“That will not be necessary,” the Grand Mage said. “If he has the connection, we will simply allow him to use it. We will train him, and we will—”
“He was responsible for killing Daelon.”
The Grand Mage frowned, turning to Laric. “You killed Daelon?”
“I didn’t,” he said, glancing over to Talia. “The dragon did.”
Talia smirked. “See?”
“You know what I see?” Laric said, trying to bide his time so that he could find a way to escape, but not at all sure what that was going to entail. “Talia and Daelon made it seem as if Korthal attacked. They are the reason my town was nearly destroyed, and it seems as if the mage council was behind it.” He flicked his gaze to the headmaster, who was sitting quietly. She hadn’t said anything, but Laric wasn’t sure if she was involved in this yet. She had always been tough, but kind at the same time. She was not much of a mage, by her own admission, so maybe she didn’t know any of this.
He had to hope that was the case.
“Korthal is destroyed. I’ve seen it,” he said.
The Grand Mage started to laugh. “You have seen it?”
“I told you,” Talia said, her voice little more than a whisper. “He has connected to the creature.”
“That is not the same as riding it.”
At that comment, the headmaster’s eyes went wide.
Laric shrugged. “I saw Korthal. I saw what you have done to the dragons. They are devastated. They have been destroyed. Mage magic isn’t enough to harm the dragons, but that hasn’t stopped you from wiping out entire villages. I saw them too. Is your goal to eradicate all of those people?”
“You know nothing about what you saw,” the Grand Mage said.
“No? I know what I felt. I know the death, the destruction, and I know what I encountered. And you wanted to bring it here. You wanted to make it seem as if the mages were some great savior, which was why you established this as some sort of an outpost. You wanted to try to make it seem as if Korthal was attacking.”
This information wasn’t for his benefit, or for Rowan. This was for the headmaster. Laric didn’t know if there was anything she could do, but it did seem like if he could get through to her, he might be able to find a different approach to withstanding whatever might happen.
“And you want to continue pushing,” he said. “You know there’s something else out there, and you want the dragons for that.”
Rowan glanced at him. Laric knew that he was taking a bit of a gamble here. He didn’t know that what he was saying was true with any certainty, and it was entirely possible that he was completely wrong. But he didn’t think so. He suspected that this was what was happening.
The Grand Mage watched him intently. “As I said, you do not know what you’re talking about. But, seeing as how you have successfully connected to one of these beasts, you will be useful.” He waved a hand at Talia. “Bind him, dispose of the girl, and perhaps her too,” he said, nodding to the headmaster, “and we will bring him back with us. We will force that beast to serve. One way or another.”
Talia approached Laric, but he was less concerned about himself.
Dispose of Rowan. That was what the Grand Mage told Talia to do. And he had said it so flippantly that Laric knew it wasn’t the first time he had said something like that. If Laric did nothing—if he could do nothing—then Rowan, the headmaster even, and all others that he cared about would be killed. By the mages.
He didn’t know how deep this rot went, but he needed to find a way out somehow. And if he couldn’t, then none of this would even matter.
“Anytime now,” he whispered to Sashaak.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sashaak still didn’t answer.
Talia turned to Rowan, and when she did, Laric began to feel some pressure building from her. It seemed as if it reverberated around her, though.
That was odd. He didn’t know what sort of spellcraft form—or spellslip, for that matter—she was attempting, though he could guess that she was trying to wield one. Whatever it was, it had a bit of power to it, but it was more than just that. He noticed some element to the power that he felt. That element seemed to be tied to something unusual.
Not just Talia, but it reacted to her in some way. Why was that?
There was only one thing Laric had felt that had been similar, and it was that one thing that he suspected was the key here.
Glyphs.
He was feeling the power of glyphs. And they were reacting to this power.
Does she know?
Laric immediately began to focus on just a simple detection spellslip, but even as he did, it wasn’t strong enough for him to do anything with it. He had been trying to push past the pressure and whatever resistance was here, but it didn’t seem to work for him.
Why use that one, though? There was a possibility that there was another spellslip that might work—one that was equally potent. And maybe it would do something more than just allow him to detect the power around him.
He changed his focus, no longer using the simple detection spellslip, instead beginning to focus on the key that his grandmother had taught him. Laric had begun to suspect that it wasn’t just a spellslip, like so many of the other patterns she had taught him. This was more of a spellcraft form, but a very particular use of one.
And rather than focusing on one specific place—the way he had when he went to the shed or when he had found that glyph-marked boulder—this time, he took that key, and he tried to expand it outward.
His grandmother had taught him that the key was everything, and maybe that was true. Having met Dizarn, having traveled with Dizarn, and having seen some vision that Dizarn had shown him, Laric couldn’t help but feel as if that key truly was everything.
When he pushed out, he was surprised that he immediately began to feel an echo of energy around him. At first, he didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t even know if that was accurate or if this was merely imagined, but that echo of energy persisted. Then it started to grow more potent.
Talia seemed to notice something as well, and she turned to the Grand Mage. “What are you doing?”
For her to speak to the Grand Mage like that suggested that there was more than just a familiarity between the two of them. Laric knew that she and Daelon had been close—and had been involved, from what he had come to suspect—but this was a different sort of familiarity.
