He could feel power pushing against him.
That sense of power pushing against him was dangerous. He held on to the illusion. If nothing else, the dragon needed him to do so, but he could feel power draining off the forest dragon as he did.
He would have to finish this soon. If he couldn’t, the illusion would fade.
Something slammed into him and the blue skies shimmered.
Jason forced more power out from him, trying to solidify that. The skies once again held. It wasn’t coming from the storm dragon. It had to be Jessica.
He maintained the illusion, squeezing it around him. “Let me help you,” he said again.
Jason tried to keep the urgency from his voice, to hide the sense of anxiety that he was feeling, but he didn’t know if he was doing that good of a job. The dragon seemed to sense his uncertainty, and there came an agitation.
The blue skies flickered again, shimmering for a moment, and when they did, they were replaced by a hint of gray.
Jason forced more energy through him, drawing from the forest dragon, trying to continue to pull upon more power, wanting nothing more than to hold on to the illusion, to reach for the storm dragon before it failed.
“I can help. I can help you find this. I can help you hold on to this.”
Something struck again as Jessica peeled away his illusion.
How would she even know how to reach him within the storm cloud?
Unless they were no longer within the storm cloud.
If the storm dragon had calmed, it was possible that the nature of his violence and anger wasn’t there anymore, either. If that were the case, Jessica might be able to reach the dragon more easily.
She might realize there was an illusion. It might be enough that she could get to the dragon.
“Let me help you,” Jason said again, trying to keep his voice soothing.
He strained for the power of the storm dragon. If he were to have to face Jessica, he suspected he would have to use the storm dragon in order to defeat her.
The sense of the illusion began to bubble, pushing against him.
The illusion bulged again.
“Let me help you,” he said once more.
As he said it, there came another surge of power, a bubbling of energy, and the illusion collapsed.
When it did, the dragon rumbled, and the sense of the power from the storm dragon began to build, rising with a violent intensity. Jason tried to reach for more of the illusion, to find some way to hold on to it, but he could not.
And then something slammed into the storm dragon.
21
The storm dragon reacted as Jason would’ve expected. Power exploded from him and the clouds thickened around him, leaving electricity and thunder rumbling all around. The dragon turned toward the source of the attack, and a burst of power streaked away from him, exploding nearby.
“What happened?” Sarah asked.
“My illusion failed,” Jason said.
“Was it working?”
“I think so. I was getting through to him, but…”
The power from the storm dragon was building again, rising with a terrible intensity. Thunder rolled past him, powerful and deep. Jason held on to that sense of power, wishing there was some way to withstand the overwhelming thunder.
An attack slammed into him.
The ice dragon roared, spinning, and icicles shot from him.
Jason turned on the dragon’s back, looking behind him until he could see Jessica approaching.
She was leading a dragon attack.
There were dozens of Dragon Souls and dozens of dragons. Over a hundred. A swarm of dragons, all controlled by the Dragon Souls.
Jason thought they still might be able to escape. The ice dragon, with his ability to withstand the altitude, could fly high into the sky. Though the ice dragon would be able to survive up there, Jason and the others might not be able to.
What about the storm dragon? He had to help. But how?
The only thing he could think of was to work on the dragons.
If he could reach enough of them, it might disrupt the battle line. He turned his attention to them. He focused, drawing through the ice dragon, the sense of power through the iron dragon, and mixed them together, and he began washing the healing wave through each of them.
The dragons shivered, as if trying to free themselves from the influence of the Dragon Souls. Each time they did, there was a sputtering of power, and then the dragons veered off.
Jason worked quickly, going through as many of the dragons as he could, intending to separate them as rapidly as possible. He tore power away from them, drawing it off, using that in order to free them from the effect of the Dragon Souls.
He could feel change.
He needed to work more quickly, and he began to push, letting wave after wave of power wash over the dragons, streaking over them one by one, and they turned away.
There were so many dragons. Every time he healed one, more would take their place. It reminded him of what he had seen when he had been battling with Therin, the way the dragons had filled the sky, the overwhelming energy, the sense of power circling. The more that he pulled, the more that he tried to heal, the more he realized he was weakening the ice and the iron dragon.
The other dragons turned their attention to him. Somewhere, the storm dragon was attacking, but he couldn’t feel where, other than the fact that it was near him. The storm dragon was throwing invisible power at the others, the thick storm clouds surrounding him, masking him, but how long would that last?
Near him, Sarah was using power, flinging it at the dragons. She used it to fight, trying to withstand their attack.
“We aren’t going fast enough,” he said.
The Dragon Soul dragons surrounded them. As he sat upon the ice dragon, trying to face them and fight them off, he wasn’t sure he was going to be successful.
Pressure began to build from the dragons.
It wasn’t created by the Dragon Souls sitting atop them. It came from the dragons themselves. That pressure rolled toward him, toward the ice dragon.
