Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  A part of Jason feared the idea of heading toward the storm dragon, of racing toward that violence, and he worried about what would happen if he wasn’t fast enough.

  They needed to move away, to draw the dragon away from here. By doing this, the iron dragon was coaxing away the storm dragon, but there was the possibility the storm dragon would recognize what was happening. Jason thought about the iron dragon and glanced down at the deep blue dragon.

  “Can you follow him?” he whispered.

  The blue dragon roared.

  David flicked his gaze over to Jason, studying him. “What was that?”

  “We’re going to take the storm dragon away from your people.”

  “And where would you have him go?”

  Jason had no idea. Anywhere that he might be able to guide the storm dragon put others in danger. It was more than just the others that he worried about. Jason didn’t know if it was even possible for his dragons to withstand this type of attack. Traveling like this, and having the storm dragon attack the iron dragon and the ice dragon, put them in danger.

  Something slammed into them.

  Jason turned, twisting to look behind him.

  Dragons were attacking them.

  “It seems like your sister got free,” Jason said.

  The timing was terrible. She was going to come after him and David, and when she was done, she would go after the other dragons. Jason couldn’t let her succeed.

  He would have to go deal with her.

  “We need to handle her first.” Jason turned toward David, and he focused on the dragons and the power behind him.

  He would need to do so quickly, before they entered into a battle he couldn’t withstand. As powerful as the dragons were, they couldn’t tolerate fighting each other.

  He closed his eyes, whispering. “I need your help,” he said to the forest dragon.

  He hoped she listened and had some way of helping.

  The sense of the illusion came to him. Slowly at first, but building with increasing strength. He held on to the connection to the forest dragon, then let it wash away from him.

  It struck the iron dragon first.

  Jason turned the iron dragon into a massive eagle. The iron dragon dove, dropping below the storm dragon, barely missing as the storm dragon pressed his attack. Jason moved on to the ice dragon. He did the same thing, again choosing an eagle. The size fit better than choosing a smaller bird, and the sudden change wasn’t quite as jarring—and didn’t take nearly as much energy from the forest dragon.

  Strangely, that seemed to matter.

  He was able to hold on to it, and as he looked through the ice dragon’s eyes, he was able to see the way the dragon could see, and he was able to make out the storm dragon veering off.

  Thankfully, the creature didn’t head in Jason’s direction. He waited for the possibility that the storm dragon would turn toward them, but it never came. He breathed out. When he opened his eyes, he focused on the other dragons near him.

  “There are too many,” David said.

  “I’m doing what I can,” he said.

  “I don’t know that we’re going to survive this,” he said.

  Jason realized David was talking to the dragon. There was real sadness in his voice.

  He focused on his connection to the forest dragon, and he borrowed the sense of an illusion again. As he did, he let it wash over them.

  Suddenly, they were an eagle, much like the other two dragons had been.

  A strange stirring sensation rolled through Jason, filling him with power and leaving him startled.

  The dragon seemed to respond and veered west, streaking across the sky.

  “What happened?” David asked.

  As far as Jason and David were concerned, they were still sitting atop the dragon, but Jason had seen the effect of the illusion, the way that it washed over them, and was able to feel as if they were freed.

  But for how long?

  He didn’t know how long the effect would last, and hoped it would linger long enough for them to get out of here safely, but he watched the other dragons behind him. There were far too many of them.

  He could heal some of them, but with as many Dragon Souls as there were, he would never be able to heal them all. As he realized that, he understood that Sarah’s desire to heal the dragons would never work. The challenge was in healing them and keeping them from descending into chaos.

  Something struck their backs. It forced him forward with a surge of painful energy and nearly knocked him off the dragon. He forced the connection to the iron and ice dragon through him, sweeping power throughout his body as he healed any potential injury.

  Jason looked behind him briefly to see that they were attacked by an enormous black dragon. Sitting atop the dragon was a woman wearing a flowing dragonskin cloak. Black hair streamed in the wind. Her pale skin seemed to catch the sunlight, making her glow.

  Jessica.

  And here he’d thought they could stay ahead of her, but with her chasing them, her connection to her dragon, and her understanding of illusions, it might not matter. She recognized what he was doing and seemed to know he’d formed the illusion. She was stripping it away.

  He held on to it as long as he could, but there was no way he could maintain that connection for long. Without it, he didn’t know what he could do.

  Breathing out, he held on to the illusion of the eagle, maintaining it as long as he could. Jessica attacked, sweeping through the illusion, swiping it away. If she managed to grab it one more time, she might be successful. Jason held on to it, worried that she was going to be able to remove the illusion entirely.

  She probably already knew it was them. With the way that she was attacking, the way that she was drawing down upon them, he had to believe that she recognized them.

  Could he change their illusion again?

  Better yet, what if he could wrap her in an illusion?

