Jason wasn’t about to allow Therin to do that. He had enough strength, and enough connection to the dragons, and enough power now that he didn’t need to fear.
Despite that, he was still scared. Despite everything that he had gone through, all of the things he had experienced, all of the power he had access to, he still experienced the same fear. That fear was the same as what the dragons felt.
When he thought about it, the ice dragon feared losing control over the cold. The iron dragon feared being returned to a cage. The forest dragon feared as well.
That last was the part that filled him. He was aware of what she feared. He could feel it flowing through him, the way that she was terrified of the possibility that someone would use her once again. She was strong, but she wasn’t so strong that she could withstand it. And she had been used.
That sense of fear flowed through Jason.
When they landed, he hopped off the dragon’s back and looked up toward the sky. The fluttering breeze connected to him, brushing across his face, reminding him of the nature of the illusion, and Jason called upon it.
That power was there.
He started to draw that within him.
Something began to change.
It took a moment to realize his hand had begun to glow. It was the opposite hand from the iron dragon glove, but this glow seemed to work along his palm, threads of deep green buried beneath the surface of his skin, crawling up his arm. As he called on that power, that green glow intensified.
Had the forest dragon given him something and he simply hadn’t seen it?
An illusion formed, solidifying around him. Snow began to swirl, and suddenly he stood upon the mountainside. Wind whipped around him, cold and biting, but he ignored it. It was there, but it wasn’t something real to him. The iron dragon was there, and Jason protected him, shielding him from the cold, knowing that the cold was not real.
A figure appeared across from him.
“Therin,” Jason said.
20
The other man strode forward, dressed in dragonskin. He wore a matching cloak, and his neatly trimmed beard gave him a dark appearance. Heat glittered in his eyes and power flowed from him. Something radiated from him, though it took Jason a moment to realize what it was. Therin was straining against the power of the illusion.
“What is this?” Therin asked.
Jason looked around. “It looks like we are back in the north.”
“You have borrowed her power.” Therin stopped a dozen paces across from him, his arms crossed over his chest, watching him. There was no look of fear in his eyes. It was almost as if Therin didn’t view Jason as any sort of threat, and he might actually be right about that. Jason might not be a threat.
His gaze drifted beyond Jason, to the iron dragon, and with a shimmer, Jason forced the iron dragon out of the illusion.
“You might regret that,” Therin said.
“Why?”
“Because what you bring into the illusion is what is available to you. By excluding the iron dragon…” Therin smiled at him. “You still have so much to learn. I’ll admit, you could be far more powerful than what I would’ve expected, but you continue to make mistakes.”
“You’re responsible for what happened to my village.”
“Am I?”
Jason glared at him. He shifted his feet, holding on to his connections. As he did, he realized that he’d changed the appearance of his hands. There was no sense of the forest dragon flowing through his veins. There was no sense of the iron dragon wrapping around his fist, forming a glove.
That doesn’t mean there is no connection to them.
Even though he’d shielded the iron dragon from the illusion, Jason could still feel the power flowing from the iron dragon and into him. The iron dragon was weak, and had used considerable energy in order to help him feed the last illusion. Even the ice dragon remained fatigued, though the sense of him was there, filling his mind. The only dragon that still had any strength remaining was the forest dragon, though it was possible the forest dragon was beginning to grow weak too.
Therin stood there. Power swirled around him, and it forced Jason’s arms down. He had experienced that before, but this was an illusion. He tried to free himself, but couldn’t.
Therin smiled, taking a step toward him. “As I said, you have much to learn.” He grinned widely, glancing at the sky, shielding it with one hand. “An interesting choice. Why the cold?”
“Because it’s familiar to me. And because I know you didn’t like it.”
“What makes you think I didn’t like it?”
“Things you said.”
Therin sneered at him. “It’s horrible, but then again, there isn’t much that’s like Lorach.” He grinned at him again. “But then, you wouldn’t know that, would you? What you saw wasn’t really Lorach.”
“You weren’t able to hold me.”
“Not completely, but I was able to hold you long enough. You thought you could storm in and find your people. You were predictable. It was easy enough for me to target you the way I wanted to. And your people weren’t the goal, anyway.”
“You wanted Dragon Haven.”
“It’s been hidden for a long time, and now it is not. You led me straight to it. Once you’re taken care of, Dragon Haven will be removed as a threat. And then Lorach can begin our march to the south. Eventually, all of this will become a part of Lorach.”
“That’s all you want? More land?”
“Blame the king and not me. I’m acting on his orders.”
“You acted on your own orders when you placed the dragon eggs where you did.”
“Don’t say that as if you aren’t impressed. Had I not done that, think of what you wouldn’t have understood. You would have lived your entire life in that godforsaken village of yours, and you would never have known anything about your potential. You would never have known how you fit into the world.”
“You won’t convince me that what you did was for anyone’s benefit but your own.”
“And I don’t have to. You have failed, Jason Dreshen. You posed a much greater challenge than I would’ve expected, and the dragons became far more powerful than I would’ve expected in the time that they had, but you still failed.”
“I don’t think so. You’re here with me.”
“For how long?”
“I can hold this illusion.” As he said it, Jason realized that he could. Holding on to this illusion wasn’t all that challenging. It was a sense of ice, a sense of snow, and it was a sense of familiarity.
Everything around him was his home.
This was a place he didn’t fear. Even though his life had been filled with terrifying experiences, and even though he had known fear, the same way the dragons had known fear, this didn’t scare him.
It was something Therin couldn’t understand.
The other man took a step toward him and Jason tried to fight the bands of power around him, but he wasn’t able to. Therin grinned again and Jason tried to jerk his arms out, to free himself, but the more that he worked, the harder it was to find any way to do that. As he strained and struggled against those bands, he knew there had to be some way to get free, but he couldn’t uncover it.
Therin grinned at him. “As I said, so much to learn. You brought the dragons to me now. That was your last assignment.”
“You didn’t want the dragons brought to you.”
“Oh, but I did. You see, I thought I could find the ice dragon, but he was able to mask himself. And the iron dragon seems to have a strange connection to you. Only the tree dragon—”
“The forest dragon,” Jason said.