“I think I’ll take my chances crawling across the fields,” I said, straightening up from my crouch, ignoring the small ache in my knees that came from being bent down for so long.
“I do not think so, Rayna. Take a walk with me.”
9
“Come, Rayna. Spend some time with the monster that you’ve painted me as in your head. Let me show you that all is not what you were taught.” Neyil waited for me to move before walking, keeping his pace slow so he could stay by my side.
“What is there to say?” I asked.
“By now, you should have heard about the prophecy, about the dragons and what they do to those they should hold dear. About the dangers Divines are in when they mate with a dragon.”
“I have heard a lot of things,” I responded icily.
“But not everything. Let me clarify something for you, about the prophecy and about who you can be.” He rested his hand on the middle of my back, making me grow rigid and tense. Neyil didn’t make any comments about my reaction as he kept on talking. “A long time ago, a few hundred years after the first dragon and rider pair came to be, there was another rider, a woman about your age, who came into her powers. At that time, there was no academy for those who were revealed to attend. They had to figure things out on their own or search for others like themselves. The war helped, giving new riders and dragons a starting point, but only if they wished to utilize it.”
Neyil edged me back toward the castle but still remained outside, as if we were taking a nice stroll to enjoy the weather, and all of this was just a simple chat.
“She did not wish to fight in a war or to learn more. She thought she was cursed and hated becoming a Divine. Fought against it. Yet still, her dragons found her. Two to be exact. Those unmated tended to travel from town to town in hopes of finding their mate, often staying together for safety reasons. Her dragon mates were traveling with others when they found her. Even she could not fight against the bond between them, and it was not long until she mated with both dragons. This happened on the outskirts of Fraitte where not many lived. The lands there were not kind, most often people starving due to bad crops. It is there that the three settled down, as the dragons respected that she did not want to be a part of the war.”
Neyil went quiet as he nudged me through an archway and into a large garden full of so many colorful plants that, for a moment, I thought I went blind.
“What happened?” I asked.
Neyil shrugged. “Not much. They lived quietly, but rumors about what they could do slipped out. It is not uncommon for pillagers to take to wiping out the small villages. The people in those areas were too weak from exhaustion and lack of food to fight back. A group decided to target her village. The rider and her dragons defended the village, killing the pillagers. And rumors of how they did it spread like wildfire. That is how we know that it is possible to have more than one mate. She only had two, but they decimated those pillagers, and rumor had it that the dragons never took dragon form. In fact, it was common to hear about how they defended their village without having to resort to turning into dragons. And it was because of her.”
“That’s all good and sounds wonderful, but how did that turn into a prophecy about me?”
“Divines have different gifts, depending on their strength. It is not uncommon for different gifts to appear in those more powerful. Such a case created a prophecy. A Divine who had grown up in a church and was severely devoted to her God came to know of your existence. She recorded how there had been a time before, and how a time would come again for a Divine to co-exist with multiple dragons. That she was to become the leader of dragons. Everything about the prophecy matches with you.”
“Mother of dragons. That’s a joke.”
“But is it?” Neyil asked. “The dragons do not control you; instead, you control them. You chose when to bless them with your magic, and you can as easily cut that from them. In the dynamics of you and your mate, you have the control, not them. You are very much like a leader. There are reasons to believe you have the power to lead, to disrupt the world as it is, and then cause it to be reborn as something more and far superior to what it was.”
“So you want to use me like everyone else, don’t you?”
“You are not wrong, Rayna. But that is the way of life. Everyone wants something out of others. We are greedy existences in a world that will never have enough for us. And you have seen firsthand today what this world has to offer you as a Divine. Not as some dragon’s rider but as yourself. You do not need dragons to be powerful. You can stand on your own. That, in itself, is remarkable.”
I licked my lips, trying to put my words in the right order. “I understand what you’re trying to do. I get it, and I do see it. I never thought I’d be able to shoot lightning out of my hands.” I didn’t bring up the fact that I could do it without having it in my hands first. That seemed dangerous knowledge to share with him. “But it doesn’t change how I feel. How can I trust everything when everyone believes the dragons are the big bad evil? I don’t feel that way with my mates. I feel intense love for them and from them too. I’ve seen what healthy dragon-rider mates are like, and it is nothing like what you or the others have described.”
Neyil smiled as he stopped and turned to me. “How about we try a little exercise. Let you flex your magic and see for yourself how strong you can be. I heard what happened at the training grounds, and that was only a beginner’s class you saw. Later in the day, about now actually, the more advanced Divines train, and it is nothing like what you saw this morning. This morning was child’s play compared to the advanced levels. Let me show you what I mean, if you please?”
I was curious about what he meant, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that we could do more, so I nodded.
“Excellent. Come here.” He held his hand out. I stared at it warily before grabbing it. He didn’t pull me close like I expected but instead moved us further into the open, away from nearby flowers and trees. “Without understanding the true basis of your magic and what it does, you will be unable to do much else besides what you did this morning. But I will clarify it for you. This is very old knowledge that only a few remember or even study currently. It is about magnetism. Everything is capable of an electrical charge so to speak. Objects, even ourselves, can create an electrical charge because of attracting and repelling forces. You, as a Divine, can play with this. You can manipulate an object to attract another object or even to repel it.”
“When I create lightning, it’s because of attraction.”
Neyil grinned. “Exactly. And telekinesis is repelling.”
All my theories were verified as Neyil went into a lengthy explanation that, frankly, made my head spin, but I listened as he patiently talked. He remained calm as I asked him a million questions to help me understand better. This was my chance to absorb all the information. I needed as much as I could, and if he was offering free information, I wasn’t going to say no. I was going to store this new knowledge, mull it over, and be sure to use it against him later on.
“Now that you understand, let me teach you how to make a barrier around yourself. It protects you from other attacks.”
“Wait, awhat?”
“A barrier. You will create one around your body and repel any ‘objects’ that come at you. A basic one will keep the physical objects from hitting you, but as you grow in strength and understand more what magnetism can truly do, you can do more complicated barriers to even protect yourself against attacks that are not exactly physical. Now, come stand right here.” He pointed to a spot more centered from the plant life around here.
I did as he said.