With the protection around here, Jason wouldn’t be able to use his connection to illusions to help the invisible dragon. That might be the worst challenge he would face. If he couldn’t do that, how was he supposed to secure the invisible dragon and protect him?
“How much longer are we going to stand here?” William asked.
“We can go,” he said.
Jason guided them onto the road and headed toward Lorach.
When he’d been here before, at least in the vision, there had been a train of people making their way toward the city. At this time of night, there was no sense of movement. There was nothing.
By traveling at night, they could search the city. They wouldn’t have to worry about others watching them, and if they stayed concealed, hiding in the shadows, he might be able to navigate more effectively.
He wouldn’t have access to his illusions, but there were other ways to conceal himself. With the dragonskin, he thought that he could stay in the shadows and keep himself hidden.
They approached the wall circling the city. The doors were open and there were no guards there, not as there had been in the illusion. How much of that had been real, and how much had been only made up?
He didn’t have any idea, and perhaps it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they find their way inside. When he stepped through the opening in the wall, Jason had expected a sense of power flooding over him, almost as if the city itself would try to repel him, but he didn’t detect anything like that.
Once in the city, the darkness and the buildings engulfed him.
Many of the buildings were tall, and he passed what he believed to be shops lining the street. The farther they went, the taller some of the buildings became. He looked around, searching for anything that might seem familiar. Nothing looked like it did when he’d been here in his vision before. Then the buildings had been smaller, but these were enormous, towering overhead.
Some of the buildings in the distance were massive, stretching impossibly high. From the hilltop when he’d looked down upon the city, they had looked huge enough, but down within the city itself, they seemed even more impressive. It was almost as if the buildings themselves loomed over everything. The spires of the towers were ornate, elaborate. There were dozens of buildings with such flourishes.
Every so often, he and William would both pause, looking around, and neither of them would say anything.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” William whispered.
“Me neither.”
“Even in your vision?”
“My vision wasn’t anything like this.”
He searched for a sense of power and something that would tell him where the Dragon Souls might be found. When he had been here before, the vision had brought them to the Dragon Souls near the wall, but when he wandered now, he didn’t have any sense of Dragon Souls. Perhaps that had been nothing more than part of the illusion, or perhaps there was another reason for it, but now that he was here, he didn’t see anything that suggested he would find any Dragon Souls.
They hurried through the streets, and every so often, he paused, looking around and searching for energy. He detected it all around him, the same way he had outside the city. As tired as he was from everything they had been through, Jason wanted to rest, but he didn’t. Instead, they continued through the street, looking for answers. He focused on the sense of power everywhere around him. There was no obvious source for it.
They reached the river at one point. It split the city in two, winding throughout the entirety of the city. On the other side of the river was the massive palace. It spread outward, the towers rising high into the sky. At least this much was similar to what he had seen in his vision.
He motioned to the river. “When Sarah and I were here, at least in our illusion, the river was here.”
The Dragon Souls had been on the other side of the river. Standing on one bank, looking across it, Jason looked for a sign of any of the Dragon Souls. David had to be somewhere within the city. If nothing else, that was who he needed to search for.
Not just David, but he needed to search for the sense of the invisible dragon. There were no dragons visible to him, and there was no sign of the invisible one.
Jason hesitated for a moment before starting across the bridge over the river.
As soon as he did, there came a surge of power.
He focused on that sense of power, searching for its origin.
It was far ahead of them.
A light glowing in the tower caught his attention. It wasn’t the light from a lantern. It was the light from an intensely glowing dragon pearl.
Jason recognized that sense of power, the nature of the dragon pearl energy, and motioned for William to follow him. They hurried across the bridge, and on the other side, shadows separated from the darkness.
Jason’s breath caught. He spun, turning as he tried to draw upon his dragon pearls, but he wasn’t able to access anything that would keep them safe.
“Jason?” William turned toward him. “You see that, don’t you?”
Jason saw them. Dragon Souls approached, and there were several of them.
Worse, Jason didn’t feel as if he were able to draw upon his connection to his own dragon pearls. It was almost as if somehow he’d been separated from that power, as if whatever had happened had sheared it away from him.
He tried to reach for the iron dragon’s power but couldn’t draw anything from it. He shifted, thinking about the ice dragon, but it didn’t come to him. Lastly, he focused on the forest dragon, but here with the magic swirling around, there was no way to detect anything of her. He was separated from her and anything she might be able to offer them.
Had the Dragon Souls uncovered some way of separating him from his own power?
The only way they would have been able to do that would be if they knew what he was capable of doing, and he didn’t think they did unless David had shared. Regardless, he wasn’t able to reach for anything. It was almost as if the connections he was supposed to have weren’t there.
The Dragon Souls circled him and William.
