The next week was hectic for Kaden. Eloise had taken it upon herself to teach him everything she could. Tranley had delivered him several sets of robes, which he made him try them on immediately. They were heavier than he was used to, and he mentioned this to Tranley. A day later, Tranley brought him a new set of robes made of a lighter fabric.

He didn’t want to mention anything else, or he expected Tranley would bring him another set that was altered per his commentary. Thanking him, Tranley smiled with delight and got to work lecturing about different stances. Apparently, unknown to Kaden, different stances helped produce different results when it came to summoning water magic.

Kaden wasn’t entirely convinced of that since the few times he had summoned the magic, he wasn’t standing any specific way. He tried to replicate the moves he was being taught, but that was all they were. He wasn’t being taught how to produce any of the magic, just to perform strange movements.

After a long day of posing this way and that, Tranley handed him a scroll that had instructions on how to perform all the moves they had gone over. He was instructed to study them when he had free time.

“How is your thinking going?” he asked.

Eloise piped up, answering for him, “it’s not.”

He glared at Eloise and said, “I haven’t really been able to focus on it with all the other stuff that I’m trying to learn.”

“What have you been doing for sleep, then?” Tranley asked.

“He’s been sleeping on Zuma,” Eloise answered again.

Tranley bopped him on the head and lectured him that Zuma wasn’t always going to be around when he needed to rest, so he needed to figure it out. He went on an extensive lecture about how the darkness will corrupt him and freeze Zuma, but Kaden was just too exhausted to focus on his words too much.

He was bopped once more. “Listen to me!”

Rubbing his head, he said, “I’m sorry. Eloise has me studying runes and noble names and houses all day.”

Tranley threw a book at Eloise and smacked her right in the head. She yelled in surprise but he said, “don’t put too much pressure on him. He needs to think about the darkness!”

“I told him he did!” She dismissively waved her hand toward Tranley. “He told me that he’d worry about it later.”

“Later is now,” he said as he bopped Kaden again.

Rubbing his now throbbing head, he said, “I promise I will. It’s just not the most exciting thing. I’m not looking forward to the darkness possibly consuming my soul, ya know?”

“What are you afraid of? You are in the temple. We will save you if you need saving.”

“And if I’m ‘thinkin’ about it when none of you are around? How are you going to save me if none of you know I’m in need of help?”

Tranley nodded to Zuma and said, “Zuma will tell us.”

Kaden gave Tranley a slow blink. “They can’t talk, Tranley. Plus, they're nearly the size of a carriage. It’s not like they can go to your room and wake you up to let you know.”

Tranley waved him away and said, “You live near the matriarch. They will do something. They can feel it. All the dragons can. They won’t let you two freeze.”

“Have you met her yet?” asked Eloise.

He shook his head and said, “no, I didn’t think it was wise to go by myself and no one has offered to take me.”

Eloise looked at Tranley and gave him pleading eyes. He shook his head in a refusal, “no, no. We are not allowed to see her. Only when you get permission are you allowed to see her.”

“Oh, come on, Tranley, you’re like one of the most important people at the temple. Why can’t you give us the go ahead? You have the authority!”

He shook his head again and said, “That is flattering, Miss Eloise. I am not the one who has the deep connection with her. You will need to request a meeting with Miss Dalphina. She can arrange such a meeting.”

Eloise groaned and said, “Dalphina is too busy organizing the investigation to do such a thing.”

“It is an important thing,” he nodded. “We want to catch whoever is harming other Zumas.”

“Who do you think it is?” asked Kaden.

Tranley shook his head again and said, “No, no. I do not speculate on such matters. There are too many important people involved. I cannot and will not join in such theory-crafting and gossip.”

Eloise laughed and said, “oh whatever, you theory craft with me all the time.”

“Never about Lords,” he held his hand over his heart as if he was extremely offended by the accusation.

Rolling her eyes, she said, “well what do you think we’ll find when our teams go out there?”

He shrugged. “You should ask Kaden. He is the one who found two of the traps now.”

