Smoke and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Progression Series (The Dragon Thief Book 3) Read online

  Smoke and Shadow

  The Dragon Thief Book 3

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2021 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover art by Damonza.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Want a free book and to be notified when D.K. Holmberg’s next novel is released, along with other news and freebies? Sign up for his mailing list by going here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  www.dkholmberg.com

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Author’s Note

  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  Chapter One

  Ty focused on the heat within his belly the way that Gayal had asked him to. He still was not fully aware of anything more than the faintest tracing of energy that had been there ever since he had stood on the side of Ishantil and looked into the lava lake, the smoke swirling around him. There was a power to it, but he couldn’t do anything more with that energy the way that the Tecal training him wanted him to so that he could share the smoke dragon connection.

  He shook his head in frustration. His hand went to the hilt of his dragon-bone dagger, tracing his finger along the surface of it, though Ty didn’t feel the same warmth that his old mentor, Bingham, once claimed would be present in dragon-bone remnants.

  “I’m not having a whole lot of luck reaching for the dragon,” he said, looking over to Gayal.

  She stood near the outskirts of the city, her black cloak trailing around her but doing little else. He had learned the garment was a shadow dragon of sorts, a creature that she had connected to, but he did not know what else that cloak might be capable of. He had not seen her fight with it other than the time that she had used the cloak to help her defeat Roson James.

  “The key is connection. Once you connect, the dragon can respond. I’m sure that even you can make that connection.”

  She looked back down, leaving him wondering what she meant by “even him.” Was she insulting him, or was it simply the nature of his age? Gayal made it quite clear that his age was a hindrance in his ability to connect to the dragons the way that she thought that he could. She had told him her Tecal training had started when she was five. He was four times that now, and it might be too late for him to have the same understanding of what it meant for him to connect to the dragon.

  But he wanted to.

  That thought stuck with him more than anything else. The smoke dragon, which he believed he had deep within him had helped defend him against Roson James and his attack. Without that, Ty wasn’t exactly sure that he would’ve been strong enough to withstand an attack from Roson James. He might've been able to withstand some of it, but there was always the danger that Roson James would overpower him and then steal the dragon.

  Ty’s hand went into his pocket to the dauvern. It was a simple item, but supposedly it was used to summon dragons. He had attempted to use that as well on the smoke dragon, but there had been no change for him. If it worked, it was a device that he could not make function.

  “You’ve been telling me that the key is making the connection,” he said. He got to his feet, glancing along the street. In the distance, he caught sight of a pair of Dragon Touched, noting the distinctive dark blue uniform emblazoned with the dragon crest of the ghost king that they wore. They marched away from them. Ty was thankful of that, thoughts of Roson James coming back to him when he saw the Dragon Touched, though having Gayal with him meant that he was less likely to have any difficulty with any of them. “But I’m finding that it’s harder than what you have claimed.”

  Gayal’s thin lips pressed into a tight frown. Sunlight from overhead streamed down, reflecting softly off her pale skin. As she stepped away from the door she’d been standing near, her cloak fluttered faintly before calming once again. She tilted her head to the side, and it seemed almost as if she were sniffing at the air, though Ty no longer knew if that was her or the dragon that did that.

  “I saw you use the dragon,” she said.

  They’d had this conversation several times over the last few weeks, but it had not made much of a difference. In the journey from Zarinth, she had been trying to work with him to better understand the smoke dragon, trying to help him master some way of connecting to the dragon so that he could begin his Tecal training, but he had continually found it far more difficult than what she expected. The first step, that of feeling the burning within him, had been there up until the time that the dragon had reacted to try to protect him from Roson James. Ever since then, though Ty could feel that dragon, he wasn’t able to feel much else from it. It was as if the dragon had decided to mask its presence.

  “I’m not so sure that it was me or the dragon doing that for me.”

  “Over time, you will learn that they are one and the same.”

  She frowned, turning her head in the strange way that she had. When she did, her dragon cloak fluttered again, twisting and turning as it became livelier, enough that Ty could practically see the dragon shape form. There was something impressive about it, and having seen her using her dragon cloak like that as often as he had, he couldn’t help but marvel at her control. If he could get to that point, then he wouldn’t have to worry about anything happening to the dragon, but he also wouldn’t have to worry about being unprepared for an attack from Roson James.

  “For you to serve the king, you must find the connection within yourself.”

  “For me to serve the king?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He snorted. “And who says that I want to serve the king?”

  This was a conversation they had not yet had, but perhaps they should have. The idea that he had the dragon connected to him meant that he should in theory offer some assistance to the king. It meant that he would become one of the Tecal. Was that what he wanted?

