“It was never all that bad. I have my family.”
“I don’t know my family,” the forest dragon said.
“The ice dragon seems to believe there are others like you.”
“I don’t know that any are like us,” she said.
It wasn’t the first time she had implied a desire to know her family. And Jason thought he could help her. He wanted to offer her anything he could, and that meant trying to find the other hatch mates. If he were able to do so, then she might be able to know who she was and where she came from, but in order to really know that, they would have to go to Lorach and find the dragon progenitors. That was something he had so far hesitated to attempt. Eventually they would have to do so, but he wanted to be more skilled before that time came.
“I know that there aren’t any quite like you, but I don’t know that that’s bad, either.”
“I never said it was bad. Each tree within my forest is unique. Much like the dragons are unique.”
He smiled, turning his attention toward the forest. Many of the trees there towered over others, and he liked her analogy, but he wondered how different she was than the other dragons, how different her tree was from the others. Considering what he knew of the ice and iron dragon, he couldn’t help but think they were especially unique.
And yet, she was doubly so. Whereas the ice dragon and the iron dragon were males, as a female, she could eventually mate and lay eggs. When she did, what sort of dragons would be the result?
The more he thought about it, the harder it was to know just what that might mean.
As far as he knew, it might mean she would give birth to other dragons like her. They would be connected to the sense of illusion, and they would be able to hide themselves. Given what he’d seen from how Therin had used her, the way that he had manipulated her power, he could easily imagine the way the Dragon Souls would also want them. They would be abused, the same way she’d been abused.
And if that were the case, then he would have to find some way of protecting her, and protecting any offspring she might have.
“It won’t be upon you to protect us,” she said.
“You’ll fight?” When she said nothing, he sighed. “There might come a time when you have no choice. I know you don’t want to, but…”
“You know what I want?”
Jason focused on an illusion, creating a flash of it for a brief moment. Barely more than that. “I know you would prefer to remain here. That might be best for now.”
“Because of what you found.”
He looked up at her. “You know.”
“I know.”
“Because you know my mind like the others?”
“Some parts,” she said. She shimmered past him. It was almost as if she used her power of illusion when she moved. “There are some aspects of your mind that are easy for me to know. It’s almost as if you want me to know them.”
“I don’t intend to hide anything from you,” he said. “I’ve never tried to hide anything from you.”
“There are parts that are more difficult for me to understand. When you think of the other two dragons, your emotions are obvious. I know how much you intend to help us. When you think of the dragon lost, you feel sadness, but also anger. You blame them.”
“They might not be responsible.”
The ice dragon wasn’t so sure, though he hadn’t pushed Jason on it.
“I also sense something else. When it comes to the dragons, there’s a bit of a conflicted feeling buried within you.”
“I’m not conflicted about the dragons.”
“But you once were.”
Jason turned toward the forest, looking away from her. “I once was.”
“Why?”
“My people… They raised me to believe the dragons were dangerous.” He shrugged, turning back to her. “And I suppose they are dangerous—at least, the ones trained by the Dragon Souls.”
“Why would your people have been taught to fear them, then?”
“I don’t know.” It was a question he had yet to have answered. There was something about the dragons, some connection they had to his village, but he had no idea what it was. Ever since stopping Therin, freeing the village from the illusion, he still had not uncovered just what Therin had done, and he didn’t know quite what he would need to do in order to keep his village safe. He was determined to try to offer them some sort of security, and whether that involved heading out of the village, moving down to Varmin or to the base of the mountain, Jason wasn’t entirely sure. All he knew was that somehow, he would have to help protect the dragons, though he wasn’t sure what form that would take.
“You’re still conflicted,” she said.
“I don’t know how to help them.”
“Must you help them?”
“I need to in some way.”
“Why?”
“If the Dragon Souls come for them again, they’ll be in danger. They came for them because of me. The village was attacked because of me. And knowing I’m connected to the dragons now, it will put a target on them. But dragons like you are also in danger. I need to do whatever I can to protect them. You. The others.”
Strange that the forest dragon would dredge up his feelings about the village, though those feelings were there. He hated that it was because of him that the village was now in a sort of danger. His sister hadn’t helped, either. Kayla had been working, thinking about the various ways they might need to help their village, but together they hadn’t come up with a solution. As much as Jason wanted to find it, he wasn’t sure that the two of them would be enough.
Exposing the fact that dragons existed wasn’t the solution, either. The more he thought about it, the harder it was to know what the right answer was going to be. It might be something as simple as carrying his mother out, bringing her someplace else and trying to ensure her safety, but what about the rest of the village?
He didn’t have the answer.
“There are ways to protect them,” the forest dragon said.
“I’m working on trying to figure out what those ways are.”
“If you need help, I offer mine.”