Jason continued to reach for his sense of power, searching for some way of drawing it to him. As he tried to pull upon it, he couldn’t come up with anything.
He should have attempted to reach for it before and searched for any way to connect to that ability before needing it. Now that he hadn’t, and now that he needed it, he wasn’t able to draw upon it.
He turned to William, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
“You can’t do anything?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t.” He tried to keep his voice calm, but panic started to settle in.
Power surged off the Dragon Souls.
William stiffened. Jason watched, but there wasn’t going to be anything they could do here. William stared at the Dragon Souls, watching as they approached, and then ran toward the nearest one, his shoulder lowered as he slammed into him.
“William!”
The man ignored him and crashed into the nearest of the Dragon Souls.
The Dragon Soul stumbled backward, away from him.
One of the others blocked his way. Power surged off the Dragon Soul.
The Dragon Souls were drawing upon incredible power.
Jason felt the rising power all around him. There was a heat to it, an intensity, and there was something else he couldn’t really place. The Dragon Souls surrounded him.
Jason attempted to pull upon his connection to the other dragons, but he couldn’t.
He was forced back a step, and then another. As he did, he attempted to reach for the other dragons, and each time he tried, he felt a hint of a connection, something that suggested he might be able to reach them, but then it faded.
William had disappeared.
Jason turned, preparing to run, when energy struck him from behind.
He went staggering forward and tried to get to his feet, but the Dragon Souls were there, grabbing him.
The inside of the cell reminded him far too much of what he had seen in the vision. Bars of stone prevented him from going anywhere, and there was a strange lock that had sealed the bars into the ground, making it so that there was an almost seamless cell. Jason had tried to draw upon power through his iron dragon glove, but hadn’t been able to do anything.
He had focused on what he could of the forest dragon, thinking that maybe he could draw upon her power and call upon an illusion that might be able to free him, but though the sense of that power was there, he couldn’t use it.
Somehow, they had separated him from it.
The Dragon Souls hadn’t said anything when they had deposited him in the cell, leaving him to sit alone. He needed to get out. By focusing on that, he didn’t let himself fall into the despair that threatened him.
He focused instead on his connection to the various dragons, thinking about what he could call from their power. As he did, he could feel the ice dragon in the back of his mind, but there was nothing else to it. He couldn’t tell where the ice dragon was, and he couldn’t find any way to use that connection, though he knew it was there.
It reminded him of what he had seen when he had come across the iron dragon. The way that he had been trapped in the cell, unable to escape, unable to use any power. Jason had been able to feel the frustration from the iron dragon and understood it now in a way that he hadn’t before. He wondered if the dragon recognized this situation and whether there was any way that he could call to him. Even if he could, the iron dragon wouldn’t be able to get to him and help him. Jason was trapped here. He didn’t want the iron dragon to risk himself and come for him. It was too dangerous.
It was better for Jason to stay, to deal with his captivity. He might be able to find some way to freedom if only he could connect well enough to the power of the dragons. As he waited, he attempted to reach for the heat and the ice, connecting as he did when he’d freed the iron dragon. He tried pulling upon that power, sending a surge of energy into the bars of the cell, but there was no way to get free. Each time he tried, the effort of it weakened him.
After a while, he gave up, and he instead focused on what else was around him. There was a sense of strange energy in the air. He couldn’t tell what it came from, or whether there were others like him who were captive. He didn’t even know where he was other than the fact that the Dragon Souls had dragged him toward the palace, and then below ground. Wherever he was would be hard for anyone to reach him, deep enough into the city of Lorach that it would be challenging. Jason was well and truly trapped.
Being trapped like this was frightening, and yet he’d been imprisoned like this before. It might’ve been in his vision, but he’d known that captivity, and he thought he could find some way to get to freedom.
He breathed out. The first step was to control his emotion and his response to his captivity. It wasn’t as if he was helpless.
With his connection to the other dragons, he had some way of being able to reach for power that others wouldn’t necessarily have. They wouldn’t be able to take that connection from him. Unlike the Dragon Souls, Jason didn’t need dragon pearls to connect to the power of the dragons. All he really needed was to be able to reach for that energy within him.
Whatever protective barrier they placed around the city prevented him from accessing his powers. He would have to find his way free. All it would take was for him to understand the barrier, and once he did, he could escape.
If it wasn’t a combination of the ice and the iron dragon, and if his ability to reach for an illusion was limited, then what else was he going to do?
Jason focused on the ground, where the bars met the floor, and stretched outward, using his connection to the dragons to probe at it. He used the hint of heat, the anger bubbling up within him matching what he knew the iron dragon to possess.
Was there another possibility?
When he’d worked with the iron dragon, there had been a sense of the way the iron dragon’s magic could change him. His hand had changed. The power that flowed through him was a change. It was like an armor, the same way the power of the forest dragon was within him. All he needed was to find some way to master that, and he might be able to free himself.