  Right now, the illusion was around them, but if he shifted it, then perhaps it wouldn’t matter. Doing so would draw upon the forest dragon, taking significant strength. Using it on someone like Jessica, who seemed to have an understanding of how to withstand the illusions, might be more than he could tolerate.

  There wasn’t much choice.

  Jason focused on her, and while holding on to the illusion of them as an eagle, he twisted that and swirled it around Jessica.

  He did nothing more than cast a sense of a clear sky, trying to create the image of an emptiness around them. She continued toward them, but began to veer off.

  Could it work?

  With each passing moment, he felt her battering against it. If he didn’t get them away from here soon, it might not even matter. It was possible she would be too strong for them.

  “We have to get to the ground,” he said to David.

  “I don’t know that you can lose my sister. She’s powerful. She’s one of the strongest Dragon Souls we’ve known for years.”

  “Let me guess: She’s a master of the illusion as well.”

  “She is. Therin taught her himself until she surpassed his skill.”

  And if someone like that were to control the forest dragon, Jason couldn’t help but worry about what that would mean for others.

  It was even more reason to want to protect the dragons from her—especially a female dragon like the forest dragon.

  18

  They streaked away from the dragon pens and toward the city. They were near enough that he could see the border. It wouldn’t take long for Jessica to realize they were down there. If something happened and the dragons were drawn off, and if something changed so that the dragon was revealed, Jessica would know.

  “Do you have someplace the dragon can land?”

  “If we land, and if we leave the dragon, then we are separating from power.”

  “We aren’t separating from power,” Jason said. “You still have your dragon pearls, and I still have…”

  What did he have? He no longer
knew if he still possessed the same connection to the dragons. Still, as he thought about the dragons, focusing on the sense of them, they were within him.

  It seemed even stronger than it had been before. It would have to be enough.

  They landed. It was a small clearing and Jason hopped off the dragon, following David. When he glanced back, it seemed as if they had just climbed off a massive eagle. With a shrill cry, the eagle took back to the air, disappearing into the sky.

  “I hope he’s safe,” David said.

  “I can hold on to the illusion around him for a while,” Jason said.

  He didn’t know how long he would need to hold on to that illusion. Jessica was skilled enough that she could strip that illusion free, but he had a hard time believing she would attack the blue dragon if they weren’t with him.

  But then, he didn’t really know. There seemed to be a cruel streak within her. If she thought that it might harm her brother, wouldn’t she attack the blue dragon?

  Maybe he needed to hold on to that illusion a little bit longer.

  While they were in the city, there was one more thing he could do. Now that he knew the storm dragon had come, and that his misfits tried to guide it away, he had a few moments. Not long—probably not long enough.

  “I still need to find my friends.” He’d thought he might have time after finding the storm dragon, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  “I’m not sure there’s time. There’s something else we can try.”

  “I won’t leave them behind.”

  “I’m not asking you to. Just trust me.”

  “Like you’ve trusted me?” Jason asked.

  “I’ve trusted you more than I should have.” He hesitated. “You might have to destroy that dragon.”

  Jason had considered that, but the idea horrified him. “I don’t think I can.”

  The idea of destroying a dragon, a creature like that, saddened him. The dragon was just different. He was tormented. It wasn’t the dragon’s fault he was like that. Something had changed for him; something had made him that way. Regardless of anything else, the dragon didn’t deserve to suffer because of the Dragon Souls.

  All Jason needed was to find a way to get him to safety, to ensure the dragon was able to stay clear, but even if he could do that, he wasn’t sure he could ensure its safety. If the dragon continued to come toward Lorach, would there be any way to protect it?

  The key was somehow reaching the dragon—to understand him. He had done that with the other three dragons, but he didn’t know if he would be able to do the same with this dragon. The answer had to be within him.

  Jason looked at David. “Where would they have kept them?”

  “I don’t know. If my sister is gone, we have a limited window with which to find them before she returns. And when she does return…”

  “What would she do?”

  “Within the city, I doubt she would attack me too openly.”

  “She brought the Dragon Souls against you.”

  “She brought the Dragon Souls against my power.”

  “How is that any different?”

  “It’s different. Trust me.”

  Jason didn’t really know what the difference would be. Whatever politics were taking place within the city were beyond him, and he really didn’t care. All that mattered to him was that he find his friends.

  Then again, maybe he did care. If Jessica was next in line to the throne and the one who was responsible for attacking and harming the dragons, what would happen if he helped to install David as next in line to the throne?

  The Auran had more sympathy for the dragons. Jason couldn’t help but think he could use that to their advantage. They might be able to have someone who would be more sympathetic to Dragon Haven.

  He followed David as they headed into the palace.

  Rather than heading up into one of the towers, David led them into the main part of the palace. It reminded him somewhat of Dragon Haven, with the sculptures along the floor. There were dragon sculptures, much like those in Dragon Haven, many of them made of a smooth black stone. The intricacy to those statues was amazing.

