The captain looked anxiously at Serius. “I’m sorry Headmaster, but I have orders not to leave this building from the Emperor directly.”

  Serius pulled a small scroll from his sleeve and handed it to the captain. His expression grew more perplexed, but when he verified the seal at the bottom of the letter, he nodded. He glanced at me for some reason and then back to Serius.

  “It shall be as you instruct, Headmaster.” Then he started barking orders.

  As he did, the pseudo-riders started to push forward again, but the officer snapped, “That includes the three of you. Only the headmaster’s adventuring team, Dragon Knight Westfork, and Lord Sandumas of North Isle are authorized to be in this building after it is stabilized.”

  It took me a second to realize who he meant when he’d said ‘Lord Sandumas’. I had no idea why he called me a Lord, or what North Isle was, but the dragon riders started to protest, pulling me out of my own head.

  I couldn’t have cared less about these fools. But then I remembered something else. So, I added, “Oh and leave your bond rings.”

  They looked at me with naked anger on their faces. Natalie said with a hitch in her voice, “This is all I have left of Kheri.”

  “They are as dangerous to you as they were to Simon. Either leave the ring or we can take them from you… along with your fingers.”

  Serius snapped, “Nico, there is no reason to threaten violence. They are clearly traumatized and your indignation doesn’t negate what they’ve experienced.”

  Then, he looked at the riders. “This order comes directly from the Emperor. And even if you don’t understand it, Nico—Lord Sandumas—has been given the highest authority for all things regarding dragons within the Empire.”

  I hissed. “Given… as if.”

  Serius glared at me, but then held out his hand to the pseudo-riders. “The rings, now.”

  For an instant, I thought that they were going to resist, but then with a great deal of grumbling they all removed their rings and put them in Serius’ hand. The guards escorted them away and as soon as they were out of the building Serius gave instructions to the mages who were with him. They went to work reinforcing the enchantments on the building.

  I looked at Cami. “I need to talk to Serius. Would you go help Matilda and the hatch… well, I guess they’re wyrmlings now. Anyways, would you help them into the building? Keep them downstairs until I can deal with the dragons up here.”

  “Fine, but I want to know what happened here. I had to stab Simon through the heart.”

  I nodded then sighed. “He was already dead. You simply ended any suffering that he had left to endure. At least that is my hope. I guess… I don’t actually know what happens to a human soul after it’s drained out of the body. Either way, you acted decisively in true dragon style and I am proud of you.”

  Then for some reason, which defied my understanding and left me as shocked as Cami, I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. It was a very human gesture, but somehow seemed to be what she needed.

  I softly whispered, “It will be okay. We’ll get away for a while after we clean up this mess. My lair should be almost ready to claim.”

  Her eyes were wide as she stared back at me. She didn’t say a word, though, before turning around and stumbling down the stairs. I hadn’t noticed Modessa standing over against the railing. I still didn’t know how she could blend into the background so seamlessly, even without magic to call upon.

  She glared at me and said, “Don’t you dare hurt her or, no matter if it kills me, I’ll make you pay.”

  I wanted to groan. Emotions were not my friend. I thought becoming more in touch with those around me would help. But so far, it only added extra layers of complexity. The dragon way seemed far simpler.

  Galbrecht rushed over and helped Modessa down the stairs, telling her it wasn’t safe to be up here. She resisted, but not that hard. Soon, they were both out of sight.

  I looked over at Lisella. She was working on the green with the missing leg. She had closed the wound, and it appeared that most of its lesser wounds were gone, as well. I might not be ready to fully trust her yet, but at least she could do her job, and she did it well.

  Serius said, “You need to give me an explanation right now.”

  “Do I?” I snapped, irritate by his tone. “Didn’t your Emperor already give you your instructions?”

  The two of us locked eyes, but he finally said, “Fine. Yes, he did. You’ve been appointed as the Emperor’s hand in all matters related to dragons. He also created a noble title for you so that it will be easier when you’re working with various nobles. I confess, I don’t understand everything that is happening, or why the change is necessary, but he told me you learned some new things about the collars, and that I was to help you in any way that I can.”

  “I don’t need your Emperor to make me noble, “ I snorted. “Dragons know that nobility is a trait of character and is defined by one’s actions, not by a title. But out of curiosity, what is this North Isle?”

  “He said it’s what he’s calling an island to the north of the Empire. He said something about you recently getting title to it.”

  I laughed. “Dragons don’t think like that. But yes, Draconis is abandoning his island. It will be mine in a couple more weeks. I was planning to go there with Cami to claim my new lair, along with the reward from Temulara. But now, I’m beginning to think that these dragons, as well as Matilda and her offspring, should be taken there as well.”

