at him. “Like I said, a little steel in your spine. But useless.”

“What are you doing here?” Laric asked.

“I am trying to figure out why someone would have destroyed Imelda’s glyphs.”

Everything within Laric went cold. The man knew his grandmother.

“How do you know her name?”

The man had turned away from Laric, almost as if dismissing him. He had his back to Laric, yet even so, Laric had the distinct sense that the man was paying attention to him, and fully aware of the power that was coming. Laric recognized that energy, and he didn’t know if there was any way he could get closer to the man, or better yet, any way that he would want to. It felt to him as if it might be simply too dangerous to do, as he had no idea whether this man would pose a challenge for him.

But what he wanted, more than anything, was a better understanding of what the man was doing. These glyphs had returned, though they were faded. A memory, much like the man claimed. He knew Laric’s grandmother’s name.

This wasn’t a mage.

Finally, the man looked back at him. “You didn’t leave. I thought you were going to try to step through the portal, and I was looking forward to your surprise when you saw that it wasn’t where you thought it would be.”

“Where would it take me?” Laric asked.

“Far from here,” the man said, a hint of a smile curling his lips.

“Who are you?”

The man frowned at him, then he turned and swept his hand out in front of him, allowing those glyphs to flutter. He seemed to concentrate on them, trying to make sense of just what it was that he saw there, before turning back to Laric.

“Why, I’m Imelda’s son.”

Laric blinked. Everything seemed to be a little too much for him at the moment. “Which means that I’m your nephew?”

Chapter Twenty-One

After having gone as long as Laric had without knowing much about his grandmother, the idea that someone would appear who could share with him the truth of her was surprisingly strange—and disconcerting. Not only that, but Laric had a peculiar feeling from this man. He couldn’t quite describe it.

“You don’t say,” the man said. He watched Laric, a hint of either irritation or amusement lingering in his eyes—it was difficult for Laric to tell which. “How am I supposed to know if you’re telling me the truth? You have a bit of talent, but it’s raw. I was not expecting to find anything like that here. Truth be told, I was not expecting to find anything like that anywhere near these lands.”

“You said you were related to Imelda,” Laric said.

The man left the smoke swirling thickly. At this point, it became clear to Laric that it was the man who was responsible for the continued smoke, not him. As far as he could tell, he wasn’t holding any of the potential any longer.

“That is what I said,” the man said.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Laric asked.

He raised a brow in amusement. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You’re in my space.”

“From what you’re telling me. And I’m trying to ascertain if you are responsible for what happened here. There is a missing element, and unfortunately, I do not know if what you’ve done has taken from what should still be here.”

The fact that the man was able to detect that something was missing intrigued Laric. That and the fact that not only did he know things about glyphs, but it seemed as if he knew things about Laric’s grandmother. He needed to understand her and where she came from, so he tried a different approach.

“Are you connected to the dragon?” Laric asked.

This brought a smile to the man’s lips. “Did you think that I would just travel with a dragon I was not connected to?”

“Why can I feel a connection to the dragon?”

The man’s eyes widened. “How do you feel a connection? What is it?”

Laric didn’t know how much he wanted to admit, but there was definitely something to what he was doing that he could feel. That had to matter in some way.

“I can feel… potential.”

That was the truth, but he didn’t quite know how it was that he was able to pick up on anything. Not when it came to this kind of power. There was simply a sense of energy that seemed to come from his connection to Sashaak that he was able to pick up on. That seemed to linger within him, making it much more obvious about what it was that was starting to build inside him and around him.

The room fell quiet.

“What’s your name?” the man finally said.

Laric let out a relieved sigh. It seemed as if he was making some headway, though at this point, he wasn’t sure if that was true or not.

“Laric Mason.”

The man regarded him for a long moment. “Mason.”

Laric nodded.

With every passing second, he had increased hope that maybe the man would know something about him and might even be able to help him learn more about who he was and where he had come from. Wasn’t that what he wanted, after all? Laric couldn’t help but feel as if that was not only what he wanted, but what he needed.

“And you claim that she is family?”

Laric nodded. “My grandmother.”

“How old are you?”

Laric debated how much he wanted to share, but he thought that doing so might provide him with more information, and maybe even enough to help him get the answers that he wanted.

“I’m sixteen.”

The man frowned. “Sixteen. And how long have you known about your potential?”

“Not long,” Laric admitted.

“Why not?”

“Well, I suppose just because I didn’t know that I had any sort of potential,” Laric said. “It’s not as if I have been running around using a connection to the dragons.”

The man snorted. “There’s the steel that I keep talking about.”

“And I’ve been telling you that I don’t care about it.”

“It doesn’t matter what you care about. All that matters is what is. And you have it. At least, you’re showing evidence of it. Whether or not you will continue to have it is another matter altogether.” His smile curled even more. “My name is Dizarn Oran.”

He hesitated, and it seemed to Laric that he did so with a particular purpose. Almost as if he half expected Laric to recognize his name, which he didn’t.

When Laric didn’t say anything, the man just grunted. “I suppose it is too much to expect that you would have known that name. It might’ve been easier if you did.”

He glanced behind him, and the figures who had come with him moved closer.

“These are my children,” Dizarn said.

One of the figures stepped forward, a boy who was about five years or so older than Laric. He had shaggy brown hair hidden beneath the hood of his cloak, and the eyes that stared out at Laric had the same reflective glow that he had seen from Dizarn.

“This is Malik. And this is my daughter, Janear.”

Janear had to be the same age as Laric. She was petite, but when she looked at Laric, there was a hatred in her eyes as she glowered at him.

“We came because there was a call,” Dizarn said. “And I thought that it was…” He shook his head. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter what I thought it was. When I got here, I sensed the familiarity of this place. I knew it, because I knew her dragon.”

“You did?” Laric asked.

“I knew her dragon, and I knew the sense of her dragon. I can still feel it now.”

There was a hard edge to his stare as he watched Laric. Was he telling the truth?

“Where did it go?” Dizarn asked. “You obviously know what I’m talking about. I can see it in your eyes. You’re looking around as if you are trying to make it seem as if you’re not familiar with it, but the expression on your face, that lingering look is one that tells me you know it. So do tell.”

“The glyphs are gone,” Laric said.

“I can see that,” Dizarn said. “But there the memory remains.” He flicked his fingers, and there was another surge of magic.

It was mostly fire, Laric could tell, but not entirely. There was an element to it that he couldn’t quite identify. Dizarn glanced at the others behind him. Malik took a few steps back and stood in the center of the room. Even Janear did the same, though she gave her brother a few paces of distance.

“Potential is something with which we are born,” Dizarn said. “And it is what defines us and defines the ability that we have to channel the connection we share to the dragons. Potential is what binds us to everything in this world. With enough potential, we are able to draw upon a considerable amount of the resources that are present here. It is the power that guides us, the power that links.” He watched Laric for a moment. “And it is probably the same power my mother noticed inside of you.”

Laric nodded.

“You called her your grandmother.”

“She was my grandmother.”

Dizarn smiled tightly. “We shall see.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you know what Imelda was?”

Laric resisted the urge to snap at him and say the most obvious answer to him, which was that she was his grandmother, but he had the feeling that he might get something snarky in response if he did. At this point, he didn’t necessarily want snark. He wanted answers, and he felt like there was an answer to be found here. The problem was that he wasn’t sure he would like the answer he was going to get.

“She was some sort of a glyph master,” Laric said.

“Something along those lines. But she was more. Much more. She searched for those with potential. Did you know this?”

“I… I guess I didn’t.”

“She did. She traveled extensively, I might add, because that was the nature of what she was tasked with doing. There are not many born with such potential.”

“And by that, you mean dragonborn,” Laric said.

“You can call it what you like, but we shall use the term ‘potential.’ A characteristic, a definition, and the best way to describe it.”

“So she searched for people.”

“She did,” Dizarn said.

The man started to pace. At first, he moved from side to side, and it looked a little bit like he was just anxiously pacing. But the more Laric paid attention to the pattern he was making, the more he came to realize it wasn’t just random and that Dizarn was doing something more with the movements. It was almost as if he was performing some form of spellcraft.

Dizarn moved behind Laric and stood there, and his voice carried through the cavern. “Typically, when she would find somebody with the necessary potential, she would mark them in some way.”

Laric noticed a strange stirring inside of himself, which began to build. It was soft, steady, yet it slowly grew stronger. It worked its way through him, and there was some part of it that reminded him a bit of what his grandmother had once done with him, and to him. That couldn’t be coincidence, he knew.

“You carry her mark on you, though perhaps you knew that,” Dizarn said.

Laric shook his head, but he felt as if he couldn’t move. He wanted to, but his body wasn’t responding to him as well as it should.

“Perhaps not, then. I have been looking for her. There have been stories that she got lost. That would not be like her, as Imelda would never get lost. There were stories that she faced some dangerous threat from this northern realm,” he said, sneering as he said the words, “but again, she was too clever for that to be the case.”

“You mean mages?” Laric asked.

Dizarn pressed his lips together into a tight frown. He had moved again, now standing barely to Laric’s left, and more of the pattern that he was making began to solidify. Laric had no idea what that pattern was meant to do, other than he guessed that Dizarn was trying to trigger some proof that Laric had somehow been marked. That was the only thing he could think of, but he also didn’t know why that would be the case.

“Is that what you call them?”

Laric shrugged. “I was taught to believe that they were incredibly powerful. I was taught to revere them. They have the kind of power and magic that I was training to use.”

Janear snorted.

Dizarn shot her a look, and Laric wondered what passed between them.

“Is that correct?” Dizarn said. “Well, perhaps that is something my mother had gone to investigate.”

“I don’t know,” Laric said. “Mages have recently discovered a way to control dragons. But she knew that, I suspect, as she wasn’t trapped here. Especially since this doorway can open to many different places.”

“It depends on how you activate it, but yes.”

“So then what?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking what else,” Laric said. “You’re talking about opening doorways and accessing power, but about something else as well. And you’re concerned about where my grandmother”—he emphasized that because it felt like he needed to do so—“was involved in this in some way. I don’t know that I believe everything you’re saying, but I’m willing to have you try to convince me.”

Laric had not known where his grandmother had traveled, but after having spoken to Xavier and Malcolm’s father, he knew that she’d been traveling north through the mountains, and likely even to Korthal itself.

Dizarn snorted. “It is not on me to convince you. As I said, you have been marked. That tells me all I need to know—she was here, and she was aware of your potential.”

“You’re making it seem like she’s not my grandmother, but I know differently.”

“Do you?”

“Well, I know her. She is the one who taught me.”

“She taught you?” Janear said, a real hint of derision in her tone.

Laric looked over to her. She was still standing in the middle of the chamber, but now she was focused, and seemed to be calling on more of her potential. He wasn’t sure why he could feel it as potently as he could, but he was aware of that sense. He was aware of the way that power felt, and how she seemed to be connecting to it.

“She taught me,” Laric said. “Why?”

“Imelda does not teach,” Janear said.

“I’m not sure what to tell you, but she did teach. She taught me.”

Even saying it brought on a pang of sadness. Just talking about his grandmother was difficult, especially with somebody who was questioning whether or not she had actually instructed him. Maybe more so than anything, the hardest thing for him was that he had lost her without ever really knowing who she was.

“What did she teach you?” Dizarn asked.

Laric turned to him, getting frustrated. Maybe that was a good thing. He wasn’t sure anymore, but frustration filling him felt right. “She taught me how to access my potential.”

“Show me,” he said.

Laric wanted to argue, tell him no. He wanted to say that he wasn’t going to do anything, he wasn’t going to tell him anything, as he did not want to share anything more with them, especially if they were going to continue to challenge him on the relationship that he had with his grandmother. But another thought intruded, and the more he thought about it, the more it felt like the thought he needed to be focused on.

He wanted answers, didn’t he?

“You should share,” Sashaak said, though his voice was distant through their connection. “You must learn.”

Laric turned his attention back to them. “I will show you what she taught me, on one condition.”

Dizarn frowned.

“That you teach me how to reach my potential.”

“That is not a promise.”

“If I prove that she taught me. If I prove I am who I claim to be, you will teach me.”

Janear and Malik both objected, but they were silenced with a quick motion from Dizarn. “If it is as you say, then I agree.”

The cavern was completely quiet for a moment. A strange feeling seemed to hover over everything, and in the silence, Laric began to worry if perhaps he had made a mistake.

“We will start with the portal,” Dizarn said. He stepped past Laric with an air of arrogance about him, then waved his hand at the door. “You see it as a portal.”

“I know that it opens like one.”

“Very well. And had we not come through, this portal would have opened in the same way each time, because you would not know the proper markings.”

That had been Laric’s experience with it as well.

“That is a reflection of the markings that are on the door at the time of its opening.” Dizarn waved his hand again, and once more the series of glyphs began to ripple and shift, changing ever so slightly. “Can you feel this?”

“He’s not going to feel anything,” Janear said. “He’s an outworlder.”

Laric looked over to her. Outworlder? That seemed like such an odd thing to call him. Weren’t they from Korthal?

“How do you change the glyphs?” Laric asked.

“You feel the potential inside of yourself,” Dizarn said, “and the potential allows you to adjust them.”

Once again, Janear scoffed, seemingly frustrated by the mere idea that anybody else could learn. But as Laric stood there, he could feel something, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it was that he was picking up on. There was a surge of energy, and it tugged at some distant, and potent, part of himself, coming from the dragon—and connecting him to the dragon.

“You feel it.” Dizarn arched a brow at him. “Perhaps you were better trained than I anticipated.” He said it mostly to himself.

