The four of them didn’t wait for any more intruders. Reese brushed off everything they had set on the table, clearing things out of the way so they could all see each other as they sat around it.

“Okay,” he sighed as he put his hand on his hips. “What do we know?”

“Nothing,” Sayori said as she slid into her chair.

Evonne nodded, but said quietly, “We know they knew of us.”

Sayori flicked her wrist dismissively. “I think everyone knew of us after that display at the council.”

Kaden let out a deep sigh. They all fell into an awkward silence for a bit. Lifting his eyes slowly to Sayori, a thought struck Kaden. Sayori had suffered for it, but he knew when he felt that surge of darkness.

“We know it has something to do with blocking my connection with Zuma.”

Evonne pointed to him and said, “That’s true. Reese didn’t have that same problem with summoning Bee.”

“What could affect you but not us?” Reese was leaning back in his chair, letting it teeter off the ground.

Kaden huffed. Everything was different for him. The fact that he was blessed by a matriarch and whole cave of dragons and they were not. That he had visions and could see the darkness fairly regularly.

“I’m sure it has something to do with the wild matriarch’s blessing. A scholar within the water mages thought I had a pretty deep connection to the darkness that he hadn’t seen before. I can only assume this means that I am able to sense when it’s used.”

Sayori leaned forward in her chair. “Are you saying you think it was this darkness that you had sensed?”

“That’s what it felt like, or at least, it felt similar.”

She squinted at him. “So maybe it was a darkness block? Who can we ask about that? Who else would have felt that?”

Kaden motioned his head over to Reese. “Reese, you said you felt the darkness when you were younger, right?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, but I had felt nothing that day. I was able to call Bee with no issue.”

“Well, maybe it needs to be someone who has more power,” she put her hand out assuredly toward Reese. “No offense, Reese. I mean, maybe someone who has more than one magic. Like one of the white mages.”

Kaden nodded. “Yeah, that could be a good idea. Maybe I have a more direct connection to it because of the nature of the wild magic and they would have more connection due to having multiple magics.”

Evonne shrugged and stood up. “Well, the sun is setting soon. We probably should go look for them before they head to bed.”

Grabbing a coat he had hanging on the back of his chair, Reese nodded and threw it on. It was the only thing they had to go on, and it allowed them to see more of the citadel stables before they left. Kaden had a feeling a lot of dragon riders were probably staying with their dragons after the attack.

So many of them had lost their dragons that night. He couldn’t imagine what would have happened to Zuma had that Serpent warrior been able to get claws in their wings. The image of a dragon falling and screaming as it spiraled down to the ground was going to be burned into his brain. The tools that the House of the Serpents were using were not that of magic users.

They had to know where the magic users were, though, to be able to attempt to perform such a targeted attack. The only thing they had to go by that none of the others in the citadel did was the dark force Kaden felt. It told him that someone, somewhere, was magical in the Serpent’s ranks. It was quite ironic to him, considering they were fighting against that very thing.

Reese jumped onto the spiral railing outside their stable and Kaden watched as he slid down it with grace. The man moved with such precision and finesse. He was playful when he wanted to be, forceful in other times, and protective when he needed to be. Kaden wondered if this was because he was some type of prince or if it was due to being a wind mage. He didn’t know enough about his people to say either way.

Evonne skipped down the steps, playfully chasing after him as he twirled down the levels. Sayori shook her head and walked with Kaden. As they descended she finally said, “It’s cause you found a nest, as the Lord Commander had said, isn’t it?”

He let out his own sigh. “Yeah, I think so. Otherwise Reese should have felt it, I think.”

“Do you think the white mages will be able to tell us anything? The way the Lord Commander talked, it seemed like the two of you were rare in your blessings.”

Shaking his head, he said, “They may have more insight than we do at least, or I hope.”

There, at the bottom of the stairs, their two companions waited for them to descend. Kaden was going to have to get used to traveling with the three of them. They had a whole world to traverse together. Soon they would be out there on their pilgrimage, only able to rely on each other.

It didn’t take them long to find one of the white mages. He was patrolling the large pool of water that was on the top of the building. His arms were crossed, and he was looking down his nose at the four of them as they approached him.

“Sir Meinor,” Evonne bowed. “It’s good to see you again in better conditions.”

A faint smile appeared on his face before he dashed it away as he turned away from them and pointed toward the pool. “I don’t know if anyone told you about this place. Your dragons can come and relax in here and preen if they need to.”

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“Oh,” Evonne looked down at her feet. “Thank you. We, um… we were needing to actually speak with you?”

He turned back with a confused look on his face. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything about the people you captured.”

They all looked at each other, confused at what he had answered. Sayori shook her hands. “No, no, sir. We know that interrogation is private and we don’t need to know what you’re all doing there.”

His eyebrow raised, and he crossed his arms. “What is it then?”

Sayori waved to him for Kaden and bowed out of the way. Standing there uneasily, he felt a strange pressure in the air causing the hair to raise on his arms. He wasn’t sure if it was the magic from the white mage himself or if it was something else. Swallowing hard, he took a deep breath.

“I felt a powerful surge that evening before the attack that caused me to double over.”

Reese choked out a laugh and muttered, “jumping right in there, aren’t we?”

The white mage squinted his eyes and leaned backward slightly as he put his weight on his back leg. He motioned for Kaden to continue.

“It was similar to the darkness itself. I had briefly spoken with the Lord Commander about it on our initial ride in, so he is aware that I have been able to sense things differently than my companions.”