  “The emperor thought you might want to do that and I’ve been told to advise you that he will also send troops to help protect your isle—but that to do so, he has to recruit volunteers who will permanently become part of the noble house of Sandumas. He said he has more for you, but wants me to extend an invitation to visit your sister at the capital and to speak to him in person.”

  I pondered those words for a minute. I did want to see Sheraleigh and confirm she was okay. It was also going to be important to see if I could work with this human Emperor, but I already felt surrounded here. Heading to the capital would only increase that risk. I wasn’t so sure about that—not at all.

  Serius probably took my silence for agreement, though, because he continued, “Now though, I need to know why these rings are dangerous. I hope you see that I am extending trust to you here.”

  I shrugged. “I guess they’re only dangerous if you think that having the soul of the wearer slowly drained out of them is dangerous.”

  Serius’ eyes went wide.

  “Or,” I continued, “if you’d rather their owners turn into undead.” I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out before I could stop it as Serius picked his jaw up from the floor.

  Chapter 30 - Storm Training

  That, of course, ended up with me launching into an entire explanation of everything that had happened—from what I thought I’d figured out at Daggin’s forge, to everything that happened when I set of the trap buried deep in the dragon collar. In the end we had to wait for the building to be stabilized, but I let Serius take one of the rings to examine it. I planned to test one of them myself, and the other I was going to ask Ruben to test.

  After Lisella had stabilized the domesticated dragons and the mages had repaired the building, I asked everyone else to leave. Cami was back with Matilda and the wyrmlings, so everyone was there. I let Matilda try to communicate with the other two dragons, but they were turning in on themselves. Healed or not, they both still hurt from the loss of their two fellow dragons, as well as from the crippling injuries they had suffered—healed or not.

  I intended that they would be restored, at least physically, and Lisella hadn’t even batted an eye when I asked her about regenerating their lost limbs. Seeing as they didn’t appear to be any more intelligent than Matilda, it was going to be difficult to make them understand.

  If I was being honest, they acted more like wolves or some other type of pack animal than dragons. Although maybe there was something we could learn from that. Helping each other, instead of living solitary existences would have made dragons the clearly dominate race of Ileria.

  Once the area was cleared, I transformed. It was even easier to cow the two newly freed dragons into submission than it had been with Matilda. Having her there probably helped. Well, that and the fact that I was significantly larger than I had been before. When I was sure that they were both going to submit, I changed back and left the area. I then met with Captain Durham and Sir Latham, who was outside as well.

  They both insisted on calling me Lord Sandumas, which had a nice ring to it once I got used to it. If I’d known that I could get humans bowing and trying to please me just by calling myself a lord, then I would have been tempted to do so much sooner than this.

  It also made Latham much quicker to obey me. I sent him ahead to check on both mine and Cami’s apartments in the headmaster’s tower. I didn’t want to stay with Lisella any longer, as it seemed to put Cami on edge.

  For his part, Durham agreed to protect the building but to stay outside as I couldn’t vouch for the safety of a human inside with several unbound dragons. While I wouldn’t have cared if they killed a human, it would have complicated the challenge of freeing all dragons. It was better to play along, for now.

  From there, Cami and I started walking back to our new rooms much more slowly than we had walked here. After a few minutes of silence, she said, “I’m sorry about the dragons.”

  I pondered her words. My first reaction was to remind her that they were only domesticated dragons, not real dragons. They were lesser. Truthfully, I still felt that way, but all this introspection had caused me to be aware that thinking like that—and certainly expressing such thinking openly—might not be optimal.

  There was power in ‘us’ that ‘I’ would never have. Yet, it was hard to reverse course even for pragmatic reasons. Ultimately, I decided to change the subject. It seemed to be a well established human technique when dealing with a topic you’d rather not deal with, so why not?

  “I was proud to see you act so decisively,” I said. “I know it was hard for you. And I can feel your doubts about it, even now, but you were right. Acting slower would only have hurt us without benefiting Simon in any way.”

  She nodded and then went silent for a while. I could tell there was something she wanted to bring up with me, but she almost felt afraid to say anything. The emotions I sensed from her confused me.

  Then, it felt like she pivoted from what she had wanted to say and instead said, “Thanks. I think that is part of how the Bond has affected me. Some of your traits are rubbing off on me. Yesterday, I actually found myself holding onto a coin for a second too long while trying to pay a vendor. He had to yank it out of my hand.”

  I smiled as I pictured that. “Oh? Tell me more. Was it a gold coin? I can completely understand if you didn’t want to let go of gold.”

  “Nah, it was only a copper, but I still had that impulse.”

  Some of my excitement faded. Copper wasn’t nearly as glorious as gold. “Well, I guess you are small, so being attracted to small coins might make sense.”

