“That’s better,” Henry said. “Now you look as they would prefer.”
“I’ve been trying to hold on to it,” Jason said.
“For the most part, you do well.” The larger man glanced at Jason’s hand and shook his head. “If you aren’t able to hide that, then we might need to find you a glove. It would be odd, but better than for you to be seen having a metal hand.”
“People in Lorach don’t have metal hands?” Jason tried to smile, but Henry just shook his head.
“People here don’t react well to strange things. Working around the dragons makes everybody a little touchy when something seems off. There’s always a fear.”
“What kind of fear?”
“There’s a fear that the dragons will break free. The people here never know whether or not the dragons are fully trained, and though they live around them, though they have experience with them, the people here still worry that something might happen and that the hold the Dragon Souls have over the dragons will fail.”
“Why?”
“Because it happens,” Sarah said.
Jason frowned. “It does?”
Henry shot her a look. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know well enough. I’ve heard the stories the same as you, Henry, and you forget I was there when you brought your reports.” She turned to Jason. “What he doesn’t want you to know is that there are dragons that try to fight their training. When they do, they often attack, and there have been times when the city gets damaged because of it.”
“They attacked because the rebellion stirs them to attack,” Henry said.
“You’re a part of that rebellion now.”
“I am, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the way the dragons are incited.”
It was similar to the way David felt about the dragons. He feared how they would be used if the people saw them attack.
“I don’t understand,” Jason said. He glanced from one to the other. “I didn’t think the dragons were like that.”
“The Dragon Souls would have everyone believe they are completely controlled, trained, and perfectly safe.” Sarah glared at Henry’s back. “They trot out the dragons they’ve trained the best. They want the people of Lorach to believe the dragons are little more than an animal they can train.”
“You realize they’ve been doing this for centuries,” Henry said.
“And do you realize that they might be responsible for inciting the dragons?”
“Why would you say that?” Jason asked.
“What better way for the people to believe the dragons need to be controlled than to see them as mindless? If they can convince everyone the dragons have nothing but violence within them, that they aren’t intelligent and caring creatures, then it would be easier for them to convince the people of Lorach the dragons are meant to be controlled.”
“I think you’re giving the Dragon Souls far too much credit,” Henry said.
“You were one of them,” she said.
“Like I said, I think you’re giving them too much credit.”
They continued along the path, and every so often, Jason paused, looking behind him regardless of what Henry had said, wanting to know if he could still detect the iron dragon. Every time he did, the sense of it filled him. He focused on the heat within the iron glove, using that in order to confirm that there was still a connection. Once in a while, he tried to fortify that connection and see through the dragon’s eyes, but when he did, there was no clear response, not like there had been the first time he had done it.
When he lingered too long, Sarah grabbed his arm, dragging him along the path.
Jason focused on his illusion. He needed to master it, to be prepared for the possibility that he would have to use it in order to safely pass as a Dragon Soul. If he failed at that, then he would be thrown in with the slaves. While that wouldn’t be all bad—at least he might know where his villagers ended up—there was a different danger to it. He would be stripped of his belongings, including the dragonskin he’d stolen from David, and he would be stripped of his dragon pearls. That now included the leaf, and more than anything, Jason didn’t want to lose that. The dragon had gifted it to him, and he felt that somehow it would be important moving forward.
“You’ve been quiet,” Sarah said.
“I’m a little bit nervous,” he said.
“I’m a lot nervous.” Sarah kept her gaze fixed straight ahead of her and her arms crossed over her chest.
“I didn’t think you got nervous about things like this.”
“Because I’ve known the dragons as long as I have?” She shrugged, shaking her head. “I’m nervous partly because of the dragons. If this works, we might finally have a way of helping countless dragons.”
“Is it all about freeing the dragons, or is it about finding female dragons?”
Sarah looked over, biting her lip. “We need the females so we can continue to hatch free dragons.”
“The dragons won’t be free while the Dragon Souls attack,” Henry said.
“And the Dragon Souls won’t stop attacking while they have the dragons.” Sarah made a face at Henry, and Jason laughed softly. “It’s all tied together, and yet, before you came along, I didn’t know if there would be any way for us to do this.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith in me.”
“How many dragons did you free when we were facing the dragons last time?”
He thought about it. “I don’t know. There might’ve been a dozen.”
“A dozen. Even if that’s right. Even if it’s not. The number of dragons you freed is still more than what we were able to accomplish. We’ve tried over the years, thinking we might ambush the Dragon Souls and attempt to free their dragons. We capture the dragons, tearing them from the Dragon Souls, bringing them to Dragon Haven. And when we do, there is every attempt to use what we know to help them.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you know how many dragons we have saved?”
“I don’t.”
“We brought maybe a dozen dragons to Dragon Haven. In that time, none of them have been safely freed. All of them hold on to a residual of the training from the Dragon Souls. Until you.”
“Until me?”
“Whatever you learned, whatever that ice dragon taught you about healing the others, was enough that it protected those dragons. The ones you’ve touched have been freed, and they haven’t been able to be twisted again.” She smiled at him. “I know it’s probably hard for you to believe, but you changed Dragon Haven.”
“I haven’t really spent that much time there.”
“And maybe that’s for the best, too. Had you come with us, and remained, we might never have known about your connection to the ice dragon, and we might never have known about the way you can heal the dragons. I think that bothers Henry, though he won’t admit it.”
“Why would it work for me?”
“I don’t know if it’s something about you or if it’s something about the dragon, but either way, it’s different. It’s helpful. And you’ve made the dragons safer. I think that with enough time, we can continue to help more dragons, and when we do, then we can finally end all of this fighting.”
She smiled and fell silent.
They walked a little while longer. “What sort of fighting have you experienced?”
“The people in Dragon Haven have been attacking Dragon Souls over the years. We haven’t been able to do much. We can pick off a few here and there, and like I said, we’ve managed to rescue about a dozen different dragons, but never more than one at a time. Certainly nothing like what you managed to do at once.”
“You are going to make him think he’s more powerful than he is,” Henry said, looking back at them.