“So if you were to activate this doorway,” Laric said, “where would it lead?”

“Do you want to go?”

“No,” Laric said.

That wasn’t entirely true. He did want to go, as he did want to know just where he might find himself if he were to step through. Maybe it would take him to safety—and away from the danger of the coming mages.

But if it was so safe, then why had his grandmother been here?

“Then what would you like?” Dizarn asked.

“I want to know more about how you control the potential.”

“You are asking for a brief explanation of what takes an entire lifetime to master.”

“You could show me,” Laric said.

He frowned. “And what do you mean by that?”

“I just mean that you could show me. You don’t have to explain it, and you don’t have to walk me through it. You could just show me, couldn’t you?”

He was walking a fine line here, because there was a very real possibility that what the dragon had done was not something that was often done. Perhaps it was not even something that was formidable. Laric did not know what sort of things were allowed, and what sort of things were not.

“And what have you seen?” Dizarn asked.

“I’ve seen…” Laric hesitated, and then he shook his head. “I suppose it doesn’t even matter. I have seen what I have seen.”

Dizarn snorted. “You have seen. Yes. You have seen.” His gaze flicked past Laric to the dragon. “Show him, old friend.”

“Father,” Janear said with a bit of harshness.

The dragon was enormous, not only in physical presence but also in the way it pressed on him mentally. And in its magical potential.

A burning cold worked through Laric as that dragon energy overwhelmed him.

Then the cold turned to warmth. It started in the pit of his stomach, and then it began to wash out, working its way down his legs, up his arms, and finally into his head. It was the same sort of feeling that he had when he had been working with Sashaak in the cave. There was more to that connection, and that image, than what he had grasped in the past.

Then the first vision came.

It was a vision of the doorway leading into this cave. Laric was certain of it. He saw the potential. What was more, he saw the pattern of glyphs. He wouldn’t have known them had it not been for the fact that he had seen them before, and he recognized them now.

A series of marks had shifted, then the door opened.

Inside of the vision, the dragon went first. Of course the dragon would go first, as it had been Laric’s experience that the dragon had some natural resistance to magic that would prevent anything from happening to it, and he could feel the dragon swelling with power. The dragon also wanted to see what was on the other side so it could know if there was any sort of danger here. The dragon had feared that there would be another one of its kind, and that it would be…

Was that correct?

The dragon feared that his grandmother’s dragon had been chained and tormented. It feared for the safety of the other dragon. It feared for the safety of all dragons.

Then the vision changed again to a battered, scarred landscape. That was odd.

This vision stretched, as if he were flying alongside the dragon. And in that vision, Laric could hold on to the creature, and he could see the broken ruins of buildings. He could smell something odd in the air.

Some part of it felt unnatural, and left him thinking that this was not tied to the dragons. He wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling, only that it seemed to be building within him.

Then the vision shifted again.

He saw a stream, along with the dragon and a rider sitting on top—probably Dizarn—near it. They were waiting. He recognized the potential stretching from the dragon to Dizarn, or perhaps the other way around.

What were they doing?

Visions swirled through his mind, hazier now. It seemed as if a layer hovered over the dragon. Something like smoke, fog, some sort of shroud that concealed anything that Laric might pick up from the dragon itself.

He pulled on it, and he drew it inside of himself.

Then, as that shroud began to dissipate, a sequence of images formed in his mind. They happened too rapidly for him to process. There were spellslips. There were spellcraft forms. A linking of both.

He remained transfixed. It was like the dragon was gifting knowledge to him.

Then the images stopped.

He felt potential building within him until he was standing inside the chamber with Dizarn across from him. He was just watching Laric.

“What did you see?” Dizarn asked.

“I saw you coming to the door.”

“Did you?”

“But you wanted me to see that. I saw you flying. Or the dragon flying. I’m not exactly sure if it was you or just the dragon.” Laric frowned. “And I saw you waiting by a stream. I felt the detection spellslip, or whatever it is that you call it. I saw, and I felt, what you were doing and the way you were using it. You were hoping to pick up on something. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what you were after. All I know is that I felt something based on what my grandmother taught me.” He hesitated. “And I think you were looking for her.”

Dizarn was quiet for a few moments, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. “I went there regularly looking for her. It was a place that she would often go when she would return. There would be a trail that I could find, if I used the right detection.” He was quiet for a few more moments.

“She taught me the same spellslip,” Laric said.

He had been using it when trying to find his way around the cavern, but then once he got down into it, Laric realized that he had not been holding on to the spellslip as much as before, so it wasn’t as potent. He shifted to it now. It had always been an unusual detection spellslip. Effective, yes, but one that was not typical for most people to use when it came to detecting.

He tethered a bit of power to it, forming something more than just the detection spellslip that his grandmother had shown him. Because he had seen it in the vision, Laric understood that his way of tethering the spellcraft form to it wasn’t quite right. There was another way.

“She did teach you, didn’t she?” Dizarn whispered.

“She did,” Laric said. “And your dragon. When I pulled away the haze, I was able to see different forms.”

“What do you mean that you pulled away the haze?”

“When I was in the vision. that’s what I did. I felt it, and I could strip it free.”

Dizarn stepped forward and clasped Laric on the shoulder. “It is nice to meet you, nephew.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Laric wasn’t sure what to do or how to react.

The idea that he had an uncle that he hadn’t known about was amazing, and he couldn’t wait to tell his sister so she could see that they were no longer alone the way they had believed. They had lost everything, including their farm, their parents, and previously their grandmother, so it would mean so much to still have family.

“You have questions,” Dizarn said.

“I have some,” Laric admitted. “Primarily about why you came here now.”

He regarded Laric for a long moment. “We have been following the dragon movement. They should not have been making their way out here. It has been… unusual.”

“‘Unusual’ is one way of putting it, but I think that it’s more than just unusual. There have been mages who have been attacking, and that has been the real issue here.”

Dizarn frowned at him. “Why would they have been attacking?”

Laric shrugged. “Mainly because they have been trying to gain control over the dragons. Haven’t you been part of the fight with the mages?”

“That has not been my purpose.”

Laric kept looking at the others behind Dizarn. His cousins, if this was all true. And the idea that he had cousins was so strange, shocking, and a little overwhelming in a way, because he had gone so long without having a connection to anyone but his sister.

“So you haven’t been part of Korthal fighting with mages?”

“Is that what she told you?” Dizarn asked.

“No,” Laric said. “But again, I didn’t know anything about her until recently. And in a way, I still don’t think I know anything about her.”

That was what made this difficult, more than everything else that was happening. He did not know anything about his grandmother despite wanting to, and he thought that perhaps there would be a way of understanding her. If only he had known more about his grandmother and had an opportunity to speak to her about everything she had been through, about where she fit with Korthal and what she knew about mages, perhaps this wouldn’t be so hard for him.

“Very few have been involved in such things,” Dizarn said. “There have been some who were asked to participate, but it has been a challenge for them. You have seen it.”

“I haven’t,” he said.

His uncle frowned at him. “You have not seen this?”

“I’m not entirely sure what you think I should have seen.”

Dizarn looked back to his two children before turning his attention to Laric again. “I would have assumed that you have traveled to the borders. Have you not?”

“The furthest I’ve ever gotten from my home was about two days into the mountains,” Laric said.

“But you are bonded to the dragon.”

Laric snorted. “Being bonded to the dragon is a relatively new accomplishment for me, and I don’t get the sense that he is excited about the connection I have to him, nor do I think the dragon is all that eager for me to stay bonded to him.”

Dizarn was quiet for a moment. “Troubling. Very troubling. Come.”

He stepped to the edge of the pile of debris and then climbed out of the cavern. The other two lingered for just a beat, watching Laric as they did, before finally following their father out.

Laric hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure what he should do, and at this point, he was certain that he should not be part of all this. By the time he got out into the open, he found Dizarn looking around.

“Why would she have kept this here?” Malik asked.

“We used to have a farm not far from here,” Laric said.

“You used to?” Janear said.

“Dragons destroyed it.”

Dizarn’s gaze narrowed.

“We thought Korthal came here to attack,” Laric explained.

“If she was here, they would not have come to attack.”

“Well, she’s been gone for quite a while, and seeing as how I didn’t know anything about her or her connection to this place before, I don’t know that it’s worth thinking about what they would or would not have done.”

It was problematic, and a little troubling.

“Where is the dragon?” Malik asked.

“Somewhere,” Laric said, waving his hand, but even as he said it, he had a sudden surge of awareness in the back of his mind that seemed like a flare of heat.

Then Sashaak came hurtling toward him, streaking out of the sky, until he landed near the old farm. Laric couldn’t shake the feeling that it was possible that Sashaak had been involved in the destruction of the farm, though he tried to ignore that, knowing that even if Sashaak had been involved, there had been no real intention behind it.

It had not been because of him.

“There he is,” Dizarn said. “Quite a powerful creature.”

A shadow formed, and another dragon came darting from the sky, landing next to Dizarn. The two dragons were impressive and massive, and Laric could easily imagine what somebody from the village would say if they knew that there was a pair of dragons now standing where his farm used to be.

“I will show you,” Dizarn said, striding forward and reaching his dragon. His was a deeper black, almost onyx, with shiny scales and an energy that seemed to emanate from it.

Within that, however, was a radiation of heat and a warmth that Laric felt in a different way. He could feel that power, but he also questioned what that power could do and whether there was any element of it that posed a danger to him. Dizarn approached the dragon from the front, and the creature lowered its head ever so slightly and then waited until Dizarn scrambled up one foreleg. Dizarn climbed onto the dragon’s back, settling into a space between spikes and scales, looking down at Laric as if he were as comfortable atop the dragon as most would be atop a horse.

“When you share a connection, the dragon grants you permission.” He glanced over at Laric’s dragon.

Laric walked up to Sashaak and looked up at him. “Please let me ride,” he said, feeling a little ridiculous as he did.

To his surprise, Sashaak lowered his head and gave Laric an opportunity to slowly work his way up his back. He did so hesitantly, then took a seat. Sashaak forced an image into Laric’s mind, and he saw a flash that showed him a different spellslip. One he had learned long ago. It was an element of earth, mixed with the wind that his grandmother had shown him when he was younger, one which Laric had never imagined had any real use. Surprisingly enough, however, as he sat there, the spellslip allowed him to bind himself in place. So as he formed it, anchoring himself from one spike on Sashaak’s back to another, he felt how it could secure him.

Dizarn chuckled. “If there was any question that you were Imelda’s grandson, that answers it.”

“That?”

“It’s her personal buckle. She taught it to me when I was young, and I will teach it to them as they begin to bond,” he said, motioning to where Malik and Janear were climbing up onto his dragon’s back.

“They don’t have a dragon bonded to them yet?”

“It is difficult,” Dizarn answered. “You will see.”

“Where are we going?” Laric asked.

“You said that you had not been to the border, and I think it’s time that you do. I think it’s time that you see. Perhaps once you do, you will understand that it’s time for you to come with us.”

“All right.”

Dizarn’s dragon lurched forward, taking to the air with a violence of strength and wind.

Laric sat there for a moment, still struggling to come to terms with the idea that he was seated atop a dragon, and that he might end up riding Sashaak. A part of him wondered if he should go back to town and call Rowan and the others out here. But if he did that, what would they do? And what could he do?

He had an urge to get answers, and this was the first time he felt as if he had a possibility of answers. He was in a place where he could obtain what he had been searching for, and now he had to take advantage of it, didn’t he?

He could come back.

No. He would come back.

Regardless of what he saw, he would return so that he could either get his friends and bring them with him, or defeat the mages. Depending on which came first.

It was just that Laric didn’t quite know what that was going to look like.

He patted Sashaak on the back, feeling ridiculous. Sashaak was hot to the touch, and he radiated warmth through scaled sides. Though it wasn’t painful or unpleasant, Laric was certainly aware of the heat coming from the dragon.

“We’re supposed to follow,” Laric said to Sashaak. “I’m not sure how you feel about this, but they want to show us to… Well, I think they want to show us where we can find out what Korthal has been doing. Your home.”

“It is not as you think,” Sashaak said, speaking through their connection.

“Why not?”

“You will see.”

“Do you mind if I ride?” Laric asked.

“I permit it, do I not?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you were permitting it because of Dizarn and the other dragon, or if you’re just allowing it yourself.”

“You will see.”

Laric wasn’t sure that was much of an endorsement.

Then he felt the pressure of potential, a buildup of heat, but it came from all around him. He felt a strange surge that almost seemed to be rising up from the earth as well, and then Sashaak was airborne. The suddenness of it overwhelmed Laric. They were up above the ground, and Sashaak’s enormous wings spread out to either side of him, catching the air, and then they were circling higher and higher. The wind around Laric was impossibly dense and painful, like sharp needles were digging into his eyes, his skin, and every bit of him.

“You need to lean forward,” Sashaak said.

Laric did as Sashaak commanded, and as he did, he felt relief from the wind. Some of it came from the simple fact that Sashaak’s spikes blocked the wind to prevent him from getting overwhelmed by it, and some of it came from power that seemed to radiate around Sashaak thanks to the dragon’s potential.

“Are you using power to protect me?” Laric asked.

“I am using power to protect myself, and you benefit.”

Laric found himself laughing at that, feeling a little ridiculous and maybe a little loopy from what was happening, but there didn’t seem to be anything to do about it other than to just accept it.

Sashaak continued flying higher and higher as he chased Dizarn and his dragon. Distantly, Laric found himself wondering what Dizarn’s dragon was named, but he didn’t know that it even mattered. The only thing he cared about was this moment, this feeling, this energy.

And hadn’t he seen it before?

