Jason stared at her, unblinking.
“How would you propose that we approach this dragon?”
“I don’t know. I know the dragon is coming this way.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because as I said, I’ve seen it.”
“If you’ve seen it, then you would know how to stop it.”
Jason shook his head. “I don’t really know how to stop it. The other dragon is powerful. I’ve tried to understand just what power he had, but—”
She started to laugh. “You’ve tried to understand it? Who exactly are you?”
The sense of power built from behind him, and Jason realized all too late that she was trying to delay him, drawing the others behind her toward him.
He focused on the power and he twisted the illusion, wrapping it around her—and those behind him again. In doing so, he trapped them into cells, using the same technique he had before, but this time, he held on to it with more intensity.
Their power faded.
He approached Jessica.
She started to move her hand but Jason pushed, rippling the nature of reality.
This time, he formed actual bars out of the stone behind her, and he sent her staggering into the bars, trapping her in the cell. As soon as he did, he released the illusion, curious as to whether or not it would hold.
It did.
She grabbed the bars. Power radiated from her, and it seemed as if she were trying to remove the illusion, but there was nothing for her to remove. Jason held on to it with a hint of power, but even that wasn’t necessary. This wasn’t an illusion. This was reality. Because of the forest dragon, Jason had truly warped the reality for her, twisting it around her, transforming it into a solid.
“I will prevent you from harming the dragon,” Jason said.
“You know so little.”
“Therin said the same thing. Now Therin is dead.”
She squeezed the bars of her cell, trying to pry herself free. “Is he?”
Jason nodded. “I saw him fall.”
“Perhaps you did, or perhaps you saw what he wanted you to see.”
He shook his head, turning toward David, and he looked into the distance. “What are you talking about?”
“Be careful,” David muttered.
It seemed as if it came from a great distance, as if whatever illusion he had trapped around him was preventing him from speaking clearly, but Jason maintained his hold on that illusion, debating for a moment before releasing it.
Suddenly, David was there again, blinking as he looked at Jason.
“What did you do?” he asked, turning to his sister.
“I put her into this cell,” Jason said.
“How were you able to do that?”
Jason shook his head, focusing on the bars of the cell. He still didn’t really understand what he had done or how he had accomplished it. Ever since developing the connection to the forest dragon, his understanding of things continued to evolve, and now he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing.
“She said Therin didn’t die. Is it true?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“When we faced him the last time, I saw him. The iron dragon cut Therin down.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since he attacked the last time, but it’s possible he survived. He gained experience with that dragon of yours. He learned how to control illusions. It’s possible he could use that power.”
If Therin had managed to learn that illusion, it was still possible that he was alive. Jason would have expected the forest dragon would’ve alerted him if that were the case. If he was still pulling on the forest dragon’s power, he would have expected her to have told him. There was no sense from her of that; there was nothing other than what he had felt.
Therin was dead. That had been his victory.
He focused instead on what he could, thinking about that power, thinking about holding on to the illusion, and he thought back to what he had seen.
There hadn’t been a body after his death, so in that case, it was possible that he truly hadn’t died. It was something to worry about later.
“I do need your help,” Jason said.
“And I don’t know that I can help you.”
“Even if this creature attacks your dragon?”
“If he attacked my dragon, then I would need to defend my dragon.”
“I don’t know that there would be any way for a single dragon to do anything. Please,” he said.
David glanced over at his sister. He turned his attention to the Dragon Souls now trapped in cells behind them. Finally he turned toward Jason. “If I do this, I’m exiled from my family.”
“You’ve seen Dragon Haven. You already know there is another place for you.”
David shook his head slowly, sadly. “I might’ve seen Dragon Haven, but it’s not a place for me. It’s a place for those who view the dragons the way I never have. It’s a place for those who view the dragons in a way I never can.”
“And yet, I’ve seen the way that you trained your dragon. I know you can help.”
He needed their help. He needed them to find some way to better understand the storm dragon and how they could help him. And he needed David in order to help the Dragon Soul dragons.
He wouldn’t tell the other man he was considering freeing the Dragon Soul dragons. Let him find that out later. That was if he could free them.
“I will regret this,” David said softly
He motioned for Jason to follow, and they started off down the hallway.
As they went, Jessica hollered after them, “Father will know of what you did.”
David stiffened for a moment before straightening his back, and with that, they hurried off.
When they reached a staircase, they headed up. Jason watched David, worried about what the other man might do and afraid of whether he might suddenly betray him. He didn’t believe that David would change what he was doing now. He had already acted against the Dragon Souls and against his sister, but he didn’t know David well enough to know whether or not he would change his mind. He was counting on him to work with him, but what if he couldn’t?
