Until he knew who was here, he didn’t know that it was safe to approach too quickly. Could they be from the festival? It would be a strange direction for someone to travel afterward, especially at night. Most of the people who came to the village for the festival remained for longer stretches than this.
Unless they weren’t with the festival.
He continued crawling, and when he was near the fringe border of the fire, he relaxed. At least here, he could start to feel the warmth. There was the fire, but there was no one else here.
As Jason allowed himself to relax, a hand grabbed him. “What are you doing here?”
It was a gruff voice, but it was strangely familiar.
“I saw the fire,” he said, trying to jerk free.
Everything within him was on edge. His heart raced. A sheen of sweat worked on his back, freezing almost immediately. It did nothing to help with how cold he was. Even if he wanted to run, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. His body was achy and stiff, and he was tired from being out all day.
The hand released him and Jason staggered back, looking up at the figure. They were dressed in heavy furs, with a hood covering the face, making it difficult to see anything. More than that, the furs managed to mask him from using his dragon sight, preventing him from seeing anything at all.
Were the furs some kind of dragonskin?
It didn’t seem that way. When he’d been closer, he’d felt none of the heat off of the fur in the same way he would detect with dragonskin.
What was it, then?
Better yet, who was this? Why was he out here in the night like this, camped on the mountain slope out in the open?
“You can sit by the fire.”
“Who are you?”
The figure ignored him, turning away and heading downslope.
Jason tried to see where he was going, but the light from the fire made it difficult to see anything, and he was cold. Rather than trying to stare after the man, he hurried closer to the fire, letting the warmth fill him.
It was bright, and it danced higher into the sky than he would’ve expected. More than that, as he studied the flames, he realized he couldn’t tell that anything was burning, but somehow there was warmth and heat coming off the fire.
Fire like this would be beneficial in the village. If there was some way of creating flames like this without burning anything, his mother and sister could remain warm.
He couldn’t find a source.
That wasn’t quite true. At the center of the fire, there seemed to be a small circular object. It looked something like stone, and there was something about that stone that was familiar.
He’d seen a stone like that before from the stranger in the village.
That was why he’d seemed familiar, but what would he be doing out here?
Last he’d seen him, he’d been in the village, celebrating the festivities. Jason didn’t know if any of the visitors had departed already. It was possible he’d already left, but traveling this direction was unusual. Few—if any—festivalgoers came this way. Most went along the back slope of the mountain toward Varmin.
He needed to reach the stranger.
At the same time, he didn’t want to leave the flame. He didn’t want to leave the warmth, and desired nothing more than to stay where he was, to enjoy the heat that he hadn’t experienced in quite some time.
He held his hands out, letting the warmth fill him.
He would wait. The stranger would have to return to the fire.
Jason sank down to the ground, the warmth and the comfort of the flames filling him. He looked around, but he came across nothing to explain where the man had gone.
More than that, he came across nothing that suggested he was ever even here.
A distant rumbling sound came again and he tensed. Focusing on the slope, he waited, worried the snow would begin to shift again. If it did, he’d end up cascading down the mountainside. At least he was warm enough.
Jason found himself curling up on the snow. He stayed just at the edge of the fire, letting its warmth press upon his face, his hands, his entire body. He basked in it.
And drifted to sleep.
6
Coming awake with a start, Jason looked around.
Dreams had come to him, along with memories of hunting with his father. In that dream, he had been tracking a larger animal. His father hadn’t bothered hiding his excitement in trailing after the creature, the first time in months they had encountered a deer.
“What if we lose his track?” Jason had asked.
His father looked down at him. He was a large man, though not as large as many in the village. He smiled at Jason, a hint of a sparkle behind his blue eyes. “As long as we move quickly, we aren’t going to lose the deer. We need to be more concerned about a dragon snatching it from us.”
His father had started off, leaving Jason staring after him. “There aren’t any dragons left.”
“Not here,” his father had said.
“Where are they, then?”
“Gone. Thankfully.”
“But we still have the ballista.”
“They serve as a means of protecting ourselves from the dragons. Not anything we need. Not anymore. The dragon hunters have been gone for generations.”
“What was it like?”
His father glanced over as Jason raced after him. “To be a dragon hunter?”
Jason had nodded. “They have always seemed so terrifying.”
A strange, almost bittersweet expression crossed his father’s face. “I don’t know. Our family came to the mountains…”
His father never got the chance to finish.
They caught sight of a deer.
He tapped on Jason’s shoulder, signaling him to lower.
He crouched, raising his bow, and fired.
His aim was off.
His father’s was not.
The arrow streaked true, and he followed with another.
“I won’t be able to hunt as well as you.”
