Sarah stared up at the trees. “A wild female. We need to bring her to Dragon Haven.”
“I’m not so sure we do,” he said.
“With as few females as we have, any additional females would be beneficial.”
“What if she doesn’t want to go to Dragon Haven?”
“Do you know that?”
Jason shook his head. He looked up at the trees, staring at the branches. As far as he knew, the forest dragon could be up there now, watching him, but he didn’t see any sign of her moving anywhere. And if she were there, he hoped she understood that he wanted nothing more than to try to help, to protect her, and offer her whatever he could in order to understand her.
Considering the fact that she had given him the leaf, he thought she did understand.
The challenge would be in knowing what else he could do with it.
Somehow, he needed to find some way to connect to it. Now that he had a dragon pearl, he thought he had some way of doing so, but it would require understanding more about the forest dragon first.
He let out a sigh. “I think it’s time for us to go.”
“You don’t want to try again?” Henry stared up at the treetop.
Could he see the forest dragon? Jason doubted that he could. It had been hard enough for him to find the forest dragon, and Henry didn’t have any connection to her, and he doubted that she would have allowed him to do so.
“We can come back after this is over.”
“If,” Henry said.
“You don’t think we’ll succeed?”
“I’m hopeful you will, but you need to be prepared for the possibility that something might happen and you won’t be able to return the way that you want to.”
“Henry!”
He shrugged. “I’m trying to prepare both of you for the possibility of what we might face.” He nodded to Jason. “I think he recognizes the danger, but I don’t know that you do. You’re coming along, thinking you’ll be able to save the dragons, but what happens if you can’t?” When Sarah started to argue, Henry shook his head. “You’re talented, Sarah, but sometimes your talent gets in the way of thinking clearly about things. You have known nothing other than the freedom of dragons. You’re like your mother in that. The both of you would do anything to save the dragons. You’ve proven that time and again, but what happens if there’s no way of saving them?”
“I’m not going to destroy the dragons,” she said, turning away.
She stomped off through the forest, heading toward the iron dragon.
“What was that about?” Jason asked.
“The same argument we have each time we discuss her idea of saving the dragons.”
“What argument is that?”
Henry looked over at Jason, shaking his head. “I don’t know that you want to hear it.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to hear?”
“Because you will disagree.”
“With the idea of destroying the dragons?”
“It’s not as if I want to destroy the dragons, but I understand that when it comes to freeing the trained dragons, finding a way to overpower what the Dragon Souls have done, there might not be a way to save all of them.”
“What about what I was able to do with the dragons?”
“How many do you think you can save before the Dragon Souls realize you’re there?”
Henry studied him for a moment before turning away and following Sarah through the forest.
It left Jason staring after them.
The question was about more than the dragons. Jason could tell Henry was concerned about the dragons, but his question was about the villagers. What would he do to get them out? How many would he be able to save?
Sarah would do anything to save as many of the dragons as she could, the same way that Jason would do anything to save as many of the villagers as he could.
Only, would he do if it came down to a choice?
Who would he choose to save?
He believed that he would try to help his mother and as many others as he could, but how many could he save?
He pushed those thoughts away. There was no point in thinking about that now. He had to focus on what his next task would be. He had to master his ability to maintain an illusion. And he had to make it to the Dragon Souls first.
If he couldn’t do that, then there would be no way to save anyone.
10
The rolling hillside stretched in front of them. Trees dotted it, though not nearly as dense or as warm as it was near the forest where he’d seen the forest dragon. Tall grasses grew up to his knees, and he was thankful for the hard-packed trail leading through it. Every so often, Jason looked behind him, focusing on the sense of the iron dragon, but the dragon was hiding.
Hopefully, the dragon would be able to hide and wouldn’t be noticed, and according to Henry, they were far enough outside of Lorach that there shouldn’t be any way for anyone to notice the creature.
“You don’t need to keep looking back there,” Henry said.
“I just want to make sure—”
“There are plenty of dragons flying free in this land.”
“Free?” Sarah asked, arching a brow.
Henry breathed out heavily. “Fine. Not free, but there are plenty of dragons flying around in these lands. Even if someone were to spot your dragon, it’s not likely they would even notice that it was different. It would take a Dragon Soul to recognize there was something unusual about it, and I suspect your dragon would have a way of knowing the Dragon Soul was near.”
Jason thought that was the case. The iron dragon did have a way of detecting other dragons, and he hoped that he would stay clear of Dragon Souls, and yet he was a dragon. Because of that, there was a confidence to him, and that confidence ran the risk of getting him in trouble.
“Come on. We need to get into Lorach before dark.”
“Why before dark?”
“Because I don’t want to be wandering the countryside in full darkness.”
Henry still hadn’t told them what he was planning to do for himself, only that they were going to be brought to other Dragon Souls. When they did, they could be brought into training.
“How often are new recruits brought to the Dragon Souls?” Jason asked.
“Anyone can present themselves for testing,” he said.
“Anyone?”
Henry held his gaze. “Not anyone. But anyone who has the right heritage.”
Jason focused on the sense of the ice dragon. He still felt him, though he wasn’t anywhere closer. Every so often, Jason thought he detected something different with the ice dragon, and it gave him hope that perhaps the dragon wasn’t nearly as far away as he thought, but then that sense faded and he was left to wonder whether or not he was actually picking up on the ice dragon.
He thought he could still feel the power.
Maybe that was only the ice dragon’s power he detected. If that were the case, then he was even more troubled. Not because of having a connection to power, but more because he worried about what would happen to the ice dragon. He worried about where the dragon had ended up, and he worried about whether or not there would be any way for them to help each other.
Coming to Lorach left him separated from the dragons. The iron dragon was still free, and he believed he would be unharmed, but the ice dragon might need his help.
He touched his pocket where the leaf still rested. It hadn’t changed in any way since they had left the forest, and all the times that Jason had tried to push power through it, trying to use what he knew about heat and cold and anger and other emotions had done nothing to help him connect to the forest dragon. Hopefully she understood. If nothing else, he hoped she would be able to find some way to help the ice dragon, if it came down to it.