This high in the air, separated from the other dragons and given the opportunity to use that separation and that power, he needed to continue to take advantage of it.
By pushing power into the dragons, drawing from the ice and the iron dragons, and by using the forest dragon, Jason might be able to singlehandedly remove the threat of the Dragon Souls.
He turned to the next grouping of dragons.
There were seven of them.
Seven dragons would be more than he could manage at one time, but what if he separated three of them? He could add the illusion and mask them, turn them around, and he could free them before moving on to the others.
He started to push.
Power from the misfit dragons washed out from him, and he hurriedly added an illusion.
When the Dragon Souls were tossed off as the dragons were freed, Jason continued to press power through them. He was growing tired, but this was his opportunity. He was going to use it, and he was going to find a way to help the dragons.
As he formed an illusion on them, they took the shape of birds as well, and they flew off, heading in different directions.
Jason turned to the other four.
He could handle four dragons.
He had done it before.
They fought.
It was the first time there was a sense of resistance different than the internal one. The Dragon Souls must have realized that something was happening.
They held on to their connection to the dragons. Jason had to push as hard as he could, forcing his way through that connection, trying to separate the training and the bond he detected within them.
He could feel that separation. It was going to work. It had to work.
The effect of the training and the coercion exploded away.
Quickly, he added the illusion.
As the dragons scattered, he leaned down on the ice dragon. Jason took a few deep breaths, trying to steady himself, to get his mind right, and he tried to hold on to the sense of power he could detect.
There were more dragons down there that needed his help.
“There’s only so much you can do,” the ice dragon said.
“They need to be freed.”
“They do, but you need to do so with safety. You cannot continue by yourself.”
“Anyone else would risk themselves.”
“Are you not risking yourself?”
“I’m borrowing your power. We’re safe doing it this way.”
The only thing he knew was that the power he pushed out from himself was enormous, borrowed power from the dragons, but it took strength from him too.
“You may keep trying,” the ice dragon said.
Even as he said it, Jason could tell that the ice dragon was growing weary.
Maybe this was a mistake.
He couldn’t keep stealing power from the ice dragon, not without weakening him in a way that changed him somehow.
He had to be more careful.
Jason turned his attention to the next grouping of dragons. He needed to find a smaller group.
If the ice dragon was right, and if he was fading and would only be able to help a few more dragons, then he had to choose those dragons carefully.
He picked out five dragons.
He could do them two at a time, leaving him with a single dragon remaining.
One of the dragons was enormous, a massive black creature.
Magnificent.
Freeing a dragon like that would be beneficial.
Jason hurriedly pulled upon the ice and the iron dragon, sending that energy through the first of the two dragons.
The resistance was there, the connection to the Dragon Souls making it more challenging for him to free them, but by pushing out that power, he created a separation to the bonds, and he freed them.
Jason let out a sigh.
With a quick surge, he created the illusion around them, though it shimmered, almost as if it wasn’t going to hold.
He had to summon strength from the forest dragon, borrowing much more than he had before, in order for that to solidify.
It held.
Jason maintained that connection.
As he did, he turned to the other two dragons. He focused on them, calling on the energy of the ice and iron dragon, mixing that power through him, and he swept it over those two dragons. There was resistance, but he anticipated it, and he pushed again and again until he thought they were freed.
Power pushed up against him.
This time, the power wasn’t coming from those two dragons.
The power was coming from the black dragon and its rider.
Jason ignored it, pushing power down, letting it roll through the two dragons.
The resistance intensified. There were more Dragon Souls working against him.
Jason wasn’t going to fail here. He had given these two dragons a taste of freedom, and so he pushed as much as he could. He could feel the opposition build, and he could feel what he needed to do.
The dragons seemed to recognize what was taking place.
They thrashed and the Dragon Souls went flying, tossed free of them.
Jason needed to work quickly. He was fading, but so too was the ice dragon.
Drawing not quite as much as he could have, he forced the power through the dragons.
It held.
Wrapping an illusion around them, he turned to those dragons and scattered them. Sagging down on the back of the ice dragon, he looked over the side, peering at the massive black dragon.
It seemed to look up at him, though they were masked in the cloud.
Jason turned his attention to that dragon. He could free one more.
Power pressed against him.
He wasn’t sure what it was. Jason strained against it, struggling to overpower the energy out there, determined to overwhelm the black dragon.
As much as he pushed, and as much as he wanted to get free and to rescue the black dragon, he wasn’t going to be strong enough.
The resistance from the black dragon fought him.
Could it be this dragon wasn’t controlled?
Jason thought it was. Even though the dragon pushed back, and even though he believed that opposition came from the dragon itself rather than the Dragon Soul, he had to keep trying.
