“She taught you?” Janear said, a real hint of derision in her tone.
Laric looked over to her. She was still standing in the middle of the chamber, but now she was focused, and seemed to be calling on more of her potential. He wasn’t sure why he could feel it as potently as he could, but he was aware of that sense. He was aware of the way that power felt, and how she seemed to be connecting to it.
“She taught me,” Laric said. “Why?”
“Imelda does not teach,” Janear said.
“I’m not sure what to tell you, but she did teach. She taught me.”
Even saying it brought on a pang of sadness. Just talking about his grandmother was difficult, especially with somebody who was questioning whether or not she had actually instructed him. Maybe more so than anything, the hardest thing for him was that he had lost her without ever really knowing who she was.
“What did she teach you?” Dizarn asked.
Laric turned to him, getting frustrated. Maybe that was a good thing. He wasn’t sure anymore, but frustration filling him felt right. “She taught me how to access my potential.”
“Show me,” he said.
Laric wanted to argue, tell him no. He wanted to say that he wasn’t going to do anything, he wasn’t going to tell him anything, as he did not want to share anything more with them, especially if they were going to continue to challenge him on the relationship that he had with his grandmother. But another thought intruded, and the more he thought about it, the more it felt like the thought he needed to be focused on.
He wanted answers, didn’t he?
“You should share,” Sashaak said, though his voice was distant through their connection. “You must learn.”
Laric turned his attention back to them. “I will show you what she taught me, on one condition.”
Dizarn frowned.
“That you teach me how to reach my potential.”
“That is not a promise.”
“If I prove that she taught me. If I prove I am who I claim to be, you will teach me.”
Janear and Malik both objected, but they were silenced with a quick motion from Dizarn. “If it is as you say, then I agree.”
The cavern was completely quiet for a moment. A strange feeling seemed to hover over everything, and in the silence, Laric began to worry if perhaps he had made a mistake.
“We will start with the portal,” Dizarn said. He stepped past Laric with an air of arrogance about him, then waved his hand at the door. “You see it as a portal.”
“I know that it opens like one.”
“Very well. And had we not come through, this portal would have opened in the same way each time, because you would not know the proper markings.”
That had been Laric’s experience with it as well.
“That is a reflection of the markings that are on the door at the time of its opening.” Dizarn waved his hand again, and once more the series of glyphs began to ripple and shift, changing ever so slightly. “Can you feel this?”
“He’s not going to feel anything,” Janear said. “He’s an outworlder.”
Laric looked over to her. Outworlder? That seemed like such an odd thing to call him. Weren’t they from Korthal?
“How do you change the glyphs?” Laric asked.
“You feel the potential inside of yourself,” Dizarn said, “and the potential allows you to adjust them.”
Once again, Janear scoffed, seemingly frustrated by the mere idea that anybody else could learn. But as Laric stood there, he could feel something, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what it was that he was picking up on. There was a surge of energy, and it tugged at some distant, and potent, part of himself, coming from the dragon—and connecting him to the dragon.
“You feel it.” Dizarn arched a brow at him. “Perhaps you were better trained than I anticipated.” He said it mostly to himself.
“So if you were to activate this doorway,” Laric said, “where would it lead?”
“Do you want to go?”
“No,” Laric said.
That wasn’t entirely true. He did want to go, as he did want to know just where he might find himself if he were to step through. Maybe it would take him to safety—and away from the danger of the coming mages.
But if it was so safe, then why had his grandmother been here?
“Then what would you like?” Dizarn asked.
“I want to know more about how you control the potential.”
“You are asking for a brief explanation of what takes an entire lifetime to master.”
“You could show me,” Laric said.
He frowned. “And what do you mean by that?”
