Sky on Fire (Dragon Gate Book 5)

  Sky on Fire

  Dragon Gate, Book 5

  Lindsay Buroker

  Copyright © 2022 by Lindsay Buroker

  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.

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  1

  The fireball hovered above the railing as the Serene Waters flew north over the Forked Sea, clouds and blue sky visible through the meager flames. Jakstor Freedar, mage apprentice, cartography student, and surrogate dragon father, scowled. His fireball was so… wimpy.

  When Rivlen, Malek, and other powerful mages conjured fireballs, they were huge, dense, and brilliant. Like spinning suns that could hurtle through the air to blast into enemies and incinerate them.

  “And there’s the problem,” Jak muttered, having no desire to incinerate human beings or any other intelligent creature.

  The first time he’d managed to conjure fire had been on Nargnoth, where hordes of deadly insects had descended on his dragonling charge—and the rest of the party. He hadn’t minded incinerating bugs.

  “Are you focusing?” Lord Malek, zidarr weapons master, mage, and loyal servant to King Uthari, stood beside Jak with his hands clasped behind his back as he alternately advised and watched the sky ahead for threats.

  For dragon threats. Jak reminded himself that he needed to master this and whatever other attacks Malek taught him. Their world had been invaded by more than forty brown-and-gray mottled dragons that wanted to enslave or slay all of humankind. This wasn’t the time to be squeamish.

  “On my wandering thoughts, moral crises, and the impending doom our world is facing as we speak?” Jak pushed his hat down against a gust of wind. “Yes, I am. Assiduously so.”

  Malek slanted a sidelong look at him, the sea breeze riffling through his short black hair and tugging at his trousers and jacket. “Aren’t you a little young to have moral crises?”

  “No.” At eighteen, when Jak had been immersed in his cartography studies at the university, laughing with friends, and awkwardly flirting with girls, he’d felt young. The adventures of the last few months seemed to have aged him ten years. “I’m morally mature for my age.”

  “Hm.”

  Clangs came from the mageship sailing to their port side, the Star Flyer. The deck was busy with mercenaries practicing with swords, as if such weapons would be sufficient against dragons. Fortunately, two members of Thorn Company, Tinder and Tezi, had dragon-steel axes that could cut through magic and otherwise impervious dragon scales. They could also cut through practice swords, as evinced by their scowling sparring opponents with broken blades littered at their feet.

  The ship’s captain, Xeva Rivlen, stood in the forecastle, her red uniform bright in the morning sun, her dark hair swept back in a bun. Her stance was similar to Malek’s as she surveyed the sea a thousand feet below, as well as the other mageships in their fleet. All twelve vessels were flying in a cluster northward as fast as possible, returning to Agorval to defend their homeland from the world’s newly arrived enemies.

  Rivlen looked at Jak, her features elegant and beautiful despite their aloof coolness, and quirked an eyebrow as she glanced at the vestiges of his meager fireball.

  Embarrassed now that he knew she’d been watching, Jak gripped the railing and turned his focus back to the task. As he so often did when calling upon his magic, he envisioned a map filled with familiar terrain features. He placed a forest in the center of it and imagined lightning from a storm striking a treetop. It started a wildfire that raged across the land, destroying all the foliage in its path as it charred the earth, but it also acted as part of the natural cycle, creating fertile soil and offering an opportunity for buried seeds to sprout and grow, with competing trees no longer blocking the sun’s nourishing rays.

  His fireball grew larger and larger, his cheeks now flaming from its heat rather than embarrassment, and he stepped back. He raised his arms as he willed it to rise in the air so the fire wouldn’t char the railing or hull of the ship—and so Rivlen would be able to see its magnificence from her perch a hundred feet away.

  Not that she would be impressed. She made entire walls of fire with a flick of her fingers. Still, when they’d met, he hadn’t known how to do anything when it came to magic, and he liked to think she might find his progress a little impressive. Maybe even sexy. Though the sweat beading on his forehead—more from the effort required to use his magic than the heat of the flames—might not be as alluring as he would wish.

  “That’s better,” Malek said.

  “Thanks.” Jak lowered his arms, letting the fireball extinguish, and glanced at Rivlen, hoping she would smile at him. She’d done so before, so he knew it was possible. On the surface, she might be the rigid and cool officer, adopting extreme military professionalism to help her effectively command men who resented how quickly she’d risen through the ranks, but he knew she had a sense of humor, however dry, and that she was a decent woman.

  Unfortunately, her first officer had joined her in the forecastle to report, and it had drawn her attention away from Jak. He slumped against the railing. Had she seen any of his success?

  “I suppose that’s one way to encourage you to focus.” Malek trended toward dry humor as well.

  “What?” Jak leaned back, though he feared the perceptive Malek was reading his thoughts. Even though Jak could now guard his mind from telepathic intrusion, he didn’t always remember to do it.

