The shaman began petting the small furry creature like one would a cat or a dog. "You wish to understand the Dragon Force's capabilities, to assess Elucia's true strength and vulnerabilities. An understandable goal for someone with your clarity of vision and position of influence. Your father is fortunate to have you. What have you learned so far?"
I wasn't all that influential, but I hoped that would change once I had something concrete to show my father and the Council.
"Not much. The Citadel is impressive, and the dragons are even more magnificent than I expected. But there are not enough of them. If the Dragon Force is to defeat the Shedun, notjust to hold back their attacks, it needs to be much larger. Elucia is surviving, but it is not winning, and it will never be safe unless it defeats the enemy, and by doing so, it will save Eluria as well."
I decided to be blunt because I didn't know when I would have another opportunity for a private audience with the shaman. "Eluria has the resources and the manpower, and Elucia has the military experience and know-how. More cooperation will result in a strong alliance that could defeat the Sitorians, and perhaps free their people from the oppression of their religion, but that's a secondary goal, and one I'm not sure anyone other than Elu himself can do. If we don't act soon, I fear for the future of Aurorys in as little as a few decades. The Sitorians will take over, and I don't need to spell out what that would mean for Elucians and Elurians."
"Mass slaughter and subjugation." Saphir sighed. "I see things as clearly as you do. You are a smart young man. We need more dragons and more riders, but despite our best efforts, we don't have enough of either."
"I know that. I was hoping to find a solution. If resources are the problem, I can arrange for whatever is needed."
Saphir snorted. "The resource we need is more dragon eggs, but regrettably, we lost most of them during the last Extinction War, and we cannot find them. If we could, there would be more than enough dragons to fundamentally alter the balance of power on Aurorys. Well, provided we could also find riders for them, but even without riders, the dragons themselves are a huge military asset."
So, the rumors about the existence of more hidden eggs were true, and they hadn't been destroyed by the Shedun in the Second Extinction War as I had believed.
During that war, all the dragons had perished defending their nests and the Elucians, but the shamans had managed to hide dragon eggs in places they'd hoped the Shedun wouldnever find. Centuries after the war, long after the Shedun had retreated, thinking that they had wiped out all dragonkind and delivered a fatal blow to Elucia, one such cache had been found by Saphir Fatewever. All the dragons of today had either hatched from those eggs or were their offspring.
If there were more caches and the problem was finding them, it was a potentially solvable situation.
I straightened in my chair. "That's where Eluria's resources can be helpful. We have sophisticated equipment that we could provide for the search teams, we can finance the search expeditions, and we can even provide personnel that are experts in tracking and retrieval."
The shaman smiled throughout my impassioned speech, waiting until I was done. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid that nothing Eluria can provide would help us find the eggs."
I frowned. "They didn't just evaporate into thin air." Then another suspicion occurred to me. "Were the other eggs destroyed by the Shedun, and Elucia is keeping it a secret?"
The smile slid off the shaman's face. "I'm a devout follower of Elu, and I do not speak falsehoods. The eggs were not destroyed, at least not as far as I know, but they are hidden in places that no one can access."
Had they hidden the eggs at the bottom of the ocean?
That was somewhere no one could reach, but what sense would that have made if there was no way to retrieve them? Could dragons just hatch spontaneously and surge up from the depths?
Not likely.
From what I'd learned, hatchlings were tiny and needed to be nurtured for several years until they were big enough to hunt independently.
I was starting to wonder whether Saphir Fatewever, the legendary spiritual leader of Elucia, was not entirely sane. Living for over a thousand years must have taken a toll on his mind.
A laugh burst from his lips, startling me. "I am a little crazy, young prince, and you are not the only one who suspects that. But then, sanity is highly overrated. It's just no fun to be normal. In my opinion, it's boring."
I was mortified. Had I voiced my suspicion aloud?
I was sure I hadn't.
Had my expression revealed my thoughts?
That wasn't likely either. I had been trained to keep my thoughts and emotions hidden.
Cold realization washed over me. "You read my mind," I stated.
"Yes," he admitted without apology. "It is one of my shamanic gifts. I can access your thoughts, especially when you are practically shouting them. On the inside, I mean."
Mind readers were the stuff of myths and fictional stories. They were not supposed to exist.
But then, how had he known what I'd been thinking? Was that how he had found out who I really was?
"I wasn't shouting, just ruminating, but it's good to know that I should be careful with what I think around you." I leveled my gaze at him. "Is that how you knew who I was?"
He nodded. "You were shouting it at me when I encased us in a bubble of silence."
