Page 98 of A Kingdom Restored

“We didn’t come here for me to look, Heath,” Reka told him. “If it was something I would easily find, I would have found it long ago. We came here for you to look.”

“But if you can’t find it, how would I have any hope of—”

“Because your heart magic is the ability to see things others do not,” said Rekavidur simply. “So use it, and see.”

Heath stared at him, taken aback by the blunt command. Just like that? Reka made it sound so simple, but Heath didn’t know how to do what he was asking, or even if he could.

He pulled on his magic, but his vision went instantly to Merletta. She was streaking through the water, not attempting to fight the dragons, but trying to usher others toward hiding places. She must know it was a futile attempt, but Heath wasn’t surprised to see her trying. At least she was so far still alive.

Heath wrenched his sight from her, trying to command it to go somewhere else. His brother sprang into his range of vision, deep in what seemed to be a heated but controlled argument with Lachlan, whose arm was still in a sling.

No, not Percival, Heath told his magic in frustration.Focus on right here, right now. But that hadn’t been his strong point for some time. He’d so often been lost in his extra sight, letting his mind be pulled in at least one additional direction rather than being present in his true surroundings, and he was paying for it now.

I can do this,Heath tried to convince himself.

He reached inward and teased out his magic, as Reka had taught him to do. The dragon had said he just needed practice, and Heath had found Reka was right. The more he’d exercised the newfound ability in recent months, the more confident he’d become in directing his magic. He would just have to hope it would be enough.

The presence of the two powerful dragons didn’t hurt. He could feel the magic emanating from them in constant waves, and his power responded to it. The magic still clinging to the various dragon runes in the area flared across his awareness, like so many small flames. They weren’t exactly the shining beacons Elddreki had described—they were only runes, after all, not some hidden treasure trove of magically preserved memories.

Heath drew desperately on the dragons’ magic, even as doubt wavered inside him. What was the point of him using their magic? If there was anything their magic could find, they would have found it immediately. He couldn’t wield their magic more effectively than they could. It had taken him until adulthood to even wield his own, unlike the rest of his family, whose powers showed up when they were children.

The thought made him pause. A memory flashed through his mind, of himself telling Reka that his power didn’t feel like his own. And following close behind, his grandmother’s thoughtful gaze as she speculated that something in him had been resisting his own magic, perhaps even rejecting it, since the moment it appeared.

Even now, in the most crucial of moments, he was thinking of his magic like it didn’t belong to him. Like it was just some kind of bridge, allowing him to access the magic of Rekavidur and his father. A mentality that left him feeling like an imposter, pilfering their power without any true ability to use it.

But it’s not their power, he reminded himself.They’ve used their magic, and if there are any sealed memories here, they can’t find them with their usual dragon abilities. It’smymagic that gives me the capacity to see things others can’t.

The thought felt arrogant. Seeing things other humans couldn’t was one thing, but out-performing dragons?

But this wasn’t the moment to worry about pride and humility. Merpeople were dying at this very moment—Merletta could be moments from death. If ever he’d wanted his magic to be strong, it was now.

And his magic was strong. Rekavidur had told him as much—Heath had even felt it, when he’d allowed himself to truly draw on the potential inside him.

The dragons’ magic might be swelling the potency of his own, but the ability still came fromhismagic, not theirs. And he wanted his magic—he wanted every last bit of magic available inside him. Nothing less was going to save Merletta.

He reached inside again, and gasped aloud at the torrent of magic that welled up. He embraced it, feeling something within him taking ownership of it with a confidence he’d never exercised before. He didn’t close his eyes, trying to avoid letting his natural senses distract from the use of his magic. Nor did he try to push Merletta’s situation to the corner of his mind. He could see her clearly, ascending toward the surface with purposeful strokes while chaos reigned around her, her familiar face overcome with intense emotion. No part of Heath shied away from her reality. But it didn’t detract from what he was seeing on the island.

With a clear gaze, he looked around the area, the runes visible to him as much by the flare of magic that somehow seared across his sight when he looked at them as by the markings themselves.

At first he saw nothing further, but the longer he scanned the area, the more some dim awareness began to grow. It certainly wasn’t a beacon. It was more like a glowing ember, buried deep beneath the earth.

But in spite of the many muffling layers that seemed metaphorically piled on top of it, the ember was still aglow. Whatever it was, it still emitted something that Heath couldsee, although not with his normal eyes.

“There,” he said, pointing to an otherwise unremarkable boulder.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Rekavidur tilted his head with interest, sensing the confidence of Heath’s declaration on the air. It seemed his human friend really had found something.

“Something is there,” Heath repeated. “I don’t know if it’s inside, or under, or…I don’t know, smeared across it. But there’s something. Something which is meant to be found, but which has been hidden.”

Rekavidur moved closer, his sire joining him as the two of them examined the point in question. After a moment’s consideration, however, Rekavidur felt a definite sense of disappointment.

“I don’t think so.” He pulled back. “I sense no magic there whatsoever.”

“It’s there,” Heath said, still sounding entirely confident. “I don’t know what it is, but some kind of magic is definitely there.”

“I don’t sense magic either,” said Rekavidur’s sire, but he remained crouched, sniffing the boulder. “In fact, the absence of magic is conspicuous, now I consider it. This area is permeated with power. Why would this spot be bare of it?”

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