In a way, all of this was an experience that Laric had encountered one other time. He had felt it from Sashaak, from the vision that Sashaak had gifted him, and he had felt it from how he had seen, and connected to, that power as it surged into his mind, giving him an awareness and an understanding of the experience of flying without actually having flown.

But there was something so different about being here now, feeling it directly, and getting overwhelmed by that sensation.

He let out a whoop of excitement. Sashaak roared.

Laric wondered if they were too close to the town.

“Just take a look,” Sashaak said.

And through Sashaak’s eyes, Laric was aware of the town. From Sashaak’s vantage, it was little more than a speck in the distance. Nothing more than that.

“You’ve already gone so high?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sashaak said.

“How?”

“Potential.”

He looked through Sashaak’s eyes again, seeing not just the town but Dizarn’s dragon flying ahead of them, moving through the mountains.

As they flew, Laric tried to keep track of what Sashaak was doing, the way that he was angling, banking, and carving past the mountains, cresting peaks, darting through valleys, and moving faster than Laric could even imagine. At one point, he caught sight of a city, but he wasn’t sure what city it was, as he had never traveled this far. What he wouldn’t give to have Xavier and his knowledge to tell him what was going on here, but he didn’t have that.

As they continued north, Sashaak moved so fast, and so quickly, that everything was a blur of power and energy, and a blur of landscape beneath him, until it suddenly dropped off. The mountains fade. The land became flatter and flatter.

Sashaak slowed, and something about that change drew Laric’s attention in a way that other aspects of their journey had not. As he looked around, he tried to make out what was there, but struggled to.

“What is this?”

The ground was too far away for him to see much, even when borrowing from Sashaak’s eyesight.

“These are the borderlands,” Sashaak roared, his voice loud in Laric’s ears and within his mind.

“I thought that Xavier came here.”

Laric couldn’t even fathom how long of a journey that would take in a wagon caravan. Xavier had made it sound as if it were relatively quick, and that he traveled little more than a week or so before reaching Korthal. How long would it have taken that way? Although, perhaps going through mountain passes and weaving through known routes, he might’ve been able to travel much easier than what Laric and Sashaak had done.

“They came here, but they did not come here,” Sashaak said.

“So all of this…”

Laric’s voice trailed off as Sashaak started to descend, chasing after Dizarn’s dragon. Dizarn and his children were flying just off to the right of Sashaak, and they were slowly angling ever downward.

They paused only a couple hundred feet off the ground. Laric looked down, trying to make sense of what was here.

It wasn’t until he saw the first charred corpse of a dragon that he understood.

Everything within him went cold.

“This was part of the fighting,” he said.

“Yes,” Sashaak said.

“There isn’t much left. Just bones.”

“And there are fewer of those every day.”

“Why?”

“Some harvest them,” Sashaak said, as if he was just having a normal conversation rather than talking about a dead dragon. “They believe there is power in the bones, potential that is untapped.”

“Is there?” Laric asked.

“Possibly.”

That was odd, yet it did make a certain sort of sense, didn’t it?

“How?”

“You have seen how.”

They kept flying, slower now than they had been. It occurred to him that Sashaak had used considerable effort to keep up with Dizarn and his dragon. The speed they had been flying had been significant, and, Laric realized, they had been flying at a pace that he did not normally see Sashaak flying at. He wasn’t sure why Sashaak typically flew more slowly, except that he suspected that Sashaak had needed to fly at that pace so he would not draw attention.

They came across another dragon corpse. This one was in a state of decay, and they circled over it. Not far from the dragon was another, and not far from that were the ruins of a village. Maybe a small town. It was difficult to tell from this altitude, but the bones of the city were broken, the stone shattered and left strewn over the landscape.

He looked over to Dizarn, who was quiet.

“How many places are like this?” Laric asked.

“Many,” Sashaak answered.

“And how is it, then, that they still were able to reach dragons?”

“You have not yet seen what they have lost.”

“But all I see are dead dragons, broken villages. This is Korthal?”

“This is a part of what was known as Korthal.”

“Was known?”

“Was. Korthal is no longer,” Sashaak said. “And has not been for nearly a decade.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

They continued flying for a while, circling over the landscape and maneuvering in such a way that Laric found himself straining off to the side so that he could view things from Sashaak’s vantage. He tried to see what Sashaak did, tried to understand what was down there, but every time he peered down from Sashaak’s back, he found that things tended to blur past him in such a way that it became difficult to truly identify anything.

And he didn’t need to. Not really. Sashaak gave him images that flashed in his mind.

More than anything, Laric suspected that was the key. Sashaak had wanted him to see what he saw and had wanted Laric to know what he knew.

“How far are they going to take us?” Laric asked.

They had been flying west, deeper into the Korthal lands. Laric had not seen any sign of life, at least not this far north. How had Xavier traveled here, then? That was an aspect of all of this that Laric still didn’t understand. Xavier had made it seem as if he had gone to some of these places, traded with them, and been able to return. What about this was different?

“What changed?” Laric finally asked. “They were killing dragons, but suddenly they stopped?”

“They killed many. But not all. And it took quite a bit out of them.”

“And the people of Korthal?”

“Retreated to safer places,” Sashaak said.

“But I felt your potential,” Laric said, sensing that this conversation was one of the more important ones that he could have. It felt like this was what he needed to know so that he could fully understand what was going on here. “How is this even possible?”

“How many mages do you think exist?”

“I don’t know. Many?” Laric said.

“Many.”

“But they don’t know glyphs. They can’t control dragons. Or they couldn’t.”

“No,” Sashaak roared.

“Something changed,” Laric said.

“Something changed.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

All of this felt troubling to Laric, yet as he flew alongside Dizarn and the others, he found himself with other questions.

Eventually, Dizarn’s dragon descended, landing on a rolling hillside that looked down into a valley. In the distance, Laric could swear that there were signs of life, but when he attempted to look through Sashaak’s eyes, he couldn’t see anything. It was as if it was all blurred from him. He tried a detection spellslip, then shifted into a spellcraft form, but even as he did, he could not identify anything. That power, such as it was, stretched out and away from him, but he could not pick up on anything else.

Dizarn climbed off his dragon, as did Malik and Janear, who stayed behind him. Laric hesitantly got down from his dragon’s back, then made his way over to join Dizarn.

There was a part of Laric that remained on edge. If Sashaak were suddenly to leave him, he would be trapped here, and he couldn’t even imagine what it would take to get back to town. He was so far from everything he had ever known that the idea of being able to return seemed insurmountable and impossible to him.

“You see it, don’t you?” Dizarn asked.

“I saw it,” Laric said. “The dragon made certain that I did. Is that what you wanted me to know? That your people have suffered?”

“Not all were my people. In fact, most were not my people. But we suffered, nonetheless.”

“So if they were not your people, then who were they?”

“The better question is why this happened,” Dizarn said.

“I’m guessing it’s because the mages want dragons,” Laric said. “They want the knowledge that you have.”

He snorted. “They cannot have it. They do not have the patience for such knowledge. Even my people do not always have the patience for such things.”

“So what, then?”

“I do not know. I knew that my mother was after something, but she never spoke of it. She was looking for answers, looking for a way to find…”

He trailed off, and as he did, Laric had the distinct sense that he was keeping something more from him. But even if he was, there wasn’t anything that Laric would be able to do about it.

“So why bring me out here?” He looked over. “Obviously you thought that something out here was important for me to see. Was it the dead dragons? The destroyed villages? Or was it just the emptiness? Because all of it is impressive in its own depressing way.”

“Good,” Dizarn said.

“Really?” Laric asked. “This is good?”

“It is good that you feel that way about it. It’s good that you do not think it is as it should be.”

“How can I think that?” he asked, glancing back at Sashaak. “But I do have a question. There is someone in my town who claims to have come to Korthal and traded with its people.” As Laric thought about it, it seemed impossible, didn’t it?

“Korthal does not trade with outsiders,” Dizarn said.

“Well, from what I was able to see, Korthal doesn’t really exist any longer,” Laric said. “So it’s more than just Korthal not trading with outsiders. Something isn’t adding up here.”

“How did this person trade?”

“If he’s telling the truth…” Laric had to believe that Xavier was, but a part of him started to worry. What if Xavier had been misleading them? What did he really know about him, after all? Xavier had power, and ability, and connections that he shouldn’t have. He understood spellslips and spellcraft forms and claimed that he had been trained by Laric’s grandmother, but he had never gone to school and had never been truly trained by a mage. The idea that Xavier would know all of that seemed almost unimaginable, yet he was obviously capable in ways that he should not have been. “He said he learned from my grandmother. Your mother.”

“Perhaps,” Dizarn said.

Laric wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, and at this point, what he needed was to return so that he could talk to Xavier. What he had said didn’t fit, not with what Laric had seen.

But there were other aspects that didn’t really fit either.

It occurred to him that as they had been flying, he hadn’t seen any sign of other dragons. He hadn’t seen any sign of movement. He hadn’t seen any sign of mages. And considering how dangerous the mountain passes would have to be, shouldn’t he have been aware of something?

He glanced back at Sashaak, who was resting, though Laric could sense that he was still awake. He could feel that somehow, and he could also feel a connection to him that said Sashaak was trying to hide something from him. Or perhaps not exactly. Perhaps the dragon was trying to hide something from Dizarn.

“He was using the same sort of portals that my grandmother did, wasn’t he?” Laric asked.

“It is possible,” Dizarn said. “Such things are easy enough for those in the know to use. And you don’t even have to be significant or powerful to activate them.”

That was a surprise to Laric, but maybe it shouldn’t be.

“So if he was using something along that line, then she must have given him knowledge of how to do it.”

But even if his grandmother had done that, that still didn’t explain where Xavier had gone, just how.

Dizarn shrugged. “Possibly.”

“Something isn’t quite right here still,” Laric said.

“There is much that you still must see. This is but the beginning. You can see the devastation. You can see how many dragons have been lost. You can see how many of your people have been lost.”

And him saying it like that made Laric hesitate. They weren’t his people. Not really. His people were back in the village that had been attacked by… Well, had been seemingly attacked by Korthal, but had ultimately been attacked by mages.

“I see how bad this is. I know there’s something here that I don’t understand,” Laric said. “But I need to return. My town still isn’t safe. There’s a threat of mages coming because they learned I connected to the dragon.”

“Which is why you must leave. There is more you can do here to help. Come, and I will explain it all,” Dizarn said.

“If I do that, then the rest of my town suffers. My sister, my friends, people I know and have lived among will suffer.”

“But you will remove the possibility that they will claim this power.”

“I wonder what happens if I don’t?”

He straightened, looking at Dizarn, and there was a deep flutter inside his chest, a bit of anxiety and nervousness about what Dizarn might decide to do. Laric certainly didn’t know what that would be, but there was a part of him that remained on edge because he had no idea what Dizarn might try, and if he might attempt to separate Laric from Sashaak. And if he did, what would Laric do?

Could Dizarn succeed at that?

“No,” Sashaak said in Laric’s mind.

He found himself turning back to Sashaak and studying him. If it wasn’t possible, then should he even be concerned?

“You should come with us,” Dizarn said, and he seemed to be picking his words carefully. “There is much that you could learn with us that you can’t learn otherwise. If you come with us, we would teach you.”

“Teach me what? How to work with the dragon? I think I’m supposed to learn that from the dragon. Teach me how to use spellcraft forms? I’ve been learning that from the dragon too. Or do you intend to teach me about glyphs?”

Dizarn frowned. “I cannot.”

That was about as Laric had suspected. “Because my grandmother was the glyph master.”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you want me to come. Because of what she knew of glyphs, because you think there is something that I need to help your people with.”

“I think you can guide⁠—”

“Father,” Janear hissed.

“She is gone,” Dizarn said, looking over at her, “and we have lost too much.”

“Lost it how? Lost it why?” Laric peered around. “Because of this war with the mages?”

Dizarn appeared as if he was going to say something else, but then he didn’t. He shook his head. “If you change your mind, you need only summon.”

“I’m not sure how to summon.”

“You know all that you need to, because you saw where we came through.”

“The glyphs. You move them,” Laric said.

“As could you.”

Laric took a deep breath. “Let me deal with what I have to deal with first. If it can be resolved, and if I can make people safe, then I will come to you. I need to learn about where my family is from.” He noticed Janear watching him, and that same look of irritation and a bit of distrust lingered in her gaze, and Laric could not ignore it. “I would also like to understand if there’s anything more that I might be able to do.”

That, more than anything else, might be what motivated him the best. He really did need to know more about what he could do, and how he could do it, and what it might look like when he did it.

Laric turned back to Sashaak.

“You’re just going to let him leave?” he heard Malik say. “After all that you went through to find him?”

“I did not find him. I found the dragon,” Dizarn said.

“Still. You’re just letting him go?”

“Could I make a dragon stay?”

Laric tensed. It had nothing to do with him. It had everything to do with Sashaak.

And as he looked from one dragon to the next, he realized that they were similarly sized. He didn’t know what sort of potential Dizarn’s dragon possessed, but he assumed that they were similar in that way as well.

He reached Sashaak, climbed up onto his back, and then hesitated.

“I would like to know more about her,” Laric said. “I thought I knew my grandmother. I really didn’t, though. So I will be back.”

“I hope so,” Dizarn said.

With that, the dragon launched into the air. They circled, hovering just above the ground for a moment, giving Laric a chance to look through Sashaak’s eyes—first at the other dragon, and then at Dizarn and Malik and Janear.