As he mixed the ice and iron dragon energies together, he added a hint of the forest dragon, trying to create an illusion around the black dragon, something soothing.
It failed.
The dragon continued to fight him.
Jason was aware of some sensation through the strange connection that formed as he attempted to heal. The pressure pushing back on him was coming from one of the Dragon Souls.
Somebody was aware of him.
The dragon came toward them.
He only had so much reserve power remaining.
Jason called upon it. He called upon everything he could. He called upon all of his strength and all of the energy he had within him.
Resistance formed around the dragon. It came as something solid, something real, not just the sense of the bond between the dragon and the trainer. Whatever he detected now was different.
Jason scrambled to force his way through this.
He couldn’t tell what it was going to take.
The only thing he was able to determine was that he would tap all of his reserves if he tried to overwhelm the dragon.
“Release it,” the ice dragon said.
“I think I can get to him,” he said.
“Release it,” the ice dragon said again.
There was fatigue within the ice dragon, and the energy that Jason was calling upon weakened the dragon, not only him.
He had to be careful and do exactly what the dragon suggested. He had to release it. He couldn’t keep holding on to that power. If he did, they would fail.
Reluctantly, Jason relaxed, letting the power wash away.
It felt as if he were losing something. He felt as if he were fa
iling the dragons.
The ice dragon withdrew.
They turned, heading away from Lorach.
Energy chased him.
The ice dragon flew as quickly as he could, and it wasn’t until they passed beyond the mountains, heading toward Dragon Haven, that he sensed something within the ice dragon beginning to relax.
Jason couldn’t help but feel as if they had missed an opportunity.
After they recovered, maybe then would be the time to go back to Lorach. If they could free all these dragons, they could accomplish something that had never been done. They could end the fight before it even occurred.
Jason was going to be able to do it himself. And he knew just who to ask to come with him. Hopefully Sarah would understand.
The flight back went quickly, though not quite as quickly as he hoped. As they flew, the ice dragon sent an alert toward Jason, and he blinked open weary eyes, looking through the dragon’s eyes, and he saw something far below.
Three dragons, pursued by another five.
“What is that?” Jason asked.
They were chasing each other, tumbling, fighting.
“I don’t know,” the ice dragon said.
He quickly tested the three dragons, pushing out a wave of energy, using everything he could to try to determine if they were controlled.
Free dragons.
Looking through the ice dragon’s eyes, he could see riders dressed in dragonskin, but they had an appearance that reminded him more of the people of Dragon Haven.
Could they be from Dragon Haven?
He didn’t know, but free dragons, with riders on them, needed his help.
The five pursuers were moving quickly.
Jason focused on them and pushed outward with a quick healing blast, trying to separate the five dragons from the bond.
He was tired, and after having tried to free as many dragons as he had, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be strong enough, but he was able to shear through it, mostly out of surprise.
The dragons roared.
The other three suddenly turned, facing the five, and the Dragon Souls were thrown free.
Jason had a hard time finding sadness within him.
“We should go and check on them,” he said.
The ice dragon roared, but it was a weak sound.
He didn’t have much strength, either.
“Maybe we should go back to Dragon Haven,” he said.
Jason sank down. Finally resting.
6
When Jason started to wake, he could see that Dragon Haven was spread out below him, a sense of power emanating from it. Everything about Dragon Haven was now masked with an illusion cast over it using a leaf borrowed from the forest dragon, creating nothing more than the shape of the forest in front of him. It was one illusion the forest dragon worked with him to maintain.
As he was the one who was holding the illusion, it was easy for him to see through it. Others would see nothing more than the forest; at least, others who didn’t have the gift of dragon sight. The dragons were able to see through the illusion. Jason had worked with them, training them, teaching them what it would take to find their way beyond the illusion so they could see the city.
They landed in the small clearing near the edge of the city and he climbed down, still recovering. The ice dragon didn’t linger long. When he got down, the dragon took off, back into the cold up above.
Jason took a deep breath, looking around. A trio of dragons played nearby. They were young, probably only a few years or so old, and still growing in their power. He’d used his connection to the iron and ice dragon in order to ensure they were protected, that they couldn’t be trained by the Dragon Souls. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t been.
Every so often, those who had experience training the dragons would work with them, testing to see whether there was any way to overpower what he had done. As far as he knew, there had been no success.
He worried about the time when that would fail. Therin had seemed to overcome his ability to protect the dragons, at least as far as he could tell. If he was able to do so, how many other Dragon Souls would be able to do the same thing? He was still learning his abilities, still learning what it took to connect to the dragons, but the Dragon Souls had known the dragons and the connection to their power for a long time.
There was a man with the three dragons, and Jason approached him, smiling.