“Eventually you will. You have the sight. That gives you advantages that others don’t have.”
“What sort of advantages? All it seems to do is draw attention to me in the village.”
His father ruffled his hair as they started toward the fallen deer. “Be proud of what you are. You are part of a distinguished heritage of those with dragon sight.”
Jason blinked open his eyes from the dream, noticing streaks of heat all around him.
Even in the dream, he missed his father.
Why that dream, though?
Maybe it had something to do with the dragon sight, or maybe it had something to do with where he now found himself. He needed to embrace his dragon sight.
This far down the slope, the neighboring mountains loomed closer. The snow reflected the growing sunlight, a blaze of white making it difficult for him to see anything. He squinted, studying the distance where dawn already began to break, the sky lightening.
Jason sat up, breathing in, and noticed that the air was crisp and cool. The winds had died, and he was not nearly as cold as he had been before.
At first, he thought everything had been part of the dream and that the fire had been only his imagination, but as he rolled over, he saw it was still there, burning brightly. It had changed very little, and surprisingly, the snow around it hadn’t melted all that much.
More surprising was the fact that the strange stone at the center of it remained.
Jason blinked, trying to clear his mind, and found it was more difficult than he would’ve expected. He was lucky to have survived.
The stranger.
Where was he?
Jason had been certain he’d encountered the stranger, but why would he have allowed Jason to come sit by his fire?
Better yet, how did he have a fire like this?
“You’re awake.”
Jason spun and saw the stranger coming from back up the slope. “I’m awake.” He studied him a moment. Heavy furs cover
ed the man. They were a mixture of grays and whites, stitched together, and they left him with a ragged appearance. The massive hood covering his head was even thicker than what he remembered from the village. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“It’s time for you to head back. If you get going now, you should be able to reach your village by sunset.”
The stranger stepped past him, reaching into the flame itself, and grabbed the stone. As he did, the flame went out.
Magic.
There are magics in the world. Pray you never see them.
Jason had never known why his father would have told him that. Seeing magic that way made him want to see more magic, not less.
“Who are you?”
The stranger ignored him, standing and stuffing his hand into his pocket. With it went the stone, disappearing, leaving Jason wondering who this man was and why he had helped.
“You won’t have much time. I suspect we’re going to see more snow today, though it’s going to start downslope first before working its way up. If you get going now, you should be able to—”
“How did you make the fire?” His gaze went to the man’s pocket, and he was tempted to try to reach for it, but even though he and the man were of a similar size, he didn’t think he would be able to overpower him.
More than that, there was the comment Tessa had made. The man had silver eyes, much like him.
The man cocked his head, studying him. As he stared at Jason, he had a sense the man regarded his eyes—particularly his silver eye—closely. There was something strange about the way he watched him, and it seemed as if the stranger recognized what the silver eye meant. “You’d better get going. You don’t want to get caught out another night.”
“I can make it back. I’ve lived on this mountain my entire life.”
“Have you?”
Jason frowned at him. “Yes.”
“How long is that? How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
The stranger glanced over his shoulder, looking up the slope of the mountain. He took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. His breath puffed out in a plume. “Seventeen,” he whispered. A sense of heat built from him. “It’s called a dragon pearl.”
He’d never heard of a dragon pearl before, but there were many things people attributed to the dragons he wasn’t sure were real. “You can make fire with a dragon pearl?”
“You can do many things with a dragon pearl.”
“Such as healing Morris?”
The stranger turned toward him. It was almost as if Jason could see through the hood, though as he looked at him, he wasn’t sure that he could. Maybe that was nothing more than his imagination since all he could make out were the stranger’s eyes.
“As I said, you can do many things with a dragon pearl.”
“Are you going to share your name?”
“Do you think that asking me over and over again will get you closer to the answer?”
Jason just shrugged.
“My name is Therin Dargish.”
“Are you from Varmin?” That didn’t seem right. If he was from that city, he would have been traveling down the backslope, not the front face of the mountain. “Why haven’t I seen you at the festival before?”
“Because I’ve never visited the festival before.”
“Why did you come this year?”
Therin cocked his head, studying him. “You’re wasting valuable time.”
“Only if you don’t answer.”
The other man shook his head. “I came looking for answers.”
“What sort of answers?”
“The sort I didn’t find.”
Therin started down the face of the mountain. Jason hesitated before racing after him. He wasn’t about to let this man get away from him before he had more answers of his own. He had so many things that he wanted to know, not the least of which was why Therin had come to the village and what he had hoped to find.
