The challenge was in knowing when reality had changed.
Had it been when he’d first encountered the dragon?
What if he’d been wrong about the forest dragon? He believed she hadn’t been influenced by the Dragon Souls, but what if she had?
Considering the nature of her power, the way she was able to control illusions, Jason couldn’t help but think that perhaps she was responsible for all of this.
But then, if that were the case, then where was he? Was he still in the forest?
“I can see that you are trying to work through things for yourself.”
He stared at the woman. As he did, there came a slight shimmering at the edge of her features, as if the corner of her face started to shift.
Had Jason not been looking forward, he might not have noticed, but because he was staring, trying to understand how much of this was real and how much was imagined, he was paying incredibly close attention to her, and he caught it.
She wasn’t who she was presenting herself to be.
That didn’t mean she was Thomas. He doubted Thomas would be able to conceal all of this in an illusion.
What about the iron dragon? The iron dragon hadn’t been an illusion. Jason had enough experience with him, and had felt a connection to the iron dragon, and because of that, he understood that power, and he understood the way he and the iron dragon shared that connection. And with that, he thought that he should be able to know him.
And then there was the ice dragon.
He believed that the ice dragon was real. He had felt the connection between the two of them. Jason had known that power; he had used it. He had freed dragons through it. There was no doubt in his mind that what he had pictured with the dragons was real. That meant everything else had been real as well.
What he needed was to try to piece through the last time he remembered something occurring that didn’t feel quite right.
He wasn’t sure when that was, and whether it was when they first had come to the village, or when they had first come to Lorach.
It seemed to him there had to be something more to it.
The answer was there within his mind; he just had to figure out what it was. He continued to stare at the woman. As he did, he looked for other features that might suggest what she really was. There had to be something he could uncover about her and about what she was trying to hide from him, and yet as he watched her, he wasn’t able to find anything.
He let out a frustrated sigh.
The woman smiled at him.
“What is it you want from me?”
“I want you to share with me about your village.”
“Why?”
“You’ve told me you come from Gilroy.”
Why did it keep coming back to Gilroy? It seemed a strange thing for her to remain focused on, and yet that was all that she spoke about.
Did it mean that they weren’t getting anything from Sarah? Somehow, he had to figure out what they were trying to uncover. What was the point of all of this?
And perhaps there wasn’t a point to any of it. Perhaps it was just a matter of tormenting him, of questioning him, to try to find out what he was doing here, and what he might know.
She stared at him. A hint of a smile crossed her face and Jason looked back at her, studying her the same way that she had been studying him.
The answer had to be there. If he could figure out what she was doing and what she was trying to do to him, then maybe he could uncover more about her and about what she knew.
“Why don’t you tell me about your village,” Jason said.
“I come from Lorach. There is not much to tell.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
She began to make a circle around him, continuing to smile, watching him. He wasn’t sure quite what to say, only that he felt as if she were testing him in a way.
“You came to Lorach without any knowledge?”
“I came here because I was told I had potential with the dragons,” Jason said.
“The dragons. Tell me about them.”
“I was hoping you might be able to share something with me. I don’t have any experience with dragons. In Gilroy, we don’t see them very often. At least not where I live.” He said the last with a little more of a sense of urgency, not knowing quite what the people of Gilroy really experienced when it came to the dragons. It was possible dragons flew all over Gilroy, so different than the rest of his experience.
“You have some experience with dragons. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to use the dragon pearls. I understand you have that potential.”
“I didn’t have any potential. I was shown the dragon pearl, shown how to reach for a sense of heat within me, and to use it to push it out into the dragon pearl.”
That much was true. At least when it came to using the heat with the dragon pearl.
“That is a part of it, but creating power with the pearl is more than just feeling for some mystical part within yourself. Again, I imagine you know that as well.”
“I’m still learning. That’s why we came here.”
“You came to learn from the dragons?”
“We came to learn how to use the Dragon Soul power.”
She circled him, watching him, and Jason stood transfixed. He hesitated to move, afraid of the possibility that he might say something off, that he might draw the wrong kind of attention, and with her watching him, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were in danger.
At the same time, with the nature of the illusion around him, Jason wasn’t sure how much danger he might really be in. It was possible there was no real danger to him. It was possible he was still in the forest with the forest dragon.
“Tell me about the dragon,” she said.
“What dragon?”
“You’re thinking about one.”
Jason stiffened. He didn’t think she was able to know what he was thinking, but at the same time, he wasn’t entirely sure. If she were able to dig into his mind, and if she were somehow to know what he was thinking, he needed to find some way to hide that from her.
“I was thinking about the dragons you showed me during the illusion. Are those your dragons?”
“What makes you think they were an illusion?”
“There was something behind you that wasn’t quite right,” he said.
“What did you see?”
“I saw a smear of darkness.”
“You saw the building across the street.”
“It was directly behind you.”
She smiled at him. “Are you sure about that?”
“I’m pretty sure of what I saw.”
“Pretty sure isn’t the same as absolute certainty. When you’re making an accusation such as you are, then you need to be absolutely certain. Are you absolutely certain of what you saw?”
Jason locked eyes with her. In the time that he’d been here, he hadn’t been focusing on maintaining his connection to the ice dragon, and he tested it briefly, ensuring that his eyes were still the colors they needed to be. He glanced down briefly at his hand, making sure that the iron dragon pearl had remained hidden. There was no evidence of that illusion having faded.
And as far as he knew, she wouldn’t have some way of being able to see beyond his illusion. Thomas hadn’t suggested that such a thing was possible, though it might have been. And if they were aware of him using an illusion against them, then it would explain why they had placed him into this cell, such as it was.
“I’m certain,” he said.
“If you say so. It’s a strange accusation to make against someone like myself.”