Giving them a confused look, he said, “that... No. I am not an expert in this situation. I don’t even know enough runes to even tell you what those traps even said. So nope, we ask you, Eloise. You’re the rune expert.”

She laughed and said, “Yeah, okay. I can tell you why someone is trapping dragons.”

“Who would even do such a thing and honestly, why?”

Tranley’s face got more serious when he said, “for the magic of course.”

Both of them raised their eyebrows at him. Eloise swallowed hard and said, “what do you mean?”

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Dragons are magic incarnate. If the runes say what you translated them to, they are there to suppress the dragon’s magic, not weaken it. Whoever was trapping them wanted their magic intact.”

“Who’s the expert now?” she laughed awkwardly.

“What would they do with that magic, Tranley?”

He shrugged and said, “whatever they wanted! Their magic is wild. They are wild. Magic is focused and controlled within a dragon. You do know how they are created, correct?”

He shook his head. No one ever told him how dragons were created. All he knew was that there was a nest where he met the matriarch, but he didn’t know how that worked. Only the matriarch even had a sex, the rest of them weren’t even male or female, they just were. He assumed there was some weird thing that happened with them and then babies were born. It wasn’t something he spent much thought on.

“The Matriarch is a queen of sorts. The largest and most powerful dragon will turn into one and lay eggs. Then those eggs will absorb the wild magic that exists in the world. When there is enough of it, the eggs hatch and another dragon is born! I love when this happens. Baby dragons are incredibly endearing.”

Eloise smiled and nodded excitedly in agreement.

“Do they glow too when they do that?” he asked.

Tranley tilted his head and said, “when did you see them glow?”

His eyes widened. He forgot he hadn’t mentioned anything about the nest and glowing. Panicking, he tried to recall another incident. Looking over to Eloise, a spark jogged his memory, and he remembered the crystals.

“Uh, Eloise had absorbed the trap’s magic in some crystals and Zuma ate the crystals. They glowed and then got bigger in size!”

“Oh,” said Tranley. “You gave the dragon crystals? You know that’s a no-no, Eloise.”

“I didn’t really give them the crystals, they more or less took them cause they sensed them,” she tried to explain.

“Oh yes, they love glowing crystals.”

“What even are the crystals,” asked Kaden. “Will any type of crystal work?”

Tranley’s face showed off his excitement when he said, “Oh, oh, I can answer this. I have been studying it! I believe it is also magic.”

Eloise scoffed and said, “I’m sorry… what?”

“Oh no, not when it is not glowing. I have a theory that it is wild magic concentrated. Then, when it is used, the magic, or the glow we see, slowly leaves it. The milky crystals we see, those are emptied husks of magic.”

“Why would they be empty?” she asked.

“Baby dragons, remember,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Baby dragons make the crystals empty?”

He groaned and threw another book at her. “No, they are sucking the magic out of them to grow!”

Kaden tried to understand, “wait so the wild magic… pools and then hardens into a crystal which then a dragon sucks the magic out of?”

“Yes.”

“This sounds extremely logical,” he laughed, only to get another bop himself.

“I have been studying these stones, have you two? No. Ahhhhh, youths,” he grumbled and stomped off. “Do your thinking or you won’t be able to survive on the pilgrimage!”

He left them alone, and Eloise shook her head. “He’s probably right, you know? He spends a lot of his time studying random things and he’s almost always right.”

“Yeah, but if he is? We’re probably going to end up with way too many glowing crystal mines.”

She frowned and said, “Yeah. I wonder if the magic pools anywhere specific though. Like if you mine it, you’ll want to find a… crystal vein?”

“How do you guys get crystals now?”

“Oh, I don’t even know. There’s a stockpile of them at every temple. I never really thought to ask…”

The next few days were filled with much of the same, Eloise taught him politics and runes, Tranley taught him form. Jaxtor even popped in a few times in an attempt to teach him to fight. He never saw Iratoi, though. He wondered if her outburst against the Lords prevented her from seeing them.