“I can’t believe you came here alone,” David said as they climbed the stairs.
“I didn’t. I had two others with me. We need to find them.”
“Who?”
“One was Sarah. And the other does not have any connection to dragons. He’s worked with them in Dragon Haven, but he can’t use their power.”
“Dangerous for him to have come.”
“He tells me he’s lucky.”
David frowned. “He tells you what?”
Jason laughed softly. “He tells me that he’s lucky.”
They were heading up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and as they went, he glanced over, searching for anything that might help him understand more about what they would encounter, but there was nothing.
“He said that to you? He used that word?”
Jason shrugged. “He’s been telling me that he’s lucky for a while. I don’t know if he means anything by it.” He frowned for a moment, and as he did, he realized that David recognized that. “Wait a minute. Why is that important?”
“There have been some over the years to make the same claim. And luck is relative. For some, what they are is lucky; for others, what they are is not lucky. And it doesn’t seem as if there is any way of predicting which they will be.”
Jason chuckled. “He told me that his luck comes in streaks. He might be lucky for a while, but then it changes, and he becomes unlucky.”
“I would like to meet this man.”
“You can meet him when we finish this.”
David glanced over at him, pausing at the door at the top of the stairs. He pushed it open and stepped out onto the top of the tower.
Jason looked around, marveling at the view. The city stretched out far below them, a sense of power radiating around it. As it did, Jason c
ouldn’t help but stare. The city was enormous, and there was a strange energy that hung over everything.
“There’s an energy within the city.”
David glanced over, nodding slowly. “Can you feel it?”
“I can. I can use it, too. What is it?”
“It is the dragon source. It has been here for ages, and it’s why Lorach was founded here. There is a sense of power here, and it’s one we can reach, but not all of us.”
“Not all?”
“Some of the Dragon Souls can, but most who can are related to the throne. And even those find it difficult to do so with much strength.”
Jason thought about what he had experienced when he had reached for that power, and the way that it flowed through him, and he couldn’t help but think that he had been able to reach it with some strength. It was strange, but the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he had been able to pull upon that power. He had been able to use it, and he recognized that energy.
That had to matter, didn’t it?
“I can pull on that power,” he said.
“I suspected you could,” David said.
“Why?”
“There is something unusual about you. I suspect it comes from your connection to the dragons, but it might be something else.”
Jason frowned as he looked over at the other man. David was dressed in his dragonskin, and he wore the pins marking him as an Auran once again, but something that Jessica had said came back to Jason.
“Your sister said I stole your family dragonskin.”
He nodded. “You did. Perhaps that’s why you are able to use this power.”
“Why would that make a difference?”
“Who knows why anything matters? When it comes to the power of the dragons, everything is unpredictable. Would you have ever believed that you had the ability to reach for the power of the dragons?”
Jason shook his head. “I never even imagined that it was possible.”
“I suspect somehow your connection to the ice dragon allowed you to reach for that power, though it’s possible it’s some other reason.”
“What other reason would that be?”
He hesitated, regarding Jason for a moment, before turning away. “I don’t know.”
David stared outward, and it seemed as if he had some knowledge, but Jason doubted the other man would share it with him. It was always difficult to know when it came to David.
A growing sense of power surrounded him, and he looked outward, watching to see that dragons came circling from overhead.
“You’re calling to the dragon, aren’t you?”
“I am,” David said.
“What do you hope to accomplish by calling to your dragon now?”
“I want to have questions answered,” he said.
“What sort of questions do you think your dragon will be able to answer?”
“I have been trying to better understand the nature of this attack.” He looked over at Jason and frowned deeply. “You come to tell me about a storm dragon. We’ve been struggling with how to counter the power of this dragon, and have failed to do so.”
“I haven’t been able to counter it either. When we faced the dragon the first time, we found it seemed soothed by an illusion, but that was about the only thing that calmed it.”
“Illusion?” David frowned. “I suppose that might help, but there has to be some other way. When I faced the other dragons, there was some other way of dealing with that power, as well.”
A dark shape appeared overhead and Jason looked up to see the deep blue dragon David had flown with the last time Jason had seen him. The dragon landed next to them on the top of the tower and watched Jason with a certain suspicion.
It was strange to see that, and then what happened next was even stranger.
It was almost as if the dragon pushed outward with a hint of power, using its ability to wash over him. It was the same sort of sensation he had experienced when Jessica had used her power on him, and now that he felt it, he wondered what the purpose of it was.
“What is he doing to me?”
“I don’t know,” David said. “It seems as if he detects something.”