  He was a thief… or he had been prior to all of this. There was a part of Ty that still felt as if he was every bit the thief. He was not that far removed from sneaking into a temple to steal a dragon egg, and he was certainly still inclined to sneak into the king’s palace in Zarinth to try to steal gold and jewels so that he and his team would have money to escape the volcanic eruption.

  “When you have a connection to the dragon, you must serve,” Gayal said. She was a small woman, petite, and yet there was an incredible sense of power that radiated off of her.

  Ty was always aware of that energy from her, even now. His gaze drifted toward the palace, and along the street he noted soldiers marching, different and distinct from the Dragon Touched. “What does that involve?”

  It was a better question, he figured, than arguing with her about the idea of serving the king.

  “Once you master the dragon, it inv
olves you using that power to help protect the kingdom from those that would threaten it. Seeing as how you have already done this, it should not be unpalatable work for you.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He started to smirk but realized she was entirely serious.

  Then again, when it came to the king, to his dragons, and to everything that he did, Ty had never seen Gayal as anything but serious. It was her response to the king. She felt as if everything that he demanded was appropriate. He was the king.

  But to him, he was the ghost king. The man who had not been seen in the kingdom in years. One who gave orders but did nothing himself.

  “I can keep working—”

  He cut off as the burning within his belly suddenly flared again.

  It happened at the same time as he noticed Gayal’s shadow cloak flutter, and she turned, facing to the north.

  The gnawing burning in his belly became unbearable. Though he tried to ignore it, he wasn’t sure that he could. That sensation continued to build, unpleasant, rising within him and making it so that he could think of nothing else.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  “The dragon detects danger,” she said.

  She didn’t say anything else and simply ran off, disappearing.

  He raced after her. He needed to catch up to her, but she was moving too quickly. Despite her diminutive size, Gayal could move with astonishing speed. He wondered how much of that was tied to her connection to her dragon. It was entirely possible that she used her shadow dragon to help speed her along the road. He had seen the dragon fighting a Dragon Touched, so he wouldn’t put it past her dragon to have the ability to help move her move quickly as well.

  The dragon in his belly flared again, but as he felt it and tried to connect to it, he couldn’t feel anything more than that. There was that burning, but it didn’t go anywhere.

  “You can respond to me at any point,” he muttered, talking to the dragon, though knowing that there wasn’t going to be anything that the dragon would be able to do for him. He had tried to reach the dragon many times, but each time it had ignored him.

  He found Gayal stopped in a small, empty courtyard surrounded by a low wall. It had been a market the only other time Ty had been through here, but now it seemed that had been abandoned.

  There were five people spread out in front of her

  One of them wore the dark colors of the Dragon Touched, and the other four had robes of the priesthood. All of them were part of the Order that Roson James either led or was a part of. Ty knew they had to be.

  It was not so much about anything that they carried with them that marked them as members of the Order, so much as it was the dragon-bone crossbows they all carried. It seemed to be the weapon of the Order. And it matched the crossbow that he held.

  Gayal looked back at him. “You should go,” she said.

  “And what about you?” he asked.

  “I will be fine.” He noticed her cloak fluttering, moving, though there was no breeze.

  Her dragon was agitated, and it made it easier for Ty to feel his own dragon. The smoke dragon that had lingered inside of him began to twist, as if the dragon were upset with this.

  And maybe the dragon was. It was possible that it did not want him to get involved. He didn’t really want to get involved, either.

  But five of the Order were more than Gayal could manage alone.

  One of the men looked at her. “Hand over the dauvern, and this will be over quickly.”

  Ty shook his head.

  She didn’t give him an opportunity to say anything. “It was destroyed in Ishantil. Unless you don’t believe your leader.”

  Ty had not been sure whether or not Roson James was truly their leader, but he suspected that he was. He had seen Roson James, had seen how he had commanded others of the Order and had worked with them. But it was more the way that the others seemed to react at the mention of Roson James.

  They tensed. One of them raised his crossbow. It was the one wearing the Dragon Touched clothing. Before Ty had a chance to even cry out—even to open his mouth—Gayal’s dragon surged forward.

  There wasn’t any way to describe it other than a surging of power. It was as if shadows themselves flowed and moved, as if they were something alive—though of course they were. This was a dragon, and though it might be a shadow dragon, it was still a dragon. And it streaked away from her, striking the man with the crossbow and dragging him down. The member of the Order was on the ground, writhing, and the dragon was back with Gayal. The other four hesitated, as if in shock.