He decided to ask one day.

“What about Iratoi and Vixenta?”

Eloise perked up and said, “what about them?”

“Are they from a noble house?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s house?”

“Lord Cronley.”

“Wait, the Lord of the North?”

“The same.”

His eyes widened, and he said, “so Iratoi probably knew Loratyk on a personal level. I never got that vibe when we were all together.”

“That’s cause she was trying to be professional and so was he. She’s a mage first and foremost and a daughter of a lord secondly. It’s not like she’s going to use her father as clout to bully the other lords. Why do you think he was so willing to join us on our way down here?”

“I thought he… maybe… was just being honorable,” he said with his voice trailing away.

She laughed and said, “You need to learn that these people put on a front. You are going to be meeting a lot of Lords and they do not always tell the truth. Most of them are always trying to convince you they’re better than they are.”

“You say that, but they are lords and some are even blessed! How can they not be honorable if they’re blessed?” he asked with a twinge of anger. He didn’t know where that anger was coming from, but he could feel it worming its way inside.

She nodded and said, “yes they were honorable when they were blessed, that’s correct. But many are older now and have a lot more years on their souls. You’ll find that people do, in fact, change as they age. Youth has a lot more innocence to it.”

“They shouldn’t change that much, not enough to ignore the blessing.”

“It’s not that they ignore it, it’s that well… you don’t see that many older people getting the blessing. Usually it is children or teens. It’s a bit easier to convince a dragon you’re worthy when you don’t have much life experience under your belt.”

“But wouldn’t the blessing fade if that was the case?”

She shrugged. “You’d hope, but no. Once blessed, you’re stuck with that for life. It’s the truly great of us who don’t let the years change who we are.”

He didn’t know how to respond. They were once more twisting his world view. Kaden felt like he knew nothing. Eloise was drilling in names and sigils to him, showing him runes and making him practice them. Every day someone told him something new that completely changed how he thought. It was getting exhausting.

Yawning, he announced he thought it was time to end the day’s lesson. With it being infectious, she let out her own yawn and agreed. Leaving him to his own devices, he threw himself backward onto his bed. He stared at the carefully crafted ceiling above. Everything was carefully crafted around there.

In the stables, the homes reminded him of the cave. They were built to be curved and dark. He learned very quickly that there was no additional lighting in his new room. He had to go back into the temple to find torches. The humidity there was annoying as well. He didn’t know if it was from the massive pool that was outside or if they had done something to cause the air to feel sticky.

Zuma loved the pillows, the pool, and all the attention they were getting at the temple. Before they left, the riders all came to meet Zuma. They marveled at their brilliant blue. He lamented the fact that he couldn’t learn more from them before they were sent off to send word of the investigations.

He was able to tell them exactly what happened, at least the version the rest of them knew, and they all understood why he had hesitated before. Due to their rider status, and their need to report to the other temples and the king, they had been fully included in what was happening. Lena grilled him on everything he saw, so she knew exactly what to keep an eye out for.

He only had two weeks left until he was supposed to ship off and he wasn’t ready. Tranley said he needed to figure out the darkness or it will consume him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to figure it out; he was scared.

What if it took hold?

Rubbing his eyes, he groaned. He had to do it. He couldn’t be a problem to the other riders he had yet to meet. If he made the water nation look bad, they would shame him from the order. If Loratyk was right and the King was trying to destroy his household merely for being well liked, he could only imagine what the King would do to him if Kaden made everyone hate him as a water nation representative.

Sitting up, he crossed his legs and closed his eyes. Letting a deep breath fill his lungs, he slowly expelled it, trying to focus on the magic that was in his soul as Tranley had taught him. Feelings. He focused on everything that he was feeling; his chest expanding, his heart thumping in his ears, his muscles tensing and releasing.

The tendrils wormed their way into his thoughts, gripping his being. He could feel it tugging at his soul, trying to bring it into the cool and cold breaches of death.

A pain swallowed him, making him gasp and frantically try to keep from drowning in the darkness.