But then, if he were going to sneak into Lorach, he wouldn’t be able to bring dragon pearls with him. That would only draw attention. He would have to go in naïve, or presumably so. He would have to hide who he was, what he knew, and he would have to try to obey.
That might be the hardest part.
Not only that, but he would have to avoid Therin and David, though he doubted either of them would be found where they trained Dragon Souls.
“I can feel the cold, but I can’t really use it the way that I did before.”
“Then we might need you to find the ice dragon in order for this to work.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what happened to the ice dragon. If Kayla did betray us”—and he had a hard time thinking that she had, though his sister would have felt the same way about the dragons that he had, filled with the anger and disappointment of what had happened to their father—“none of that explains what happened to the ice dragon. Why did he disappear? Where would he have gone?” And more than that, why could Jason still feel him? There was a sense of the dragon in his mind, but he wasn’t near.
“One thing we noticed with the free dragons is that they are more likely to roam than those that have been controlled by Lorach. They don’t have anything confining them, not the way that they do when Lorach has been training them.”
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at,” he said.
“What I’m getting at is that having a dragon wander isn’t all that surprising. They do that even here.” Sarah closed her eyes and shook her head. “There are times when we’ve been working with dragons, and we think we know what they might do, where they might go, and they surprise us. We have come to terms with that. Much like you need to come to terms with it.”
“You’re trying to tell me I’m being unreasonable with my expectations of what the dragon would do?”
“Somewhat,” she said, smiling at him. “I know you don’t do it intentionally, but the dragons need to be given an opportunity to explore. And these dragons are different. Knowing what we do about them—which isn’t all that much—we have to understand that they might need to find themselves. They might need to better understand what they can be.”
Jason wondered if that were true. His experience with the ice dragon hadn’t been one where the dragon was searching for any sort of self-enlightenment. It was more about trying to find a place that was comfortable. Hunting. And nothing more than that.
Having the dragons disappear, having Therin hunting them, left him uncomfortable. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something had happened, and if that were the case, then he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something more he would need to do for the ice dragon.
She leaned across, taking his hand—and not the iron dragon-gloved hand, he noticed. “Get some rest tonight. We can begin to work on teaching you what you need to know to mask your eyes—and the hand.”
She got up, leaving him. Jason sat there for a moment more, sipping at his tea. After a while, he left, heading down the hallway, and before he reached his room, he saw a familiar face.
“William.”
He smiled. William had a wide face, a quick smile, and his hair stood up, just as unruly as the day they’d met. He was dressed better than that day, though everybody in Dragon Haven wore the same style of clothing.
“I heard you were back. Then again, you were back before, but you didn’t stop and visit.”
“There really wasn’t the time.”
“You have some way of protecting them,” William said.
“I think so,” Jason said.
“How? Everything they tell me says that there shouldn’t be any way of protecting them.”
“I think it has something to do with me and who I am.”
“From what Sarah says, they can’t replicate it. They talk about it, and I think it upsets them that they can’t.”
Jason looked past William, wondering why that would upset them. Was it because they needed Jason, or was it because they really did want to know what he knew, and wanted to find some way of helping the dragons?
“I understand you’ve been working with them.”
“As much as they let me,” he said. He smiled widely. “I don’t have any natural ability like you, but I keep hoping I might develop something.”
“Was it hard for you to come here?”
“Why would it be?”
“You gave up everything you knew.”
“It’s not like I had all that much to give up. My life back home wasn’t that exciting.”
“I’m not so sure I would say that,” Jason said.
William smiled, shrugging. “Well, I am lucky.”
“And I’m not so sure I would say that, either.”
“That luck saved you.”
Jason chuckled and leaned against the door. He wanted to rest but felt as if he hadn’t seen William in such a long time that he needed to talk with the other man.
“How long are you going to be here?”
Would it matter if he told the truth? He didn’t know whether the others were sharing with William what was going on, but he thought the man needed to know.
“Not long. They attacked my village. They took most of the people. And—”
“You’re going after them,” William finished for him.
Jason nodded.
“How?”
Jason sighed. “I don’t know if what we’re going to do will even work, but we’re going to try to convince them to train us as Dragon Souls.”
“Us?”
“Sarah intends to go too.”
William stiffened. “Why would she go?”
“I think she intends to see if she can free more of the dragons there.”
“You can’t let her go,” William said.
“I’ve already told her I don’t think that she should go, but it’s not really up to me. It’s up to her.”
It amused him that he was saying that. It was the same sort of thing that Sarah—and Henry—were saying about the dragons. It wasn’t really up to them. It was up to the dragons.
By going to Lorach, he had to hope there would be some way to find out if the ice dragon had been harmed by Therin. If he had, then Jason was going to use everything in his power to figure out what had happened to the ice dragon, and he was going to find some way of helping.
“Jason, you can’t let her go,” William said again.
Jason shook his head, heading to the door to the room where he was staying. “And I’ve told you, it’s not up to me. Sarah gets to decide for herself.” He smiled at William. “It’s good seeing you. I’m going to get some rest, and then we can catch up more in the morning.”
The other man nodded and Jason stepped into the room, looking past the darkness, and he lay down on the narrow bed. Within a few moments, he was asleep.
5
Noise outside the room woke him and Jason jumped to his feet. His heart hammered and he immediately thought of an attack, worried he was facing something similar to what he had before, and yet as he remembered he was in Dragon Haven, he realized there should be no sort of attack. He should be safe.
He took a deep breath, looking all around.
The room was still dark, though there was a soft glow in one corner. He got to his feet, his body aching, and staggered over to the corner, checking to see what glowed over there.