Through all of that, however, Laric felt a rising sense of unease. This was what he had been after, wasn’t it? He had wanted to know more about his grandmother. He had wanted to know more about what she could do, why she had come to his town, and why she had stayed. Wasn’t that information what he had been after? And if so, then shouldn’t he want to remain?

A part of him—a large part, he had to admit—did want to remain. If he could guide Sashaak away, if he could be sure that the mages wouldn’t follow, maybe he would. But there was no guarantee that would happen. There was no guarantee that he could keep anything worse from happening to his town. And considering that the dragon was the best weapon that they had against anything the mages might bring to them, he knew better than to remain idle and do nothing.

So as they circled, he continued to focus until Sashaak turned back east. It wasn’t long before the vast emptiness and barren land began to sweep beneath him again. They stayed low this time, far lower than they had before. Laric wasn’t sure why, but as they flew past the bony remains of a dragon, he felt the faint pop of potential coming from it. They moved on, past another one, and much like the last, there was that faint stir of potential that emanated from it. As they drifted over a destroyed village, Laric could even feel potential there, and he looked down and noticed something else.

Glyphs. He couldn’t see them clearly, but he was certain that was what it was.

These people had glyphs that had protected their village. Much like his town had glyphs that protected it. Or were meant to.

They had not been enough.

“What don’t I know about mages?” Laric asked.

“I do not know,” Sashaak said. “Malinar did not know, so I do not know.”

“But Dizarn knows?”

“I doubt it. If he knew, he would have shared.”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s still keeping something from me. They’re running from something.”

“Perhaps,” Sashaak said.

“And they need me. Or, I suppose, they need my grandmother. What is it?”

Sashaak was quiet for a long moment. “I do not know.”

“Are you sure? Or are you just saying that you don’t know because you don’t want to tell?”

“I do not know.”

Laric let out a heavy, frustrated sigh and leaned in. Once they traveled into the mountains, Sashaak picked up speed. He continued to sweep his gaze around, wondering if there would be any sign of mages or dragons or anything else. Dragons had come through here, he knew. They had to have. But coming through here didn’t necessarily mean they had lingered.

“Where is your home?” Laric asked suddenly.

“Further north,” Sashaak said. “Much further north.”

“So not the same place as Dizarn.”

“No.”

“And you are from Korthal,” Laric said.

“From what remains.”

“So if there are dragons in your land, and dragons in Dizarn’s land, what is the difference?”

His dragon didn’t have an answer.

As they traveled, Laric struggled to understand what it was that he was missing, and he was feeling as if there was some puzzle that remained. They streaked through the sky, Sashaak drawing upon his potential and heading quickly back toward the town, and staying high enough in the air that the townspeople wouldn’t know that they were there. When they finally came to land outside his grandmother’s shed, it felt as if both no time had passed and an eternity had passed. Much had changed, at least for Laric.

“I need to get back to the others.”

“Yes. And I need to eat.” The way Sashaak said it was almost amusing.

“Be careful,” Laric said.

“As should you.”

“Do I really need to be careful when I can call on your potential?”

“There are limits to even my potential.”

Sashaak took off again. Laric was able to see through his eyes, and as he did, he noticed a surge of brightness—a bubble of potential that he hadn’t noticed before, but now did. And as he looked, seeing that clearly in his mind, he wondered if it was another aspect of potential that his grandmother had left, or if this was potential that came from something else. A mage, perhaps.

He needed to know, so he set off, moving farther south to make sure that there were no other surprises.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It turned out that it was not a mage. Instead, what he found were glyphs on a single boulder. Had Sashaak not shown him, Laric wouldn’t have even been aware of it, but having been able to see it from above, he could make out the contours of the glyphs on the stone. He wondered if there was some element of power within them that he could and should be able to identify, or if it was simply about something else. Regardless, he focused and tried to make sense of what he was picking up on, but could not. Not easily.

He traced his hand along the stone, feeling the indentation of it, and questioned whether there would be any way to use the glyphs, or if it was just power that remained elusive to him. Perhaps that was what it truly was—elusive power. If so, then Laric should leave it alone.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that his grandmother had left this here, though.

And if she had, then there had to be something to it.

What, though?

That was the problem Laric had with all of this. Glyphs were scattered in places they should not have been. There had been an egg in one of the other places, but even that had not been all that helpful for him. And though Laric believed that the egg was designed to help him understand, and perhaps translate, some of the glyphs, it had not made that much of a difference.

Why now, then?

That was a danger, he felt. Maybe it was tied to the mages, but if that was the case, then the real question was what the mages were looking for out there. And were they actually looking for anything, or had they just found something they were suspicious of?

Laric didn’t know. At this point, he wasn’t sure it even mattered. The only thing he knew with much certainty was that what he had found out here was a glyph.

What had Rowan said? He had a universal key.

He quickly formed the spellslip and pushed down on it. Laric didn’t know what he had expected to happen. What he had not expected was for the entire stone to begin to collapse, becoming flatter and flatter, and for more glyphs to cover it. It was as if he had unlocked a different surface altogether.

Laric froze.

Why was this all the way out here?

He studied the glyph-marked stone, but nothing made sense. He couldn’t identify or interpret any of these glyphs, and he certainly didn’t know how to activate them. Not without any guidance. He focused on the connection that he had to Sashaak and tried to push an image of the glyph-marked stone to him. Laric thought that if nothing else, maybe Sashaak could help him understand what was here, but the dragon remained silent.

So much for his help.

Of course, Sashaak was likely busy eating or drinking or doing whatever it was that dragons did. Laric wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He had not asked Sashaak what he ate, and considering that he had not had glimpses of Sashaak hunting, he assumed that was probably a good thing.

Laric had to push those thoughts away. There was no point in wondering what a dragon needed to eat. Too much, probably.

He focused on the transformed stone again. Could he use the universal key on this as well? When he tried, it didn’t work.

Maybe there was another key. And if so, then he was going to have to try to unlock it differently. Unless it wasn’t the key at all. Maybe this represented some portal, but a portal to where? And why would it be all the way out here?

According to Dizarn, these portals could be configured and adjusted, so there was no reason for him to believe that his grandmother would’ve left a portal all the way out here and completely alone.

So…

So, Laric wasn’t going to get an answer.

Just more questions.

When it came to understanding his grandmother and what it was that she had been doing, those questions posed a real challenge. They also posed something of a danger to him, he had to admit.

Other people probably knew things about his grandmother and about what she had been part of, and they knew to follow the glyphs. Glyphs that Xavier knew about.

That was where Laric needed to go.

He wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to blame Xavier for any of this, but he also couldn’t help but feel as if Xavier had to know more than what he was letting on.

He reversed the key, and the stone once again expanded and was marked by the original glyphs. At least he could do that much. It made him feel as if he had a measure of control that could be useful, to a certain extent. He didn’t know what else he might be able to do, but that much felt beneficial.

He straightened. The sun was starting to set, which meant that it wouldn’t be long before it would get cooler. He probably should get back.

Sashaak remained distant, and though Laric attempted to reach the dragon through their connection, he could not. He strained, wishing there would be some way to link himself to Sashaak more forcefully, but it was almost as if Sashaak had shielded himself from Laric. And maybe he had. There was no reason for them to be constantly connected, was there?

There were certainly times when Laric wished he could shield himself from Sashaak, especially so that he didn’t have to catch those dizzying, almost nauseating glimpses of movement from him, but he wasn’t sure how to do it. He didn’t know if there was an amount of control that he was missing, or if there was simply a technique that he didn’t know. None of it really made that much sense to him. Truth be told, he didn’t know whether it even mattered.

Sashaak did, though.

Laric made his way back toward the town. As he neared his grandmother’s shed, he slowed, tempted to go back down and explore, but he decided that was not necessary now. Instead, he passed the shed and then the quarry, which again drew his attention briefly before he started to approach the town.

As he did, he noticed that something wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he felt it deep inside of himself.

For the most part, that strange sensation seemed to be coming from a source that Laric could not quite identify. He moved carefully and began to work through several of his spellcraft forms. Thankfully, working with Talia had revealed a few different functional forms, even if he still suspected that she had been holding back. As he worked through them, he recognized a slight undercurrent of energy that seemed to sizzle in the air, but it seemed muted in a way that he would not have expected.

What was it? And why did one element of it feel familiar, like something he had felt before?

He stayed low and decided to use one of his prank spellcraft forms to put cloud cover over himself. It was still a little early to shroud himself in shadows, but better that than the alternative of getting caught as he picked his way toward the town. Laric was not sure there was anything dangerous around because he didn’t feel it in any obvious way, but he thought maybe there was something he had overlooked.

Could somebody have come while he was gone?

Of course they could have. He had felt it before. He had seen it before. And as he thought about it, he started to question if perhaps he had made a mistake in taking too long.

The last thing he had done before coming out here had involved three mages. And if others pursued them…

Dizarn had known something. Had he been chasing away the mages?

No. That didn’t seem to be the case. Laric didn’t know what it was, so he kept creeping forward.

He reached some of the debris that surrounded the city, broken rubble that had been part of the destruction that had come from the previous attack, where there had been some attempt to rebuild but not fully. As he lingered there for a moment, he probed with one of his detection spellcraft forms.

He felt a strange undercurrent. Laric wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but he felt it, nonetheless.

Maybe this was just from the fact that he’d been gone. And if that were the case, then it would make sense why he would feel something unusual, and perhaps it was little more than him that was the issue, not anything else.

But he didn’t think so.

Laric moved carefully. As he did, he felt that energy changing.

He paused at another section of broken debris and used another detection spellcraft form. This one felt more potent than it had before, and it took him a moment to realize why that was—it was tied to the glyphs. He was certain about that. He had felt these glyphs before, and had felt that effect, even if he did not know what it was. As he moved farther into the city, he followed the strange rippling of energy. That was what it had to be, wasn’t it? It came from around him, and it began to bubble.

He walked forward and then saw an older building that was a little run-down but still intact. This one had moss growing along the walls and had not been destroyed or damaged during the Korthal invasion.

As he neared, he probed at the glyphs, until he heard a voice whispering near him.

“Laric,” someone said.

He froze, and his insides went cold. If somebody knew him, he didn’t think he was in any danger, but the fact that he felt like this did leave him a little alarmed and on edge.

“Over here,” the voice said.

Laric crawled forward, already bracing for the possibility of an attack, wishing that he had more of his potential—and, honestly, more of Sashaak’s potential—for him to draw upon. If he could, then there might be a way for him to counter whatever might happen.

Laric inched around until he reached the door, and then saw Xavier crouched down, looking as if he had mostly recovered from his injuries. He was alone—and using a spellcraft form. It was a curious form, one of earth that Laric had never seen before.

“What is this?” Laric asked.

“Did you feel it?”

“I knew that something was off as I came toward the town, but I thought maybe there were mages here.”

“There are,” Xavier whispered. “They arrived earlier today. They came, settled in at the school, and have been sending envoys sweeping out into town. I believe they have your friends, though I don’t know if Rowan is there.”

“Where is she, then?”

“As I said,” he said through gritted teeth, “I do not know.”

“Then what are you doing out here?” Laric asked.

And what sort of spellcraft form was Xavier using?

“There is a series of glyphs around the city,” Xavier said. “If there was one thing that your grandmother warned me about, it was that there might come a time when protections need to be placed. She said I could activate them, link them. I never really understood it, but there was a hope that I might be able to track earth through them, and…” He shrugged. “Honestly, I never really understood what it was that she wanted me to do, but she had told me that I could serve my townsfolk.” Xavier shook his head. “Your grandmother was always odd, so I didn’t know what to make of it.”

“So you’re just doing it now, because she said to,” Laric said.

“No,” Xavier snapped. “I’m not so foolish as that. I tested it out years ago.”

“And?”

“And I discovered that it seems to mute power.”

“I see,” Laric said.

“Do you? Because it doesn’t seem like you had all that much muted.”

“I’m just saying I see what you’re getting at.”

Xavier nodded. “Good. Now. I want to be careful; I want you to make sure that you get out of here with your dragon.”

Laric’s jaw dropped. “You want me to leave?”

“You need to go. They cannot get the dragon. It doesn’t matter if they get anything else, but they cannot get the dragon. Haven’t you seen that already? Your dragon knew that and was willing to fight, and to die, and to⁠—”

“I’m not going without my sister and my friends. And I’m not going until I can ensure that the town is safe. I returned from Korthal so I could do that.”

Xavier stiffened. “You did what?”

“I took a trip. On my dragon. And saw Korthal. Although I think I saw a different part of Korthal than you have been seeing.”

Xavier’s expression said it all. “You shouldn’t have gone there,” he whispered.

“You knew. You knew about the destruction? You knew about everything being wiped out? You knew about⁠—”

“I knew,” he said. “Which is why I have been trying to keep Essan and the others from heading that way. They don’t have the trick.”

“Then it’s not a trick, is it? She gave you some portal passageway.”

“I don’t know if I would call it that, but you go into a cave, and you keep traveling, and you come out into a different valley.”

Laric shook his head. “And you didn’t want to share that information?”

“I didn’t see that it would make much of a difference,” Xavier said. “Not to them, especially because they didn’t know I didn’t have an opportunity to trade with those people. I have established relationships with them.”

“But you are trying to⁠—”

“You should not have gone to Korthal.”

“Dragons were slaughtered,” Laric said.

“I’ve seen,” Xavier said.

Laric crouched down against the wall, and as he lingered there, he could feel something odd—some of the undercurrent of whatever energy it was that Xavier was wielding. It washed over him.

“Why not let people know?” he asked Xavier.

“Why do you think I dislike the mages as much as I do?”

“I guess I didn’t know.”