“Not to fight, though.”
“I offer you my strength. Is that not fighting?”
It would have to do. For now. “Thank you.”
She shimmered and suddenly appeared in the forest.
Jason trailed after her, watching, observing the way that she formed the next illusion. The sequence of illusions happened quickly, shifting the nature of the forest around her, changing it so that she became a tree, then a branch, then a part of the forest floor.
It happened so quickly and with such control that had he not been watching, he wouldn’t have known what it was, but the more that he focused on the forest dragon, the easier it was to tell what she was doing.
He stayed at the edge of the forest, watching.
After a while, he turned away. There was only so much he could watch, and he had been working with her, trying to understand the nature of the illusions for a long time, but now he wasn’t sure what he needed to do.
It wasn’t to simply stand there and watch. He needed to find his next task.
And perhaps it was time for him to take the next step. Perhaps it was time to at least get his mother out of the village.
He had been putting it off, but Kayla had been pushing him, asking for him to try to help, and he knew that he needed to eventually.
He called to the iron dragon, and within a moment, the massive creature was there in front of him, dropping to the ground. Heat radiated along his scales and Jason climbed up onto his back, settling in.
“It’s time to go.”
“Where?”
“First to Dragon Haven. And then… then to my village.”
5
The conversation with David still left him troubled. Even after having visited with the forest dragon, he remained uneasy. He wasn’t any better able to create the image of the jungle dragon
, though he tried again and again while in the forest. Eventually, he hoped that he would understand what he had to do to succeed, but it seemed almost as if the image of the jungle dragon resisted some of the illusion.
Or perhaps it was only his own mental blockade.
He shifted on the back of the iron dragon and they spiraled higher and higher in the air, the dragon pulsating power as he undulated them forward. The energy carried them quickly across the sky, streaking high overhead, and Jason looked out through the iron dragon’s eyes.
There was forest, mountains, rivers. Everything flowed past him.
All of that was potentially another place for a hatch mate.
“Where do you think he placed the other eggs?” Jason asked.
“The other has been searching,” the iron dragon said.
The other. Jason still found it interesting that the dragons didn’t refer to each other by name. As far as he could tell, the dragons didn’t really care for the idea of names. In the case of the iron dragon and the ice dragon, they had some barrier between them, almost as if there was a sense of irritation, though that wasn’t quite right.
The iron dragon appreciated that the ice dragon was a fellow hatch mate, but it was more about how they were different—perhaps too different. Still, Jason was able to use their power. It enabled him to have a sense of how else he might be able to use that magic.
Jason closed his eyes while soaring overhead, heading toward Dragon Haven, and even as he did, he could see through the iron dragon’s eyes. He shifted, turning his attention through the ice dragon’s eyes. The combination was enough that he was able to see much more than he had before.
Jason stared out through the dragons’ eyes.
There was a different vantage here. The ice dragon was farther to the north than they were.
As he stared, trying to understand what he saw, he could make out some of the features of the place the ice dragon had gone, a mixture of trees and rolling hillsides. Where was he?
It seemed to him the dragon was far from him, but not in an unfamiliar location.
He had gone back toward Lorach.
Did the ice dragon know he didn’t need to?
As Jason looked through the ice dragon’s eyes, he could see movement below him. At first, Jason thought that the ice dragon was looking for other dragons. For a moment, he could see the dragon. There was a flutter of the deep blue dragon, but then he faded from view.
The ice dragon had been following David.
What did he hope to find?
He had the sense that the ice dragon had wanted to know for sure whether David would return or not, though that wasn’t the only thing he sensed.
In addition to the deep blue dragon, there was something else.
Other dragons.
They were flying away from Lorach, a group of them. A dozen, actually, and Dragon Souls rode on top of them.
Jason frowned and tapped on the iron dragon.
They turned.
So much for going back to Dragon Haven.
As they soared higher, the iron dragon wasn’t willing to go quite as high as the ice dragon was, and Jason called to the ice dragon, and they met each other.
Leaping from the iron dragon’s back, he landed on the ice dragon.
The iron dragon turned away.
“I will find you soon.”
The iron dragon rumbled, heat flaring along him, and then he disappeared in a burst of energy.
As Jason tapped on the ice dragon, they headed higher and higher, piercing the clouds, to where the air was thin and wispy and Jason could barely breathe. It made it difficult to hold on to the ice dragon. He gasped, and the ice dragon dipped lower.
Jason took a gasping breath and was able to catch his breath.
In the distance, the Dragon Souls continued flying.
They were heading out of Lorach, and he waited, looking for any evidence they might be moving toward Dragon Haven, but he didn’t see anything.
They stopped, almost as if they were following along the border of Lorach.
“What do you think they’re doing?”