More than that, he wanted to know more about the dragon pearl, if only so he could see if there was some way to have one himself within the village. He could imagine using it, creating fire the same way Therin had and heating the entirety of their house. With something like that, they wouldn’t have to rely upon dung collection, and he wouldn’t have to worry about his mother and sister freezing while he was gone.
“The longer you follow me, the longer it’s going to take you to return.”
“The longer you don’t answer, the more likely it is that I’m going to have to stay with you.”
Therin turned in his direction, and Jason still couldn’t see through the hood of his jacket, unable to make out anything about his features. The only time he’d seen him had been in his home, and that had been darkened.
“I saw how much you worry about your people. You’re not staying with me.”
That much was true. If he stayed with Therin, he would end up trapped here another night. Without a fire, he might not be able to get back.
Therin continued to make his way down the slope, moving quickly. He walked easily over the soft snow, and each step he took seemed to drift over immediately, almost as if the snow covered him, obscuring his tracks.
Jason glanced behind him, looking to see if the same thing happened to him, but he couldn’t see that it did.
Why would he be the only one making footprints while Therin did not?
“Are you some sort of sorcerer?”
There are different types of magic. Inherent and borrowed. Both are dangerous.
Jason suspected the inherent magical users were sorcerers. The others… he didn’t know what the others were. Either way, they didn’t have anyone like that in the village. The closest they came was the dragonskin jackets, and even with that, that was more a nature of the dragons themselves rather than anything magical. All understood the dragons had fantastical abilities, and while they were terrifying creatures, they were powerful.
“A sorcerer?”
“With the fire. Your footsteps. The way you were able to help Morris. All of that seems to me that you’re some sort of magic user. A sorcerer.”
“Is that what you think I am?”
Jason shrugged again. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“That’s because you said you haven’t left your village.”
“Is what you can do common?”
“Common enough.”
Therin continue to make his way along the side of the slope, practically gliding above the surface of the snow, while Jason had to trudge through it, each step more difficult than the last. The longer they walked, the harder it was to keep up, and he worried he wasn’t going to be able to keep pace with Therin.
Then again, perhaps the other man didn’t want him to.
He’d already suggested he return to the village, and the longer he went, the more difficult it was going to be for him to make it back easily. He did need to get back. Spending his time out here, continuing to this end of the side of the mountain, meant he was either going to be stuck another day outside of the village, or he was going to have to stay with Therin.
There was another possibility, but it involved finding one of the outlying homes. They were scattered, difficult to come across. The people who lived in them preferred the isolation. Jason wondered if Therin weren’t taking some way that would navigate around, avoiding other homes.
Therin stopped, turning to face him. “Keep following me and you won’t be able to get back.”
“I can get back. It only takes a day to climb the mountain.”
“The longer we go, it will take you more than a day.”
He was right, and though Jason didn’t want to admit it, he also didn’t know what would happen if he continued. This was already farther than he’d ever wandered, and returning would take every bit of strength he had. He could hurry, but being hungry and tired meant it would be less likely he’d be able to reach the village easily.
“What did you come to the village looking for?”
Therin looked at him for a long moment. “Something that no longer exists.”
The other man continued along the side of the mountain and Jason watched, unable to shake the sense that his feet never sunk into the snow.
He could return. For that matter, he needed to return, but he had time. Having found the deer bought him time. It gave him nearly a month before his family would run out of food. Even that was probably not completely accurate. Without him, they wouldn’t need nearly as much food.
“Is it dragons?”
Therin slowed. “What was that?”
“The dragons. Is that why you came to the village?”
“What about the dragons?”
“There was a firing of the ballista last night.”
Therin pushed back the hood of his cloak. As he did, Jason was able to make out the deep silver of his eyes. It was much like what Tessa had said, and it surprised him. He’d never been around anyone else with the dragon sight, and seeing someone like that, seeing the twin silver eyes, unsettled him in a surprising way.
Was that the way he made others feel?
“What did you say?” Therin asked.
He shook away the unsettled feeling. “The ballista fired last night.”
“Are you sure?”
“I thought it was an avalanche at first, but…”
Therin looked up the slope of the mountain, a deep frown on his face. “When did you hear this?”
“I don’t know. I was tracking a herd of deer—”
“A herd?”
Jason nodded. “I’d gotten one and was hoping to get another”—or two, if he were completely honest—“when I thought I heard the ballista bolt fire.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t part of the festivities and not the ballista?”
Jason shrugged. “It could have been. Morris was firing the cannon, but his injury would make him less inclined to fire quite as many as he normally would.”
Therin turned his silver gaze on him. Jason thought he felt something from him, but it had to be his imagination. “You should return and check on your people.”
“Come with me. You were looking for information, and—”
Ice Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 1) Page 6