“How long do you intend to hold me here?”
“Until you share with me what I need to know.”
“And what happens if I don’t have what you need to know?”
“Then you will be of no further use to me.”
“I only came here to learn how to use the power of the Dragon Souls.”
“And yet, I suspect you came for a different purpose. I will find out what that is. And you and I will have a different conversation.”
She got up from the chair, heading to the door, and stepped outside.
Jason stared and wondered whether or not she was really gone.
He hurried forward, touching the space where she had been, finding it was absent. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sense of energy, and there was none.
That wasn’t quite right. There was a hint of power on the other side of the door, and the more he focused on it, the more certain he was that she was still there, watching. And she wanted to know what he was doing.
He turned his back to her. Even with his back to her, he could feel the energy in the room. He thought he could draw upon it and use it. If he did, then he could find some way to escape. And when it came to getting out of there, then he would have to uncover more about what she was doing to him.
The answer was all around him.
He had been so focused on finding a way of tearing free of the illusion that he hadn’t given any thought to trying to simply use the same power that was around him. Now that he understood that was going to be part of the key, he thought he could draw upon it.
With his back turned to her, he pulled upon that power, letting it fill him. He ignored the sense of her watching, and he focused instead on what he could feel in front of him.
As he pulled on the power, everything began to shimmer. He continued to pull, tearing that power, drawing it through himself.
It felt similar to what he did what he was using the power of the dragon pearl, but this was a little different, almost as if he were taking power, as if he were changing something, but he didn’t know what he was taking or what he was changing.
Jason felt the shimmering as he held on to it, the reality in front of him distorting.
Everything swirled. It shimmered.
And then it flickered.
Jason held on to it. That sense was there, the reality was there, and the more he focused on it, the more certain he was that he could tear it down. When he did, he might be able to see beyond what was taking place. If he could, then he had to think that the answers would be there.
He drew more and more power.
It wasn’t going to be enough. He needed to find some way to draw even more than he had, but he had no idea how he was going to be able to do that.
The iron dragon.
He focused on his connection to the glove, to the power within it, and he pulled upon it, letting that flow through him, through the iron dragon glove, and out toward the iron dragon. That energy was all interconnected. As he pulled away, as he dragged it free, he saw the distortion change again.
There was a flickering, and everything faded.
He was in an enormous room. No longer were there walls all around him. No longer was there even a door behind him. He turned in place, carefully, and found the woman was missing.
He worried she might be nearby, but there was no sign of her. As he held on to that power, he focused on it, thinking that perhaps there was some way to see beyond, and yet, this was all there was.
Thankfully, there was nothing more that had changed. As far as he could tell, this was reality. Jason looked around. On the far side of the room, there was another chair.
Sarah.
He hurried over to it and found her sitting in the chair, her eyes glazed, and her mouth moved silently.
Jason stepped in front of her, grabbing her hands.
“Sarah?”
She continued to murmur wordlessly.
He looked around, glancing to see if the people who had placed them in this cell were anywhere near them, but he didn’t see any sign of them.
He squeezed her hands. “Sarah, it’s Jason. You need to come around.”
She continued to murmur, but she didn’t say anything.
Strangely, the way that she was murmuring reminded him of what David had done when he was trying to free whatever strange power he had used in the forest.
Was there any way to draw power away from her, to free her from the illusion? Better yet, was there any way to push her into his illusion?
That might be the key.
He focused on the snow. That seemed to be the easiest one for him, and he held on to the leaf, feeling the way the breeze shifted, and he let that image form in his mind. He pushed outward, letting power wash away from him, and when it did, the snow began to fall. When the first droplet struck her head, she blinked, opening her eyes and looking at him.
“Jason? What happened? Where are we?”
He sighed. He hoped this wasn’t just his illusion and that she was really with him, but it was possible she was still trapped in whatever had happened to her. He had no way of drawing the power away from her. He had taken it from the room, but was there any way to take it from her completely?
“They’re using some elaborate illusion upon us.”
“An illusion?”
“What did you see?”
“I saw this in…” She looked around, and seemed to suddenly realize they were surrounded by a mountain and snow, and the wind was swirling around them. “What did you do?”
“I had to free you from the illusion, and I did the only thing I was able to think of.”
“You brought me to your home?”
“Not my home, but I did what I needed to do to try to free you from the illusion they were using on you.”
“How do you know they were using an illusion on me?”
“Because I could see the way you were reacting. You were whispering softly to yourself, saying nothing, but…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. Not anymore.”
"I don't even know how this is possible.”
“I’m not entirely sure what they did, either, only that they wrapped us in an illusion.”
“When did they do it?”
“That’s the hardest part to really understand,” he said. If they couldn’t understand when the illusion began, then they might not be able to know what was real and what was not. “What was the last thing that you remember? Do you remember coming to the barracks?”
“I do,” she said.
“Do you remember creating a flame with a dragon pearl?”
She nodded.
At least that much was real, and the more he thought about it, the more certain he was that it had to be real. How was he to figure out what they had been doing? The last thing he remembered before the illusion began was the Dragon Souls striking him on the back of the head. Was that the key? Had they knocked them out in order to set the illusion, and once the illusion was set, then they were able to continue to build around it, trying to keep them in place?
If that were the case, then the nature of what they were doing was incredibly powerful, and he had to wonder if there was any way to overcome it.
“I’m not sure what we should do,” he said.
“We need to get going,” she said.
“If this is some sort of test, then…” He shook his head. It wasn’t some sort of test. This was some way of tormenting them, trying to find answers, and not a test at all.
Unless… Unless it was.
“What were you seeing?”
“I was seeing my home,” she said.
“Did they ask you about it?”
“They kept asking me about Gilroy, and I gave them all the answers I could.”