There was a different way.
That different method was the key. That was going to be how he could help them. That different way was how he was able to keep them from falling when he restored them.
Another burst of heat came near them, and this time, Jason reacted. He pushed outward, drawing on both the ice dragon and the iron dragon, and the power slammed outward, connecting with the distant dragon.
When it did, the dragon roared. It shook, heat exploding upward.
Jason continued to push, washing waves of healing water through the dragon, and the dragons spiraled, shaking free two figures, and then the dragon lunged toward them, devouring them in a single bite.
He didn’t have it within him to feel any remorse. The Dragon Souls deserved what happened to them, and the other dragon circled toward them and watched for a moment before joining them.
Three dragons now. Four if he counted the ice dragon high overhead, but still, Jason couldn’t help but feel as if that wasn’t going to be enough. Even with this many dragons, they still were not matched.
Suddenly, power began to throw itself at them.
It was an enormous amount of power. One after another, attack after attack, they were assaulted. Jason focused on the dragons flinging themselves at them, on what he could detect, and he focused on trying to heal.
There were a dozen. Possibly more. They surrounded them. Circling around them, the other dragons corralled them into a tight spiral and Jason was forced to focus on the various dragons he detected, to focus on that kind of power. It was coming in a steady onslaught.
Jason homed in on the nearest dragon.
He could use his healing power on more than just one dragon. He had done so before, and rather than focusing on one dragon, he decided to focus on two. He pushed outward, sweeping through them. As the healing wave washed over them, he turned, concentrating on the next one. And the next.
With each one that he healed, it seemed as if another appeared. It seemed as if they were doubled, then tripled.
So many dragons circled around them, and with each dragon he healed, more appeared, and soon it seemed as if their numbers were equal. Nearly two dozen dragons circled with Jason. An equal two dozen, possibly more, circled across from them, holding them in place. Flames blasted at them, forcing the iron dragon to twist and spiral and forcing Jason to draw more and more power.
How much power was he going to be able to call from the iron dragon and the ice dragon before both of them began to weaken?
The iron dragon himself had used quite a bit of power in order to withstand the assault of five dragons, and now there were two dozen attacking him? The ice dragon was flying overhead, but Jason knew that there were limits to that dragon, too.
He wasn’t about to give up and change course. He was going to keep healing. He was going to keep channeling energy into the dragons. He was going to use whatever he could in order to free them. The dragons needed it from him. They needed him to free them.
“I didn’t know the Dragon Souls had so many,” Sarah said.
“They don’t,” Henry whispered.
Jason’s breath caught.
“What do you mean they don’t?” he asked.
“They have hundreds of dragons, but look at them, Jason. There are several hundred here now. Each time we do something, each time you change something, they switch sides, but how can they have so many appear?”
“There weren’t any near Lorach,” he said.
“And that was what we saw. There would have to be some there. The king wouldn’t allow the dragons to disappear like that. They would want the dragons to be with them, and he wouldn’t have allowed them to be chased off. What if none of this is real?” Henry asked.
Jason stared at the dragons swirling around them. It felt real. All of this felt real.
But that was the nature of the illusion. He had been through it before; he understood the way that the illusion worked, and he understood just how powerful it was when it washed over him. It could influence him like this. He knew that with the kind of power the forest dragon was able to support, Therin would be able to use something like this, and the more that he stared at it, the more certain he was that something was off.
“We have to destroy the illusion,” Henry said.
He stared down, focusing on the iron dragon. He knew what he had done the last time. The iron dragon had burned it off. At the time, Jason had wondered how that was possible, but now he thought he knew.
“You’ll have to blast it off again,” he said to the dragon.
“I don’t know that you would be able to tolerate it,” the dragon said.
“I know. Which is why we have to land.”
The iron dragon dove toward the ground, not taking a moment to even consider what he was saying, and when they landed, Jason motioned for Henry and Sarah to climb off. He debated for a moment, but decided he needed to be with the iron dragon.
The dragons overhead continued to swirl, a violent battle. There were dozens and dozens of dragons. Hundreds, much like Henry had said. As he watched, as he focused on the dragons, he couldn’t help but feel as if Henry were right. None of this was real. It might feel real. It might look real. And the sound and violence of it all might make him believe that it had been real, but there was nothing about it that was real.
And that was the key.
He had to find some way to destroy this illusion.
If only the forest dragon had given him the key, but she had not. She claimed she had, and it was not his ability to heal. That ability might have helped the dragons. It might’ve been able to free them when he did encounter real dragons, but right now, he was fighting something completely different. He was fighting a powerful illusion, something no one had ever seen before.
Somehow it was going to require the iron dragon.
A misfit.
Just like Jason, he needed the power of a misfit to battle a misfit, and he called to that power. He felt for the sense of the energy in the air.
There was definitely energy there. He thought that energy came from the dragons, but the more he thought about it and the more he connected to what was happening around him, the more certain he was that it wasn’t at all about what was happening with the dragons. The energy he detected came from something quite different. That energy came from the nature of the illusion.
It was the same way the illusion had created that energy within the camp.
When he had pulled that energy off, he had drawn it through himself.
He had to treat everything around him as if it were some massive dragon pearl. The illusion was so engrossing, all-encompassing, and it seemed so real.
It was the same illusion that Jason and Sarah and Henry shared.
Hopefully, by separating from them, he wasn’t losing them in the illusion. He hoped that by stepping off the dragon, they weren’t somehow taken away from what was happening, but he didn’t want them to be harmed by the power of the iron dragon when finally Jason summoned that magic.
It was a massive dragon pearl.
He held that in his mind. And he called for that power. He pushed it not just through him, but through the iron dragon glove, and into the iron dragon.
Slowly the iron dragon began to warm, the heat radiating from him, his entire body taking on a bright orange glow. Jason wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to withstand the nature of that furnace, but he welcomed it.