“Try to redirect more of it upward,” Rowan said.
It was a good idea. “Even if I do,” he said, “there’s no guarantee that it’s going to release us. We have to…”
What did they have to do? Wait?
Sashaak was outside, he knew, and in a way, he couldn’t help but feel as if maybe Sashaak could break in and get them free. But Laric was not as bonded to the dragon as Malinar had been, and he didn’t know if Sashaak would care enough to help him.
Without the dragon’s help, what could they do?
Would Xavier come for them?
Xavier might not even know enough spellcraft forms to be able to rescue them. He had trained with Laric’s grandmother, but that wasn’t a guarantee that he understood enough of that power to break through stone.
“I’m scared,” Rowan said. “I don’t want this to be the end.”
“It’s not,” he said.
“I thought we were going to die when Korthal attacked.” She laughed, and in the confined space, with his spellcraft form pressing in on him, he felt as if that laugh was almost too loud. “When we first saw the dragon, I thought… Well, you know what I thought. You were thinking the same thing.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that. “I was actually thinking that it was pretty amazing that we had an opportunity to see a dragon.”
She frowned, tilting her head as she regarded him. “Really?”
He shrugged. “I know, I know, it’s ridiculous, but I had never even thought that I would have a chance to do that. And now…”
“Well, now you are connected to a dragon. So that’s even more impressive, I suppose,” Rowan said.
“It’s only impressive if I can use that power to get us out of here.”
“You have the dragon’s potential, so use it.”
“It’s not so simple as that. I think it’s the dragon’s potential that’s allowing me to hold this.”
He couldn’t imagine the weight of what he was holding upward.
“Do you think Talia triggered this?” Rowan asked.
“I have no idea how she would’ve been able to do anything like that,” he said. “I just don’t see her having that ability. But maybe I’m just too naive.”
“I don’t know if it’s about being too naive,” she said. “I think it’s about whether or not she has any ability to trap us like this.”
“She would have to have known about the egg here. And if she had, she wouldn’t have left it. She was after it all along.”
Rowan nodded. “She really had been. So what, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was just that the dragon helped us get inside. Or maybe the protections on this place had faded. Or maybe…”
Laric had so many different maybes without answers that he wasn’t sure what to say about it. Instead, he took a deep breath, let it out, and looked around.
It was dark other than the space where they had created the light. And increasingly, he couldn’t help but feel as if they needed to work their way past that, but he didn’t know what that was going to be like or if there was going to be any way to break free of this. The only thing he knew with any certainty was that this power continued to press down on him, and though he had the link to Sashaak, it was faltering.
“You know, if you had some way of creating one of those portals, we could just create one here,” Rowan said.
“Well, now you’re giving me all these ideas, but it’s too late,” he said.
She chuckled. “Too late, but I still think that the dragon has to be able to help us. It has to know something.”
“I think that it does, but the problem is that I have to have an opportunity to learn it, and when I do that, I also lose track of certain things.” He wasn’t sure how to describe that to her without telling her exactly what it was that happened. “When the dragon gifts me information, it sort of comes in the back of my mind, and it’s more than a little distracting.”
“So you lose something?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure what to make of it, but it seems as if I have to focus on the part that is there and buried.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to do that without losing control of it.
The stone creaked and groaned, and it continued to press down on him. Every time it made that sound, Laric feared that it was going to be too much, that it was going to collapse down on him again.
He couldn’t move.
He didn’t dare to.
But then he began to feel a faint sense in the back of his mind.
It was a surge that came from Sashaak, he was certain of it, but the dragon was not comfortable, somehow. Laric wasn’t sure why, and he didn’t know what it meant, just that he could feel a vague sense of uneasiness from Sashaak.
“I need your help. If there’s anything you can do,” Laric said to him.
“Attack,” Sashaak said.
