Page 44 of The Forgotten Throne

“If we pack things up, we should be fine to spend the night at the castle. I heard they got all the basic supplies dropped in by dragon instead of worrying about wagons,” Dayson said with an excited grin on his face. “It’s about time we all got settled in our real home before we have to leave it again for a short while.”

Matching his grin I hugged him thrilled with the plan. “Sounds amazing to me and we haven’t really spent much time on the fourth floor other than to walk through the rooms.”

“You didn’t stay there last night?” Becka asked, a twinkle in her eye.

“No, we ended up in the king’s bedroom since it was so close to the study,” I answered, then caught on to what she was hinting at. Clearly she knew that it wasn’t just time alone that led to Jade and I staying there for the night. I planned to talk to them all once we got the information we needed and settled in for the night. I didn’t mind May and Becka being around but when it came to our intimate lives, it should just be us talking.

“Can we take our dragons?” Gavin asked. He’d built quite the bond with his purple dragon who he named Gatir.

“Since they are still working on the bridge, I think it’s best,” Izel reasoned. “I’m sure they will be done later since there is much to bring in and prepare for the coronation but they’ve been managing with dragons dropping people off.”

Some doubled up with others but those who newly acquired their dragons had a hard time not spending time with them, which I couldn’t blame. If I had the option of that when I first bonded with Vasin I would have, but I pushed thoughts of my mother away before it could cloud this moment with people I cared about.

As if I never left, I found myself back in the king’s study sorting through books once again still not finding what it is that King Cardon had left for me to learn. I picked up an old scroll that was brittle with age and written in the old language. It was an account during the days of the first king where he had to deal with a man who’d gone crazy out of the blue. He’d been one of the higher ups in the military on account of his magic being strongest in the ability to control people’s bodies. Later it was discovered that his son had been gifted with the same magic only instead of it being in control of bodies it was their mind. He could implant a thought that would change the way a person acted. This reminded me about Izel’s gift but his was emotion based not to the point of changing your own mental awareness. This sounded more like what the Lost King could do. It seems that he used his gift on his father and over time his father’s brain deteriorated to the point of madness. It was believed that the mind fought to take back control and instead lost itself to the magic that was used. The dragon that the boy had was also affected and soon died taking the young boy with him both lost to insanity of the mind.

“Pax,” I called out to where he was sprawled out on the floor napping.

“Huh, what?” he answered, jolting awake as if he was trying to disprove he was sleeping. Rubbing his eyes he wandered over to me and wrapped his arms around my waist leaning his chin on my shoulder to look at the scroll. “Ah, I hope you’re not looking for someone who can read that because I’m going to be zero help.”

Chuckling, I set the scroll down and turned to face him. “I need you to tell me everything you know or remember about Henry as a boy. You said your father got reports and was asked to deal with a few things throughout the years.”

“What are you looking for specifically?” Paxton asked brows knitted together. “There are a lot of things that I remember about that time but I don’t see how any of it would be useful to you.”

“The dragons told me that he was bonded to one but somehow the dragon died but he is still living... How does that happen? In this scroll I read about a boy who seemed to have a similar power to Henry and his dragon died because the boy used his powers on that dragon. Shortly the boy died along with his father, all of them out of their mind. While I was kidnapped, I heard my captors talking about how people that were under the Lost King’s influence went mad, turned into puppets who couldn’t even speak,” I explained. “So we need to figure out why Henry is still alive if his dragon isn’t.”

“Are they sure that his dragon is dead?” Paxton countered.

I opened my mouth to answer but paused, instead I closed my eyes and reached out to Vasin. “Why do the dragons think that Henry’s dragon is dead?”

“We can no longer connect with Xotha and that only happens when a dragon has passed on. Otherwise we can always feel each other’s presence connected to our shared memory, which fades when the dragon does.”

“What type of dragon was Xotha?”

“A blue dragon... by our memories he was small but vicious. I’m not surprised that they were drawn to each other.”

“Do you know how they met or when they bonded?”

“It was when the boy was small he slipped out of the house and wandered in the fields and Xotha was drawn to his magic, it was one that connected to him on a level no one else had before. Xotha didn’t waste any time and bit the boy, flooding his little body with venom. It’s really a miracle that Henry survived. It explains why his power is so strong though and at such a young age.”

Snapping my eyes back open, I met Paxton’s bright blue curious eyes. “What did Vasin have to say?”

“I don’t think his dragon is dead,” I announced. Everyone paused what they were doing to look at me with questions written all over their faces.

Pulling out of Paxton’s hold I started to pace up and down the room. “Hear me out—Vasin said that Henry bonded with his dragon as a child, his whole body was flooded with venom making him as strong as he is today. I was reading another account of a child that also had a gift similar to Henry and he used it on his dragon. What if it didn’t work because that little boy wasn’t strong enough to make it work on a mind as vast as a dragon...”

“Are you suggesting that the Lost King has somehow managed to use his gift on his dragon having total control over it?” Zan clarified.

Chewing on my lip I paused to look at them. “It makes sense doesn’t it? He wants power over everything, and the dragons said that they believed he was killed because he wouldn’t follow orders. What if instead of killing his dragon Henry manipulated its mind?”

“That would turn the dragon insane just as a human would. In everything that I’ve been learning about relationships between dragons there is no way one could survive being cut off from the collective mind of the others,” Gavin argued.

“I’m not arguing that, I think it’s one reason we haven’t seen his dragon around. Vasin said that his dragon, Xotha, was vicious by nature. Now add that he made his dragon go insane. It would be a loose end with deadly repercussions if it was killed,” I stated, pausing to see if they were catching up to where my mind was already at.

“Holy shit,” Cole blurted out. “If we find his dragon and kill it we kill him. We could stop this whole war from happening if we can take out that one piece then his whole plan would crumble.”

“I think he did it to try and gain the knowledge that the dragons have hidden in their minds. If their bond was so strong and started at an early age, it’s possible they could communicate with each other like Vasin and I can. The strength and trust of the bond along with the venom is what makes that possible and the trust of a child to its dragon protector would be immense.”

Now Abbott was on his feet rolling open a map on the desk. “So where would you hide a dragon that was out of its mind and could destroy everything on sight?”