Page 46 of The Storm of the Empire

Realization dawned on his face. “I don’t think so. I think they just off-loaded us so we wouldn’t know. It’s like they are keeping secrets in secrets.”

I sat back with a sigh. “So we have no idea where they might be?”

Luka sat up straight. “Can you sense storm magic?”

“Yes…why?”

“So you can feel it and follow it? That’s how your brother’s know where the stones are—Cal said they can feel them.”

“Where are you going with this?” I asked because it felt like he was connecting dots I didn’t see yet.

“If the opals absorb your storm magic and the eggs are coated with them, then theoretically, the eggs are like the stones. You could find them like your brothers find the lost stones after a big storm.”

“I think so.” I was starting to understand what he was saying.

It all clicked together. The lessons we had in training camp. The way the feel of storm opals was drilled into our minds so we could find it day or night. We’d prepared for the worst since we were children. The once-in-a-lifetime storms that would scatter the opals far and wide or fling them into the sea, and then we’d all be called back to search for them.

“Finish getting ready, then we can go try and steal us a dragons egg,” Luka said enthusiastically. Why would anyone be excited about such a venture?

When I came back, he was dressed in the clothes I’d gotten him yesterday. He looked odd. Maybe I’d grown used to him as a priest.

I couldn’t hold back a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I think I prefer you as a priest,” I said, not sure I should be admitting it.

He raised his brows. “Is that what you’re into?”

“Stop!”

We headed outside to start our hunt. I closed my eyes, reaching out with my power, spreading it in every direction but focusing on the temple. I felt none of the feedback I would expect from the stones, nor any hint of dragon. I would think if there were a group of eggs together like that and I was reaching out to find them, I’d get a sense. But nothing. They had to have been moved from the temple.

I swept my power further and further, losing myself in visualizing the land. I swept the fields, sensing the stones there and beyond to the coastline. I was beginning to think the task was beyond my competence and maybe we should ask my brothers since this was their area of skill, but then suddenly, I sensed a concentration of opal where there were no fields.

Luka’s fingers brushed my face, and my eyes snapped open.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to break your concentration.”

“It’s fine. I know where they are,” I said, breathless.

“Where?”

“Near the Wild Mountains.” I was already stripping off my tunic. “I’ll go. We don’t have enough time for us both to get there on foot.”

His brows rose at my disrobing. I always forgot how different we were to non-shifting fae while I was at home.

“What?” I asked, hands on hips.

“You’re going to shift?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yeah. I can fly ten times faster than we could both get there. You’ll just have to trust me.”

He shook his head. “No, I just meant—” A smile spread on his lips. “I haven’t seen your dragon before. I can’t wait to see!”

“Oh.” I toed the ground self-consciously, suddenly aware I didn’t do this in front of others too often these days. Shifting was second nature for me here, but I rarely did it in the First Kingdom. There, it was something I mostly did in private because without a ryder, it just felt like drawing attention to my failure. I was respected as a weapons master, so reminding them that I could be more was just counterproductive. I preferred to quietly slip away to shift and fly when I needed to.

“This might be a little forward, but couldn’t I ryde you?”

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