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?”