  Cami arched an eyebrow at me, which for some reason made me as nervous as when mother caught me eating more than my share of whatever she had brought back to us when I was a hatchling.

  “Ah… either way,” I quickly added, “remember that gold will never let you down. It simply is. It never fails to be glittery and valuable.”

  She laughed softly. “Oh, Nico, you confuse me so much sometimes, but then you say something like that and I just have to throw my hands up in the air. Maybe we should talk about Simon, though. Do you know what the collar and ring were doing?”

  “Not, yet. Don’t tell him, but I’m hoping that Serius will be able to figure out more about it. Or, if not him, then perhaps Ruben. I learned a few things, but not the specifics. There was a drain coming through both the collar and the ring, although the pull from the collar was much stronger.”

  “You said something about a soul drain? Does that mean that the rings turn pseudo-riders into soulless beings like what happened to the dragon who was affected?” Cami asked.

  “I don’t know. I know that some of his soul was being affected, but I’m not even certain what a soul is. A portion of his passive regeneration for mana, HP, and then some intangible quality which I’m calling his soul were being siphoned out of him. I think what happened with the dragons is different, though. Riders don’t become riders because their parents were, right?”

  She nodded to confirm what I expected, although truthfully, I wasn’t sure she had any greater knowledge about how it worked than I did. Many of these humans seemed to have had so little knowledge about dragons, before. Most of Cami’s knowledge had developed since we had bonded.

  “But the dragons who were kept in captivity did breed and their offspring became the next batch of dragons. At least that is how I understand it happened. There was, in the beginning, only a single flight of dragons with collars, but they gave birth to more. I can only theorize at this point, but it seems that each subsequent generation might have inherited weaker or perhaps incomplete souls… until finally the system changed the dragons classification because they were missing whatever essential spark a soul provides.”

  Cami listened and nodded along. “Theorize, huh… just listen to you, Nico. You’re starting to sound like one of the professors or something.”

  “Pssah… never!” I shook my head and added, “The mind evolution continues to affect me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Now, there’s something else that we should talk about.”

  She almost stumbled as her steps faltered, but caught herself at the last moment. I, too, slowed because what she did looked so unnatural. “Are you okay?”

  She looked up at me expectantly. “Yes, but what did you want to talk about?”

  “The university is good and all, but I have the desire to travel. First, I’d like to claim my lair in a couple of weeks. Perhaps we could arrange to build facilities there for the minions, I’m not sure how much will be left behind after Draconis leaves or what Temulara will actually provide in terms of a hoard.”

  Cami’s expression dropped, but then she pushed whatever was bothering her away. “As long as they have a way to get back to the mainland, and adequate resources, I’m sure that Daggin and Rubin would be willing to work from the island, but do you really want them to? It would make selling their goods much more difficult.”

  “Hmm… I had only thought about keeping them close. That is an excellent point, Cami. I knew there was a reason that we bonded. Nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of our continued profits. Did you hear that they have earned more than 20,000 gold? Once we add that to what we got from Tolston, it will be amazing.”

  “Speaking of Tolston, if we’re leaving in just a few weeks, we should use the items he gave us to create specialized spells… unless, you think they might be trapped in some way?” she asked.

  “Another good point. I need to remember not to get too excited about loot without thinking about the ramifications.” I shook my head. “I’m not sure if I would have elected to go with the mind evolution if I’d known how complicated this thinking deeper would make everything.”

  After that, we continued on in silence.

  ***

  The next couple of weeks went by in a flurry. We moved into separate apartments in the headmaster’s tower. Cami tried reaching out to the pseudo-riders once, but they rebuffed her and eventually disappeared. No one seemed to know where they had gone, other than that they departed the city.

  As for the dragons, the regeneration of their missing limbs took much longer than it had with Liam. By the end of two weeks, though. they were both fit to travel. This was necessary, because while I might carry the wyrmlings on my back, I wasn’t going to carry the domesticated dragons. They would have to fly under their own power.

  Mostly, my days settled into a simple schedule. Each morning, after eating, I’d go and train with Edgar. Back when I had lived at his school, he was always trying to get me up early, but now he was content to let me arrive whenever I wanted. He even mentioned that my desire to sleep in made so much more sense, now.

  And why shouldn’t it? Dragons enjoyed sleeping in.

  I wasn’t able to gain a level in Dragon Disciple, but I felt like my control of my body improved. Skills weren’t the same as levels, but it was still good to refine them.

  After my martial training each morning, I met with Rizal. This was one of the highlights of my day. Almost every day, I got notifications offering me different classes, but none of them were higher than rare, so I resisted the urge to accept one.

  Rizal had explained that it would probably take me learning more spells and perhaps even raising my Mind stat further to get an epic class, let alone a legendary one. There were times when I felt jealous of Cami. She made it all seem so easy.