This was new.
The power was forcing the ice dragon back. The other dragons circled them, flying with increasing speed. Jason tapped on the ice dragon to get altitude, and they flew higher and higher, but the other dragons were following.
He could feel pressure building, the sense of the Dragon Souls as they circled, using the heat and power and influence that they joined together.
As it washed over the ice dragon, Jason thought he recognized it.
It wasn’t so much power as it was a way for Jessica to try to create a sense of illusion. It was not the same way Jason used illusion, but the sense was similar enough that he thought he understood. The challenge would be in trying to counter it.
He drew upon the forest dragon, letting that sense be within him. She was tired, exhausted from fighting as long as she had, but she was willing to keep at this. She recognized the need.
He let it wash out over the ice dragon.
He didn’t use it as an illusion; he used it as a way to protect the ice dragon.
With the forest dragon’s power still available, he called upon it, letting it flow through him, through the ice dragon, mingling together.
But that wasn’t the only power that melded. Without meaning to, he added elements of the iron dragon. That heat flowed, building and rising within the iron dragon and moving over to the ice dragon, adding to the sense of the forest dragon. The three of them worked together, all of them, much like the way that power was mixed within Jason.
A strange fog radiated, flowing outward from the dragon.
And the ice dragon was unharmed. He let that power waft outward. With a sudden realization, he heard someone screaming. It was Sarah, but why would she be screaming? He looked over at her. It wasn’t just Sarah screaming, but William as well. Something attacked them.
He called upon more power, letting that fill him. There was more
power available to him. Even from here, he could feel it.
Jason focused on the sense of heat and magic he felt within the palace. He drew on it, letting it fill him. And it exploded from him.
Jason turned that sense toward the two with him, using the combined power to heal them, and the screaming eased.
He turned his attention back to the others.
The ice dragon leveled off. The other dragons were below them, but far enough from them that they should be safe.
Somehow he had to get them to safety.
It was more than just getting them to safety. It was a matter of finding some way to ensure the safety of all the dragons. He had to stop the storm dragon, keep him from attacking. The only thing that had worked on the storm dragon had been illusion.
He turned his attention to the ice dragon, sending a shared thought, and they dove. The ice dragon moved faster than Jason had ever experienced him doing before, slipping across the sky, streaking along on power that folded around him. They raced toward the distant forest.
“What are we doing?” Sarah cried out against the wind.
“The only thing I think will work.”
The dragon shot toward the ground, and Jason jumped free.
“Wait for me!” he said to William and Sarah.
When he reached the forest, he closed his eyes, focusing on the power within him. The connection to the forest dragon was there, rolling through him. Now he needed to pull upon it in a way that was different than anything he had done before. He needed to draw upon the power of the forest dragon, but he also needed her to respond.
“Please,” he called out.
He didn’t have much time. The ice dragon could return to Lorach quickly, now that he had some way of traveling on bolts of ice lightning, but they needed to do so before something happened to the storm dragon and the Dragon Souls managed to corral him.
“We need your help. I know you’re there, and I know you can hear me. If you are, then please help the storm dragon. He’s like you.”
Jason was certain she listened.
“I need you to come out of the forest. There needs to be a direct connection with the other dragon so that he can find the peace and calm he needs in order to withstand the attack.”
That was the key, at least as far as Jason could tell. He needed to help the other dragon find that sense of calm.
“Please,” he said.
It reminded him of how he was begging the storm dragon, and yet with the forest dragon, Jason had a sense of her, an awareness of her within her mind. He held on to it, drawing that sense through him.
He was reminded of when he was lying within the cell, straining to recognize whether his understanding and connection to the dragons had been separated. At the time, he hadn’t known if it had been.
“The other dragon needs your help. They all need your help.”
There would be more than just the storm dragon. If they could stop this attack, if they could prevent the Dragon Souls from harming this one dragon, how many other dragons would they be able to help? The other dragons needed him, and the more he could feel it, the more the storm raged in the distance, the constant rumbling of thunder and the crackling of lightning, the more he knew the storm dragon was fighting and resisting. But for how much longer?
The only way he would be able to help would be by getting all of the misfits together. It was going to take the power of these different dragons. Even combined, they might not be strong enough, but he’d seen how that power could be used, so he was convinced they could withstand Jessica and the Dragon Soul attack.
“Please,” he said once more.
There came a shifting, almost as if something were slithering along the breeze, and Jason looked up at the trees, watching the fluttering as a pair of bright green eyes appeared in front of him.
“I know you don’t want to help directly. I know you’re afraid of leaving the forest. I know you’re afraid of getting controlled again, being used the way they used you the last time.”
The dragon lowered her head, looking into his eyes. There came a stirring within him. She rolled through his mind, as if she were working through his memories.
Jason didn’t fight.
There was no point in fighting. He wanted her to know what he knew, to experience what he had experienced.
