The Hunter and the Mage (The Raven and the Dove #2) - Kaitlyn Davis Page 0,89

against his as they sat side by side, looking at the mist. "They can fly away."

It was a problem he'd never before considered, having once been able to chase after them. Now that his feet were planted firmly on the ground, he found it was true—for the time being, at least. Dragons could fly away, and fly away they did. Since leaving Da'Kin, the crew had come upon three different beasts, or perhaps the same beast three different times. Either way, they'd been unable to catch one. Injure or hurt, yes, but as soon as the tides changed in their favor, the dragons simply retreated into the fog, disappearing without a backward glance. It was maddening.

"How do you usually catch them?"

"We usually don't."

"Have you ever caught one?"

"Me? Once. The captain, I think, has caught a few. The king likes to study them. He wants to understand how their magic works and why they're so damn attracted to ours. I'm told the previous king was the same way. But as far as I'm concerned, the only good dragon is a dead one."

"Humph." Rafe crossed his arms, scanning the endless gray. All he needed was one dragon and he'd have his wings. One measly dragon. The damn things had been haunting him his entire life, and now, when they would finally be of use, they had vanished. "What magic do they have? Other than the obvious, of course."

"Just let me go check my notes."

He turned toward her then. "Really?"

"No, not really." She scowled. "As if the king would talk about that sort of thing with me. Honestly, Rafe—"

He cut her off before she could launch into a tirade. "You must've heard rumors."

"Sure, everyone's heard rumors. That the dragons eat the magic. That they absorb it. That they're hoarding it somewhere, waiting to launch their final attack. But it's all ridiculous. Based on fear, not facts. When you're out here fighting them, you see the truth. Our magic hurts them, the same as it would any human. They're made of flesh and blood, just like us."

He stared into the fog as though it held the answers. It didn’t, of course, but against that opaque backdrop, memories of the fights played through his mind. Brighty was right. When she blasted them with concentrated light, they burned. When Archer pierced them with metal arrows, they bled. The waters Spout splashed against them sizzled on impact. The darkness Shadow wrapped around their eyes made them blind. Pyro was the only one whose magic didn’t seem to have any effect, yet it was no surprise that fire couldn't hurt a dragon.

There had to be something to it.

Why else did they chase magic? Why else were they drawn to it? Why else did they stick around these stormy seas when they could soar to any other place in the world and be free?

Rafe sighed. He wasn't a scholar, and he'd find no answers today.

"All right, tell me this then," he finally said. "How the gods do we keep finding them? The seas are vast, the skies more so, and yet somehow they keep falling into our laps."

She snorted. "That's easy. Dragons like magic, right? Our cities are teeming with it. They attack the cities. Our mages shoo them away. Word travels to the king. He tells it to us. And, simple as that, we know where to look. Then we use a little magic and, usually, they come to us."

"Yeah, I know all that. But how does the king tell us? That's what I don't get. We go to bed clueless and by the next morning Captain is on the hunt again."

"Oh, it’s the dormi'kines."

"The whats?"

He could practically feel her eye-roll.

"The dreamwalkers. They can separate their spirits from their bodies and dive into people's dreams. A little creepy, if you ask me, but the king values their power because they're his little messengers."

"Messengers?"

"Or spies."

"Spies?"

"Are you a parrot or something? Stop it."

If his mind weren't so busy spinning, he would have glared at her. Instead, his mouth gaped open in a manner that would certainly earn some teasing from her later, but he didn’t care. Dreamwalkers. Messengers. Spies.

Cassi.

Fury ran white-hot through his blood, bringing a sneer to his lips at her very name. That was how she'd done it—she'd been spying on them with magic. That was how she’d known he would run. That was how she’d known he would go to his mother's rooms. That was how she’d known about his magic. What else had she learned? Whose