  Jason paused at one of them, staring at it, and he reached toward it. David grabbed his hand.

  “What?”

  “We don’t touch them,” David said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s considered bad luck.”

  Jason looked up, smiling at him, but realized that David wasn’t joking.

  “What do you mean it’s considered bad luck?”

  “Just like I said. These sculptures are thought to be alive. There are some who feel they contain the essence of the dragons. Because of that, we leave them alone.”

  “That’s a strange belief.”

  “Did you not have strange beliefs in your homeland?”

  “We had celebrations where we shot off cannons to celebrate freedom from the dragons.”

  “Not so different. Both are strange.”

  “Why do you feel like they have the essence of the dragons?” Jason asked.

  “There are some who study these. They are called the Seers. They help us understand the dragons and recognize the nature of them. With everything they’ve experienced, they feel as if they can recognize the power stored within these sculptures. It’s almost as if the dragons themselves left them here for us, storing their essence. That is why we don’t touch them.”

  “You won’t touch these, but you force the live dragons into your training?”

  “Because we don’t want to prevent the dragons from emerging.”

  Jason frowned as he stared at the dragon. It was a strange thought, but even stranger was the idea that they wouldn’t touch them because they wanted dragons to come out of a sculpture.

  David guided him forward, through the palace. They reached a wide double door with two men standing guard on either side. Both men carried short swords strapped to their waists, and they were dressed in dragonskin, but wore a sash of maroon around each arm. They eyed Jason, completely ignoring David.

  “Stand aside,” David said.

  They glanced at each other before turning to David and nodding. When they stepped off to the side, David relaxed. Jason realized he hadn’t been sure whether this was even going to work.

  “What was that about?”

  “Later,” he whispered.

  The Auran guided him forward, through the double doors. On the other side of the doors, Jason stared.

  The entire room was enormous. The walls were covered in a shiny black stone, and a mural was worked into that stone. It seemed impossibly ornate, telling a story that scrawled all the way around the room, written in the stone.

  Jason marveled at what he saw. The mural was enormous, and on it he saw dragons battling, but he also saw dragons with flames stretching down, destroying an entire city.

  This was what David had warned him about. This was the reason that David was concerned about free dragons, and this was the reason that he feared not having training for the dragons.

  Jason stopped in front of the mural, staring at it.

  “These are your records?”

  “Some of them. Others are written in books, or on parchment, and all of them provide a similar detail of dragons like this. They describe the power of the dragons, and they reveal there was a time when the dragons were wild and violent, and our people had to fight them. It was required so that we could survive.” David stopped in front of it. “It wasn’t until we learned how to control them, to train them, that Lorach was able to find peace.”

  “There might’ve been other ways to find peace,” Jason said.

  “Perhaps, but we will never know. Come on,” David urged.

  Jason followed him, hurrying along, but every so often, he would pause, unable to take it all in. The images stretched on either side of him. Lanterns underneath the mural cast light on the wall, and it seemed to absorb that light, glowing softly. It reminded him of a dragon pearl, though if this was a dragon pea
rl, it would be enormous.

  An idea came to him.

  He focused on the stone, on the power that he had felt throughout the city, and he drew upon it. As he did, he could feel it flowing into him. It seemed to come from everywhere around him. It was in this room, but it was elsewhere as well.

  Whatever power was here was the source of the energy within the city.

  “You need to let go of that,” David warned.

  “Let go of what?”

  “What you’re holding. It’s dangerous.”

  Jason released some of his hold over that power. He looked at the other man, letting the sense of power flow through him. He didn’t want to cause a problem, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel as if there had to be something to understand about this power. He reached for its energy, searching for whether he could learn anything.

  There were no answers here. The room was empty other than the sculptures and the power. With all the energy around him, Jason wanted to draw upon that power and be able to use it, but he didn’t know if he would be allowed to.

  “What’s the point of coming here?” Jason asked, looking around the room.

  “The point is in getting to my parents,” David said.

  The king and queen of Lorach.

  Jason turned toward David. “I don’t understand why you need your parents.”

  “I need them because—”

  The door to the room thundered open. Jason turned slowly as several Dragon Souls entered. With them were two others, older, and reminding him of both David and Jessica. They had the same dark hair, the same pale complexion, and they carried themselves with an air of authority.

  Jason stared, unsure what else he could do, what else he could say, knowing only that these were the people responsible for what had happened over the years. Because of them, the Dragon Souls had continued to attack.

  “What is this?” the king asked.

  “Father. I needed to talk with you about—”

  Jessica appeared in the doorway, and she sneered at David.

  “Don’t listen to him,” she said.

  “Jessica?” The king glanced from her to David. “Why are you dressed like that?”