Kayla trembled near him.
He focused on the sense of the ice dragon. He needed his help.
He tried to focus on the iron dragon too, but this wasn’t the kind of weather the iron dragon would be able to withstand. It was too cold.
He sat there, and the warmth of the dragonskin began to fail. The cold all around him pressed inward, almost more than he could tolerate, and Jason started to shiver.
Kayla shook, and he squeezed her hands.
Jason wasn’t about to give up. He couldn’t. His sister still needed his help, and unless he did something, they were going to be trapped here, but he didn’t know what he could do. He tried to draw heat through the iron dragon again, but every time he did, the snow melted and reformed around the melted section.
It reminded him of when he was in the cell in Dragon Haven. When he was there, everything he had done had been pushed backward, resisted.
Jason tried mixing the cold of the ice dragon with the heat of the iron dragon, and it blasted into the snow, but then all he was left with was a face full of snow.
He sat back, thinking.
There had to be some way out. The only problem was that he didn’t have access to dragon pearls—even though, according to the dragon, he might not fully need them—and he didn’t have enough power to get clear.
That suggested the avalanche had covered them far more deeply than he could imagine. It could be several feet of snow overtop of them, and if that were the case, then no one would find them. And with that much snow smothering them, even with his powers, they might not be able to escape.
Jason took a deep breath and focused. He thought of the dragons. He thought of what he wanted.
Help.
He sat for a long time, focusing on the dragons, on the sense of them, letting the power flow through him. He had no idea if what he was doing was even going to work, but he was determined to continue to try, to call upon that power, to use it to draw them. If the dragons could find him, if they recognized his need, one of them could come.
It would be the ice dragon, and he would be able to burrow through the snow. Jason knew he could.
He sat there, but nothing changed.
Kayla looked over at him. “We aren’t going to get out of here, are we?”
He held her gaze. He wanted to tell her anything but the truth, but what could he say?
“We can keep trying,” he said.
“If your dragon magic isn’t going to get us out, then what will?”
“I don’t know.”
2
They had been in the small cave for a while. Jason was shivering, the cold pressing through him, overwhelming even the dragonskin, and Kayla had gone silent. Her breathing was slow and shallow. He tried to use power every so often, but even when he did, there was no way to do anything. There was resistance against him. He thought that he would have summoned one of the dragons, and yet, the ice dragon hadn’t appeared.
It was a disappointment. Why hadn’t the dragon come to him? He needed help. Hadn’t Jason gone to the ice dragon when he had needed help?
A distant rumbling sounded, and for a moment, he thought he was imagining it, but then it came again.
Another avalanche.
He looked over at Kayla. She still hadn’t said anything, but he wasn’t going to tell her what he detected now. There was no point in it. If it was another avalanche, and if it added more snow to what was already covering them, it didn’t matter. They were already trapped.
He sat there, thinking about when he had been in the first avalanche, thinking about the experience he had with the dragons, and wishing this wasn’t the way that he was going to die.
Did he have to, though?
The avalanche was the key. If he could focus on the snow, and if he could focus on that power, then it was possible he could use it. He could push along the snow, and he could send it cascading, giving them a bit of an opening.
He had to draw upon enough power, but could he focus his effort beyond where he was? He was trying to power through the snow, to blast it with strength and energy, but perhaps that was the wrong approach.
Jason tried to shake off the lethargy.
He had to clear his mind. He had to find some way of getting them out of here, and that involved being clear enough within his thoughts to find some way to freedom.
If this was going to work, it was going to take all the strength he could summon, everything he could draw from the iron dragon. He had to pull on power, had to use what he could detect, and he had to angle it, somehow targeting it above him. And in order to do so, he needed to have a clear mind.
He shook himself, looking at his sister, noting the way she was lying there, barely moving, barely breathing. Seeing her like that, seeing how close to death she was, Jason knew he had to be the one who got her out of this.
He focused on the power. It was the iron dragon that he needed to use. The ice dragon would be helpful, and he had summoned that power enough times, but in this case, Jason was convinced the iron dragon was the key to this. In order to get to freedom, in order to shear off the snow, he was going to need the power of the iron dragon.
Somehow, he needed to use a disruption powerful enough to throw the snow free.
Jason concentrated on the snow. The cold. He focused on what was above him. He thought about that, the way that the snow and ice was overhead, the cold that pushed around him.
He had to ignore the cold. The cold was going to be the problem. He needed to use the iron dragon, and the iron dragon wasn’t tied to the cold. The iron dragon was tied to something else.
Jason called for more power. He let that sense fill him and then let it out.
It exploded. It flowed beyond him, through the snow, and then beyond even that. And then when it struck, he heard a steady rumbling.
He waited. If the avalanche was going to work, it would take time. The rumbling intensified, and the walls around him began to tremble and shake.
He held on to Kayla, but nothing changed.
Jason tried again.
He pushed outward, sending power flowing from him, drawing through the iron dragon glove to call for as much strength as he could.
That force filled him, and yet it still wasn’t enough.
His connection to the dragons wasn’t going to save him.
Regardless of what else he might be able to do, he wasn’t going to be able to get free from here.
Jason leaned back and focused on the sense of the dragons. It wasn’t their fault they hadn’t come for him. They’d helped him enough times, and he’d worked with them enough that they understood he was on their side.
And he understood. It was possible that the ice dragon was off hunting, and it was possible that the iron dragon couldn’t even reach him because of the cold.
He rested his head against the snow. It was cold, but he ignored it.
Kayla’s breathing continued to slow.
He hated that their mother was going to waste away because of what happened to them.
There came another sense of rumbling. Another avalanche?
Jason didn’t care. At this point, he was ready to let the sense of his impending death take over.
A strange hissing added to the rumbling, and Jason looked up.