Mist Dragon, page 21
part #5 of Dragon Misfits Series
“What happened?” Sarah whispered as she grabbed for his arm.
Jason couldn’t tear his gaze away from the egg. “I don’t really know. I can’t tell what happened. It was feeding, but…”
“You were glowing,” William said.
“I was channeling power from each of the dragons,” he said.
“From all of them?” William asked. “How?”
He watched Jason with a strange look in his eyes.
Jason stared. “I don’t really know. All I can tell is that I felt the energy coming from each of the dragons. Even from the earth dragon, though I don’t even know how that was possible.”
“What about the river dragon you saw?”
“I never had a chance to connect to that dragon. I don’t know if I would have been able to do so.”
He slowed his breathing, calming himself. The energy of each of the dragons lingered within his mind, little more than a memory. He could feel it and could feel that power. Jason wondered if he might be able to reach for the river dragon, but he would need to know more about her to do so.
There came a shimmering, a shifting of the illusion.
The forest dragon was changing it.
As he looked over at her, he realized that wasn’t the case at all. She slept, barely moving. Which meant that the shifting of the illusion came from somewhere else. It had to be an external force, pressure building on the illusion she formed.
Gradually, he recognized rumbling from beneath them. Earth dragons.
Which meant Lorren had learned of this egg.
And now he was coming.
19
J ason raced over to the forest dragon, touching her on the side, feeling her velvety scales. There came a surge of a connection between them, though she didn’t stir. “You need to wake up. The egg is in danger.”
She moved slightly, mostly her tail swirling around her, but there was nothing other than a lethargy to her. She had used considerable force to feed the dragon, on top of what she had used to help him with the iron dragon. Now she faded.
All of the other misfits had used considerable power.
Which meant they had to find another way to protect the egg—and the forest dragon. Jason wasn’t entirely sure what it was going to take, only that he refused to allow Lorren to get to the egg and the forest dragon.
The iron dragon slithered away as he disappeared into the forest. The ice dragon was high overhead, feeding on the cold and ice to recharge himself. Jason didn’t know where the storm dragon had gone, though considering he had little connection to the storm dragon, he wasn’t sure if he could even ask him for help.
He had to find some other way.
A rumbling continued around him, building with more and more power. The illusion crackled, and with more time, the illusion would fade, and then Jason had no idea what Lorren might do.
If he learned about the egg, Lorren would try to claim it. He would use it, the same way he had used the other misfits that he had with him. That was why he’d come. Jason could not allow it. He had to protect the egg before Lorren claimed it—or destroyed it.
Turning to Sarah and William, he motioned to the egg. “You need to help me. We have to protect the egg. I can feel Lorren coming, which means we need to get moving so that he cannot get it.”
William looked around, his gaze darting throughout the clearing. “Lorren is coming? You can feel him?”
Jason approached the egg, crouching down next to it. “I can feel the illusion starting to bend. The earth dragon is here, as well.”
They were distant, but getting closer. He could feel their presence and worried that if he waited too much longer, he wouldn’t have an opportunity to escape.
How heavy would the egg be? He lifted it, testing to see how heavy it might be, and was surprised by how light it was.
Sarah joined him. “How are you lifting that?”
Jason wrapped his arms around the egg, clutching it to his chest. It was massive, nearly as tall as him, but he could keep his arms wrapped around it. The surface of it was warm, and dimples within it pressed up against his face. “I don’t know. It feels light.”
“When they get to that size, we are no longer able to carry them. How are you able to do so?”
Several questions entered his mind. It surprised him that the eggs would grow in size. That was different than other animals that laid eggs. Why would dragon eggs be so different?
The air crackled with energy again.
“We need to go.” The energy shimmering around him persisted, growing with a vibrant intensity. It seemed to build even more, and if they did nothing, Lorren would get here before they had an opportunity to escape. The illusion around them faded, the air crackling as it did.
“I can call the other dragons,” Sarah suggested.
Jason looked around. They stood in a clearing, and he hoped it was a real clearing and not simply part of the illusion.
Sarah clutched her dragon pearls and power built within her before radiating outward. Gradually, there came the distant sense of dragons. Jason was aware of them and could feel their energy coming, sweeping toward them. It felt as if he were connected to them, and he realized that the dragon pearls he held in his hand represented those dragons.
The forest dragon started to stir, and when she opened her deep green eyes, she looked at Jason, meeting his. He reached toward her, holding a hand up, trying to reassure her.
“I’m going to protect the egg,” he said.
She breathed out, and the mist drifting from her nostrils billowed into the clearing. For a moment, the illusion solidified once again. It didn’t hold quite as profoundly as it had before, though Jason hoped that it would hold back Lorren for another moment.
“You won’t need to protect it for much longer. You did what you needed to do, Jason Dreshen.”
She stared again, and the illusion formed around her, her entire body shimmering. When it faded, she disappeared, blending into the forest. He lost sight of her.
That might be for the best. He wouldn’t have to protect her, not while also protecting the egg.