Sound at the end of the hallway caught his attention. Jason hesitated, looking out as he did. There was something moving out there.
He took a step back into the cell. He’d not taken time to explore the cell, trying instead to understand where they’d brought him and whether there was any way he might be able to escape. Would it be possible to break through the walls much like he had in Dragon Haven?
He hadn’t even considered attempting that. He’d been so focused on the bars and finding some way to break free of them that he hadn’t paid any attention to whether he could burrow between cells. Even if he could, the effect would probably be no different than it had been in Dragon Haven. He might be able to go from cell to cell, but he’d still remain trapped here.
The noise at the end of the hall continued to move closer. Jason moved along the back wall, wanting to be away from whoever might be coming, not wanting to draw their attention. The Dragon Souls hadn’t challenged him yet, but he had no doubt eventually they would. When it did come, he had to be prepared for what he was going to do. He needed to find some way to get to the ice dragon and the iron dragon.
It was going to be a force of will. He had to be ready. The Dragon Souls had access to power. They were able to use it, despite whatever barrier was around the city. And if they could use their power, Jason should be able to use his. All it would take was to find some way to dig through the blockages they’d placed.
The movement outside his cell grew closer. Now it was barely a few steps away from him. Within another moment or more, whoever was out there would be right in front of him.
Jason focused on the iron dragon, honing in on the heat and anger, letting it fill him. He connected to the power within the dragon glove, and could feel that starting to burn.
Heat rose up within him. He breathed out, thankful he’d managed to reach that heat, and held on to it, maintaining a connection to the iron dragon. He mixed it, adding not only the sense of the heat, but also that of the ice dragon.
What about the forest dragon? They’d managed to separate him from his illusion, but the sense of the forest dragon was within him, very different than his connection to the other dragons. It flowed within him, and he knew he could reach for her power.
It wasn’t that he needed to create much of an illusion. He needed to shift his appearance, his hands and his eyes, nothing more than that. He needed to create the appearance of a Dragon Soul, not something dangerous to them.
Slowly, he called upon that power, letting it flow through him, and the illusion rolled over him. When it did, a chill washed over him. It seemed to change him. His hands looked as they once had, and he didn’t need a mirror to know that he now had matching silver eyes. He could feel that within him. He could feel the way the energy rolled through him.
A face appeared at the cell.
It was a woman. She had dark black hair, deep brown eyes, almost black, and pale skin. She was dressed in a dragonskin jacket and pants, and power radiated from her. She stood across from him, the bars separating them, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Who are you?” Her voice was soft, almost sweet.
Jason debated what to answer, and whether he should even answer at all. It might be better to say nothing and wait for her to continue to push, and if he did say nothing, then he had to think that perhaps in doing so, he might be able to avoid her harming him.
He remained in the back of the cell, out of view, away from her. He focused on his connection to the forest dragon, holding on to that illusion, afraid that if he let go of it he might reveal himself to her. He also held on to the power of the ice and the iron dragon. Had he not practiced as much as he had, and had he not had the connection to the dragons that he did, he might
not be able to do this, but he could feel that power within him.
“I will ask again, but no more. Who are you?”
“I’m nobody,” he said.
“Nobody. You are nobody who came to Lorach in the middle of the night. That speaks of somebody.”
Jason looked around to see if there was anyone else there, but she was alone. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jessica Arnson.”
Jason held her gaze, and when he did, she smiled at him.
“You don’t recognize the name,” she said.
Jason shook his head. “Am I supposed to?”
“Most would, but then again, most who are from Lorach would have reason to recognize it.”
Jason tensed. There was something he was missing, and it would land him in more trouble. “And why should I recognize it?”
“You’re in Lorach, and you have to ask why you should recognize the name of the princess?”
Jason blinked, studying her anew. He knew so little about the people of Lorach, other than the fact of the Dragon Souls and their desire to abuse the power of the dragons. He’d heard little about the king and his daughter.
Now that he was here, he couldn’t help but think that might be a mistake. It might be necessary to know more. As he looked at the way she was dressed, as he felt the power she held on to, he couldn’t help but think she was more than just the princess. With the kind of power she was holding, he could tell she was a powerful Dragon Soul.
“You aren’t just the princess,” he said.
“No. I am not just the princess.” She ran her hand along the bars of the cell and turned back to him. “You are an interesting individual. You come in a time of great crisis for us, which raises the question for some about whether or not you are responsible for the crisis.”
“What crisis is that?”
She glanced over at him, smiling. “The crisis of the dragons.”
She watched him, and it seemed almost as if she were debating whether or not to share more. She flashed a dangerous smile that left her looking cold and almost cruel.
Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Page 16