She flashed a smile, glancing to his bow before looking up and meeting his eyes. “Well, I’m going with my father to hunt close to Varmin.”
“You’re going hunting?”
“You don’t have to say that as if you don’t think I can do it.”
Jason shook his head. “That wasn’t what I was getting at.” He wished he could take it back. It was more about Tessa leaving the village, the fear that she would have in doing so. How could she not, after what happened the last time she’d left? Jason didn’t think that she had left the village in the time since.
“My father wanted me to come. The hunting parties haven’t had as much luck lately, and…”
“I’m sure you’ll have luck. If anyone will, it will be you.”
“You could go with them. Us.”
There was a time when Jason might have agreed to it. That was before.
“Maybe next time,” he said.
“Are you sure?” There was a hint of hope in her voice, and it pained Jason to be the one who would take that hope away, but it also surprised him that she would even want him to be a part of any hunting party.
“I…”
He trailed off as he caught sight of Reltash making his way toward him.
Tessa looked to Reltash, and she nodded slowly. “I understand. Next time.” She left him, and Jason experienced a pang of sadness.
Reltash was dressed in his dragonskin coat and had a sword strapped to his side and a bow slung over his shoulder. Angus wasn’t with him today, but neither was Marl. It was a rare time Reltash was alone.
Jason approached. “Are you going off hunting again today?”
Reltash turned toward him slowly, and Jason made a point of pulling the bow off his shoulder, holding on to it.
“I’m going,” Jason said. “I thought I found something yesterday, but there were others who scared it away.”
“Dreshen. Where did you find that?”
“You mean my bow? You weren’t nearly as strong as you thought.”
Reltash frowned. Jason could imagine the way his mind was working, trying to sort through everything he had experienced, and it was almost as if Reltash were trying to decide if he actually had been responsible for damaging the bow. It was enough for Jason to smile.
And yet, he was careful not to say anything. He didn’t want to draw too much attention to the fact that he had restored the bow. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he had done so. If Reltash examined it too closely, he would find it was covered by ice, and that layer should render it brittle, and yet it seemed just as flexible as it had been before.
“I imagine it’s more effective than the one you carry.” Jason flashed a dark smile and pushed past Reltash, heading out of the snow. He could feel Reltash’s eyes burning on his back and he took off, hurrying down the slope. Every so often, he would pause and glance back, but there was no sign of movement coming out of the village.
Move carefully to avoid falling.
This time, he wanted to fall.
He dropped down to his backside, sliding, trying to pick up speed. If he was going to meet the dragon, he wanted to do so as quickly as possible. Now that he had committed to this, it was time for them to get on their way.
It was the middle of the morning by the time he reached the stream and the cave.
Jason darted inside, moving carefully along the lip of earth, and paused to ensure that the two deer he’d caught were still where he’d left them.
They were untouched.
He glanced down at the stream. There was no sign of the dragon.
Here he had committed himself to this, telling himself he would be taking off for the day, but what if the dragon wasn’t interested in that any longer?
He knew the dragon had been off hunting, and it was possible that he had disappeared again. If that were the case, then there might not be anything Jason could do to reach him.
How had he called the dragon the last time?
It had something to do with using the dragon pearl.
He took a seat, focusing on the dragon pearl and on the cold within him. It was the same thing he’d done the night before when he had tried to use that power on his mother, and as he did, he could feel energy radiating from him, striking the pearl and flowing outward.
The dragon pearl began to glow with a soft white light which intensified, striking the crystals overhead and reflecting off them.
It was blazing, illuminating the entirety of the cave, and as it did, he had to worry that doing so might have been a mistake. What if he was alerting others of his presence? If anyone saw the cave mouth glowing like that, they would know something was taking place inside it. It wouldn’t surprise him for Reltash and anyone with him to come down here, not after they had been searching for something.
And he didn’t even know what they had been searching for.
Jason let out a frustrated sigh.
There was no sign of the dragon. The more he focused, the more uncertain he was that he would even come across it.
Reaching the dragon involved some way of communicating, and yet he wasn’t entirely sure what it was going to take. It was possible he didn’t know enough about how to reach out to the dragon. It was something to do with his way of calling to it, but what was that going to require?
He pushed power out, sending it through the dragon pearl.
A stirring in the water caught his attention. Jason glanced over. The dragon poked his head out, letting his eyes press against the surface of the stream, and when his gaze locked on Jason, he crawled out, shaking free. This time, small shards of ice did come splattering off him. It was almost as if the dragon were angry with him.
“You returned,” the dragon said.
“I told you that I would.”
“I wasn’t certain.”
Jason glanced over at the deer. “I had to make sure that my family was provided for.”
“What about my family?”
“You still haven’t told me whether the hatch mates are your family.”
The dragon sat up. It might be Jason’s imagination, but it seemed almost as if the dragon were even larger than the last time he’d seen it. The top of his head brushed the ceiling of the cave. As he propped himself up on his crystalline wings, they spread out, making it so that the dragon filled the entirety of the cave.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m ready to go,” he said. “I told you that I needed to see if there was anything my family needed. I made sure that they had enough to eat, and hopefully they are as prepared as possible for however long it takes us to find the hatch mates.”
The dragon lowered his head, and Jason climbed on.
There was a chill from the dragon, and he wasn’t sure if it came from the creature himself or from the water the dragon had been in. Either way, that chill was almost overwhelming, pressing in upon Jason, and he wrapped his bearskin jacket around himself. Most of the time, he didn’t need the jacket any longer, and yet, with the dragon behaving like this, he had an even greater need for it.
It surprised him. It was almost as if the dragon was angry with him, and yet, Jason didn’t know what he could do to temper that anger. He had left the dragon, yes, but he had needed to. His family had needed him. The dragon had to understand that.
Only, it didn’t seem as if it did.
They glided along the surface of the snow. It was the same thing they had done the day before, and as they slid along the snow, picking up speed the faster they went down the slope, the wind whistling around them, Jason closed his eyes and clung to the dragon’s back. There was nothing else he could do.
He took a deep breath, drawing in the cold air, letting it fill him. In doing so, he managed to ignore the cold he felt through the dragon. It was almost as if he was able to disregard the way the dragon pressed upon him, sending chills rolling through him.