  “She’s quite a bit older than you and career-focused.”

  “Only six years.” Jak admitted it might be closer to seven, since he’d barely turned nineteen, but it wasn’t as if he was the goofy kid he’d been back in school. He’d matured. He shaved semi-regularly. And he was even a father—of sorts—now.

  “Uthari would probably tell me to encourage you, thus to further bind your family to him through those who loyally serve him.” Malek’s mouth twisted wryly as he waved a hand toward his own chest.

  Jak grimaced, not needing the reminder that Malek loyally served his king—his megalomaniacal king whose obsession with synthesizing a life-extending drug was the entire reason the ancient portal had been erected and left open, even after mankind had learned of the terrible dangers that could enter Torvil through it. It was thanks to King Uthari that dragons were now razing cities all over the world and Jak and his mother and everyone they cared about might soon be dead.

  “That said,” Malek continued, “you might have more luck with the blonde mercenary girl.”

  “Tezi,” Jak corrected, though Malek knew her name. They’d all gone on a mission to another world together.

  Most of the time, Malek seemed much better than the other mages—especially better than
the other zidarr—but he still carried that mage arrogance about him, that unwillingness to bother using the names of terrene humans, at least those who didn’t have some value to his king. He’d had no trouble learning Mother’s name. Though now that she’d been granted great magical power—a gift from the aged dragon Zelonsera—every mage seemed to know her name. Word had traveled fast.

  “Yes. She’s closer to your age and less ambitious.” Malek gave Jak a significant look, a reminder that Rivlen had also been teaching Jak how to use his magic. It hadn’t been out of friendship—or romantic interest—but because she longed to defeat the odious General Tonovan and believed Jak, someone who was outside of her fleet and the military chain of command, could help.

  “I don’t think she’s that into me.” Jak looked toward the mercenaries again and was in time to see Tezi, beautiful but fierce as she wielded her axe, slice through another practice blade and send her opponent skittering back with a curse. “I asked her numerous times for drinks, and she refused, despite my great handsomeness, charisma, and ability to draw an accurate map of any continent in less than a minute.”

  “Does that latter usually help in your campaigns to attract women?”

  “It hasn’t yet, but I remain hopeful that such a skill can’t possibly go unappreciated indefinitely.”

  Tezi, Jak reminded himself, had been a sexual victim of Tonovan, as well as another mage, before she’d become a mercenary. When he’d been asking her for dates, Jak hadn’t known the details of her past, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t be that into anyone at this point. Of course, Rivlen seemed to have had run-ins like that with Tonovan too. If Jak were smart, he’d put thoughts of pursuing any woman aside until they defeated the dragons and his life returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be.

  Shikari galloped across the deck, his blue scales gleaming in the sun, with something in his mouth. Was that… a feather duster? He stopped long enough to shake it like prey that he’d captured, feathers flying everywhere. A woman—one of Uthari’s slaveband-wearing servants—shouted at him from a hatchway as she waved a scrub brush.

  Jak dropped his face in his hand. It wouldn’t be long before the quickly growing Shikari couldn’t fit through the hatchways, but Jak doubted that would put an end to his mischievous streak—or his desire to chomp on everything that could possibly go in his mouth. Mother had a hypothesis that Shikari was teething, or the dragon equivalent. His horns were also growing, turning from the nubs they’d been a few weeks before into prongs that he liked to ram into objects—and people—before rubbing the velvety fuzz against them.

  When is your dragon going to grow up enough to be an ally instead of a menace? an amused voice spoke telepathically into his mind.

  Jak spun toward Rivlen, pleased to find her alone in the forecastle again and looking at him. That was twice in five minutes. It had to connote interest.

  He’s a great ally. He’s performed brain surgery on Malek, channeled power into me during battles, and shared his inborn knowledge of the ancient dragons with me.

  He just annihilated that feather duster, and now he’s turning a crate into a pile of splinters.

  A shout came from one of the mage officers who patrolled the yacht, and he ran up to Shikari. He waved a sword and tried to use his magic to nudge Shikari away from the crate that he was pronging with his horns. As usual, the magic had little effect on the dragonling. The officer glowered at Jak, as if to put all the blame on him.

  Shikari, Jak called silently, attempting to share an image of the dragonling backing away to sit sedately on the deck and help watch for threats. Don’t chew on things, please.

  Thus far, Shikari hadn’t demonstrated that he understood the human language, but Jak often succeeded in conveying his intent with images. Whether Shikari obeyed the suggestions in those images was another matter.

  After the briefest glance in Jak’s direction, Shikari pounced on the officer’s boots and latched his jaws onto the bottom of the man’s sword scabbard. The officer shouted and swung his blade at Shikari.

  Terrified, Jak rushed to form the mountain imagery in his mind that he used to create magical barriers, erecting one in the air above his charge. But Shikari was so fast that Jak needn’t have bothered. The dragonling tore the scabbard free from the officer’s belt and galloped away before the sword swung downward. It halted midair as it encountered Jak’s barrier, which was heroically defending the empty deck.

