“They treat them worse than pets,” Sarah said.
“And we’re going there,” he said.
“We have to.”
He breathed in heavily. “I understand. And I’m willing to do it, but I…”
Sarah leaned forward, taking both his hands. She ran her thumbs along the backs of his hands, squeezing. “You’re not going to be doing it alone. I’m going to be there with you. Henry will be there, and we need him.”
“And what happens if Therin sees me?”
She shrugged. “What if Therin doesn’t see you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he knows what you look like, but can you change your appearance if it comes down to it?”
“I can change my eyes, and I’ve been able to change my hand, but Therin wouldn’t have known about the hand.”
“It doesn’t have to be anything dramatic. Even at a small change would be enough to make you almost unrecognizable. I doubt he would expect it.”
Jason worried about what Therin might recognize. He was the one he was most concerned about. Therin was powerful, and he’d proven he was far stronger than Jason had believed when he’d first met him. The more he came to know him, the more he feared him.
Which was reason enough to stay clear.
And then there was David. The other man might be far more observant than Therin. He struck Jason as more scholarly, and it wouldn’t surprise him if David noticed something strange. And if they were worried about his kind having some ability to create illusions, then how hard would it be for them to have some way of detecting it?
The only advantage he had was that he might be able to create an illusion differently than the others. Given the way his power worked, the fact he was going to be pulling it from the dragons, he had to wonder if it would even matter.
“I guess we’ll worry about that when the time comes,” he said.
“You can do this,” she said.
“What about my sister?”
“She’s going to be fine. We’ll make sure of that.”
Before he did anything else, he would have to ensure that his sister was safe. He was about to leave her behind when there was a possibility that something might happen to her.
And he needed to make sure she understood. It was possible she wouldn’t. She might not know why he had to do what he did, and she might not even agree with it. She wanted him to take whatever steps were necessary to find their people, but at the same time, if he did that, and if he risked himself, he ran the real chance of losing not only himself, but everybody in the village.
And then Kayla would be left with no one.
That was the part of it that troubled him the most.
He looked over. Sarah was watching him. She said nothing, but it seemed almost as if she knew what he was thinking.
8
Jason approached the grassy courtyard, feeling the energy of the iron dragon. He was out there, curled up the way he was the last time Jason had seen him, the sense of power within him radiating outward. Jason held on to that, pushing through the connection that formed between them, using the energy within the iron dragon glove, feeling that power as it flowed.
There was a sense of connection, a surge of power, and the iron dragon connected to him. When he did, Jason focused on that power for a moment.
Nothing more than that, long enough to be aware of the iron dragon and the power that was within him. From there, he stretched out his senses, focusing on it.
He turned his attention to the other dragons out here. They were small dragons, and he pulled upon his faint connection to the ice dragon, pushing it through them. For a moment, he thought there might be some sense of resistance, but then that sense faded. There was no further resistance.
He held on to that energy, pushing it out from him.
Distantly, he could feel something within those dragons, but he realized what it was as he continued to explore it.
Freedom.
It was different than what he had felt from the other dragons. With those others, there was no sense of the same freedom that he detected from these dragons. There had been a sense of fear, of concern about captivity, a worry that the Dragon Souls would eventually catch up to them and if they did, they would find a way to train them.
Perhaps that fear came from the dragons themselves, but some of that emotion seemed to come from those who worked with them, seemingly training them.
Did the people of the city really want the dragons to fear the idea that they might end up captured?
What purpose would that serve?
Jason stared at those small dragons.
That was what Sarah wanted to do. She wanted to find some way to help dragons like that, to see if there was anything that could be done to ensure their safety. More than that, she wanted to free other dragons, to release them from whatever the Dragon Souls had done to them, and to see if Jason might be able to save them from further influence.
It troubled Jason that only a part of him was concerned about that. A greater part of him was focused on what else he needed to do. It was more concerned about the others, and whether there was anything he could do to release them. The villagers needed him to do whatever he could to save them.
The iron dragon sat up, looking at him. There was heat in the gaze, heat and power that surged off him, flowing outward.
Jason could feel that power, recognizing the energy of it, and he held on to it.
It was a power that he needed to embrace.
“You are troubled,” the iron dragon said.
Jason smiled at him. The iron dragon had become increasingly perceptive the longer they were around each other. How much of that was because of some influence he had over the iron dragon, and how much of that was simply due to the iron dragon’s freedom?
“I am troubled,” he said.
“I thought that you had discovered a technique with this illusion.”
Jason held his hand out, and he flashed between the iron glove and the illusion of normal flesh. It happened slowly, but each time that he did it, he was able to maintain the effect for longer. Henry and Sarah both believed that with enough time, he would be able to hold the illusion indefinitely. He didn’t know if that were true or not, but it was certainly far more than he had believed he would have been able to do even a few days ago. He owed most of that to Thomas, though he still wondered how much of his technique was similar to the way that Thomas used his power.
“I have a technique, though I’m not entirely sure whether or not it’s going to be effective when it comes to combating those we will face.”
“You don’t need to combat the dragons.” The iron dragon rumbled, and heat radiated from him again.
Jason smiled at him. He sensed the confusion within the dragon.
“I have no interest in battling dragons. It’s more a matter of needing to combat those who would control them. Even there, I don’t know that I’m going to be strong enough.”
“You have connections to two dragons. How are you not strong enough?”
“They have connections to many. They have experience using them.”
“Experience does not equal strength,” the iron dragon said.
Jason tried to think about how to frame it in a way that the iron dragon would understand, but he wasn’t at all sure how to put it. To a dragon, strength was simply strength. Jason, on the other hand, had seen far too many times when strength didn’t equate to success. Within the village, there were plenty who were strong, but stupid. Strong but inexperienced. Either could be deadly. It was experience and intelligence that often won out.
There were other times when strength was simply strength.