A shadowed form loomed overhead, and for a moment Jason worried it was Lorren, but then a second one appeared, and they spiraled down, joining them in the clearing. The illusion of shadows and moonlight, started to fade, but not so much that he could see past it. Moonlight still streamed down, though it was fading, dawn beginning to come. The opening in the canopy was real, and the clearing was exactly what he had seen. That much had been real.
The rumbling from the earth dragons continued to approach. He didn’t know how much longer he had before the dragons got here, but he would be ready. He focused on the iron and the ice dragon and whispered a caution to them. “Be ready.”
There came a faint murmuring in response, but nothing more. He didn’t know if the dragons could even respond or if they were too tired. If fatigue claimed them, Jason understood. They had fought, and then they had fed the egg. It was all too much.
The dragons landed in a flutter of wind. William scrambled up onto the back of a dark green one, and Sarah hurried onto a black one. Jason tried to hand the egg to Sarah, but she shook her head.
“I won’t be able to hold that,” she said.
“You haven’t even tried,” he said.
She shook her head again. “I think you have to do this, Jason.”
He could feel energy through the egg, some stirring of the dragon within it, but nothing more. The forest dragon claimed he wouldn’t have to protect the egg for much longer, but he wondered what more he might need to do for it. He could feel the power within it, the energy radiating outward. He hoped it wouldn’t hatch before they could escape. It would be even more difficult to hold onto a newborn dragon.
He squeezed the egg as he tried to maintain his grip, climbing up the black dragon’s back and settling onto him. He looked over at Sarah. “I’m ready,” he said.
The dragon took to the air with a lurch that forced Jason to squeeze the egg tightly, clutching it up against him. As the dragon gained altitude, Jason leaned forward, holding the egg up tightly. Every so often, he detected a rumbling in the distance, the earth dragon coming toward them. He looked down at the forest and made out a faint shimmering along the edge of it. It looked as if the illusion formed around the forest was faint, little more than a blur, as if to try to mask the presence of the forest. Had the forest dragon attempted to conceal the entirety of the forest? As he watched, that shimmering began to flicker and then faded completely. He felt a surge of power as it disappeared altogether.
Jason strained, looking for any sign of Lorren, but found nothing. He should be thankful, but it worried him. The forest dragon was down there.
“She will be fine,” Sarah said, turning back to him.
“I don’t know if she will. Lorren can break through her illusion.”
“She’s the most powerful of the dragons with illusion.”
Jason knew she was and that she could call upon even more energy and control than even the mist dragons, but that didn’t change his concern. She had spent considerable strength to feed the egg, expending herself, and risking danger. Perhaps he needed to stay behind in the forest to protect her.
A stirring in his mind fluttered through him, a reminder of the forest dragon. It was faint, though when it came to her, he rarely felt much strength when it came to their connection. Within that stirring, he recognized her urging him away.
He turned, clutching the dragon egg as they flew. Wind whipped around, the power of the dragon surging beneath him, and nothing more. There was no pressure, nothing to suggest he needed to be afraid of anyone chasing them.
He squeezed the egg and could feel it shifting. It was almost as if the egg itself trembled, but it seemed filled with power as well. The eggshell trembled. Every so often, a gust of wind fluttered at them, and he worried that it might pull the egg out of his grip, but then the egg settled, the wind died down to the roar around the dragon, and Jason held on.
They veered toward Dragon Haven.
While flying, he focused on the ice dragon and the iron dragon and recognized how tired they still were. They flew alongside, but he wondered if they could survive much longer if it came down to another attack. He doubted that they would. The sense of those two dragons was distant, and he knew he needed to try to get closer, but the dragons passed through the illusion surrounding Dragon Haven and made their way toward the clearing.
Jason sent a connection to the other dragon misfits to invite them into Dragon Haven, not only for their safety but also to protect the egg. Within the clearing, there were several other young dragons. A navy dragon, along with a pale yellow, the color of early morning sunlight, slammed into each other on the far side of the clearing while a deep maroon dragon curled up far enough away so as not to be trampled. A narrow wall surrounded the clearing, dividing this section off from the rest of Dragon Haven. The ground was trampled grass, from boots and dragons and the occasional wagon.
Jason climbed off the dragon’s back. One of the Dragon Guard was nearby, dressed in black dragonskin leathers, a slender, pale white dragon bone blade sheathed at his side. Jason didn’t know him, but as he watched, the Dragon Guard glared at him for a long moment.
Jason held onto the egg, and Sarah nodded to him. “You can bring it over here. When we have eggs, we keep them by the other dragons to ensure that they are protected.”
He looked down at the egg. “Did they feed the eggs while they were protecting them?”
Sarah studied the egg for a moment, her brow furrowing. “I don’t know. To be honest, I never noticed anything quite like that. The dragons couldn’t tell us, either. They just protected them.”