  But all of them were holding onto crossbows now, aiming them, prepared for her. They weren’t paying any attention to Ty.

  He focused on the smoke dragon within himself, thinking about that burning energy and knowing that what he really needed was to call that dragon outward. If he could get the smoke to begin to swirl for him, he might be able to use it.

  But it didn’t respond.

  Despite everything that he had tried to connect to it, every attempt that Gayal had made to help him learn how to connect to that dragon, it didn’t respond for him.

  The shadow dragon surged off of Gayal, streaking toward one of the Order.

  It happened quickly, but then it withdrew again. The shadow dragon had swirled around her, sweeping in a tight spiral, and then a crossbow bolt slammed into it.

  Ty could only watch. He had no idea what might happen to a dragon struck by a crossbow bolt. It was a creature that theoretically was alive, but it was also made of shadow, so as far as he knew there might not be anything that would really happen to the dragon.

  Gayal twisted, her jaw clenching, and the flash of rage in her eyes.

  He started forward, but the shadow dragon slammed into him, pushing him back.

  She was trying to keep him out of this? He really shouldn’t be a part of it, he knew, but at the same time he couldn’t leave her to deal with four of the Order on her own.

  “Let me help,” he said.

  “You need to go,” she said, her voice far calmer than he would’ve expected given the circumstances around them. “I can manage this, but I can’t manage to protect you while also defeating these four.”

  One of the other Order raised their crossbow, and a bolt went streaking toward Gayal. She twisted, and the bolt flew past, just missing her, then whizzed right in front of Ty’s face. It struck into a building behind them.

  Was the courtyard empty because people here had recognized the danger of the Dragon Touched, or could it be that they had known the threat of the Order? Or had it been empty all along? He didn’t know the city well enough to know if this was common or not. It was far slower than Zarinth often was, quieter, but seeing priests and one of the Dragon Touched should have drawn some attention. That kind of a sight would’ve been rare anywhere within the kingdom, especially here where the king had such power.

  Ty pulled his own crossbow free. Ever since being attacked and claiming the crossbow from one of the Order, he had taken to keeping the crossbow with him. He wasn’t skilled with it, but was there any skill needed to fire a crossbow?

  He loaded one of the dragon-bone bolts, wishing that he had a supply of them rather than only a few. He drew the crossbow, aimed at the nearest of the Order, and fired.

  The bolt flew true. It struck the Order member in the chest, and he sagged, dropping to the cobblestones. There came a flaring of heat in Ty’s belly, and he didn’t know if that meant that the dragon approved or if the dragon derided what he had done.

  Ty reached for one of the other crossbow bolts but felt something moving toward him. He looked up just in time to see one of the Order racing toward him, heat flaring from his hands. They were Dragon Touched.

  He dropped to the ground, fumbling with the crossbow bolt, but he wasn’t fast enough. He couldn’t get the bolt loaded.

  If the smoke dragon would help, he wouldn’t have needed to worry about this, but th
e dragon wasn’t responding in any other way than causing a burning in his belly.

  “Come on,” he urged.

  Then the man from the Order was upon him.

  Ty could feel the heat, and he changed his approach. Rather than trying to fumble with the crossbow bolt, he reached for his dragon-bone dagger and jabbed upward.

  The man from the Order backed away, but the dagger seemed to carve through some of the flaming magic that he had been holding onto, separating it. If nothing else, Ty had hoped that he might be able to subdue this adversary.

  Distantly, he was aware of shadows flickering and the faint burning in his belly, the sense that was growing ever more detached the longer that they were fighting told him that the dragons were reacting, or at least his was.

  Only his dragon wasn’t helping.

  Ty clenched his jaw, lunging to his feet, the crossbow forgotten.

  He jabbed at the man from the Order, the attacker eyeing his dagger, but then he began to build again, swirling in a flaming spiral pattern that targeted Ty.

  He slashed at it, the dragon-bone remnant taking on some of the heat, filling his hand with the warmth, which wasn’t terribly unpleasant. The flame sputtered for a moment. He used that moment and charged at the Order, slamming his shoulder into him. Ty wasn’t the largest of men, not nearly as big as Eastley, but the sudden movement surprised the man.

  He tumbled, stumbling back, and Ty was upon him. He brought his fist up, and then twisted it, ramming the hilt of the dagger into the man’s forehead.

  He got up, ready for another attack, but Gayal had finished with the other two.

  She frowned at him, her gaze darting from the dragon-bone dagger in his hand to the crossbow that he had dropped.