“But he looks the same. Maybe a little bit larger than the last time I saw him, but…”
Jason studied the ice dragon. He hadn’t made any connection to that before, but she was right. The ice dragon did seem a little larger than the last time he’d visited him, and as he looked into the ice dragon’s pale blue eyes, he couldn’t tell how much of this was real and how much was in his mind. Maybe it didn’t matter. It was possible the ice dragon was here, just as it was possible the ice dragon was not.
When it came down to it, if Jason had rescued Sarah, if he had connected to her, and if he had managed to free her from the illusion, then nothing else mattered.
All that mattered was that he’d saved her. All that mattered was that he’d connected to the ice dragon.
“We’re trapped within Lorach,” Jason said to the ice dragon. “I don’t know what happened to you, and I don’t know where you went, but I need you.”
“I never left.”
“You did. I couldn’t find you.”
“I never left.”
“But you did.”
The dragon rumbled. This time, it felt real. The sound swirled around him, filling his ears. There was no way that sound wasn’t real.
How was it that the dragon could be here so solidly?
“The connection,” the dragon said.
“What about it?”
“You feel it, don’t you?”
“I feel something, but I don’t really know what it is.”
“It’s the connection between the two of us,” the dragon said.
“So you aren’t gone from our connection, and you weren’t in the north. You weren’t there when my village was attacked and destroyed.”
“I have been looking for the hatch mates.”
“Have you found any of them?”
“I think so.”
“Is that more important than what we are doing?”
Jason regretted saying it as soon as he did, knowing that for the ice dragon, finding the hatch mates was important. It was no less important than Jason finding his villagers, his people.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The ice dragon rumbled. He stretched out, settling on his wings, and lowered his head to look at Jason. “You don’t need my help. You can find what you need.”
“I don’t know that I can. The people here are powerful.”
“Are you not?”
“I don’t know. I’m different.”
“A misfit.”
“I suppose.”
The dragon rumbled. “Are we so different?”
Jason smiled. Maybe that was the point. He was a misfit, much like the dragons. He had an unusual power, and because of his connection to the dragon, and because of the fact he’d been raised where he had been, connected to the ice dragon, to the cold, and then bonded to the iron dragon, he was a misfit too.
Perhaps that was why the forest dragon had given him the leaf, the marker that allowed him to connect to her, however that might be.
Jason was a misfit.
He was no different than the dragons.
He was different. He was different than the Dragon Souls. He was different even than the slaves.
And he could use that difference.
There was nothing wrong with his difference. He had felt odd his whole life, felt as if he wasn’t a part of his village, and despite that, he had wanted to be a part of it. He had wanted to fit in, and yet, not fitting in had allowed him the opportunity to help far more than he would’ve otherwise. Because he didn’t fit in, he had managed to save the ice dragon, to rescue the iron dragon, and he had found the forest dragon.
What would he do if he was able to get himself freed from here? Would he be able to help any of the other hatch mates?
The ice dragon watched him.
“I don’t know how to find the villagers,” he said.
“How did you find me?” the ice dragon said.
“I imagined you.” Jason smiled as he said it, uncertain how much of this was even real and how much of this was in his mind. With what he had seen of the illusions, he could easily believe some of this was imagined and not all real, even though it felt that way to him.
“I don’t know that it works the same way with them. I haven’t formed the same connection.”
“Have you not? I thought you lived there your entire life?”
Jason smiled.
As he did, something started to shimmer.
There was pressure building on his illusion. He could tell that the woman was trying to collapse what he was holding. If she broke in, if she saw what he was doing, if she became a part of his illusion, she would know about the ice dragon. More than anything else, Jason wanted to prevent her from doing that. He wanted to keep her from knowing about his connection to the other dragons.
“I think it’s time for us to go,” he said.
“If you need me, it’s a simple matter of thinking about me. Summoning me. And I am here.”
“Are you really here?”
“Does it feel as if I am?”
Jason looked over at Sarah. She was watching, and the fact that she was awake once again suggested that perhaps the dragon was here. At least his power was here.
It did feel like he was here, but there was something else that was odd, and it was more than just the fact that he was seeing the dragon.
As much as Jason wanted to have the ice dragon here, and as much as he thought he could benefit from being able to draw upon the ice dragon’s power, he couldn’t help but feel as if there were aspects of what he was experiencing that he didn’t fully understand. The ice dragon was here, but was he really?
“How much of this is in my mind?”
“What’s in your mind is what is real,” the ice dragon said.
Jason looked over at Sarah. She was watching silently.
All of this was in his mind. He knew that. Which meant that everything he’d seen at any time was possibly in his mind. Was the ice dragon trying to tell him that what he had seen in the village was within his mind?
If that were the case, then why? Why would they have wanted to attack his village in such a way?
He held on, watching the ice dragon, trying to gain understanding. With a surge of realization, he thought he understood.
“Are any of us where we think we are?”
“You have journeyed the way you have, but have you journeyed for the reasons you need?”
Jason turned to Sarah, and as he did, a different sort of panic set in.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s something he said.”
“What is it?”
“It’s just that ever since we started this, I’ve been wondering about what’s real and what’s not. The ice dragon helped me to question how much of this was in my mind and how much of it was real, and the more I think about it, the harder it is to know how much of this is even real. I think coming to Dragon Haven was real.”
“You did come to Dragon Haven. You brought your sister with you.”
“And I think that leaving Dragon Haven with you and Henry was real.”
“I had the same experience.”
“But what about before that?”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut, thinking about the avalanche that had trapped him and his sister. It was strange, but equally strange was the fact that he hadn’t seen the ice dragon since then. He hadn’t been able to connect to the ice dragon. And he hadn’t been able to find what he thought he should.
He had come to Lorach thinking he would uncover what had happened to his people, that he would be able to rescue his village, but what if that was a mistake?
“Are you saying that you think your village wasn’t even attacked?”
He didn’t even know what he was saying. It was difficult to believe that such a thing was possible, and yet the more that he thought about, the more uncertain Jason was that it was real.