Jason thought about what he knew of dragon eggs and about what it would take to hatch them, to provide power within them, and to feed them the energy of their environment. That seemed to be the key, didn’t it? The ice dragon had fed upon the cold and ice of the northern mountain. The iron dragon had fed upon the heat of the mines. The forest dragon had fed upon the energy within the forest itself. Each of the misfits had done the same.
What could he offer this egg?
Maybe it was not about him offering this egg anything. The egg might have already fed on what it needed. Still, he considered what the forest dragon had done, the way that she had protected the egg by placing it within the clearing in the forest. That might have been what he needed to do.
“I think I need to bring it into the forest near the city,” he said, turning to the trees. When Sarah frowned at him, he nodded to the egg. “Think about where we found it. It was protected by the illusion, but it was also within the shadows of the forest.”
William, who had climbed off his dragon, joined him. “Why do you think that was?” He held out his hand, reaching for the egg, but didn’t touch it. It seemed as if the trembling within the egg started to shake a little bit more as William did that, though maybe that was only Jason’s imagination.
“It might be because the forest dragon tried to protect the egg, or it might be something more.” As far as he knew, it was only to nurture the egg, to feed it upon the forest itself. Maybe when this egg hatched, there would be another forest dragon.
He remembered the way the forest had felt to him, the energy within it that had come off the forest dragon. He might be able to create something similar, but even if he could, he didn’t know if that would be drawing upon his energy or on the energy of the forest dragon. Given how tired the forest dragon was, Jason didn’t know if such a thing would even be safe to do, or if it would drain too much from her. It might be necessary to wait longer and give her a chance to replenish her energy before he summoned the illusion. Only, if he did that, he worried that he would deplete the dragon egg of what it needed.
Turning to Sarah, an idea came to him. “Do you have other dragon pearls I might use?”
“Of course. Why?”
Jason turned his attention back to the egg. “I think I need to see if there’s a way to borrow energy in them to create an illusion. We need to protect this from Lorren. By taking it to Dragon Haven, we can use the Dragon Guard to help us defend it.”
“Your illusion is connected to the forest dragon,” Sarah said.
“It is, but I still think I can use the energy of the other dragons to help create it.” Maybe not just create it, but solidify it. Though he was connected to the forest dragon, along with the ice and iron dragon, he could still use power from the other dragon pearls. He thought it would allow him to use that power to solidify the illusion rather than drawing upon the forest dragon. If so, then he could do what was needed without straining her. At least until her strength returned. Then he would use what she might be able to offer.
They headed into the forest, and the others followed. He found the egg seemed to grow increasingly heavy the longer that he carried it, though it might be simply the bulk that made it difficult. He paused in a clearing not far from where they had landed. As he looked around, glancing at the sky and seeing the rising sunlight coming up that still left the forest floor cast in shadows, he set the egg down.
“Why here?” Sarah asked.
Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. This just feels right.”
William wrapped his arms around himself, as if hugging himself. “It feels dark.”
Jason frowned. That wasn’t his sense of it at all. Of course, maybe it wouldn’t be. His connection to the dragon was different. His connection to everything around him was different. Maybe even his connection to the egg was different. He could feel power around him, the connection that was here, and it felt right.
He stepped away from the egg, holding on to the dragon pearls Sarah had given him, and began to pull upon power. As he did, it flowed up through him, filling him. It came slowly at first, but as he pulled upon more and more energy, he found the illusion growing and building. He re-created what he had seen within the forest with the forest dragon, summoning as much of that familiarity as he could. It wouldn’t be perfect. He didn’t know everything that the forest dragon had done, but he had a feeling about what she had created. He even added moonlight overhead, swirling shadows around the center of the forest.
Something trembled within the egg, and Jason realized it wasn’t quite right. The egg needed something more. It wasn’t just the illusion the egg needed. He needed it to be solidified so that this was more like reality that had shifted and now existed here.
That was a different use of power, a more complicated one. Jason could do it, but could he do it without the forest dragon? Normally when he used that kind of power, it was borrowed energy from the forest dragon herself. Now he refused to borrow from her, which meant he was going to have to use the power of these dragon pearls along with what existed within him.
He focused, thinking about the illusion, and then thinking about how he needed to shift it as well.
Gradually, it solidified. Within that shifting, he felt the egg starting to ease. Still, there was something not quite right.
He set the dragon pearls around the clearing, creating a triangle around the dragon.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked.
Jason looked up. He had been arranging one of the dragon pearls near a tree. “It feels like I need to leave these here,” he said. “The illusion is feeding off them.”
“Feeding?” Sarah arched a brow.
Jason shook his head. “Not quite the same as what happened with the dragons, but similar.” It was similar enough that he thought he needed to be careful. It could be possible that the dragons would have enough energy drawn through these pearls to overwhelm them, weakening them. “We can ask the dragons.”
“The dragons have control over the pearls,” Sarah said. “If they’re getting too weakened, they could just separate their strength from it.”
Jason wasn’t sure if that would even work. He had felt the way the egg had pulled on power from him, through the other dragons, and wondered if the egg might be able to overwhelm the dragons associated with the pearls.
