“What were you telling them about us?”
“I told him that we came from Gilroy. The same as we’d decided.”
“I’ve never been to Gilroy, so I wasn’t able to share with them anything about it. I told them that I came from a small village at the edge of Gilroy. I had to share with them that it was a mining village,” he said.
The winds swallowed his words, and he was thankful for that, knowing if there was an illusion around him, then whatever was happening here might be observed by whoever was around him. Yet the more that he focused, the more certain he was that there was no one else here, listening in. And even if there was, the wind and snow whipping around him might be able to mask what was taking place.
“Oh, Jason. I didn’t even think about that.”
“I didn’t either. I think she knew I wasn’t from a mining village. But that wasn’t the biggest concern I had.”
“What was the biggest concern?”
He glanced back toward where his cell had been. Now, with the illusion faded, it was nothing but a snowy field in front of him. This could be anywhere along the mountain, and it was almost enough to imagine himself tracing his way along the mountainside, heading through the snow, toward the stream.
As he thought about the stream, it began to form, rushing near them.
Her eyes widened and she squeezed his arm.
“Tell me you just saw that,” she said.
“I saw it. I think I made it.”
“How is that even possible?”
Jason looked around, and he hesitated to say anything. Anything in here might be observed, and he didn’t want to run the risk of anyone knowing what he was doing or thinking, and he didn’t want anyone to know about the forest dragon. So it was better to say nothing.
“I think it was from Thomas sharing with me how to form an illusion.”
She watched him and shook her head. “When I was working on creating illusions, Thomas tried to train me, and I was able to use a little bit of one, but nothing like that.”
“I don’t think you had the same urgency to do it.”
“Do you think they saw through what you did?”
“That had been my concern at first, but the more that I think about it, the more uncertain I am. If they saw through it, then why wouldn’t they have taken me somewhere else?”
She looked around. “What if they did?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if this isn’t the Dragon Souls at all?”
He looked around. His heart hammered a bit more rapidly in his chest, and he thought she was on to something. If they had noticed that his eyes were the wrong color, they might have brought them somewhere else.
Why would there be the testing? Why would the woman have come here, asking him about his village? And why would there be the illusion of the Auran?
“What did she look like when you were questioned?”
“I didn’t have a woman questioning me,” Sarah said.
“Who did you have questioning you?”
“I had an older man. He had thick glasses, short-cut hair. A gray beard.” She shook her head. “He reminded me of my uncle.”
“Your uncle?”
“We lost him when I was young. I remember him, the way he smiled, and mostly, the way that he always gave me a strong hug every time he saw me.” She closed her eyes and a smile crossed her face.
That was strange. She had seen something that she had wanted to see, and Jason had seen something else. And it was not just the fact that he had seen an Auran. It was the fact that the Auran had known something about the dragon.
The fact that she continued to question him, that she had claimed she knew something within his mind, was enough that he should be concerned by it, and Jason was concerned.
They needed to find a way out.
He held on to the illusion and helped Sarah to her feet.
“I think it’s time for us to see what’s going on,” he said.
“If we try to break out, and if they are Dragon Souls, then…”
Jason sighed, nodding. He would have to be prepared for the possibility of being stopped. And if someone tried to stop them, then he would need to be ready.
In his case, the way he would be ready would be straightforward. He would focus on the dragons. He would try to heal as many as he could, to free them, and when he did, then the dragons would be freed to attack, to turn their attention to the Dragon Souls.
He might not be able to overpower the Dragon Souls, but he did have the power of the iron dragon, and if he could knock back one or two Dragon Souls, and if he could claim their dragon pearls, then he had to think that he might have a chance at getting free.
All they needed to do was to get out into the city. If they could do that, they might be able to find a way to get to freedom, and they wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked in the same way.
He released his illusion.
It disappeared slowly. It happened as a cessation of the wind, and then the stream stopped flowing, and then the snow all around them disappeared.
He watched Sarah as it did and wondered if she might fade back into the illusion that had trapped her, but instead of that, she only looked around, her eyes getting wider as she did.
“Just like that,” she said.
“You saw the illusion they used on you.”
“I guess so,” she said.
“Do you know what it looked like?”
“I didn’t even know that it was an illusion. It felt so real.”
“That’s what made it effective,” he said.
And the more that he thought about it, the more that he understood he wouldn’t have been able to find his way free of the illusion had he not been able to notice the shimmering behind him.
That shimmering had been real, and it had changed things, showing him that something was off. That shimmering had been the key.
He had to pay attention to it, and if he could find more shimmering, if he could find more ways to see beyond what was taking place, that he might be able to understand what else was out there. Then perhaps he would be able to know if there was another illusion around him.
“I’m going to need your help. What we need to do is to look to see if there’s any sign of illusion around us. The only thing I was able to identify as the mark of an illusion was seeing signs of shimmering all around us.”
“What do you mean by shimmering?”
“It’s as if things were trying to solidify. It’s almost as if there was an attempt to try to hold on to the illusion. As it shifted, the shimmering took place, making it so I was aware that everything wasn’t quite what I thought I was seeing.”
“And what happens if we see that?”
“If we see that, we can trace it, and then we can see if there’s any way to uncover the purpose of the illusion.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to see anything. You might have to be the one to do it.”
“You understand the nature of the dragon pearls. I think you should be able to see it as well.”
“I didn’t think that it was about the dragon pearls.”
“That’s the other piece.”
He told her about how he saw the faint tracings of power, and how he had used that. She watched him, a question burning in her eyes.
“How are you able to do that without a dragon pearl?”
He held his hand out. For now, there was no difference to it. It had the appearance of a normal hand, and yet, she nodded understanding.
“I think that we can dig through this, but we’re going to have to find our way free.”
He took her hand and they headed across the small room. When they reached the end of it, they stopped at a doorway.
There was a sense of power near here, and as he focused on it, Jason wondered if there would be any way to find out what was on the other side of the door. He focused, thinking about that power, about what it meant, and whether or not there would be any way to understand if there was another illusion.