  Jak sighed. At least he’d gotten better at making barriers. Judging by the second glower the mage officer leveled in his direction, not everyone appreciated his progress. It didn’t help that Shikari was running off with the man’s now-perforated scabbard.

  A menace, Rivlen repeated in Jak’s mind, though she sounded amused.

  He’s just young and playful and full of vigor. Those aren’t bad things, you know. Jak looked over at her, resisting the urge to point out that he was full of vigor. Did you see my fireball?

  Assuming she hadn’t, he conjured another one, once again focusing hard in an attempt to make it brilliant and fearsome. Jak’s goal wasn’t only to impress Rivlen but also to show the maligned mage that he had power—and that the man had better not attempt to hurt Shikari, or there would be repercussions.

  Once more, the fireball grew large, the flames crackling as they radiated intense heat. As Jak held it in the air, he glanced over at Rivlen, but damn it, she’d been distracted again. Another officer had joined her and was pointing off toward the west where a couple of blue-hulled mageships were just visible, flying parallel to the fleet. If the leaders of the various kingdoms were wise, they would stop fighting with each other and focus on the dragon threat, but Jak doubted they were that wise.

  Rivlen was wise. She ought to be in charge.

  He held the fireball, still hoping she would see it, but his efforts were in vain. Oh, well. Using some of the skills the engineer Vinjo had started teaching him, he’d made her a magical trinket. As soon as he had the opportunity, he would give it to her and hope she liked it.

  As he let the fireball fade and wiped sweat from his brow, Jak noticed someone else looking at him. His stomach sank.

  General Tonovan, who’d lost his mageship during the dragon battle at the portal, was leaning against the railing near the bow of the Serene Waters, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at Jak with his single eye, no patch covering the knot of scar tissue that was all that remained of his other eye.

  Practice hard, boy, Tonovan spoke into his mind. You’ll need that power to defend yourself soon. A cruel smile stretched against his face. When King Jutok’s fleet commander asked me what happened to Admiral Bakir, I let him know how Uthari’s untrained wild one was integral in his officer’s death.

  The memory of that battle haunted Jak—he’d endured more than one nightmare reliving the charring of Bakir’s back under his flames—but that didn’t keep him from wanting to blurt that Malek had landed the killing blow when Bakir had been trying to kill him. But Malek had been afflicted with those horrible bacteria at the time and out of his mind. Even if he hadn’t been, Jak wouldn’t have wanted to throw the onus on him. Besides, Tonovan knew full well what had happened and was intentionally being an ass. But, if it was true that he’d told Jutok’s people that Jak had been responsible, Jak might have to watch his back for zidarr assassins from that kingdom.

  I guess you can hide behind your mother’s skirts if Jutok sends people after you. Tonovan’s smile shifted to a sneer.

  Malek might not have heard the telepathic words, but he noticed Jak and Tonovan trading glares. He rested a hand on Jak’s shoulder and faced his nemesis, silently seeming to promise that he would protect Jak if trouble came. But Tonovan only shifted his glare to Malek, and it remained equally frosty. Jak well remembered the dragon battle in which Tonovan had tried to kill Malek, and he had little doubt that the vengeful general would try again.

  Malek shifted to block Jak from Tonovan’s view and waved toward the railing. “Create an
other fireball. You’ll need to practice until it’s as easy as breathing.”

  “I know. I will.” Jak made himself look away from Tonovan, though he wished the man would go below so he could practice without anyone glowering at him. “Is it wrong of me to be envious of my mother? She seems to have gained all the knowledge she needs to use her power at the same time as she received it.”

  Malek’s expression grew stern, and Jak expected Malek to remind him that he and every other powerful mage in the world had trained for years—decades—to learn their power. But all he said was, “You’d need a wise and powerful dragon to magically impart that ability to you, and I doubt it’s something that happens often.”

  No, and Jak well knew the promise Mother had made to Zelonsera when she’d been chosen. What would happen if she couldn’t find a way to get rid of the magical parasite that had infested the dragons’ entire species and destroyed their culture, their way of life, and all that they’d been?

  “Unless Shikari can do that for you,” Malek continued, “you’ll have to learn the hard way, with practice.”

  Shikari galloped toward them, talons clattering on the deck. He’d abandoned the stolen scabbard, but now he was draped with long strips of paper. Was that from the lavatory? Jak groaned, not certain whether one of the servants had flung rolls of the stuff at him or he’d found a stash and done it to himself.

  “I think his days of wisdom and power are well into the future,” Jak said.

  “Indeed.”

  Shikari stopped in front of Jak, sat on his haunches, and gazed up at him. Worried he would have to protect his charge from more vengeful mages, Jak looked back the way he’d come, but nobody was running after the dragonling.