“This was your home.”
“This was.”
The iron dragon rumbled, the sound like that of another avalanche. “What would you do?”
“We need to get Kayla to safety.”
“You haven’t answered.”
“I’m going to give Therin what he wants.”
“And what is that?”
“Me.”
3
Kayla perched on the dragon next to him, saying nothing. They flew rapidly, heading toward Dragon Haven. The air became warmer the farther they flew, but part of that came from the heat wafting off the iron dragon. Every so often, Kayla would glance down at Jason’s hand. Around the iron dragon, his hand glowed with a brighter intensity. He tried to tamp it down, to force that anger and irritation out of his mind, but it was difficult to do so.
He thought he needed to. Kayla was right in that. He couldn’t let his anger, his rage, fill him so mindlessly. If he did, he would only do exactly what Therin wanted. He needed to find a different way. A better way.
Where is the ice dragon?
That was the question that filled him, leaving him wondering whether he had missed something. There had to be some way to find the ice dragon, and yet, he’d seen no sign of him. More than that, he hadn’t detected anything.
Every so often, Jason would attempt to reach through his connection for the ice dragon, trying to find some way to stretch across the distance, but every time he did, he found nothing. There was no sense of the ice dragon. No sense of anything. All he detected was emptiness.
It was as if the ice dragon had disappeared.
Considering the attack on the village, he had to worry about something happening to the ice dragon, and yet Jason thought he would’ve known. He should have been able to detect it, but with everything that had occurred, he hadn’t been able to find anything quite yet.
He breathed out, frustration filling him. He needed to push that frustration away, but found it bubbling up within him far more often than he liked. He didn’t want to leave Kayla troubled. She deserved better than that from him.
“It shouldn’t be much longer,” he said.
She nodded, and yet didn’t say anything else.
He looked over to see her sobbing.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
“What do you think happened to Mother?”
Jason took a deep breath, wanting to hide the truth of what he suspected from her. If Therin were involved, nothing good would have happened to their mother. “I don’t know. I suspect they captured people from the village.”
“Why would they do something like that?”
“Because of me.”
It pained him to admit that, but it was true. Anything that had happened was his fault. The attack was because of him. They were trying to harm him, wanting to get his attention, and they had.
He would have to find it within himself to do whatever it took to reverse the situation.
“I just don’t even understand. Why would they even care about you? Why would you matter to them?”
“Revenge,” he whispered.
That was all it was. Revenge, pure and simple. Therin was angry because he’d disrupted his plan.
Unless it was fear.
Jason had proven he had a connection to the dragons that allowed him to help free them from whatever the Dragon Souls did to them, and if they feared he might use that power to disrupt their control over the dragons, he could see them attacking.
He disagreed with David that the dragons were dangerous. He recognized the power within the dragons, and he recognized there was something within them that he could help.
If he could free them, they wouldn’t hunt people. The sense he had from the dragons was that they were interested in working with people.
He didn’t have the chance to think on it more. In the distance, Dragon Haven came into view. The sight of it always impressed him. Situated in the middle of the forest, the city managed to remain concealed, the heart of the rebellion hidden close enough to Lachen that they could reach it by dragon but hadn’t found it.
Lights glowed, flames crackling throughout the entire town. It illuminated the night. There was more than just the fires throughout the town. There was the sense of the dragons. Heat that radiated. He tapped on the iron dragon, and they approached slowly.
Perhaps this was the wrong approach. Jason had thought about bringing Kayla to Dragon Haven to offer protection, but what if he should have brought her with him to where the other dragons were? He knew there were other dragons nearby, and they were trying to protect the other misfits, and yet in order to get his sister to safety, he thought Dragon Haven would be the best place.
No dragons came out to greet them.
That surprised him.
Had Dragon Haven been discovered?
He didn’t think that the Dragon Souls of Lorach had uncovered it yet. David knew about it, but if he truly had spoken the words of the flame, and if they truly did restrict him from harming these people, then there should be no concerns of them coming to Dragon Haven.
And there was another barrier. Now that Jason had helped heal the dragons, now that he was responsible for freeing some of them, they had more support. There should be no way for the Dragon Souls to even reach Dragon Haven. Then again, Jason would have expected to have known whether he was in any danger in the village, and he had not.
He took a deep breath, letting it out in frustration.
They descended, coming to land in the clearing. Three other dragons approached slowly and Jason pushed on them, using his awareness, drawing through his connection to the ice dragon, testing to see whether they were dragons he had healed before. He detected nothing. At least he still had his connection to the ice dragon, even if he couldn’t locate him.
While there was some sense of these dragons, he didn’t find any influence on their minds.
They were free. Much like all the dragons were free. At least here.
Heat radiated from the nearest of the dragons, and Jason scrambled off the iron dragon’s back and approached slowly. He held the other dragon’s eyes. They seemed to glow with a deep green, though in the darkness, it was difficult to tell. The dragon had dark scales, but that darkness could represent purple or blue or even forest green.
“I need someone to help watch my sister.”
The dragon circled him, watching him. He had a sense the dragon understood everything in his mind, the same way the ice dragon did.
“Something happened to my village. The Dragon Souls attacked. People were taken.”
One of the smaller dragons behind the lead rumbled. Flames erupted from his nostrils, and heat burst from his side.
“I’m going to find them.”
“You should not do this yourself,” the dragon said.
Surprisingly, the dragon had a high, female voice. He hadn’t spoken to all that many female dragons. He had a sense from those within Dragon Haven that female dragons were prized, almost as if rare. He understood that Lorach would keep the dragons and harvest their eggs. Eggs were rare enough that they were valued, and with everything the Dragon Souls had put them through, there was a real possibility there weren’t enough females remaining.
“I’m not going to risk anyone else going. Besides, I think it would be easier to sneak in with a small group.”
“Have you spoken to the others?”
He frowned, shaking his head. “Who would you have me speak to?”
“The others.”
Jason sighed, glancing back at the iron dragon. Heat radiated from his body and he glowed against the night, giving off a soft orange light. There was no other movement, nothing else that showed that anyone else was approaching, and yet he had a sense of power.