“I have been traveling to Korthal—the real Korthal—for a long time,” Xavier said. “I saw it back before it was destroyed, and I saw parts of it slowly changing, going from a place of peace, of people who simply lived differently than us, to the expanse of destruction. And do you know what happened?”

“I’m sure it was mages,” Laric said.

“Mostly. But there was something else.”

Laric frowned. “What else?”

“As far as I’ve been able to tell, betrayal. I don’t know all of it, and those in Korthal will not speak of it, but something changed.”

That had to be what Dizarn had been talking about. Or not talking about, such as the case may be. “So you were able to bypass it because my grandmother permitted it.”

“She put things in the cave that I was supposed to bring back. That was it.”

“That was the bargain.” Laric shook his head. “That was how you had your passageway?”

“Yes. And I don’t regret it. Think about what would’ve been lost otherwise.”

Laric couldn’t even argue with that. But the better question was, what was his grandmother sneaking out of Korthal? And could that have been tied to the reason that Dizarn had come?

“All right, we can deal with that later, but first we need to deal with the mages,” Laric said.

The sound of boots along the cobblestones rang out, and Xavier held his hand up. Laric immediately began to focus on a concealment spellslip, and it shrouded them in shadows. Xavier glanced over to him with a frown, but he nodded as if pleased by that.

It wasn’t until the sound of the boots moved past that Laric relaxed.

“Good,” Xavier said. “You’re a bit more capable than I had realized.”

“I’m not so sure that I should be pleased by that little compliment,” Laric said.

“You absolutely should. Anyway, as I was saying, you need to get going. I’m going to keep muting this, but you get back to your dragon and you get out of here.”

“I’ve told you I’m not running. So where does that leave us?”

“This is a mistake,” Xavier said.

“No,” Laric said, letting out a sigh as he started to look around him, his mind beginning to work, “I think the mistake would be in leaving the mages here to harm the town. We need to find a way to make sure they don’t return. And honestly, I don’t quite know what that’s going to require, but it might involve more of these glyphs. That is, if we can understand them.”

That was one thing that Laric still didn’t know and wasn’t entirely sure how to know. But maybe Sashaak could help. At least, Laric hoped that Sashaak could help—he just wasn’t sure when he would be willing to.

“But in the meantime, we are going to deal with those that are here now. And I’m going to get my sister and my friends back from them.”

“What should I do?” Xavier asked.

It surprised Laric that he was asking him, but he answered anyway.

“You can keep holding this spellcraft form. That is, if you think you’re strong enough.”

Xavier nodded. “I think I can manage for a little while longer.”

“Good. Because I need to find Rowan.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

It actually wasn’t that difficult for Laric to travel through the town. Using his concealment spellcraft form, he was able to move through the streets in the growing shadows around him and not worry about anybody finding him. It felt remarkably similar to what it had felt like when he had been sneaking through the streets when Korthal—or what they’d assumed was Korthal—had attacked. Now that he was traveling this way, he felt as if he was trying to avoid everyone, not just the invaders.

It was strange, though. Knowing that there were mages here, and knowing how he felt about them now, he suspected that he should feel more afraid. But he didn’t. Instead, resolve worked through him.

The movement in the streets reminded him of a sense of normalcy. He passed people out on a walk, or the occasional cart moving through the street, but nothing dangerous. Nothing like what he would’ve expected had he truly felt an invasion. And to most people, he suspected, this was not an invasion to them. For most, this was just the arrival of mages.

He used a detection spellslip to sweep through the streets and pick up on any sort of power in the area. For the most part, he felt only a sense of strange energy. Then he felt the vague, unusual sensation that was all around him. It came from the lingering magic that drifted everywhere, and from something more that he couldn’t quite place.

It was coming from below, though.

He strode forward and found the source of it: one of the hidden chambers they had discovered.

Once there, he hesitated. He wanted to be ready, because there was a possibility that somebody was here, and it could be a mage rather than Rowan. And if it was a mage, then he had every intention of being careful, wanting to ensure that there wasn’t going to be a threat to him. It was difficult for him, though, because somehow he had to try to find a way to maintain his concentration on the concealment, but also to focus on detection.

He filtered power and felt the vague push of extra strength.

That was surprising. He had not expected that, but as he felt it, he realized that what he was picking up on came from Sashaak.

It was a surge of additional help. That was it. Just a little additional help.

He focused and tried to send his appreciation through to Sashaak, and he felt just a bit of that connection forming. Not much, though. He didn’t need all that much power in order to push downward.

A slight resistance worked against him, and then he used a little more of his potential to surge past that resistance. Once it collapsed, he hurried down a set of stairs that were suddenly revealed.

Rowan looked frantic until she caught a glimpse of him. “What are you doing?”

“Coming for you,” he said. “Apparently, Xavier is holding some sort of a spellcraft form that’s concealing parts of the town. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I wanted us to move as quickly as we can to try to keep anything from happening to anyone else.”

She breathed out. “I saw him coming. I knew that I needed to get to Iveris and Joselle, but I didn’t think I could, so I came down here and waited.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I understand.”

“I hid, Laric. I ran.”

“No,” he said, striding over to Rowan and wrapping his arms around her. “You did what you needed to do because you wouldn’t have been able to protect them. You would’ve ended up just like them. And now was a better time, anyway. With Xavier having placed his spellcraft form around the city and linking to some of the glyphs that are here, I don’t know if it’s going to mute their power that much, but it should at least diminish it a little bit.”

“How does Xavier know how to do that?” she asked.

“Sounds like my grandmother taught him more than he was letting on.”

She shook her head. “He really should have been more honest with us.”

Laric laughed. “I agree.”

“So, what now?”

“So now, I think we need to go and figure out what the mages are doing. First, however, there’s something I need to tell you.”

She waited, and he hurriedly filled her in on what he had been doing. As he did, her eyes grew wider and wider, and though she stayed quiet, he sensed her concern.

“Then there’s more to all of this? More to Korthal?” Rowan asked.

“Seems that way,” he said. “But then again, I think that we always knew there was going to be more to this.”

“But why didn’t you stay with them?”

“I’m not leaving. I can’t leave you or the others behind,” Laric said.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said. “If you hadn’t come back…”

“We don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t come back, but I think we can agree that it wouldn’t have been good.”

She breathed in heavily before letting it out and looking around. “We can wait until it gets darker outside.”

“That was what I was thinking. I’ve been using a little bit of my concealment to do that. I thought we could hide and then make our way over to the school, assuming that we can’t find Malcolm and the others there.”

“Malcolm has gone somewhere else,” she said. “I thought he was leaving with his father.”

“He was, but I don’t think he was able to go, partly because I think Xavier has been hiding things.” Laric filled her in on that as well.

“Oh,” she said, shaking her head. “So interesting. Think about how much he knew, and how much he might’ve been able to help us with.”

“I don’t know that he was quite as certain that he could try to keep us involved.”

They started up the stairs, and once outside, they saw that it was darker, but it didn’t take long before Laric had them surrounded by power and concealed. It was necessary to do so, mostly so that they could move carefully and quickly as they navigated toward the school. He also found himself testing for any sign of the others, but he couldn’t pick up on anything.

“Are you using your detection spellcraft form as well?” Rowan whispered.

“I’m trying, but I haven’t been able to find anything.”

“I’ve been trying too, but I haven’t felt anything,” she said. “I know that there has to be something there, but it’s been quiet. I don’t really understand it.”

“Maybe it’s because of what Xavier has done, and the connection between the different powers that he placed around town, and the glyphs that my grandmother helped him form.”

“Do you think that’s what it is?” Rowan said.

“Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I can feel something, but I really don’t know what it is, nor do I know if there’s going to be any way that I will be able to tell anything more. Not until we get further. But right now, I’m not picking up on anything that suggests that there is power around us.”

“So you don’t detect anything from Malcolm or your sister.”

“Or yours,” he said.

As they neared the school, Laric began to feel something strange, but for the most part he thought that it was just tied to the fact that he was holding on to a spellslip here. Even as he did that, though, he didn’t know what that was, nor did he know why he was picking up on something. He found a bit of smoke or fog drifting around the street, and he realized that it had to be another type of concealment.

Interesting. If somebody else was using some sort of concealment, then it was a person with skill. And considering what he had seen of and heard about those who lived in their town, he had not expected that to be the case. There had been no real sign of anybody with powerful magic at the school. The headmaster had some potential, and several of the instructors had ability, but what he detected now struck him as something altogether different.

It was potent magic.

At first, he thought he understood where the potency was coming from, that maybe it was something that Xavier had done, but increasingly, Laric began to think that was less and less likely.

Rowan stayed close. He felt her warmth up against him, he felt the stiffness of her posture, and he was aware of the tension that seemed to linger in her entire being. He felt it, because he understood it.

“Relax,” he said.

“Are you sure that we should do this?” she asked.

“No.”

“What is⁠—”

Neither of them had a chance to continue, because a darkened figure was striding toward them, parting the shadows around them.

Laric tried to maintain that concealment, but it seemed to fade. Every bit of energy that he had went into trying to hold on to it, to the point where he was even calling out to Sashaak, asking for more help but finding nothing in return.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Rowan.

If it was Talia, he knew that they were in trouble. But it didn’t feel like her.

Talia was capable, he knew, but would she be able to part his power quite like that? Laric didn’t think so. Not with him drawing upon the spellcraft form like he was and using the potential from Sashaak.

“Who’s there?” the figure called. There was a deep, familiar quality to the voice.

“Mr. Galinar?” Laric asked.

That surprised him. What would he be doing out here?

“Yes, yes,” he said, waving his hand. “And it’s… Laric Mason and Rowan Adams.” He stepped closer. “Do you know how long we’ve been looking for you?”

Laric leaned close to Rowan. “We might need to knock him out,” he whispered.

“Are you really talking about taking out one of our instructors?” she hissed.

“Not ours. Not any longer.”

And that was the thought that stayed with him. How could he learn from anybody at the school any longer?

Laric hadn’t even been a student at the school for a while, ever since Talia had come, and ever since she had recognized that he had a different sort of potential. Why should he stay when there was so little for him here?

But it was more than just that, he knew. It was about more than him staying, learning, and trying to uncover something that no longer felt like it fit him. It was… Well, Laric wasn’t exactly sure what it was, just that he started to wonder if perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if he were to take out one of his former instructors.

“Why have you been looking for us?” Laric asked, turning his attention to Mr. Galinar.

The man stepped closer, and he was sweeping his arm from side to side while holding on to something. Laric wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe some sort of a relic. Whatever it was that he was doing seemed to disperse the concealment that Laric had been using, and the technique was far more potent than Laric would’ve expected.

“There has been word of a threat,” he said. “A dragon was spotted.”

Laric’s heart hammered, and he focused on Sashaak. He was pleased that he could still feel him and that there did not seem to be any sort of danger to the dragon, but there was a part of him that remained on edge about all of this, concerned that perhaps Sashaak was not nearly as safe as Laric wanted. Could he keep the dragons safe?

That was something he didn’t know.

“A dragon?” Rowan asked. To her credit, she made her confusion sound convincing.

“Yes, yes, a dragon,” Mr. Galinar said, stopping in front of them. He was still sweeping his hand from side to side. Did he know about what Laric was doing, or was he doing this because he was trying to disrupt whatever Xavier was holding on to? “But of course, we haven’t seen it, just reports of it. I can share more with you when we get into the school proper.”

Laric looked over to Rowan. They had a choice here: They could try to fight this off—and he suspected that they would be able to do so because he didn’t think that Mr. Galinar was all that skilled—or they could go with him and see what he had been doing, and maybe find some answers.

At this point, Laric wasn’t positive what they needed to do, but he knew he needed answers.

He nodded, and Mr. Galinar led them toward the great hall. It was one of the more ornate buildings on the grounds, stretching two stories high and featuring stained-glass windows. Several tall steeples set it apart from the nearby buildings. There was a simplicity to it, despite its decorative elements. Glyphs marked the base of the building, much like there were in other places throughout the city. As Laric passed it, one aspect of that glyph seemed to call to him. He had seen it, he was certain, and recently.

He pointed, trying to be discreet, but didn’t think he was doing so successfully. Rowan nodded but kept her gaze fixed straight ahead of her.

As they reached the entrance of the great hall and stood in front of the pair of well-worn oak doors that had been oiled over the years to keep their appearance, Rowan leaned over to look at the glyphs.

“What about them?” she hissed.

“I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve seen them before,” Laric said.

She looked over, but then she pushed him forward. “If we’re going to go, then we need to go.”

He knew she was right, and so they headed in.

The great hall was a gathering place for students at the school. Supposedly, it had once been some sort of temple, but that had fallen out of favor over the years, and it no longer served that purpose. Now it was a place where the school would hold various meetings or ceremonies and the like.

There were several smaller rooms off the great hall, and that was where Mr. Galinar guided them. He paused at a closed door, then knocked.

“Are we meeting with the headmaster? Or are there other⁠—”

Mr. Galinar raised a hand, cutting him off. “Just a moment, Mr. Mason.”

Laric frowned. But even as he did, he focused on his surroundings and began to feel something.

Pressure. He was certain of it. Somebody was using power, and a considerable amount. It was nearby.

He reached for Rowan and grabbed her wrist. He nodded to the door and mouthed, Be ready.

And when the door came open, he did not recognize the person on the other side. He had anticipated that it was going to be Talia and had feared that it might be. But the mage—and they were definitely a mage—who opened the door was not her.

That didn’t mean they weren’t powerful. They most certainly were.

So who were they?

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Have a seat,” the man said, his voice unfamiliar to Laric. His tone was demanding, and he had a hint of an accent.