Meinor continued to stare at Kaden. His gaze drilling into him, making his nerves uneasy.

“So we were wondering if you, as a white mage, may have felt something as well that evening before the attack?” He looked to his companions, then back to Meinor. “So… did you feel anything?”

He let out a small laugh and brought his posture back upright. “The Lord Commander advised us to look out for you four. Told us that we were important riders to watch. After I had seen what you had done last night, well, you didn’t have to convince me. You’ve made quite the ruckus around here and you haven’t even gone on your pilgrimages yet. Now you’re telling me you’re sensing the darkness and wondering if there’s a connection to the serpent attack, right?”

They nodded in unison.

Letting out a deep sigh, he said, “we had felt a faint pulse of something that night but it hadn’t been uncommon lately. We’ve felt it every so often. We have been trying to pinpoint its location, but it was so faint for us that it was difficult to track.”

Kaden’s eyes popped open. What he had felt had been powerful and omnipresent. It had overwhelmed him and caused him to fall in shock. What Meinor was saying was that they, as in multiple white mages, had felt it, but it wasn’t as strong as what he had sensed. What had he felt, and why had he been the only one? If the Lord Commander was also blessed as he had been, then wouldn’t he have felt it as intensely?

Meinor waved his hand out. “I’m impressed you felt it, Kaden.”

Kaden flexed his jaw as he swallowed again, gathering his nerves. “It had hit me pretty hard when I was just trying to call Zuma to my side as they were showing us our room. It knocked me off my feet.”

Sayori scoffed and, out the side of her mouth, said, “and me off the railing.”

“Really? That’s incredibly interesting.”

“Did you all really only feel it faintly?”

He nodded and said, “The Lord Commander would occasionally get a stronger sense of it but it was gone as quick as it had come, so we still were having issues tracking it.”

He shifted his weight back onto his foot again. His eyes were looking Kaden up and down, assessing his worth. The looks were making Kaden feel uncomfortable.

Squinting at him, he said, “Incredibly interesting. Why didn’t you say anything to anyone at the time?”

Shaking his head, Kaden said, “I’m sure you’ve heard how new of a rider I am.”

“We have.”

“Then you might understand my hesitancy in talking about things I have no idea about. I didn’t know if this was something normal with riders, mages, or at the citadel. Who would I even tell?”

Silence again as he pressed his lips together in thought. “Good point. I wouldn’t go around telling anyone else about this. It’s not something we want anyone knowing.”

He pointed to all of them and said, “I mean it. That is top secret info you four are privy to. We don’t know who to trust around here, so keep that information to yourselves.”

“So you have no idea either where it came from?” whined Reese.

He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as ours. There are so many people here in the citadel that it could be coming from any of them. We do think it was connected to the incident last night, but we can’t pinpoint anything. Hopefully, those fools you caught will be able to give us some answers.”

Evonne started asking him more small talk type questions and was happy to change the subject. An electrified spark tickled over Kaden’s skin again and he straightened his back. Something was calling to him, pulling at him. Something close by that he was causing his senses to react.

It was magic. He knew that now. He had been that close to the electric feel of it too many times. Turning his hands over to reveal the scars on them, he sighed as he felt the magic writhe across his nerves. It wasn’t painful or hurting him in any way. It was almost a tickling.

The rest of them were talking with Meinor and he even heard the man laugh at Reese discussing how he threatened the wind ambassador. Kaden knew he probably should pay attention, but he felt a tug in another direction. There was a faint hum echoing in his mind. A song of something that sounded so foreign yet so familiar.

Before he realized it, his feet were following the sensation. The group hadn’t even noticed he had left them as he walked toward a large cave built into the top of the building. The song called to him, the hum bouncing around his thoughts. It was warm, welcoming. He didn’t feel threatened at all.

Stepping over gates, he was easily able to push open doors he thought should probably be locked. His body was in a trance as he was practically skipping toward the sounds. His skin was on fire, dancing and tickling his hair as it began to lift and stand up.

He finally heard shouts behind him, the voices of his companions he had left behind. A steel door shut behind him and he heard their fists upon it, unable to pry it open. The metal screamed and lurched, but both the white mage and Sayori were unable to move it.

His mind was screaming at him to stop, to turn back. That they were calling for him and yelling his name. That it was dangerous to follow the noise, but he was entranced. His body was doing things out of his control as one foot after the other moved down into the cave.

They had carved an actual cave into the tower itself. It was miraculous and terrifying what they were capable of even this high in the air. It was humid in there and a familiar scent hit his nose. His hand reached out to the wall and watched as the walls ignited in a light he had only seen once. Underground.

The algae instantly lit up at his touch, pulsating away from him and down the walls. He heard a deep rumbled, and he knew what was calling him or who was calling him. He swallowed hard as his mind wanted to run away. Meeting one matriarch in such a space was enough for him, now another was calling for him.

Finally, his body felt as if it was his own, as he was at the base of a familiar platform. It had the same carvings as the one that had healed him so many weeks before. His heart was beating out of his chest, but he knew what he had to do.

Taking one step at a time up the stairs, he slowly ascended. The surrounding pillars ignited in a blue flame. He felt a warm mist blow over him, his hair flapping in the wind. He was never going to get used to it.

Closing his eyes, he did the only thing he could think of. He tried to open his mind up for the dragon to tell him what it wanted him to know.

Instantly, pain shot through him and he let out a violent screech as he fell to his knees. Grabbing his head, he felt as if it was going to explode. Images flashed by his eyesight, completely taking him into another world.

They were giving him even more visions.