Chapter 21 Promise Me #2
“You know about magic. I saw you use it to stun the portal. How was I able to use it if I didn’t have the Hyalite or any Yogo Sapphires?”
“I was just as surprised as you were. It didn’t make sense at first, because without a bond with a dragon, the only ways to conjure magic are by sourcing it from a god’s energy, such as a Hyalite or a Yogo Sapphire.
Or by tapping directly into an energy source from another realm, which is extremely rare.
Another option is dark magic. I know because I saw you do it, that isn’t a possible explanation for how you were able to use your power because you didn’t harvest a living soul to power your spell.
The Morsythian on the other hand, did. If you didn’t use dark magic, and you didn’t have any anchor to draw power from another realm, and without any slivers of godly power stored in runes or Yogo Sapphires, you actually had only one option. You used your bond.”
“My bond?”
“Yes,” Venrick’s eyes lit up. “You are a dragonrider, so you have used your bond before. Without realizing it, I think you and Ingamar formed a bond when you met. You must’ve tapped into it when he was near enough for you to form the link and call him in somehow.”
“But I never bonded with Ingamar. I only saw him clearly the one time in the forest. Our next meaningful encounter was when he ripped open that building,” Lark said.
“Your other dragon died, was killed by Marcel. Riders can’t tap into the flow of magic without their bonded dragon.
Death severs that magical bond, but the powers linger, searching for a new host to channel them despite the mourning period for dragon or rider.
Ingamar must’ve let his control slip after Tel died.
If he presented himself to you in the forest, that could’ve been the moment when you bonded. ”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Lark said. Her instincts told her that much of that explanation wasn’t accurate.
“You had already lost the Hyalite. It was taken through a portal to another place. I’d already used up the only Yogo I had, the one in my sword pommel.”
“Didn’t you say Nix arrived right around then?” Lark asked.
Venrick frowned. “She did, but what you did wasn’t dark fae magic. Trust me. The Morsythian who created the portal used evil magic. That’s what the screams in the street were about. But not you, you tapped into a bond with a magical creature.”
“That’s what happened to him, too,” Lark said.
“You remembered something?”
“Not in the way you mean. Hardin told me after Sasja disappeared with a group of orcs,” Lark said, wincing at not having realized it sooner, “a fire fae appeared and he heard screams. I should’ve known that Sasja was with the Nordravens when I recognized her.
Hardin told me, but I didn’t realize it until it was too late. ”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened. Those Nordraven soldiers shouldn’t have been allowed in the city. They would’ve needed to bypass the wards without triggering them. Nordraven orcs or Morsythians don’t practice that level of magic. It just, doesn’t make sense.”
“How exactly do wards work if they aren’t using a bond or soul-harvesting magic?”
“Through imbuing a rune with energy. Spells cast into runes retain the power until its intended purpose is met. They are critical for creating wards, or protecting something,” Venrick said.
“Rune magic, you didn’t mention that one before.”
“Because you still need to use power from a Yogo or a Hyalite or the bond of a magical creature to cast the spell that goes into the rune,” he said.
“What about the gods or the fae, don’t they use magic?” she asked.
“They are beings of magic and do not require an external source to draw upon to access their powers like the other races of Sataran. Yogos and Hyalites are a sliver of the god’s power they send through the veil.
And the fae… They’re something different.
Their magic is still foreign to most of us here in our world.
Dragons are the only known creatures who’ve migrated en masse from the fae realm to Sataran and remained here. ”
“Can anyone with a Yogo or a Hyalite use the energy to power magic spells?” she asked.
“Yes, and no. The amount of energy is immensely different between what’s in a Yogo and what’s in a Hyalite. Obviously, Hyalites hold vastly more power, so much so that a dragon needs the bond of a rider to control it. Amounts of energy aside, the magician needs to be trained in the language.”
“Magic has its own language?”
“Not necessarily a language, but more an innate understanding of how to use the language. The right inflection, emphasis, and emotion are essential when binding it with the power. It can be done in any language, but learning how to do it takes years of training. Tel had been training me for ten years and my use is still very rudimentary.”
“But you stopped the portal.”
“I momentarily stunned it. The spell is a basic level of magic any warlock or amateur mage could do. It was lucky that it worked. And that’s just basic magic that sorcerers can shape from a Yogo.
That energy is nothing compared to what comes from a Hyalite.
But those channels of power that come with the bonding of a dragon are specific to the god that sent the Hyalite through the veil,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Well, you mentioned your friend from the village’s name was Paq.”
Lark nodded, remembering him saying he was named after a god, but clearly, he was a human child.
“The god Paq, for instance, is the god of air. If you bonded with a dragon that had won a Hyalite with Paq’s power, you could control air.”
“That doesn’t seem very impressive. What do you mean?” Lark said.
“Removing the breath from someone’s lungs with a single word or increasing the air density to a crushing weight on an entire group of enemies or funneling a stream of wind so strong it cuts a hole through a man doesn’t seem impressive to you?
You could make the air so thin that enemy dragons couldn’t fly.
It’s a huge advantage and one of the less common powers. ”
“I didn’t realize,” Lark said. “Tel’s magic must have been fire.”
“That would be Tia’s, the goddess of fire. I don’t know, though,” Venrick winced. “Tel never revealed his gift in front of me. In all the years I knew him, he relied on other tactics and only used his and Ingamar’s gifts if needed.”
“And with one word, I used mine to kill half a dozen orcs,” she said, the hollowness of it cutting through her.
“More than that, but yeah. That spell is why I think you and Ingamar have bonded. A spell like that must’ve come from something as powerful as a dragonrider bond; it had to be from Ingamar. And in that case, you could ride him.”
“I can?” she said.
“Yeah. The only reason Ingamar put up with me on the ride here was because he was trying to keep you safe. He tried shaking me off the whole way, but he was more focused on getting you here. It’s the only way I was able to hold on.”
“He tried to make you fall off?” Lark said, frowning at Ingamar. The dragon lowered his head and looked up at her with wide eyes.
“Ingamar and I were always at odds when it came to which of us Tel spent his time with. Ingamar rarely does anything I tell him to. You, though, you should be able to control him. Guide him.”
“How do I do that?”
“Climb into the saddle. Tel used to say, the dragon responds to you, and you respond to the dragon. You are as one in flight. Other than that, I don’t know. If I were you, though, I’d wait until tomorrow. Wouldn’t want to get dragged into an aerial battle your first time back in the saddle.”
“Right,” Lark said, her attention now fixed on Ingamar. The dragon watched her every move. He awaited her response or direction as though he owed her his life, and Lark hardly knew him, that she remembered.
“I’m going to try to get some sleep,” Venrick said, settling beside the fire.
“Smart,” Lark said, curling up on the opposite side. The distance between them felt both vast and fragile.
Shifting scales clinked around her as Ingamar settled in at her back.
The warmth radiating from his body was more consuming than the fire.
His wing unfurled, creating a living shelter that enclosed her in a cocoon of dragon-warmth.
Tension melted away from her bruised muscles as sleep approached.
She entered her dreams soaring through calm blue skies on the back of the golden dragon, imagining the flight she was going to take first thing in the morning.