Ice Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “It is safest not to.”

  He held out the dragon pearl that Jason had seen before, and this time, there was a sense of heat radiating from it, the same sort of heat he’d detected when the other man had been using his sorcery. Was it the dragon pearl, or was it something about him that made it seem that way? Jason didn’t know, but perhaps it was just some quality of Therin’s.

  “I use the power stored within the pearl. It connects to something within me.”

  “Sorcery,” Jason said.

  “Sorcery assumes I have the power. The stone, this pearl, connects to something within me. The power is not mine. The power is the pearl’s. There is no sorcery. There is no magic. I am merely using the power stored within this.”

  “How are you able to do that?”

  “I’m able to do it because I have trained my mind to control it.”

  Jason stared at the pearl. It seemed to glow softly, though he wondered how much of that was his imagination. It was possible he only thought it was glowing.

  “There are a few who possess power, Jason. Those who do are able to use it without any sort of artifacts such as this. They don’t need a pearl. They have power within them.”

  “And you don’t have that power?”

  “I do not. This is power of the dragons. Much like the dragonskin you long for, though different. Different than even the dragon bone swords so many carried. I have simply used the pearl to help ensure I don’t get trapped by the snow.” Therin glanced over to him. “You could do it.”

  Jason shook his head. “I’m not sure I could.” Or that he wanted to.

  Jason couldn’t deny that he could feel the pull from the dragon pearl. There was energy within it, and he didn’t understand why he should be able to detect that, only that it was definitely there.

  “We will go a little farther and then we will stop for the night,” Therin said.

  “Can they find us?”

  “It’s possible.” Therin shook his head. “But I need to stay ahead of them. Were they to discover I was still active, I imagine they would change the nature of their focus.”

  They trudged along through the snow. Rather, Jason trudged along through the snow while Therin floated. With each step, he could feel the snow seeping into his boots, and his feet were cold. He tried to ignore it, trying not to focus on the way the snow bit at his feet, the ice squeezing his toes, making him miserable.

  It was easy enough to drop onto his bottom and slide down the slope. He was able to keep up with Therin when he moved that way, but he didn’t have much control, and he was forced to jam his heels into the snow to stop himself. Therin seemed to notice this, and he smiled at Jason.

  Jason dropped down onto his bottom again, sliding to catch up to the man. When he did, his heels got caught in the snow and he went twisting, sliding onto his stomach and falling forward. Snow got into his face, his mouth, and worked its way inside of his coat, freezing him. Then his bow smacked him on the forehead.

  Jason shook his head as he got to his feet.

  Therin held out the dragon pearl. There was something warm about it, almost unpleasantly so. Jason held on to it, squeezing, but he hesitated, afraid of squeezing too tightly. He didn’t want to end up drawing some sort of power into himself. He preferred to avoid the power of the dragon as much as he could, but he also didn’t want to suffer.

  “Hold it. Feel the energy within it.”

  Jason squeezed the dragon pearl. It fit in the palm of his hand with a comfortable warmth. “It seems slippery.”

  “Good. Now focus on that. The warmth. Let that fill you.”

  Jason homed in on that warmth, and gradually, it began to get even warmer. He almost dropped it. There was something about it that reminded him of dragonskin.

  “I feel it,” he said.

  “Good. Now see if you can connect to something within it.”

  He glanced up. “What am I supposed to connect to?”

  “To the power within you.”

  He did drop the stone then, and he turned to Therin. “I’m not like that.”

  Therin reached into his pocket, grabbing for something else. When he pulled his hand out, holding it out to Jason, there was another dragon pearl within it. He let it rest in his palm and locked eyes with Jason.

  “The power needs to come from within you. What you need to find is your way of reaching it.”

  Therin reached for the stone that Jason had dropped, digging through the snow. If it was warm, Jason expected it to melt through the snow, dropping all the way to the hard rock that existed beneath layers and layers of snowfall. Somehow, it hadn’t fallen that far and Therin stood back up, holding on to the other stone, and slipped it into his pocket.

  “When you’re ready, I’ll let you try again.”

  Therin started back down the slope, gliding along the surface of the snow once again, leaving Jason to watch him.

  He trudged ahead, each step taking him deeper into the snow, and tried to keep up with the other man, but it was a struggle. As much as he wanted to keep pace, with the way he sunk into the snow, he found he couldn’t.

  After a while, Therin began to pull ahead.

  Jason was forced once again to drop to his backside and slide along the snow to catch up to the other man, and when he did, Therin only glanced in his direction, saying nothing.

  9

  Flames danced in front of Jason, casting a pleasant warmth. After the cold he’d experienced throughout the day, a cold that bit through him, he welcomed anything warmer. He held his gloved hands out, keeping them right in front of the fire, letting it warm him.

  “Here,” Therin said, thrusting something into his hand.

  Jason looked over, half expecting that Therin was going to give him the dragon pearl to work with again, but it was a strip of dried meat.