“I don’t know,” the ice dragon said.
“Have you seen any other movement like that?”
“Not in the time I have been traveling,” the dragon said.
“Strange.”
“Very,” the dragon said.
They watched, and in the distance, another grouping of dragons—along with Dragon Souls—began to head out. From this high up, he could see the city far below him, and he was able to tell the Dragon Souls were leaving the city, though he wasn’t able to tell where they were going.
Jason stared for a long moment.
He didn’t see anything else below him.
It was just the city.
He continued watching.
After a while, he took note of nearly fifty dragons. All of them flew in a pattern, crisscrossing over Lorach.
It was impressive, but it was also terrifying to see.
That many dragons suggested something was taking place within Lorach.
David had said nothing about what was going on, though it was possible that David didn’t even know what was taking place. Jason didn’t have the sense that David was completely connected to what was happening within the Dragon Souls. Despite being an Auran, he didn’t always seem to know.
“Maybe they were responsible for what happened to the jungle dragon,” he said, looking down. David hadn’t believed that they would have been to blame, and knowing what he knew about the Dragon Souls, he didn’t necessarily think that they were responsible, but he wasn’t sure.
What if they somehow were?
What if the Dragon Souls had decided that they had enough power for an attack of the misfits? It was possible. They might even make it look like it wasn’t an attack that they had instigated.
The ice dragon swept overhead, following the direction of the Dragon Souls.
Jason paid attention to the pattern they were making and realized they were circling more and more outward, sweeping away from the main part of Lorach.
“Do you still see David and his dragon?”
“Not any longer. He disappeared into the city.”
“With the dragon?”
“The dragon has left,” the ice dragon said.
Strange.
Jason tried to focus on what he could detect of the blue dragon. Any connection he had to the dragon was still faint, and although he tried to find an energy that might explain the dragon’s whereabouts, he wasn’t aware of anything.
They streaked overhead and took up a position high over the sky, with all of Lorach angled below them. As they did, Jason continued to stare down, focusing on what he could make out of the clearing. He had to use the dragon’s sight.
What they needed was to find a few dragons that he might be able to interact with, and from there, they might be able to free them.
He had to find dragons that were stragglers, though.
Jason focused on the nearest of the dragons.
They were outside the boundary of the others, and as he continued to consider the dragons, he picked up on one. It was a bright yellow dragon, its scales the color of sunlight. It wasn’t large, at least not as large as some of them, and there was a single Dragon Soul riding on it.
That was as good a place to start as any.
Jason pulled upon the power of the ice dragon, mixing with that of the iron dragon, and he pulled it through his connection to them and pushed it toward the yellow dragon.
There came a bit of resistance.
He pushed harder, letting the resistance work against him, fighting against it.
Jason could feel the effort of that resistance, but he could also feel what he needed to do to overpower it.
He fought.
This time, he could feel the resistance shifting. The ice and the heat washed together, creating a sweeping moisture that flowed through the yellow dragon.
There was a roar, and
the dragon bucked. The Dragon Soul came flying free.
The other four dragons flying near it turned.
Jason acted quickly. He called upon the energy of both of the dragons he had access to, and he pressed it onto the four dragons.
The opposition was there, but he realized there was another complication.
They were turning their attention to the yellow dragon.
There might be something he could do to help.
By holding on to the sense of the illusion from the forest dragon, Jason sent it over the yellow dragon, sweeping across and changing the appearance of the yellow dragon into an eagle.
The bird went flying away. He held on to the illusion as the dragon headed farther and farther to the south.
Toward the jungle, he noted.
He continued pushing, sending power across the dragons.
Jason fought, struggling with that resistance within them, the training and the coercion that the dragons had experienced, and could feel it fighting against him.
They needed his help. They needed to be released from their captivity. They needed him to push, to use everything in his power to help free them from what the Dragon Souls had done to them.
The resistance faded.
The dragons were no longer able to withstand his healing energy.
Jason continued to push, and let that energy wash through the dragons.
All four of them were fed the healing energy at the same time. All four of them took in that power, and all four of them suddenly thrashed as he continued to push power onto them.
The Dragons Souls were tossed free. Jason knew now to add illusion to the dragons.
The illusion twisted, shifting them into birds.
It seemed to be the easiest addition. One key he knew from the forest dragon was that modifying an existing image into something similar allowed the illusion to hold more efficiently. It would’ve been possible to completely erase the dragons, to create an image as if the dragons were no longer there, that it was only empty sky, but turning them into birds seemed to fit much more effectively with what he wanted to do.
The other Dragon Souls turned, as if trying to figure out what had just happened to the stragglers.
Jason had freed five dragons. That was a victory. It was one that he should celebrate, but he had an opportunity here.
Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Page 5