“Everything about me is strange,” Jason said.
David turned to him, watching, and he frowned. “It is, isn’t it? When I saw you last, you had the metal on your hand, but that is gone. What happened?”
“Something changed with it.” Jason wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed to be a part of him now. Somehow. It was there on him, but felt different than before. “Now it’s illusion.”
Jason flexed his hand, returning the dragon glove, before it faded.
“You’re disappointed.”
“It’s not so much disappointment. I just don’t know what it means. The metal connects me to the iron dragon. It served as something like a dragon pearl. I thought I’d lost that, and worried I lost my connection to the iron dragon.”
And it wasn’t as if he had lost all of his bond to the dragon. It was just that part of his connection to the dragon was changed. That troubled him. He was accustomed to having that connection, was accustomed to sharing the sense of him, the way that the iron dragon’s power burned along his hand. Now without the same sense from him, Jason didn’t know if they would still share that connection. He didn’t know if anything would still be shared between them.
Which troubled him most of all.
“When I was in the cell, I tried to better understand how I was connected, but I couldn’t. I knew that there was some power around me, but it separated me from my connection to the dragons. The longer it did, the more I felt things change.”
David turned to him, studying him, and heat radiated from David for a moment before washing over Jason.
“Interesting.”
“Your sister did something similar.”
“I’m sure that she did,” David said. “That’s where I learned this technique.”
“What does it do?”
“It is designed to test for the potential for a Dragon Soul. When I first encountered you, you had some aptitude, but not nearly like what you have now. It’s almost as if that potential continues to increase, growing with intensity. That is unusual.”
“Why?”
“Because a person’s potential doesn’t change over time. I’ve seen those with Dragon Soul ability and the potential for that power. They have incredible talent, and I have seen how they can use it, but the one thing I’ve never encountered is for someone to have their ability evolve over time. And yet, here you are.”
“I don’t know what it means.”
“I don’t know that I can provide an answer for you, either, other than the fact that whatever has happened has granted you something that very few Dragon Souls ever achieve.”
“And what is that?”
“A deep connection to the dragons.”
“I don’t know that any within Dragon Haven even have that connection,” he said.
“It’s possible they don’t,” David said.
He nodded to the dragon. The blue dragon lowered his head and David climbed onto his back. Jason stood apart, waiting, and worried that David would abandon him, but rather than doing that, he motioned for Jason to join him. He climbed onto the dragon’s back, settling in. The deep blue dragon was warm, and heat radiated from his back, though it was different than the experience he had on the other dragons. This was not unpleasant, and it was comforting, but not the same.
As he sat there, he wondered if he might be able to reach for the power of the blue dragon, but he didn’t think that he could or should try. He held on to that awareness and let it fill him, and noticed something else.
There came a surge of heat. That surge was familiar.
Why should that be?
Jason didn’t know, other than the feeling that it seemed to come from the dragon itself. The more he focused on it, the more certain he was of what he was detecting. It was almost as if the dragon wa
nted him to detect it.
He drew it in, letting that sense of power fill him, and turned his attention to David.
Did he know what Jason was doing? Better yet, did it even matter?
It was possible that David wouldn’t even care.
As he let that power flow through him, he thought about why the dragon would give him that power. Perhaps it wasn’t giving him power but showing him power.
They took to the air, circling quickly, and Jason leaned over, watching the city below them.
“Why are we taking off?”
“You wanted to see what power was down there.”
“My friends are still somewhere in the city.”
He didn’t like the idea of leaving Sarah and William.
“My sister will have captured them as well. They will be safe while we work out what we must do about this storm dragon. If it’s going to attack our dragons…”
David might be right. They didn’t have that much time. He had no idea how long they would have before the storm dragon reached Lorach, but he had a feeling from the ice dragon that it was close.
“Where would you have us go?” he asked.
“There is something you must see,” David said.
The dragon circled up and up. It was strange to be riding on a different dragon. For so long, he had only traveled on either the ice or iron dragon, and though he had flown alongside other dragons, he hadn’t spent much time with them, and having this experience now left him feeling off.
The dragon streaked to the south and east, and as he flew, there came another sense.
It was that of other dragons.
Gradually they began to descend, and when they did, Jason looked out, searching for where the dragon was taking him, and saw movement far below. It was an enormous clearing, a field, and down within that clearing were dragons.
There were dozens of dragons. Far more than he had ever seen before, more than there even were within Dragon Haven. He marveled at it.
He looked back, but they were far outside the city limits.
“Why are they so far away from Lorach?”
“I’ve told you why.”
Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Page 20