“You returned.” William glanced up at the sky and shook his head. He ran a hand through his wild hair, leaving it standing up. “I bet the other one is out there, too.”
“The iron dragon is somewhere. Neither prefer to stay here,” Jason said.
“Does the illusion hold?” William asked.
“As far as I can tell.”
“You’re the one who’s holding on to it!”
“I’m holding it as well as I can, and the forest dragon helps”—now that he was here, he could feel the way she added to the illusion—“but I don’t know whether the Dragon Souls might be able to overpower it.”
William turned toward the dragons. “I’ve been working with them. I think I’m going to be able to use their power soon.”
“I hope so. For your sake,” he added with a hint of a smile.
William ran a hand through his wild hair as he turned his attention from the dragons and toward Jason. “What does that mean?”
“Well, I don’t want you have to keep depending on your luck.”
“That luck saved us, I seem to recall.”
“I think you just want me to believe that it saved us. I think we would’ve been fine either way.”
The smile on William’s face flickered. “Can I tell you something,” he asked, looking at Jason for a moment. When Jason nodded, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching the dragons. “I haven’t been feeling quite as lucky here.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s almost as if some part of it changed, fading.”
“William, I don’t know how much of that luck was real.”
William turned away from the dragons. “I know you don’t believe, but I’ve lived with it my entire life. There’s some luck, but it’s balanced by bad luck, too. I wonder if I’m getting most of the unlucky part here.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When we came here, I thought maybe I would find some way of reaching the dragons. I mean, you have that ability. I’ve seen the way you can use that power. When we first met, you didn’t have nearly as much power as what you have now.”
Jason held his hands up. When he was in Dragon Haven, he made no attempt to mask the changes to them, not like he did when he left. “I’ve been given a gift.”
“I know you have. That’s not something I want to have,” he said, nodding at Jason’s hands. “At the same time, I can’t help but think I should have been able to find something here.”
“What do you think that you should have been able to find?”
“Maybe a connection to the dragons.”
He turned his attention to the dragons, holding his hands up. The nearest, a small pale red one with sharp spikes pointing along his back, turned toward William and bobbed his head until William patted him softly.
“You do have a connection to the dragons you didn’t have otherwise. Look at you. Can you imagine having the opportunity to train a dragon when you were still in your town?”
William took a deep breath, looking around. “I never thought I would do anything like this. When I was back home, I…” He closed his eyes a moment before looking at Jason. “I’ve been thinking of my father lately. I haven’t thought much about him, but maybe I should.”
“That’s something I understand.”
William looked toward the rest of the city. The buildings were just visible in the distance. “I just want to be useful. Needed. Maybe do what you do.”
“There are times I wish I didn’t have to,” he said.
“I hear that you intend to go to
Lorach. Back to Lorach.”
He decided not to tell him that he’d already gone. “I don’t really want to, but Sarah seems to think we need to. With her connection to the dragons, and her understanding of how to use her connection to the dragon pearls, she would need to come.”
It was more than that for her, though she kept what it was from him.
When he and Henry and Sarah had left the last time, there was some disagreement about whether they should all have gone. Most didn’t mind that Jason had been willing to go, but with Sarah going as well, it had changed things.
Now she was determined to prove herself.
It wasn’t as if she had to prove herself to him. He’d been around her long enough to know she was powerful, gifted in a way others were not. She understood how to use her dragon magic much better than even Jason did. He was still learning, working with the dragons, trying to better understand what it would take to use and master that power.
“I’d like to go,” William said.
“What?”
“I’d like to go with you. I don’t know what I might be able to offer, but you could use some luck.”
“I thought you said you were unlucky here.”
“It can’t last forever, can it?”
“Are you sure? If we do this, I don’t think we can run the risk of your bad luck causing us to fail.” Jason smiled, and William shook his head. “You can certainly come, but I don’t know what we’re going to deal with and what we might face.”
“I can’t help but wonder if there is something else for me.”
William looked over at the dragons. There was a longing to the way he studied them, and Jason wondered if he would be satisfied with the answers he came up with. Would William ever be completely content with what he could do?
Jason recognized why it would be difficult for someone to struggle with their place in the world, and he understood why it would be difficult to want something more.
“I’ll let you know when it’s time for us to go,” he said.
William smiled and nodded.
Jason hoped William would be useful. When he had intended to go to Lorach before, he hadn’t been sure whether William would’ve been of any use, but it was possible William wouldn’t have been trapped by the illusion the same way he and the others were. Maybe it only worked on the residents of Dragon Haven because of their connection to power. It was something he would have to ask the forest dragon. He didn’t know whether the connection to the dragons made a difference to how much he was influenced by what was taking place around him.
Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Page 6