A sense of pressure began to build behind Laric’s ears again, the telltale sign of a mage using magic. It wasn’t surprising that there would be a mage here, or that they would be using power around him, but what was surprising was that it seemed as if they had anticipated his and Rowan’s arrival.

“I prefer to stand,” Laric said.

“You will sit,” the man said. “And we will talk.”

“Talk about what?” Rowan asked.

Someone who was afraid enough might go running from the potential danger, but she certainly wasn’t acting afraid here, even with a mage. But then, maybe this was just her trying to put on an act, which he certainly understood.

“We will sit, and you will talk,” the man said again, before twisting and looking from Laric to Rowan. “Because we have been waiting to have words with both of you.”

“We?” Laric asked.

The man nodded, and Laric noticed another figure in the room, seated at a table nearby. The headmaster. She frowned at him, and he caught a look of worry in her eyes, but it was not just worry. Maybe it was fear. Or perhaps disappointment. It was difficult for him to parse out what emotions the headmaster might be experiencing.

Mr. Galinar pushed Laric forward. Laric glanced back, noticing that Mr. Galinar was sweeping the strange item in his hand from side to side. Any attempt that Laric had at trying to focus on a spellslip, or even a spellcraft form, was disrupted because of that. It was potent, whatever it was.

Laric and Rowan finally took a seat, and when they did, they looked around. Rowan seemed to be trying to make out whether there was a danger here, and maybe he needed to do the same thing, but the room itself was fairly unremarkable. It had paneled walls, a hearth at one end, and some decorations, but nothing of note.

Why did he feel something, though?

It was more than just the artifact that Mr. Galinar was sweeping from side to side. Was he doing it because of Laric, or was it for some other reason? Was it something he had brought, or was it something that this other mage had with him? And if it was that, then why would the mage have brought something with the ability to neutralize power? Better yet, how? Laric had too many questions without many answers.

He looked over to the man he didn’t know. “This room is interesting. I’m having a little difficulty with my spellslips here.”

“Yes, well, I hear that you are quite talented with them,” the man said. “From everything that your instructors and your headmaster have shared with me, you are the one responsible for dealing with a threat in the city. A pity that Korthal would decide to attack, but a good thing that we had capable students.” He turned so that he could fully look at Laric, and once again Laric was aware of the steady buildup of pressure, and this time there was a little bit of pain mixed with it. “Students who handled Korthal.”

“It really wasn’t anything,” Rowan said.

“I wasn’t accusing you,” the mage said. “We had reports of an incursion through the valley.” He glanced over to the headmaster. Laric knew that she wasn’t the one reporting anything coming through the valley and guessed that any reports that did come had been from Talia. But then, Laric and Rowan had both been responsible for Talia having the ability to reach the rest of the mages. “That area has been notoriously difficult to navigate. We have not been able to secure it the way that we would like, but reports coming in have been increasingly dangerous.”

He took a step toward them. Laric wished he could shrink away, but since he was seated in a chair, there wasn’t anywhere he could go, and nothing he could do. All he could do was feel for any power being used.

The problem that he had, and that he didn’t have a good explanation for, was that he didn’t know what that power was or why it felt like something was pushing against him. Maybe it was what Mr. Galinar had been doing.

But there was something else here, something far stronger than he would’ve expected from the spellcraft form. Laric felt it squeezing him in a way he had not before. Certainly not when Talia had been using her power, and not even when Daelon had been wielding his—someone whose magic Laric thought was even more potent than Talia’s. So why was it that he picked up on something now?

The answer came to him immediately: glyphs. It had to be glyphs.

Could the mages have learned some way to activate them?

Laric hadn’t expected anybody to be able to do that, but if this was tied to the mage council—and given what Talia had indicated, it very certainly could be—they might actually know something. Especially since they had started to learn how to wield that power with the dragons.

Not just with the dragons. Against the dragons.

“I will have some food brought in, and we can eat and drink and be civil,” the man said. There was a hard edge to his tone that Laric didn’t like. It was commanding, but it was an odd command.

Mr. Galinar stepped out of the room for a minute, leaving them with the headmaster and the stranger before returning with a tray of food that he wheeled in.

“As I was saying,” the headmaster said to the mage, “these two students were responsible for protecting the city when it was attacked by Korthal. They worked together to bring down one of the dragons.”

“These two students did? Interesting.” He regarded Laric, and there was a weight to his gaze that made Laric uncomfortable.

“We got lucky.” Laric tried to shrug dismissively. “We knew individual spellslips that were complementary. And we did have a little help.”

“Interesting,” the mage said again.

“We train our students quite well,” the headmaster said. “And though Laric was not always the best student, Rowan has been quite skilled.”

Laric didn’t know whether he should be happy or disappointed by that comment. Maybe both.

The mage glanced at Laric. “He wasn’t the best student, but he was able to deal with a dragon? And what made you such a good student when defending your town?”

Laric didn’t know why, but irritation surged within him, and maybe a wild bit of recklessness.

“Desperation. Necessity,” he said. “I couldn’t sit back and watch my town and people I care about get hurt if there was something I could do about it. I couldn’t then, and I definitely can’t now.”

The man smiled tightly. “Oh? And why don’t we talk about the spellslips that you used?”

“Do we need to do that now?” the headmaster asked.

“It is important to understand the technique, especially if it was done by a student. Dragons are quite formidable opponents, as you all undoubtedly saw.”

“Of course,” Rowan bit out.

Laric looked at her and couldn’t help but feel impressed by the hardness to her. She was angry.

“His grandmother taught him a few different techniques,” the headmaster said, “but we helped harness them. She didn’t train at the school or the Mage Academy, but she was quite gifted.”

“It was a shame when she disappeared,” Mr. Galinar said.

The mage turned, and Laric began to feel a steady pulsation, something that was building, though he wasn’t sure what it was.

“What can we do for you?” Laric asked.

“As you must’ve heard, there are stories of a dragon. Dangerous stories. Dark stories. There have also been reports of students who have been taking action they should not be able to take.” He looked at Laric, then at Rowan. “Not you two, of course,” he said, shaking his head. “Unless it was you two.”

Laric grew cold, and he knew that he was going to have to be ready, but ready for what? They had already dealt with mages. They had survived Daelon. They had managed to overpower Talia more than once, but all of this was possibly going to come down to this mage?

“Well, Your Excellency,” Mr. Galinar said, “as we were saying⁠—”

“Excellency?” Laric asked, glancing over to Mr. Galinar and then to the headmaster.

“This is the Grand Mage,” Mr. Galinar said. “I just assumed you knew this.”

Laric felt the buildup of power with a renewed sense of urgency, and a renewed sense of fear.

The Grand Mage.

If there was any question about how deep the danger extended, this answered that. Talia had certainly been involved. Daelon. Other mages. Perhaps all mages had been involved.

And here he and Rowan were, stuck.

Their options were to try to deceive him or try to find a way of escaping, but even if Laric was able to deceive the Grand Mage this time, how long would they be able to do so? Eventually, the man was going to want to find out what happened to Talia.

“What have you been doing with my colleague?” the Grand Mage asked.

Apparently, it wouldn’t take nearly as long as Laric had thought it might for the Grand Mage to get to that point. But then, Talia had reached out to the mage council. She had requested help—or had shared what had happened. Either way, Talia was the one to have sent word out.

And he had let her. Thought it necessary, in fact.

“I wouldn’t know,” Laric said, sitting up. “She disappears from time to time. We thought that she came to help us, but she often leaves us.”

“Oh?”

He realized that answer was not going to work. And more than that, he was quite certain the Grand Mage knew it.

Laric attempted to stand, because if nothing else, he was going to try to fight his way out of here if it came down to that. He didn’t know if he would be able to, but he certainly wasn’t going to just let this happen around him, whatever this was.

When he tried to get up, he could not move. His body didn’t work. He felt as if he was being compressed, squeezed down into the chair. It wasn’t that dissimilar to the trap that Talia had used on them. What had he needed to do to escape that? Sashaak had helped, but the dragon’s potential was distant now. Far enough away that Laric couldn’t easily reach for it.

“I need your potential,” he said in his mind to Sashaak.

He had no idea if that message was even going to get out. He didn’t know if there would be any way for him to draw that power, but at this point, if he didn’t do anything, there was a very real possibility that he was going to end up being harmed, and that his connection to Sashaak was going to be stripped away from him.

There was no answer.

“Please,” he said. And once again, there was no answer.

Laric focused, trying to call that power to him and draw on that energy, but nothing came.

The door swung open.

Talia.

She locked eyes with him for just a moment. “I’m glad you finally made it, Grand Mage,” Talia said. “It has taken me a while to answer your summons.”

The Grand Mage flicked his gaze from Laric to Talia.

Summons?

Maybe that was what Laric had been feeling when he had first come back to town.

“It is not appropriate for you to keep me waiting,” the Grand Mage said to her. “I sent notice ahead of my arrival, and you, or one of the others, should have been here to greet me.”

“The others are dead,” Talia said with a shrug. “Daelon first, then Asin, Vianat, and Tisan. There are others, but those are the significant losses.”

“You have just named the majority of the council.”

Laric did not know what to say or what to do. The mage council had come? And Sashaak had killed them. At least that would explain why the power he had felt had been so potent.

“Yes, well this one has formed a connection that he shouldn’t have and has been making mistakes since that point,” Talia said, nodding at Laric.

The Grand Mage looked at him. “Connection? By that, you mean⁠—”

Talia offered a hint of a smile as she cut him off. “Very much so.”

“Has he taken your glyph stone?”

Talia patted her pocket. “No. He has something else.”

“What are you talking about?” Mr. Galinar asked, getting closer to Talia.

Talia glared at him, and then flicked her hand. Power lanced out from her that Laric had never felt or experienced before. It slammed into Mr. Galinar, sending him tumbling backward and toppling into a heap near the wall.

“Was that necessary?” Laric asked.

“You will stay silent, or you will suffer the same fate,” Talia said. “You’re lucky I didn’t do that to you the moment I realized that you were already here. Thankfully, you have a particular feel.”

A feel?

They were talking about a glyph stone. They had some way of tracking power, and some way of using that to identify the dragons. That was what they had been doing, wasn’t it? The mages had been looking for power, and they had been trying to somehow wield it.

Laric had gotten caught in the middle, but it was more than just that, though. He and the others had been caught.

Talia turned to the Grand Mage. “We will have to find the creature and strip him from this one,” she said.

“That will not be necessary,” the Grand Mage said. “If he has the connection, we will simply allow him to use it. We will train him, and we will⁠—”

“He was responsible for killing Daelon.”

The Grand Mage frowned, turning to Laric. “You killed Daelon?”

“I didn’t,” he said, glancing over to Talia. “The dragon did.”

Talia smirked. “See?”

“You know what I see?” Laric said, trying to bide his time so that he could find a way to escape, but not at all sure what that was going to entail. “Talia and Daelon made it seem as if Korthal attacked. They are the reason my town was nearly destroyed, and it seems as if the mage council was behind it.” He flicked his gaze to the headmaster, who was sitting quietly. She hadn’t said anything, but Laric wasn’t sure if she was involved in this yet. She had always been tough, but kind at the same time. She was not much of a mage, by her own admission, so maybe she didn’t know any of this.

He had to hope that was the case.

“Korthal is destroyed. I’ve seen it,” he said.

The Grand Mage started to laugh. “You have seen it?”

“I told you,” Talia said, her voice little more than a whisper. “He has connected to the creature.”

“That is not the same as riding it.”

At that comment, the headmaster’s eyes went wide.

Laric shrugged. “I saw Korthal. I saw what you have done to the dragons. They are devastated. They have been destroyed. Mage magic isn’t enough to harm the dragons, but that hasn’t stopped you from wiping out entire villages. I saw them too. Is your goal to eradicate all of those people?”

“You know nothing about what you saw,” the Grand Mage said.

“No? I know what I felt. I know the death, the destruction, and I know what I encountered. And you wanted to bring it here. You wanted to make it seem as if the mages were some great savior, which was why you established this as some sort of an outpost. You wanted to try to make it seem as if Korthal was attacking.”

This information wasn’t for his benefit, or for Rowan. This was for the headmaster. Laric didn’t know if there was anything she could do, but it did seem like if he could get through to her, he might be able to find a different approach to withstanding whatever might happen.

“And you want to continue pushing,” he said. “You know there’s something else out there, and you want the dragons for that.”

Rowan glanced at him. Laric knew that he was taking a bit of a gamble here. He didn’t know that what he was saying was true with any certainty, and it was entirely possible that he was completely wrong. But he didn’t think so. He suspected that this was what was happening.

The Grand Mage watched him intently. “As I said, you do not know what you’re talking about. But, seeing as how you have successfully connected to one of these beasts, you will be useful.” He waved a hand at Talia. “Bind him, dispose of the girl, and perhaps her too,” he said, nodding to the headmaster, “and we will bring him back with us. We will force that beast to serve. One way or another.”

Talia approached Laric, but he was less concerned about himself.

Dispose of Rowan. That was what the Grand Mage told Talia to do. And he had said it so flippantly that Laric knew it wasn’t the first time he had said something like that. If Laric did nothing—if he could do nothing—then Rowan, the headmaster even, and all others that he cared about would be killed. By the mages.

He didn’t know how deep this rot went, but he needed to find a way out somehow. And if he couldn’t, then none of this would even matter.

“Anytime now,” he whispered to Sashaak.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sashaak still didn’t answer.

Talia turned to Rowan, and when she did, Laric began to feel some pressure building from her. It seemed as if it reverberated around her, though.

