Firedrake - By Bianca D'Arc Page 0,67
speak in riddles, old man.” Drake felt his anger rising. Anger and something else, even more troubling—the tingling energy that somehow burned the paper. “I have never been able to use magic. The Jinn tried to teach me, but it was no use.”
“But you always felt it there…just beyond your reach.” Gryffid’s eyes pinned Drake to the spot. “Didn’t you?” he barked. “When the Jinn troubadours used their magic to sway people with their song, you felt the sting, the effervescence of it against your own.” Gryffid looked at him with knowing eyes. “It’s how the Jinn teach each other. How one mage schools another. Young, untrained magic will always rise to either caress or condemn its elders. Perhaps that’s part of the reason you clashed so often with your blood-father.”
“Is nothing unknown to you?” Drake’s head was spinning.
Gryffid grinned, throwing him a half-lidded look over one shoulder. It was neither a friendly glance, nor a combative one, but it spoke of…secrets.
“I have watched you. All of you.” Gryffid reached out to include Krysta and Mace. “I knew sooner or later, separately or together, each of you would find your way to my island. When that part of the riddle was shown to me, I made it my business to watch you each from afar. Very entertaining, I might add.” Gryffid winked at Drake, still smiling. Drake felt something cold crawl up his spine. Some spymaster he was. If the wizard was to be believed, he’d been spied upon his entire life and never been the wiser.
“You, Sir Drake, son of Declan, grandson of Darius, are also the son, many times removed, of my old friend, the wizard Draco. His magic runs true in you, though it has lain dormant in your forebears for many centuries. Your grandfather Darius was the first of your line to be chosen as a dragon’s knight. It was his mother that was descended of wizards. She was a healer of some renown in her native land, but she left to marry a two dashing young knights named Elias and Zach. They lived in one of the outlying Lairs, I believe.”
Drake sat heavily. This was all starting to sound eerily plausible. “My great-grandmother, Delia.” He paused, thinking back. “They say she could bespeak dragons.”
Gryffid nodded. “And heal them too, of small wounds, at least. But her true gift was something quite different. Something she denied out of fear. She was a Firedrake, as are you.” The wizard chuckled. “Oh, how I laughed at the irony when your parents named you.”
“I’m glad someone is enjoying this,” Krysta, bless her heart, interrupted the wizard. “What exactly is a Firedrake?”
“A flame wizard. Living fire. Your companion, like many of his forebears, has the gift of fire in a very tangible way. Is it any wonder his dragon partner is the color of glowing embers? Or his father’s the color of the flaming sun? Darius’s dragon partner was the red-gold of an inferno. It’s rather poetic, actually.” Gryffid seemed to enjoy his moment of revelation.
“What has Jenet got to do with this?” Drake’s concern shifted to his beloved sister.
“Quite a bit, actually. I believe those three dragons sensed the hidden blaze in you and your forefathers. You have flame in common. And I believe—” Gryffid turned to watch Jenet enter the great hall at the far end, “—your dragon sister will be key in helping you find your fire. Though from what I’ve just seen, it is much closer to the surface in you than it was in any of your recent ancestors. Must be all that time spent among the Jinn mages.”
“Wait. The Jinn really do have mages?” Mace asked from across the table.
Krysta shrugged. “Some. It’s a closely held secret—” she shot a disgusted look at the wizard, “—but many Jinn minstrels have the ability to influence people with their music. If you’d asked me last week, I would’ve thought Drake of the Five Lands one of the more magically talented of the Jinn troubadours, judging by his accomplishments, but now you say his magic isn’t in his music?”
Gryffid tilted his head, considering. “Not entirely. Young Drake is descended of wizards and therefore some of our magic flows through him no matter what he does. I wouldn’t say, though, that Draco ever had musical leanings. Whatever musical talent Drake has is purely natural. I surmise his magic may have risen to flow with that of his teachers, though it could find no real expression in song. No,