“You will have gone too far,” the man said.
“I’m sorry. Would you be able to point us in the right direction?”
“Go back to the wall. Follow it around until you find the barracks. You’ll know what to do.”
She nodded, and Jason kept his eyes down, his hand in his pocket, and they started off. When they crossed the bridge, he hazarded a glance back. The Dragon Souls were watching, and he worried that they noticed his eyes were off, but there was no such obvious attention paid to him.
He breathed out heavily and focused on the energy as it washed over him, worried that it might be changing his illusion, but Sarah met his gaze again and shook her head as she had before.
They reached the outer wall and started around it.
“Why wouldn’t Henry have told us where to go?”
“I have a sense that Henry wanted us to be somewhat clueless,” Sarah said. “It would make it a more believable than for us to come in knowing all the answers.”
“I would like to have been a little bit better prepared,” he said.
“I would have, too.”
“What do you think we might come across next?”
“I have no idea.”
They followed the wall, and as they did, they found there were fewer people in this section of the city. It was almost as if foot traffic thinned out. People stayed away from the wall. There were no shops near it, either. Houses pressed in upon it, however, reaching all the way out the wall, and some were built along it.
Every so often, Jason would look up, and he would see the men manning the top wall, and yet they kept their gaze angled out and away from the city.
“What kind of danger do they really expect?” he asked, leaning in and whispering to Sarah.
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine there’s all that much danger around here.”
“The rebellion…”
She shook her head. “The rebellion hasn’t done anything in many years.”
Jason frowned. “When was the last time you sent any people this far into Lorach?”
“It’s been a long time.”
She slowed to a stop and nodded.
In the distance, Jason noticed a low building, built practically into the wall, with symbols etched along the surface of the stone. They looked to be dragons. Several men dressed in the dark cloaks of the Dragon Souls headed into the building.
“That must be the barracks,” he said.
They headed toward it, neither of them speaking. When they reached it, they paused.
“What are you two doing here?”
Jason turned quickly. The man approaching was older, gray peppering his hair, and a scowl etched on his face. There was something about him that reminded Jason of Henry. Maybe it was the build, maybe it was the dark rings around his eyes. Or maybe it was the power that radiated from the man. He was holding on to power from one of the dragon pearls, though Jason wondered why.
“We were sent for testing,” Sarah said. “We come from the west, near Gilroy, and—”
“If you were sent for testing, then let’s get on with it.”
The man marched forward, and they shared a look before following him.
Jason thought he might lead them into the barracks, but instead of that, he veered around, into a small courtyard with a low wall around it. He passed through the courtyard, through a low door, and then he took a seat in a chair.
“Let’s have it, then,” the man said.
“Have it?” Sarah asked. “I’m afraid we don’t know what’s involved. Our guide was lost.”
“Guide? Bah! You can call him what he was. A fool. If he was lost after finding you, then he has to be a fool.”
Jason shared a look with Sarah.
Although Henry had shared with them what they might be responsible for doing and how they might be tested, Jason worried about what this man might ask of them. Neither of them had a dragon pearl on them—other than his iron glove and the leaf he’d been given by the forest dragon. And he didn’t even know if that leaf was a pearl.
“Here,” the man said, reaching into his pocket, pulling something out.
He tossed it in the air and Jason reacted, snatching it before it had a chance to fall. Thankfully, he’d done so with his normal hand. He held on to the dragon pearl. It was a pale yellow. Heat radiated from it, and the smooth surface pressed against his palm.
“The first test is demonstrating that you can do anything. What I like to see is fire. Can you show me fire?”
“I’ll try.”
The man waved his hand. “Go ahead. We get so few useful recruits these days, I doubt you can even do that.”
Jason pushed power through the dragon pearl. He did so carefully at first, not wanting to release too much energy, not wanting to draw attention to the fact he could do so, but more than that, he wanted to know if it was a real dragon pearl. He didn’t want to draw power he shouldn’t necessarily have. If he could do that, then it was probably some sort of trap, and he didn’t want them to know that he had that ability. Slowly, he let that power flow through, and the flame danced above the top of the dragon pearl.
The man leaned forward. “Huh. Maybe you do have the gift.” He glanced over to Sarah. “What about you? Do you and your brother both share it?”
Jason handed her the dragon pearl.
She squeezed it, opening her hand, and a similar flame erupted. Hers was smaller, and Jason wondered if he might’ve created too large a flame. It wouldn’t do to draw the wrong kind of attention to his ability with fire. And yet, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to make a smaller one.
His talent was limited. His control was limited. He needed to use everything in his ability to hold on to that, and in order to maintain that flame, he had drawn upon that power, and now that he had, he felt relief.
The man got to his feet and reached for the dragon pearl in Sarah’s hands.
“Come with me.”
He marched off, and they followed as he wandered through a hallway. They passed several doors, and he reached a closed one on which he knocked.
At this point, Jason began to tense. He had no idea what would be on the other side of the door, and he worried it could even be Therin. Then again, why would Therin be here at the barracks for the Dragon Souls?
Why was this man?
He knew so little about what the Dragon Souls might do, and about what they might ask of them.
“Enter,” a voice said from the other side.
The man pushed the door open and leaned in. “Charlie? I think we have a couple of candidates.”
“A couple?”
“I didn’t think they would be much of anything, but I put them through the first step, and they passed.”
The man they had met stepped into the room, and Jason and Sarah remained outside. Neither of them moved.
Jason stayed mostly because he wasn’t sure what would be expected of them. At this point, he thought they would be expected to be intimidated, and he was, at least a little. He had no idea what they would need to do, and he had no idea what these people might do to him.
“Why don’t you bring them in,” Charlie said.
“You two,” the man said, leaning out to Jason and Sarah. “Get in here.”
Sarah started forward, but before Jason could follow, he tested to make sure he still had his connection to the ice dragon, and that his eyes were still the silver they were supposed to be. He took a moment to pause and focus on his hand, pushing his connection to the iron dragon through it, and he felt the strange shifting, that warmth he detected when he used the iron dragon in order to create the illusion. His hand changed, taking on the slightly reddish hue it did when he created the illusion.