That was odd. He didn’t know what sort of spellcraft form—or spellslip, for that matter—she was attempting, though he could guess that she was trying to wield one. Whatever it was, it had a bit of power to it, but it was more than just that. He noticed some element to the power that he felt. That element seemed to be tied to something unusual.

Not just Talia, but it reacted to her in some way. Why was that?

There was only one thing Laric had felt that had been similar, and it was that one thing that he suspected was the key here.

Glyphs.

He was feeling the power of glyphs. And they were reacting to this power.

Does she know?

Laric immediately began to focus on just a simple detection spellslip, but even as he did, it wasn’t strong enough for him to do anything with it. He had been trying to push past the pressure and whatever resistance was here, but it didn’t seem to work for him.

Why use that one, though? There was a possibility that there was another spellslip that might work—one that was equally potent. And maybe it would do something more than just allow him to detect the power around him.

He changed his focus, no longer using the simple detection spellslip, instead beginning to focus on the key that his grandmother had taught him. Laric had begun to suspect that it wasn’t just a spellslip, like so many of the other patterns she had taught him. This was more of a spellcraft form, but a very particular use of one.

And rather than focusing on one specific place—the way he had when he went to the shed or when he had found that glyph-marked boulder—this time, he took that key, and he tried to expand it outward.

His grandmother had taught him that the key was everything, and maybe that was true. Having met Dizarn, having traveled with Dizarn, and having seen some vision that Dizarn had shown him, Laric couldn’t help but feel as if that key truly was everything.

When he pushed out, he was surprised that he immediately began to feel an echo of energy around him. At first, he didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t even know if that was accurate or if this was merely imagined, but that echo of energy persisted. Then it started to grow more potent.

Talia seemed to notice something as well, and she turned to the Grand Mage. “What are you doing?”

For her to speak to the Grand Mage like that suggested that there was more than just a familiarity between the two of them. Laric knew that she and Daelon had been close—and had been involved, from what he had come to suspect—but this was a different sort of familiarity.

“I have done nothing,” the Grand Mage said. “I’m waiting for you to deal with what I have told you to deal with.”

Talia glowered at him. “I can feel that you are causing something to happen here. I do not care for it much, so if you wouldn’t mind, please stop.”

Laric ignored them and continued to push. “Use the key,” he said to Rowan.

Talia didn’t know this spellslip. At least, Laric hadn’t taught it to her. She might’ve pieced together ways of getting in and out of the shed, and in and out of the chamber, but Laric hadn’t given her the secret.

And now, he had a very distinct idea about what that key could do here.

He felt it in a way that he had not felt anything else. He felt the power as it echoed, seemingly bouncing off the walls, and then it began to change, rippling upward. When it did that, Laric felt a weird surge inside himself.

Potential.

The glyphs, and the key, seemed to activate some of his potential. That was strange, but not nearly as strange as realizing that his key, the one that his grandmother had taught him, could activate those glyphs. It truly was the key to all things.

“Keep using it,” he said to Rowan. “And see if you can’t add that key to something else.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“I don’t know, like this.”

Talia turned her attention back to them, but he ignored her and focused on the glyphs, then used a spellslip he had played with in the past to cause an explosion of sparks in the air. Talia staggered back and moved away. The Grand Mage did the same thing, but not nearly as far back as Talia had. Still, he had moved enough, giving Laric the opportunity to finally stand up.

He and Rowan both got to their feet, and then Laric turned and looked over to the headmaster. They couldn’t leave her here. He didn’t know what Talia, or the Grand Mage might do, but he had to stop this, here and now.

But he didn’t know if he could.

“I need your help,” he said again to Sashaak.

And again, Laric didn’t know if Sashaak would answer, but he needed him to respond because he couldn’t help but feel as if that was going to be the only way he would be able to find an answer here.

The power continued to build around him, and Laric focused on what he could feel, struggling to understand if there would be a way that he would be able to stand that magic.

As he focused, he continued to probe, drawing on that connection. It was the key, after all. That was what his grandmother had given him. She had been placing glyphs all around the town, and she had given him the key to understanding the purpose behind them.

The Grand Mage turned to him, and there was a look of rage in his eyes.

Laric needed to go. But more than anything, he needed to find his sister and the others.

He did the only thing that he could think of—he turned the sparks that he had been using, mixed with the key spellslip, on the Grand Mage. A part of him thought that was all it was going to take to make the Grand Mage back away from him, maybe make him feel afraid or overpowered. But it seemed as if the moment he released that power, there was a sensation of something else. It was coming from the same artifact that he had seen Mr. Galinar wielding.

For her part, Rowan had turned to face Talia. Laric noticed that she was using a modification of one of the earth-based spellcraft forms, and it was similar to the one that Laric had learned from Talia, but he doubted that was going to be effective. If nothing else, at least Talia was paying more attention to Rowan, seeming to watch her with a measure of wariness that she had not had before.

“You are quite troublesome,” the Grand Mage said. “Tell me where you learned to do that.”

“It was his grandmother,” Talia said. “As I told you in our previous discussion.”

“You didn’t tell me anything.”

“I told you that there was a sense of unease here, and you thought you could overpower it.”

She regarded Laric with a bit of caution.

What could he do? The Grand Mage was blocking his way out.

“This will go much better for the both of you if you choose to come willingly. I can make it easy, or I can make it difficult,” the Grand Mage said, motioning to either side of him. “You said that you saw what took place in Korthal.” He cocked his head, regarding Laric for a long moment. “If you are aware, then you are aware of what we can do to those creatures. I would much rather not, as they are useful. We have started to see that now. We would be in favor of taking advantage of those creatures rather than destroying them. But I will destroy if needed.”

“Because that’s all you know,” Laric said.

“You don’t know what you speak of. And I’m afraid that it is long overdue that you find out what I will do.”

Laric began to feel the buildup of the Grand Mage’s spellcraft form. He didn’t know if there was going to be anything that he could do, and he had no idea if he would be strong enough to withstand it, but at this point, the only thing he could think about was trying to resist it.

Then an image appeared in his mind with a sudden ferocity. It came from Sashaak, a spellcraft form that the dragon had shown him before. Within that spellcraft form came a sense of power, and Laric knew what he needed to do.

Fire.

He focused on the walls, which were all paneled in wood. He had the key active, working on the glyphs, and Laric added a hint of the power within him so he could feel some of that energy as it flowed. He allowed the fire to burn, and it quickly took hold along the paneled walls, consuming the wood. As it did, he felt the heat rising, and there was a massive surge of energy. And then nothing.

That wasn’t exactly true—the flames began to work their way along the walls, quickly eating up the paneling.

As they did, Laric began to feel something else. More than just a sense of pressure. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, just that the energy continued to consume the room around them. While the paneling burned away, he saw the glyphs beneath, gleaming and blazing. Once the glyphs were freed from the paneling, Laric could feel something else from them. It was almost as if they were meant to draw upon fire. They were meant to hold it.

Laric turned his focus to whether he could try anything else. As he did, he began to feel that pressure working, and starting to course all around him. Finally, however, that energy began to build, and the flames worked upward and consumed the walls.

“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Rowan said, getting closer to him, “but I don’t want to be burned alive in here.”

“I just started it,” Laric said. “The rest isn’t me.”

“You see?” the Grand Mage said. “You see what these beasts do? They are mindless, devastating creatures that would try to destroy rather than build.”

Laric glowered at him, anger bubbling up inside him. “They would destroy? I saw what you did in Korthal. I saw the way you were willing to destroy it all. I saw exactly what it was that you, and the other mages, were willing to do.”

He focused on the flames, which weren’t consuming the stone. In fact, the stone just seemed to be concentrating the fire. And he realized why that was—there were glyphs on the outside of this building as well.

Why this building? Was it because it was powerful? Or maybe it was something else. Maybe it served as something more. Maybe it was tied to the dragons in some way.

A whip of unseen power came toward them.

Laric felt it just as he felt a warning from Sashaak, as if Sashaak knew that he was going to need to counter whatever was coming, but Laric didn’t know if there would be anything he could do.

It slammed into Rowan, but surprisingly, she had managed to create some type of protection around herself. He didn’t know what she had done, and from her widened gaze, he had a suspicion that she didn’t know quite what she had done either.

The Grand Mage laughed, his voice dark, angry, and perhaps a little bitter. “Interesting. The two of you obviously can be taught. It’s a shame that Talia didn’t bring you to me sooner. You could have learned. You could have been useful. But now you will have to stay here.”

He brought his hands up and then down in a sharp crack. When he did, the ground beneath Laric’s feet began to shift and ripple until the stone held him in place.

The Grand Mage looked at him, then Rowan, before striding out of the room.

Talia shook her head. “A shame. The two of you could have been⁠—”

Laric focused every bit of Sashaak’s fire spellcraft form on Talia. It was rage, it was frustration, it was violence, and it all spilled out of him and poured into her.

She deflected it at first, but Laric was drawing on the glyphs and the strength within him in a way that he doubted he would’ve been able to do before. Not only that, but he was borrowing from the potential of Sashaak, and that energy continued to rise within him.

Talia cried out as her own potential, and her own power, became overwhelmed. Laric felt no remorse. She screamed as the flames consumed her, her eyes wide, the panic and the agitation all mixing in her shrieks.

Then she crumpled to the ground.

Rowan turned to him. “That… was horrifying.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Did I say that I was disappointed? I was just saying that it was horrifying.”

“I didn’t control it,” Laric said.

“Well, we’ve got Talia dealt with now, and seeing as how it sounds like Daelon and the three other mages that your dragon burned were all part of the council, I’m thinking that we really only have the Grand Mage left.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know how we’re going to be able to stop him.”

The flames continued to build, the heat radiating inward. It was painful, but it wasn’t consuming them.

“I think the Grand Mage thought we were going to be stuck here,” she said.

“Well, we are stuck.”

“You just have to shatter the stone,” a voice said.

Laric looked up and realized that the headmaster was still there, though she’d gotten up.

“Change the stone to something like glass, and then you can shatter it,” she said. “It is a simple transformation, at least once you spend a little more time in the Academy…” Her voice trailed off.

“We don’t know how to do that,” Laric said.

The headmaster made her way over toward them and glanced toward the door. “Is what you said true? Did they really attack the town? It wasn’t Korthal?”

Laric shook his head. “Not Korthal. From what I’ve been able to tell, Korthal was destroyed, and has been like that for quite some time.”

She was quiet for a moment. There were only the sounds of stone groaning, flames crackling, and the emptiness that was otherwise around him.

“There were always stories, of course. Rumors that the dragon attacks had abated, but we continued to send mages.” She looked over at him. “I thought… It doesn’t matter what I thought, but know that not all mages are like them.”

At this point, Laric had a hard time believing that, but he wasn’t going to say it.

“Let me see if I can’t help,” she said. She crouched down next to him, and she began to trace a fairly straightforward spellcraft form. Laric noticed that it was a mixture of fire- and earth-based foundations, and between the two, he thought that he could actually form it himself.

“I think I have this,” he said, quickly forming it before modifying it. That was his one gift, he suspected. More so than any other was the fact that Laric had the ability to modify spellslips and spellcraft forms in ways that others did not.

As he continued to modify it, he felt a change taking hold. The stone became slick. Not glass, not really. More like obsidian. But it was smooth.

“Good,” she said. “I hope that when this is done, you might give my previous idea more thought and decide to work with some of the students here.” She coughed, and then looked up at him. “What am I saying? When this is done, I’m not even sure we will have a school left.”

“The students are going to need you,” Laric said. “And you’re going to have to try to help them be safe. I don’t know what will happen with the school or the council or any mages, but if there’s anything that you can do, we need you to try.”

“I will do what I can,” she said.

Laric sent a crackling bit of potential straight down from him into the rock, and the obsidian around his feet and Rowan’s shattered. He pulled himself free.

“Now, time to find him,” Laric said.

“What do you think we need to do?” Rowan asked.

“Well, I think we need to get out of here first. Then we need to find the others⁠—”

“I will get to the others,” the headmaster said. “The school should be a place of safety, not violence. No students should have to fear for their safety when they learn.”

“Thank you,” Laric said.

He didn’t know what else to say. He hadn’t expected that from the headmaster. In fact, he really hadn’t known how he felt about her before, but seeing that she was open to helping… He needed to try to take advantage of whatever assistance he could.

He nodded to Rowan. “Well?”

“How do you propose we find him?”

“That’s easy,” the headmaster said. “He will be minimizing everything around him. I don’t know what he calls it, but that is what I have always called it. He doesn’t like it when others use their gifts around him. You probably noticed that on your way here. He had Mr. Galinar doing something similar, though I didn’t realize how effective it was until I started trying to test myself around it.”

“A minimization?” Rowan asked.

“That is what I’ve always called it, but perhaps there is a different term. I don’t know what it is, though I’m guessing you could track it. You’re looking for an absence of power.”

“Well, that might be a little difficult,” Laric said. He turned to Rowan. “Especially considering what Xavier has been trying to do, why don’t you go to him and get him to drop whatever he’s doing. I’m going to find the Grand Mage.”

“You can’t do it on your own,” she said.

“I don’t intend to. I’m going to get help.”

“Help?”

“Right. And I think this place was designed for that help.”

Rowan watched him, her frown deepening. Then she looked up at the walls, and up and up. “The glyphs.”

“Fire,” Laric said. “I think this place was designed to summon fire. And because of that, I think this was designed to help dragons. Let’s just hope that I’m right.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Laric reached the top of the school tower, and once he was up there, he felt the wind blowing around him. The tower itself was unremarkable, though he could feel the presence of the glyphs and was not sure why he was so aware of them. They radiated a certain sort of energy, but he guessed that it came from the flames he’d added that were still coursing along the walls as if they were moving from panel to panel and building on each other. It was strange for him to be so aware of that, but he realized the purpose. It wasn’t to try to help Sashaak so much as it was acting as something of a beacon.