  His stomach rumbled. A pot resting on the fire was filled with melted snow, and a comforting sense came from within it of whatever spiced tea he made. Jason took a bite of the jerky, tearing it free. He chewed slowly, savoring it, and when he swallowed, his throat burned.

  He tried to think about when he’d last eaten anything, and couldn’t recall it. Had it been the broth several days before?

  The sweet bread. He was surprised he had managed to stay satiated for as long as he had, but then, part of that might have been his fear more than any real satiation.

  “We’re going to try again.” Therin pushed the dragon pearl into his palm.

  The stone pressed into the surface of his glove. Through the glove, he could feel the warmth. He continued to chew at the meat and when it was gone, he pulled off one of his gloves, holding the pearl in his palm.

  “Focus on how it feels to you,” Therin said.

  Jason took a deep breath. The pearl was incredibly smooth. And the warmth coming from it was pleasant, though he tried to pretend it was not. He didn’t want to acknowledge that anything about a dragon would be pleasant.

  “As you feel that warmth, focus on what you detect. Focus on how that echoes within you.”

  Jason squeezed the pearl. There was no echo within him. There was the slight warmth of the pearl itself, but other than that, he sensed nothing more.

  He looked over at Therin. “What if you’re wrong and I don’t have this ability?”

  Therin stared down at the ground, as if studying the snow swirling around them. “When I was found, they brought me to Lorach, a place for Dragon Souls. I was young, probably no more than five or six. And the man who found me believed I had potential. He did what I’m doing to you now, only he forced me to wear the dragon pearl around my neck. He activated it, letting it grow warm and then hot. It stayed with me until I developed enough control to reduce the heat from it. For a long time, I didn’t believe I had the ability they claimed, and yet, eventually I did manage to gain control over the dragon pearl. I managed to reduce that heat. I managed to survive.” He shook his head and looked at Jason. “Fortunately, there are other ways of learning. There we
re many aspects to my training I would not force upon someone else, that being but one of them. It was brutal. Effective, though.”

  Jason held tightly to the dragon pearl, squeezing it. “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Sit. Drink this,” he said, pulling a cup from someplace deep within his pocket, pouring the spiced tea into it, and handing it over, “and focus on the pearl. That’s all I ask. Only that you focus on it, thinking about the way you can feel it. Nothing more than that.”

  Jason took a seat much like the other man asked, and held the pearl in his hand. It was warm, but not unpleasantly so. He didn’t need a glove, but didn’t know if that was because of the pearl or because of the heat from the strange magical fire.

  What was he supposed to find from this pearl?

  Two kinds of magic…

  Jason pushed those thoughts away.

  He thought of the things he’d seen from Therin in the time since he’d met the man. Everything seemed impossible. Not only had he healed Morris, but he’d lit several fires without burning anything. And the Dragon Souls had used their power to attack him.

  If he could learn to use this magic, maybe he could hunt with it. Not just hunt with it, but it was possible he could use it to light a fire the same way that Therin did.

  His family wouldn’t have to suffer.

  As much as anything, that drove him.

  He tried focusing on what he could detect of the stone, but the longer he held it, the less likely he thought it was that he would be able to detect anything at all. There was warmth from it but nothing else, and certainly nothing that reverberated within him the way Therin had suggested there would be. All of it was within his mind, wasn’t it?

  “I can’t detect anything.”

  Therin smiled sadly. “Perhaps you don’t have the necessary connection.” Jason handed him the stone, but Therin shook his head. “You hold on to it.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe you’ll develop a connection to it in time. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of exposure.”

  The other man turned back to the fire, tending to it. There wasn’t a whole lot to do, as it burned on its own, glowing with an intensity that lit up the night. It crackled like a normal fire would, and it radiated warmth the same way, but there was something else about it that struck him as atypical.

  It was almost more tolerable than it should be. He found it pleasant, though he didn’t know why that should be. Every time he’d been around flames like this before, there had been a limit to how close he was able to get, and yet with this fire, he was able to sit almost alongside it. Perhaps that was the nature of the magical flame, and because of that, he was able to come closer than he normally would be able to do.

  “Won’t the Dragon Souls be able to see the flame?”

  “I’ve done a few things to make it more difficult for them by attempting to mitigate the extent of the flame.” Therin met his eyes. There was a flash of something within those silver eyes that made Jason wonder if there was something he could determine from the other man, but he wasn’t able to find anything. “There is control. If you don’t want to understand the nature of the connection, then I won’t share anything more with you.”

  “I’m open to understanding it.” He didn’t really know much about Lorach, and other than hearing the stories of how dangerous the dragon riders were, he knew nothing. His people had remained isolated, hidden and protected, long enough that stories of dragons had become just that: stories.

  “Tell me about Lorach. I don’t know that much,” he said.

  “It’s unfortunate.”

  Therin turned toward him, looking across the fire. As he did, the flames seemed to dance in his eyes, almost as if he were summoning the power within them, using that in some strange way. Was that what it looked like when the Dragon Souls used their power?

  “Lorach is an impressive city. I first went there when I was young—much younger than you are now. You quickly learn the Dragon Souls have a position of authority there, but that doesn’t mean others don’t. The king rules, and he has incredible power.”

