Chapter 30 #2
I can tell she needs to work out her frustration, so we move on, focusing on the things we have started to figure out: Magic.
I'm still eager and hoping for a glimpse of whatever her deeper, specific divine powers might look like, but even the rudimentary magic she possesses is enough to keep me busy for now. I’ve found some useful books on the subject, and she’s opened up about her abilities over these past days, too; it seems like she’s discovering more about them herself as the two of us grow closer.
Or remembering more about them, I guess; her past lives coming more into focus as she grows.
Together, we’ve unraveled the basic principles of how the simplest dragon magic works—how she’s able to pull energy from the atmosphere into her body, where it’s forged into something I can wield. Then it’s merely a matter of trusting her enough to let her channel it through me.
We’ve managed small displays of fire, water, and wind thus far. Different surroundings and different weather lead to varying results and spell strengths, though she can forge weak spells of almost any kind, at any time, with enough concentration.
Today, there’s a storm brewing in the distance. The dampness, the electricity in the air…whenever I’m connected to her, I feel these things in a way I never did before. Like I’m a part of them, a vessel ready to take them in, rather than just observing.
We start small—with water coaxed out of the heavy air and pulled toward Sesca’s heart, deepening the teal color of some of her scales to more of a sapphire blue.
When she passes the manipulated water onward through our bond, it feels like ribbons curling through me, and this is how it emerges from my palm a moment later: As threads of silver blue that dance and twist around my fingertips.
Water is fast becoming my favorite thing to summon. It comes relatively easily to me, and letting it flow out always leaves me feeling calm and weightless afterwards, like I’m floating in a warm sea.
We’ve never truly attempted electricity before.
But the static in the air today won’t be ignored; as the last bits of water evaporate from my hold, Sesca inhales, and her entire body seems to shiver and crackle with that static.
Her wings and tail twitch erratically, as if she took in more than she actually meant to, and now she’s struggling to contain it—much less shape it.
For several moments, she doesn’t seem to want to release any of it into our bond.
Protecting me, maybe.
I can do this, I think, stubbornly. Trust has to go both ways.
Her normally golden eyes are the pale white of lightning as she fixes them on me. She takes several shallow breaths. With each of her exhales, I feel as if my body is charging, every nerve flaring to life, until finally…
A bolt of energy cracks through me like a sudden panic, wild and all-consuming for several seconds.
It exits through my hand with the same ferocity, leaving my fingertips white and my arm tingling for a long moment afterward. The jagged streak I release scorches several feet of ground; luckily the grass is damp enough not to catch fire.
The violence of it is the exact opposite of handling water. Staring at the scar it left, breathing hard, I’m reminded again of the duality of dragons that has always terrified and fascinated me—how capable they are of both chaos and creation.
We spend the next two hours alternating between these two facets of power, trying to become more comfortable with both.
Briar joins us eventually, just as the sun returns to chase the clouds away and I feel the energy in the air shifting to something more fiery.
She flops down on her back, closing her eyes and crossing her hands behind her head.
She’s spent all afternoon in the library, which is a feat as impressive as me wielding lightning bolts, given her attention span.
“Reading is exhausting,” she announces without opening her eyes.
Thin ribbons of water are circling my arm like bracelets. After directing them toward one of the large rocks I’ve been using as a target, I make my way over and sit beside Briar.
“Find anything interesting today?” I ask.
“Nothing I haven't already come across before, in some form or another. I'm afraid we might be close to exhausting the palace library's collection. And their shelves feel so very curated toward Mouren…I think we're going to have to search elsewhere for answers.”
I glance toward the defensive walls rising in the distance, thinking of my earlier conversation with Sesca.
“I believe you’re right.”
Briar slowly sits up, studying my face. “You look like you're scheming something.”
Because I am.
It was only a quiet seed of a plan earlier. But after hours of practicing magic, I’m humming with a charged restlessness, with more questions of power and possibility that won’t settle. “I want to pay a visit to the temple where Mouren's flame once burned,” I tell Briar.
She doesn't look overly thrilled at this plan, but she doesn’t argue. “Why do I feel like you've already made up your mind about this?”
“Because you know me too well,” I reply with a slight smile.
She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “When do we leave?”
It's been weeks since I've truly spent any time outside of this palace or its grounds—a fact that only dawns on me now, as I contemplate how to carry out my plan.
I haven't been expressly forbidden to leave, I just…
haven't. There's been so much going on here that I haven't really been able to think about what’s happening elsewhere.