A way of summoning power.

He felt that clearly. That power was there, working through the tower, and the flames were emanating outward. They were not yet spreading, however. And that, more than anything else, told him all he needed to know about this place and the purpose behind it.

It was a place of dragons.

Maybe it had always been a place of dragons, or maybe it had once been a place of dragons and needed to be again. Perhaps that was the reason his grandmother had come here. Perhaps that was what she had hoped to bring back.

He stood atop the tower, looking down. Even from here, he could feel the waves of that restrictive energy. They were from Xavier, he knew, and there was some element of them that was radiating in a way that Laric could not fully comprehend. That energy swept outward in a circular fashion, making it impossible for Laric to do anything more than simply know that it was there.

And overhead, he felt something. Sashaak.

“I need your help,” Laric said.

“I felt the summons,” Sashaak replied.

The darkened shape swooped toward him. Laric was thankful that it was night, but even in that, he wasn’t entirely sure that the darkness would make much of a difference because the flames on the tower were likely going to draw the attention of others.

But it didn’t matter. Not really. Sashaak flew toward him and then hovered above. Laric hesitated atop the tower for just a moment, and then he jumped, scrambling on Sashaak’s back, planting himself firmly and using the belt spellslip that he had been taught.

Sashaak circled, quickly taking flight.

“We need to find the Grand Mage,” Laric said. “He’s going to be down there somewhere.”

“How?”

Laric filled him in on what had happened, and learning that the council and the Grand Mage himself had been involved in some of the Korthal destruction caused a surge of anger to sweep through Sashaak. There was nothing Laric could do about that at this point, but he appreciated the fact that Sashaak was angry and felt that he needed to do something about it.

Sashaak roared.

Laric wished he could suppress that because he didn’t want Sashaak to scare people in the city, but how could he tell a dragon not to do something?

Maybe it didn’t even matter. The only thing that really mattered was finding the Grand Mage, but Laric wasn’t sure how to find him or where he would be able to detect him. Or if he would even be able to detect him at all. If they didn’t get to the Grand Mage soon, would there be any⁠—

Sashaak suddenly started to plummet.

“What’s going on?” Laric asked.

“Potential,” Sashaak said.

“What about it?”

“Potential,” the dragon repeated.

The sudden change was enough that Laric thought he understood. This was what the Grand Mage had done. This was how the Grand Mage had harmed other dragons.

He had stolen potential.

“How can I help you?” Laric asked.

“You can’t,” Sashaak said.

“There has to be something I can do. There has to be some way I can give you some of my potential.”

“There is not.”

“What if I were to⁠—”

“You must keep yourself safe,” Sashaak said.

“No,” Laric said, understanding what Sashaak was going to try to do. He was going to deposit Laric on the ground and do the same thing he had done with Malinar—try to leave him behind. But Laric wasn’t going to sacrifice Sashaak, the same way that Malinar had not been willing to allow his dragon to sacrifice himself, Laric guessed. Malinar had been the one willing to suffer on Sashaak’s behalf.

And Laric now understood how.

His potential.

He started to push it toward Sashaak.

Normally when he was connected to Sashaak, he was the one drawing on that potential. The dragon had far more potential than Laric did, which meant that Sashaak was the storehouse of all that potential. This time, Laric pushed it the other way.

Sashaak roared, and then trembled, but they continued to plummet.

As they did, Laric noticed there was other potential around him. He didn’t know how he could use it, but he had to do something. He had to try. He felt that around him, and he began to summon it to himself.

Heat rose from the flames in the walls of the tower. The fire was building, cascading from Sashaak, and dimming.

That was working. Laric had no idea how that was possible, and he didn’t even know if it was what was supposed to happen. Maybe this was some means of fueling Sashaak. Whatever it was, those glyphs were holding.

Sashaak righted himself and then roared.

“Down,” Laric said to him. “You can’t stay here. I’m going to deal with him.”

“Careful,” Sashaak said, but tilted so that Laric could scramble along his wings and then to the top of the tower. The dragon deposited him back where he had started.

Then Sashaak shot upward.

“Let me still borrow from you,” Laric said.

“Careful.”

But another idea came to Laric. It was one he wasn’t sure would work, but at this point, what else was there for him to try?

This was all about potential. The Grand Mage had been successful because he had the ability to drain potential. Laric had no idea if he was going to be able to do anything that would stop the Grand Mage short of cutting him down, but it seemed as if there had to be something.

Wasn’t potential the key here, after all?

Laric scrambled down the tower until he reached the base of it, which was still burning, but what was left was more glowing embers than flames. He saw students streaming away from it and realized that Malcolm was there. He called out to him, and Malcolm, Joselle, and Iveris separated from the crowd and came over to him.

“What are you doing here?” Malcolm asked. “Did you see the fire in the great hall?”

“No time to fill you in, but we have to stop the Grand Mage because he’s trying to destroy the dragon and the town. I can tell you more when this is all done, but what I need for you to do is to go to as many glyphs as you can find in town and use the key that we used to enter the shed on those glyphs.” He looked over at Joselle. “Our grandmother gave us the key, but we all have to use it.”

Malcolm frowned. “Are you sure about this? You’re talking about the Grand Mage? I don’t know anything about him⁠—”

“You don’t want to know anything about him,” Laric said. “I know what I’m saying. I know what we need to do. We have to do this.”

Malcolm shrugged. “Well, I suppose if we can stay out of this fire.”

“Activate as many glyphs as you can,” Laric said. “And if you want to push some sort of spellslip or spellcraft form into them too, be my guest.”

Joselle was watching him, but she said nothing.

“This is what we need to do,” Laric said.

Finally, Joselle nodded, and they ran off.

Laric walked out of the school. He was focusing on his detection spellcraft form, using that to try to identify anything that was here, while not at all sure if it was working but feeling as if he could find something.

Then the energy in the city shifted.

It happened suddenly. And with that, he knew that Rowan had finally reached Xavier, and he had stopped holding on to the protections that he had been. There was no more masking.

And so Laric radiated out the detection spellcraft form. He drew upon his own potential, and after apologizing to Sashaak, he used Sashaak’s potential too, hoping that he didn’t drain too much. Never before had he been all that concerned about it because it had seemed as if Sashaak had a vast store of potential and there was no reason for Laric to be concerned that anything worse would happen. But now he knew that Sashaak did not have an unlimited supply, and after seeing what the Grand Mage was able to do, it was clear to Laric that the finite supply was significant.

The sense of the Grand Mage was still there. Still on the school grounds, of all things.

Laric moved into the central courtyard. He saw the Grand Mage, the only figure standing there.

“Far more capable than I would’ve expected,” the man said, “especially considering how short a time you had with this power. You really could have been useful.”

Laric looked around, and as he did, he had Sashaak looking down with him. In that moment, something occurred to him, something he hadn’t seen before but mostly because he had been looking at it from the wrong angle.

“Oh?” Laric asked. “Because you want the dragon so you can slaughter other innocents?”

The Grand Mage laughed. “You make it sound as if you understand the workings of the world, child. You are too inexperienced to know anything. If we did not do this, another one would. This power is too vast to be held by those who do not understand what it is that they possess.”

Laric took a step toward him. He was aware that the Grand Mage’s magic was potent, and he was aware that if he wasn’t careful, the Grand Mage would be able to neutralize anything he might do. That was his gift, and the spellcraft form he had mastery over. But Laric had something he thought the Grand Mage did not.

“When I was younger,” Laric said, “the stories about Korthal said they didn’t know the power of spellslips or spellcraft forms. The stories made it sound like the people of Korthal were barbarians.”

“They are,” the Grand Mage said.

“But that’s not what I saw. I saw destroyed villages. I saw places just like this town. I saw dead dragons. All because mages were chasing power. And I’ve seen what Daelon and Talia and presumably the other three members of your council were all trying to do. They were trying to claim the power of the dragon. And they failed.”

“They were not me.”

“No,” Laric said. “And the people that you faced before, the dragons that you faced before, were not me.”

The Grand Mage sneered. “You think that I fear you? A child?”

“No. Actually, I’m quite certain that you don’t fear me. You shouldn’t. But there is somebody that you should fear.”

The Grand Mage looked around, his gaze darting everywhere before coming back to settle on Laric. “If you’re suggesting that this person is coming to your rescue, I’m afraid that it is not happening.”

“No,” Laric said, nodding. “She’s not. She was here before, and she made preparations. I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t see it, but I think they were always here. Power has always been here. Potential has always been here. And she wanted to make sure we knew it.”

All around him, Laric began to feel the flare of different glyphs igniting. They were potent, but there was something interesting about them. They all led here. He had noticed it when he had been atop the tower, the way that the energy weaved its way toward the school, but he had thought that it was tied to what Xavier was doing.

Now he could feel it differently. Now he could feel the way that power was slowly converging and coalescing, and he could feel how that energy began to work toward this place. He could feel the potential.

But more than that, Laric understood. This was a glyph.

The buildings were shaped in a glyph.

He assumed that his grandmother had been aware of it, even though she had never said anything about it. But she had shown him a key. She had shown him how to enter her space. She had shown him how to do that on a smaller scale so that maybe he could do it on a grander one.

Like now.

Laric used his potential, the potential that he felt flaring from the glyphs around him, and that of Sashaak overhead. Then he triggered the key. When he did, the buildings all around him began to blaze with a strange, dark energy.

The Grand Mage arched a brow at Laric, then looked at each of the buildings, and he started to laugh. “This was your great plan?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t know what the glyph does, honestly. But that’s my great plan.”

Laric pointed as a darkened shape came hurtling out of the sky, straight toward the Grand Mage, and flames erupted from Sashaak’s mouth.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

He sat in the courtyard, unmoving. Rowan had joined him, as had Malcolm, though Joselle and Iveris had gone off to get some rest at Malcolm’s urging. Laric was thankful that they had because he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to anybody. Sashaak was circling, little more than a shadow in the sky, but Laric could feel him.

“What now?” Malcolm asked, looking around the courtyard. “You know that there’s a glyph here. You know how to activate it. So what now?”

“I have no idea what this glyph does,” Laric said. “I thought maybe my grandmother was trying to show me something, but I really think she just placed glyphs to help augment potential. Maybe that was what this was for. Still, I don’t know.”

“So now we have destroyed the mage council,” Rowan said, sounding incredulous about it, which Laric fully understood, “and we have to do what, exactly?”

Laric had been giving it some thought. All along, he had wanted to ensure the safety of his town. He didn’t know if they had, but he believed that it was possible that they had.

The mages were less likely to be a threat. He didn’t know what the headmaster intended. She obviously was still connected to the mages and to the Mage Academy, but maybe she saw things in a different way. Maybe she would understand things in a different way.

“Well, first we make sure everything is settled. We make sure the school is fine. That the others who are here are fine. We give people an opportunity to learn what they need to learn, and we⁠—”

“Are you sure we can do that?” Malcolm asked. “I mean, with that?” He pointed upward, where Sashaak was circling.

Laric shrugged. “I don’t know. I hope so, but I don’t know. Honestly, I’m not even sure if that is the biggest concern. If mages return and if they decide to attack, there may very well be nothing we can do to stop them. Not without bringing a real force to bear, and I don’t really have any interest in doing that.”

Rowan watched him. She didn’t say anything, but he sensed her unease with all of this. He felt the same.

“And eventually, I need other answers,” Laric said.

“What kind of answers?” Malcolm asked.

“The kind that involves learning more about what my grandmother was trying to do.” He took a deep breath. “She was obviously here for a reason. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know that I can find answers to that here.”

“You mean going to Korthal?”

“Korthal doesn’t really exist. Not anymore. I don’t know where Xavier has been going, but it’s not Korthal.”

“So we get Xavier,” Rowan said, “we make him take us on his trade route, and we go that way?”

She made it sound so simple, but in Laric’s mind, it was anything but simple. Because he wasn’t sure that taking that trade route was the right strategy. Maybe going by dragonback was the right way for him. If he did that, he wasn’t sure that the others could come, and increasingly, Laric didn’t know that he wanted to go on his own.

“That, or another way,” he said. “Because I need to know more about my grandmother. To do that, I’m going to have to find my uncle, and I’m going to have to learn what he was keeping from me. More than that, I’m going to have to learn what the dragons were fighting.”

He looked up at the sky, and he felt a strange tremble from Sashaak.

“Because it’s more than just the mages,” Laric said. “And I think we need to know what that is, before that threat makes its way here.”

Grab the next book in Dragon’s Dawn: Taming the Raging Storm.

Laric discovers there are places even dragons can’t reach. The Dragon Dawn series continues.

Pursuing the Grand Mage forces Laric Mason to make a choice—stay and protect his home, or chase a threat that poses a danger to all of the remaining dragons.

As Laric learns the truth of his grandmother’s quest for glyph knowledge, he uncovers even greater dangers than he could have imagined.

And his uncle had not told him the truth of what Korthal faced. The Grand Mage may be a part of something much larger than Laric had imagined.

If he can’t find the answers his grandmother sought, his home might not be the only land destroyed.

Author’s Note

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for reading Whispers Amidst the Blaze. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would be so kind as to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere, I would be very grateful. Review link HERE.

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Dan Michaelson

D.K. Holmberg

For more information:

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Series by Dan Michaelson

Cycle of Dragons

The Alchemist

The Tether Bond

Blood of the Ancients

Essence Wielder

Dragon’s Dawn

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