“It’s lightning?” Landers asked as someone created a ring of lightning around them.
“Yes. Our magic is based on electrical charge. We manipulate the air or items around us, changing their electric charge and sometimes altering polarities. It causes attraction or repelling. It’s a bit more complicated than that.” I played with my hair. “Sorry, I can’t explain it more simply without it getting confusing.”
“What she said is fundamental but definitely more complicated,” Aylia said. “Because of it, we are able to do two major moves. We can create electricity due to forming opposites. And we can do telekinesis by creating sameness.”
“What about fire?” Landers asked.
I couldn’t quite look at him as I answered his question. “That’s different. You take our magic, use it to charge yourselves so to speak, and then you use it in the way you know how, which is breathing fire.”
“You steal our magic,” Kilven snapped at them.
Aylia nudged Kilven. “Behave yourself or go do something else.”
Kilven’s jaw was tight as he looked away.
“We really do that?” Zilon asked, his eyes big.
“From my understanding,” I answered before Kilven got worked up. “Yes.”
“I am so sorry, Rayna. The idea of doing something like that to you, of hurting you... I had no idea. The concept is making me sick to my stomach now,” Zilon said.
“I know,” I said, giving Zilon a smile. “We didn’t know. We just did what we were taught.”
Philit rubbed at his jaw and pursed his lips. Finally, he spoke, asking, “Is there another way to make fire? I mean, Rayna helps us breathe fire even when she isn’t on our backs. We did it in our humanoid forms too. What if there’s another way to make fire without us stealing her magic?”
“I thought about this a lot,” Aylia said.
“You did?” I raised an eyebrow.
She smiled at me a bit sheepishly. “You are a very special case. You have full control of when you use your magic and don’t. I think what you do is give them excess magic to store inside of them. Normal riders can only give so much at a moment, and the dragons use it up so quickly that it doesn’t stay in them long enough. But, Rayna, you are so powerful that I think you give your mates too much magic, and they’re able to hold onto that. Like filling up a bucket for them to use as they need. And slowly, they use it up until the bucket is empty.”
“So you mean normal riders give dragons a cup of magic, but she gives them a bucket load?” Kilven asked.
“Exactly.”
He seemed intrigued by that concept. “Not a bad theory. So when she was away from you guys for a week, your bucket of magic eventually ran out, and you could no longer breathe fire.”
“This all sounds fucking amazing,” Landers said, sounding pissed. “But I can’t stand by and just agree to fight the king over all these theories. How do you know we’re stealing Rayna’s magic? That sounds like bullshit. More people would be aware of this. There’d be less mates out there. The dragon king can’t be lying like you believe. The Fae have to be twisting the truth around.”
“Why do you think that?” Zilon asked.
“The king has been good to my family,” Landers defended as though that forgave everything else.
I snorted, getting a glare from him.
“You come from a powerful family. Of course, the dragon king has been good to you guys. But think about it, Landers. He hasn’t been good to you personally though. How many times has he locked us up? He even bound you guys to prevent you from flying. What kind of bullshit is that? Why are you being too stubborn to see the truth? The dragon king is not a good man. He tried torapeme!”
Landers’s eyes bugged out as my words settled in. I never said the word outright before, didn’t really have time with so much chaos hitting us, but it was true. I had pushed it back because shit kept happening, but before the Fae attacked, the king had nearly raped me. Just a minute later, and it would have been too late. “He held me down in his bed chamber, ready to fuck me. To take what he saw as his. I’m your mate, Landers. Are you going to pick him over me?”
“Fuck no. Of course not!” Landers kept cursing as he pulled me into a hug, his face a bit pale. “It’s my fault. I apologize. I should have kept my damn mouth shut.”
I shook in his hold as he squeezed me tight. “I just can’t…this is all so much. I can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t get what’s going on right now.”
“Get some rest tonight,” Aylia said in a soft voice.
Landers kept me by his side as we were led down more breathtaking hallways, but the awe of it had disappeared since all I could feel were my mates’ worries and anxiety. Their fear for me. We had so many emotions to work through together. So much to talk about. We just needed down time together, something that had been impossible since meeting them.
“This is your room,” Aylia said, stopping at a large, overly decorated door.