“You’ve done the illusion. You have focused on your hand. Perhaps it’s time we think about your eye.”
“I’m not sure I can do that without being able to see what I’m doing.”
“Do you need to see in order to know?”
Jason frowned. “I don’t really understand what you’re getting at.”
Thomas turned toward him, crossing his arms over his chest. He seemed larger than the last time Jason seen him, and each time that he was around Thomas, he couldn’t help but wonder how much of what he saw was an illusion. He never saw Thomas outside of this room, and it made Jason think that perhaps everything he experienced when it came to Thomas was an illusion. If that were the case, then his ability to maintain it was far more than what he let on. He made it sound as if holding on to an illusion was difficult, almost impossible, and yet if he were able to present himself as someone else for such a long time, then he was more skilled than he let on.
“Do you know what’s in your heart?” Thomas asked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you know what you want?”
Jason nodded. “I know what I want. I want to help my people.”
“And you need to see that in order to know it?”
“I…”
Thomas took a step toward him. He loomed larger with each step, and he began to shift, changing from the small and frail man to someone much larger.
Jason backed away, almost stumbling in his attempt to get away from the sudden transformation. And then the illusion changed. Once again, the frail form of Thomas stood in front of him. He smiled.
“What do you know about me?”
Jason shook his head. “I don’t know anything about you.”
“Indeed. I have intentionally made it so that you know very little. And because of that, it makes it difficult for anyone to be able to see through the illusion.”
“What is the real you?”
“A question all men must ask.”
Thomas had said something similar each time they worked together. Frustration filled him with Thomas’s comments, though he tried to suppress it. It did no good to let himself get irritated with him.
“Try again. And this time, I want you to focus on what you know of yourself. Use what you know, use your power, and create an illusion.”
“How do I know if it works?”
“How do you know if anything works?”
Most of the time, Jason was aware of something working because he felt the power shifting. In the case of using his power for the illusion, he didn’t know if it would be the same.
He pulled on that power, drawing it through him, and he focused on what he wanted. That was the key, at least according to what Thomas said. It was a matter of using his desire and focusing his mind, and forcing the power to do what he wanted it to do.
The illusion. That was what he needed. In order to do what he wanted to do next, in order to help his people, he needed to summon the necessary power and mask himself in such a way that he would be viewed as a Dragon Soul.
He wanted eyes that matched Sarah’s.
Thinking about his eyes, thinking of the color of them, he imagined them the same as hers. He imagined he had similarly colored eyes.
And power surged through him.
He held on to it, thinking about what needed to happen. Thinking about the way his power needed to hold in order for this to work. And gradually, power began to flow from him.
Thomas watched him the whole time.
He turned away, grabbing something off the shelf, and turned back to Jason. When he did, he held a mirror outward.
Jason looked into it. His face reflected back. He was the way that he remembered. He had his sharp jaw. The dark and curly hair he’d always had, and yet, he had matching silver eyes.
“You did it,” Thomas said.
“I did,” Jason said.
He continued to stare. He couldn’t take his eyes off himself, scarcely believing that he had managed to do it. Now that he had done it once, could he continue to do so? As he watched, the image began to flicker, and then one silver eye faded, becoming blue again.
Now that he had done it, could he do it again?
He tried, focusing on what he had done before, thinking about how he had wanted to use that power, wanting to push it through himself, and in order to do so, he had needed to hold on to it. If he could do that, then he should be able to create that image once again.
Slowly, the color of his eyes began to flicker again.
And then he saw it.
Two silver eyes.
The challenge would be holding it. The key was maintaining a connection, and as he did, he had to hold on to everything he could in order to ensure he let that power flow through him.
He stared at the mirror, waiting for the image to disappear, but it didn’t.
He could feel what he was doing. That was the strangest thing. As he looked into the mirror, he understood what he did. He had focused on what he wanted, and he drew power, but it wasn’t his power, was it? He was drawing from one of the dragons.
Would the same thing have worked if he tried to focus on his hand?
He didn’t know if he would have enough strength to give himself a matching pair of normal-looking hands, but he didn’t mind having the iron dragon pearl glove. It gave him a connection to the iron dragon that he wouldn’t have otherwise.
He thought about his hand. He focused on what he wanted, doing the same as he had before, and let that sense fill him. It radiated outward, and in doing so, he continued to focus on the way his hand should look and feel. There was a distinct sense to it, and the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he could find some way to hold on to that power.
He stared at his hand but decided that he would try something else. What he had done with his eye was to focus on what he wanted, and he hadn’t worried about what he saw. He concentrated on what he felt.
In this case, he wanted to feel the power working through his hand. He wanted to feel the way it shifted things, watching over him, and if he could do that, then he knew he could change something.
He strained, thinking about the hand, thinking about the way it should feel. He thought about the way his other hand felt, and he used that sense, pushing it through his awareness, pushing it through his sense of power, and it began to change.
That wasn’t right. What he wanted instead was to borrow from the iron dragon, knowing he could use that heat to mold things.
His experience with the iron dragon had shown him that together, they were able to change things. He’d seen the way the iron dragon used the heat and power within his body to transform, and it had to be something Jason could borrow.
He focused on that sense. Heat began to build, and he wondered if he could even change that. He didn’t want to remove the glove of the iron dragon pearl, but he did want to modify it so it wouldn’t be so visible.
He pushed out power, focusing on it, his eyes squeezed closed as he did.
And then something shifted.
He could feel it sliding over the surface of his palm, along the back of his hand, and then it burned, but only for a moment.
“Very good.”
Jason opened his eyes and looked down at his hand. The color was slightly different. It was a little bit reddened, but it otherwise looked the same as the other side.
“You know what you did differently this time?” Thomas asked.
Jason shook his head. The problem with this time was that he didn’t know if it was an illusion or not. He had no idea if the change that he had caused was a matter of moving the dragon pearl, or if it was something that he had truly created as an illusion.