  “Because of the Dragon Souls.”

  Therin tipped his head in a nod. “Because of the Dragon Souls. But it’s more than that. He has power of his own.” He fell silent, staring at the flames. As he did, the fire seemed to dance within his eyes even more wildly. Jason heard nothing more than the steady crackling of the flames. There wasn’t even a hissing from the snow, almost as if the fire didn’t affect it at all.

  While waiting for Therin to say something more, he stared at the snow, trying to better understand why it wasn’t melting under the heat of the flame, but there wasn’t anything he could determine. The dragon pearl rested there, the flames crackling around it, almost as if radiating from the dragon pearl itself.

  A soft rumbling came from behind him and Jason swiveled, looking up the slope.

  “Is that an avalanche?” he asked.

  “I suspect that is the Dragon Souls searching.” Therin sat up, and as he did, the flames began to lower, though the heat persisted from them, still keeping Jason warm. He was thankful for that, appreciating that the fire offered him as much comfort as it did. “I left the Dragon Souls when I began to question their methods. And now I pursue free dragons.”

  Therin placed his hands in his lap, and flames began to leap from the surface of his palms. It started small and then began to build, shapes twisting within it. As Jason watched, he realized one of the shapes was familiar. It was a dragon, made completely out of flames.

  “The Dragon Souls control many dragons. There have been dragons for as long as our people have existed, and the connection to the dragons has existed for nearly as long. The Dragon Souls recall a time when they hunted free dragons, searching for them, but these days, the dragons are all bred, the eggs harvested, ensuring Dragon Souls have control over the lines of dragons. Occasionally, rumors emerge of something else.”

  “What sort of rumors?”

  Therin smiled slightly. The flames shifted, becoming smaller, and the shape in his palms diminished. “Those of dragons.”

  “With the rebellion you mentioned?”

  Therin nodded slowly. “Those who would sacrifice the dragons in their fight with Lachen.” He looked up at Jason. “I don’t always agree with the Dragon Souls, but the dragons are protected there. Safe. Now I search for free dragons.” He watched Jason, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Dark. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen any.”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know that I’d even recognize a dragon.”

  “You would know,” Therin said. “They’re dangerous. Which is why I look.”

  Jason sat back, resting his hands in the snow. They weren’t nearly as cold as they had been. He looked at the other man across the fire, meeting his silver eyes. “Why do you care about the free dragons?”

  “Because I need to know if they’re what the stories say.” When Jason didn’t say anything, he grinned. “Powerful in a way we would never understand.”

  Jason shook his head. “The dragons are powerful. I wasn’t there the day my father died, but the stories that came back suggest the dragon he interacted with was incredibly strong.”

  “I’m not saying our dragons aren’t powerful. All I’m saying is that there are others I suspect exist.”

  “And that’s why you came to my village?”

  “I follow rumors.”

  “Why did the rumors bring you to the village?”

  “Probably because of the display you used to celebrate your freedom. It would draw dragons to it. Fire to fire.”

  “We weren’t trying to draw dragons.”

  “You might not have been trying to, but displays like that have a way of succeeding. Unfortunately, none came.”

  Jason stared at the man. “You were hoping we would draw a dragon?”

  “I was hoping there might be something. And then when you shared with me that the ballistae were fired, I had to wonder whether or not t
here was a sighting, but more likely than not, your people didn’t encounter anything.”

  “There was a group of kids my age who were talking about firing one of the ballistae,” he said.

  Such a foolish thing, but at the same time, it was the kind of thing he could imagine Reltash having done, even though it would weaken the village. More than that, it would be unlikely that anyone would even know it was him. They could have fired it off in the night and disappeared into the darkness. No one would have been the wiser.

  “Perhaps that’s all it was.”

  “Why out here?” Jason looked around, scanning the darkness. It seemed such an odd place to come looking for a dragon. This place was cold and bleak, not the kind of spot he would’ve expected to attract a creature like the dragon—a creature that enjoyed heat and fire and other sorts of things that simply weren’t around the mountaintop.

  “Perhaps it’s nothing,” Therin said.

  “Why?”

  “It’s possible there’s another type of dragon.”

  Jason held his gaze, waiting for the other man to say something more, to reveal he was joking, but he didn’t. He looked serious. For his part, Jason started chuckling.

  “You’re kidding, right? You think there’s some sort of ice dragon out here?”

  “I didn’t say that it was an ice dragon. All I said was that it might be a different kind.”

  He laughed again, and Therin turned away.

  “Rest. In the morning, you continue onward.”

  “Where to?”

  “We can continue to circle down the base of the mountain. I can get you to a smaller village and you can gather enough supplies to make it back up.”

  Jason lay down, resting his head on his arms, staying close to the fire. At least he was warm. It seemed a surprising comfort out in the open like this, surrounded by snow, and in a place where he should be cold, and yet he was not.

  It took only a few moments before his eyes drifted closed, and strangely, in his dreams, he thought that he saw visions of dragons crawling around him.