Rowan’s gaze darted all around as she skimmed the horizon and searched for any signs of movement. Laric assumed she was using a spellslip, or perhaps even a spellcraft form, though he wasn’t sure. He could feel the steady, occasional buildup of pressure that came from her and from what she was doing, but he had not been able to identify much else from that.
Even Xavier was doing something, he realized. That was strange, partly because Laric could feel it, and partly because he questioned what, in particular, it was that he had started to feel.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Laric asked.
Xavier looked over. “You can tell?”
“There are certain features that are recognizable when you are attempting spellslips, but I don’t even know if what you’re doing is a spellslip. It might be more along the lines of a spellcraft form.”
“I had an old friend show me a few things,” Xavier said with a shrug. “After I helped them for a little while.”
“Was it his grandmother?” Rowan asked, turning in her saddle and looking over to Xavier. “If it is, there’s no reason to hide it from him, or from us, because Laric is eventually going to recognize his grandmother’s spellslips and spellcraft forms.”
Could it have been? But then, it did make sense, didn’t it? Xavier had known Laric’s grandmother, which meant that he might have learned from her. If so, he would definitely have to keep that from Joselle.
She was becoming more and more upset about the fact that she had not had an opportunity to study with their grandmother, nor to learn from her the same things Laric had. He had tried to reassure Joselle that had she been older, it wouldn’t have been an issue whatsoever, and that their grandmother would have almost certainly taught her the same things she had taught him.
Almost certainly.
There was the nagging, doubting part of him that left him wondering if perhaps that was not true. Why had she taught him in the first place? And why had she not revealed more about who she was and where she had come from?
Those were the kinds of answers that Laric increasingly couldn’t help but feel as if he needed, so that he could better understand more about who he was and what he could do.
It went beyond that, though. His mother could have had that same sort of potential, at least before she had fallen sick. So why had his grandmother not taught her?
“It was your grandmother,” Xavier eventually said, shaking his head. “At first, it was me just watching her when we were traveling. She never admitted what she could do. At least, never admitted to the complexity of what she could do. Not at first. I knew her as someone who was talented, but more of the kind of person with a natural gift. The kind of person who didn’t need to study at school, or with the mages, to have her natural talent. Over time, however, I started to suspect that she was equally as capable as any mage, though she denied it.”
“She would’ve been more powerful than any mage,” Rowan said.
“I never saw that,” Laric said.
“Well, if she could do the things that Malinar can do, and if she was connected to a dragon, then it would only seem that she had to be, right?”
Rowan wasn’t necessarily wrong. If that were the case, then what did that mean? Why had there been no sign of his grandmother’s dragon?
“I never saw her dragon,” Xavier said by way of answer. “And I suspect that is what you have started to wonder.”
“I think the dragon died,” Laric said. “Well, that’s what the dragon I’ve talked to has said. And I don’t know how, but it doesn’t seem like any mage killed the dragon.”
“That you know,” Xavier said.
It was a strange qualification, but he wasn’t wrong. That Laric knew of.
What if the mages had done something similar to his grandmother’s dragon like they had done to Malinar, something that would have ultimately been fatal and would have meant that the dragon could not survive it, so it had chosen to hide and leave memories in the form of the glyphs behind?
“How much did she show you?” Laric asked Xavier.
“Mostly basic spellslips. Or at least, what she called basic spellslips. Some things to detect. Some things to defend. That sort of thing. Minor magic, or what I had always considered minor. I never had an opportunity to formally train at one of the schools, and never really thought that I had the ability, but your grandmother said that some people were just born to it. She must’ve seen something in me, because she decided to work with me a little bit.”
“Only her?” Laric asked.
“Not only her. I took what I learned from her and I expanded on it. When I was around mages, I would observe them, ask a few probing questions,” Xavier said, smiling to himself, “because I was just a simple merchant.”
Rowan arched a brow. “And they just answered?”
“You would be surprised at what people say when they think you’re incapable,” Xavier said. “And mages, by and large, are more than comfortable talking about themselves, and talking about what they can do—which had been good, for the most part. Although I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the mages talking about what they can do was simply their way of trying to cause a different sort of problem.”
“What sort of a problem?”
“Fear. Intimidation. They make it seem like they are more capable than they are.”
“You don’t think that they’re nearly as capable as what they claim?” Rowan asked. “We’ve seen what Talia can do. We saw what Daelon could do. They were able to deal with a dragon.”
Laric locked eyes with her for a moment. It wasn’t just the mages who had been able to deal with a dragon, unfortunately. It had also been students. He and Rowan had been able to do the exact same thing, and though he wouldn’t do it now—not with what he knew—the simple fact of the matter was that it took very basic magic to bring down a dragon.
“You were able to take down a dragon because I suspect the dragons were not fully connected to those they were working with. The mages have been trying to take that bond for themselves for quite some time. That is not something that I know personally, but it’s what I have heard from those who have dealt with it.”
“Korthal,” Laric said.
“Korthal, but others as well. Korthal is a strange place, Laric. And maybe once you deal with Talia, you will need to understand why. It’s the kind of place that is not only a single people.” He shrugged. “When I first started going there, I would trade in some of the outer villages and towns. Mostly because I could trade for what people here would consider exotic, but what the people in Korthal felt were just the necessities of life. Gradually, though, I spent more time delving deeper into Korthal. Some of those settlements were different. Some were abandoned,” he went on, frowning as he did, his brow furrowing, “and others were more securely guarded.”
“How so?” Rowan asked. There was a curiosity in her eyes, and Laric understood it. Neither of them knew all that much about Korthal. There were stories, and that was it. And in all the stories they had learned about it, Korthal had always been the enemy. Up until recently, that had been the way Laric had felt about them. Then again, he had also felt like the dragons were the enemy, and he no longer could feel that way.
“Using powers that I could never learn.” Xavier shrugged. “Most people here think that Korthal has only the dragons and that they don’t do any other magic. Isn’t that what you had believed?”
Laric frowned, but Xavier wasn’t wrong. When he had learned about the Korthal invasion, the one advantage he’d thought they had was that they understood spellslips and spellcraft forms. That was a distinguishing factor between them and what the dragon riders of Korthal could do. But he had started to learn otherwise—not just about that, but also about what the dragons themselves could teach. Given his connection to the dragon and what Laric could see from it, he had been able to learn spellcraft forms that he would not have known otherwise.
“No,” Laric said. “They have other power, but they try to keep it hidden.”