And it's probably not the safest time to try venturing out, given the tension between Dralsk and Mouren, and the dragons going rogue in Mouren's skies.
If I mentioned it to Reave, I suspect he'd be adamantly against the idea—or, at the very least, he'd insist on sending a small army of guards with me. Guards that would only get in our way.
Which is why I don't intend to ask for permission.
“First thing tomorrow, so get to bed early tonight,” I instruct Briar. “Hopefully, we can get there and back again before anybody even realizes we're gone.”
We're up before the sun the next day, donning heavy, concealing cloaks and sneaking our way toward the woods that lie to the south of the palace grounds. It will mean a longer route to our destination, but it allows us to bypass the larger concentration of guards at the main gates.
I love early mornings. The slow softening of the dark sky, the stillness, the quiet, the possibility that I can taste in every breath of crisp, unspoiled air.
Briar is…less enthusiastic about them.
“I hate this and I hate you,” she says, drawing her hood more tightly around her face.
“No you don't.” I dig into the bag slung across my shoulder, taking out a wrapped muffin—one of several things I snatched from the kitchens on the way out of the palace. “Here,” I say, offering it to her. “Maybe this will make you less grumpy.”
“Not everything can be solved with baked goods,” she mutters.
“I beg to differ.”
She rolls her eyes. But she still takes the muffin, grumbling to herself, picking the berries out and shoving them into her mouth as we continue toward the Temple of the Mouren Flame.
It's not far from the palace, thankfully, and there's even a road that most of the city doesn’t use to get to it—one that was apparently reserved for royalty, back when the palace's inhabitants made more frequent pilgrimages to this temple.
Sesca flies overhead, mostly hidden by the vast amount of fluffy clouds.
Even when she dips below those clouds, her body blends into the pre-dawn sky that’s still threaded with moonlight.
We don’t see any other dragons in that sky, thankfully; the last thing I want is for one of those unpredictable beasts to interfere and draw attention to us.
The temple soon comes into view, a relatively unimpressive sight, given its importance. It’s a low, wide building of dark stone, free of decoration aside from a row of carved flames running along the roofline, most of which are chipped or smoothed or otherwise difficult to make out.
Only one guard stands at the entrance, appearing somewhat bored. But he straightens as we approach, taking one look at our cloaks and stepping forward, his hand moving toward his sword.
“His Majesty has sent me to inspect this temple,” I say, steeling my voice into something smooth and imperious, “as part of my duties as his Favored One.”
The man squints. He knows my face—I can see the recognition flicker through his suspicion—but he's weighing it against his orders, or perhaps his own skepticism about why the king's Favored One would arrive on foot, before dawn, and with no guards accompanying her.
Sesca chooses that moment to drop from the cloud cover overhead, plunging in a steep, elegant dive before pulling up sharply and hovering directly above us. Her shadow swallows the guard whole.
The effect is immediate and gratifying. He stumbles back a full step, color draining from his face as he gestures for us to carry on.
Sesca’s voice threads through my mind: Be quick.
Her tone is odd—afraid, almost.
I don’t let myself think about why that might be; I just hurry onward.
Once we're inside with the door firmly shut behind us, Briar and I exhale a simultaneous breath of relief.
“I can't believe that actually worked.”
“Your royal voice was very official and convincing,” Briar says. “Terrifying, almost.”
I huff out a bitter laugh. “I don't want to think about anything royal at the moment. Let's just see what we can find in here.”
She nods, already moving deeper into the building.
For a place no longer regularly seen by the public eye, its interior is surprisingly immaculate.
The stone floors have been swept clean. Oil lamps line the entryway, neatly trimmed and burning low, and the carved reliefs along the hall before us look as though someone has gone to great lengths to keep every nook and cranny free of dust.
We follow this warmly-lit corridor, trailing our fingers along the decorated walls, and soon come to a large room with a glass ceiling that looks as though it’s meant to open—though something tells me it’s been some time since this mechanism was utilized.
A great basin stands in the middle of this room, balanced upon a marble pedestal taller than me.
The room is cold and dark and smells like dry earth. As expected, nothing burns within the center basin. An odd feeling overtakes me as I stare at it, a heaviness that becomes almost suffocating as I step closer and notice a small red door with three golden bands set into the marble pedestal.
Without thinking, I move toward this door, Briar following close behind.
As my hand brushes the door, the room sways, and that odd heaviness clamps down with such force it nearly brings me to my knees.
“I'm afraid that area is inaccessible,” comes a soft, measured voice from the shadows near the far wall. “Even to His Majesty's Most Favored One.”