He stood before her, hands at his sides, no resistance to her going through his mind.
It was an experience he’d never had before, almost as if he were standing in the middle of the forest with a connection to everything surrounding him. That was the key to her illusion. She was connected to the trees and the forest and the breeze. In order to create the more powerful and persuasive illusion, she used all of that connectivity, and she held it in a way that enabled her to maintain it.
“The storm dragon needs your help. You can save him, but we need to move quickly.”
Jason focused on what he’d seen, the storm clouds rumbling, the power that exploded from them, and he pushed that awareness toward her, letting the forest dragon experience the same thing he had. He wanted her to feel that power, to feel the way it was used upon the ice dragon and the iron dragon and the storm dragon. He wanted her to know the way the Dragon Souls had attacked, and the nature of their power.
As he pushed that connection through his mind, there was something else that rolled through them. It was the interconnectedness.
Something had changed.
He had changed, but so too had his connection to her.
That power had been there. It had always been there. He felt it now, and it rolled through him, raging between the forest dragon and the ice dragon and to the iron dragon in the distance.
The dragon lowered her head.
Jason approached, touching her side, and climbed onto her back.
With that, the connection solidified.
When they took to the air, it was unlike any other dragon flight he had experienced. This was like floating, like taking the breeze, not the powerful explosion of the iron dragon or the violent force of the ice dragon, and it wasn’t even the heat and power of the other dragons. This was light and comfortable, and yet still powerful.
The ice dragon launched himself, carrying Sarah and William, and they streaked back toward Lorach.
At one point, the iron dragon joined them. Jason looked over to see that his entire body glowed with a vibrant heat, all the way from his head down to his tail. It seemed as if the metal were shifting and sliding around, the heat and intensity more vibrant than anything that Jason had ever seen from him before. The heat radiating off the iron dragon was enormous, a furnace blasting the sky. Had he been atop him, he had no doubt he would not be able to withstand it.
Jason could feel that heat and energy, and it filled him.
He focused on his own connection to the other dragons. He recognized something. Being close to the forest dragon bound them more tightly together.
They neared the storm.
Sarah called something to him but Jason ignored her, focusing only on the sense of the oncoming storm dragon, the dark clouds thundering around him. The storm and tempest turned toward them, the power blasting at them, and he frowned.
Why should the storm be blasting them in that way?
Because they were too late. The storm dragon had already been claimed.
Jason drew from the forest dragon and tried to wash her connection and an illusion over the other dragon, but it wasn’t enough. The storm struck them.
When they were within the storm, the violence of it rolled over them. It was dark, powerful, and the heat and intensity in the lightning and the thunder all surrounded him. He looked around but couldn’t see any sign of the ice dragon or the iron dragon. It was as if the storm had swallowed them, but he could feel the power of the forest dragon beneath him.
“You don’t need to fear,” he said to her, touching her velvety sides.
As he did, power rolled out from her. She resisted.
The resistan
ce was the key.
The storm tossed them from side to side, and Jason fought to stay seated on the forest dragon. He worried he would lose that hold, but he had a sense of power beneath him. She would fight.
It was new for her. It was time.
The storm dragon tossed them, sending power around. Jason focused on that power, and on everything he detected around him—the sense of not just the storm dragon but of the other dragons. He could feel that energy rolling through him.
The storm dragon neared him, and lightning streaked.
Jason braced for the impact, but he might not have been able to brace for what came.
A burst of lightning struck him. It burned through him.
As it struck, an image of the jungle dragon and the way that it had been destroyed came to him. A destroyed misfit that he should have been able to protect—and had failed.
Was that what was going to happen to him?
He grabbed for his chest, but he was unharmed.
It was almost as if the dragonskin clothing had protected him, but he couldn’t see how that would even matter. The jungle dragon had been killed despite being a dragon.
Everything felt on edge, charged, and he tried to push all of that down, but it felt as if energy coursed through him. The ice dragon washed power through him, held by their connection. The iron dragon sent heat, bottling up the energy of the electrical current that had powered into him. Even the forest dragon sent a surge of something, almost as if attempting to alter what had just taken place. All of it was incredibly powerful.
He survived.
He looked over at the storm dragon and doubted he could survive another assault. He pushed outward, using his connection to the forest dragon to help soothe the storm, to bring about the calm skies.
The influence on the storm dragon was too great.
He had to find Jessica.
How could he track her in the storm?
It surrounded him, the tempest tossing them from side to side, the violence of the attack throwing him. He worried they would be knocked out of the sky, but the longer that he held on to the forest dragon, the more confident she became with her flying.
With a sudden realization, Jason realized she hadn’t flown much. She’d spent so much of her time in the forest that she hadn’t learned how to fly in the same way as the other dragons. Now he wondered if perhaps it had been a mistake to bring her out of the forest.
Storm Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (The Dragon Misfits Book 4) Page 25