“I doubt it,” the ice dragon said.
“Is that only because you don’t want to, or because you don’t think that you can?”
“I think the two of us are different enough that it will be difficult for me to effectively work with him.”
“You’re both dragons.”
“We are both dragons, but we are different.”
It reminded Jason of what David had said. Misfits. Was that really what the dragons were? He didn’t think so, and yet, they were unusual. Unusual wasn’t necessarily bad, but perhaps when it came to these dragons, unusual was… unusual.
And they needed to work together, regardless of what the ice dragon said. If they could work together, if they could connect to each other, then they could better understand their purpose. And in understanding that purpose, they could find some way of uncovering the other dragon.
There had to be another dragon here. He might not be able to feel it, not the same way as the ice dragon or David, but there was something about this place that suggested there would be a dragon. And rather than searching for the dragon, he could try to uncover what about this place would fit the dragon. What traits would it take on from here?
If he could discover that, then he could help the dragon when they found it. Assuming they did find one.
What did he know? There was humidity. There were trees. There was nothing else.
Perhaps there wouldn’t be any way to determine anything from here.
He didn’t know enough about this land to know whether anything here would be helpful. It was possible that though he had found the ice and the iron dragons, there would be nothing like that here.
Jason took a deep breath and noticed something strange to the air.
At first, he wasn’t sure what it was. An energy seemed to fill the air, and he looked around, searching for the source of it, but found nothing.
There had to be something here.
He turned toward David. David was still walking in a circle and muttering to himself. The ice dragon was slowly making his way over to the iron dragon, but neither was saying anything.
As far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything here, and yet, there was something to the air. There was an energy, and he thought he could use it.
Jason ignored the dragon pearl he was holding on to, focusing instead on that energy. If there was anything he would be able to uncover, it would be in drawing through that energy, not any other way.
He focused, and that sense came to him, drifting slowly at first, but then as he continued to pull upon it, with an increasing intensity.
It was near the other dragons.
Jason made his way there, holding on to the dragon pearl, that energy similar to what he detected from both the ice and the iron dragons.
There was another possibility, and it troubled him the most. As he approached, he looked around, glancing at the sky, half afraid he might come across one of the Dragon Souls—or more. What if David had betrayed them? He might have spoken the words of the flame, and the ice dragon might have detected something within them, but what did that really mean? It was possible that whatever connection he claimed, whatever bond he said came from it, meant nothing.
He reached the ice dragon.
It was watching the iron dragon as he slithered around the trees. There was something strange about the way that he watched, and it took Jason a moment to realize that the ice dragon was attempting to slither the same way that the iron dragon did.
He stood watching for a moment.
If only there was some way that the two of them would be able to understand each other. It was possible they were different enough that they wouldn’t be able to do so. Jason wanted them to try to find some common ground. If they could, then they would be stronger for it. They were hatch mates.
The energy continued to increase, building with a violence.
“Do you feel that?”
The ice dragon turned toward him. His sides glistened and the layer of ice over him was not nearly as thick as it had been.
“There’s some sort of energy here.”
The dragon rumbled.
He sniffed the air, turning his long-fanged snout toward the ground, and sniffed again. Cold radiated from the dragon, and as it did, he formed a thicker barrier of ice around himself.
“I don’t detect anything,” the dragon said.
It could be that the effort of trying to withstand whatever was taking place around here was too much for the dragon, but it could be something else. If it came from whatever energy Jason detected, he would need to act more quickly. He focused on what he could detect, and yet nothing was clear to him.
The iron dragon continued his slithering course through the forest, and Jason watched, focusing on the energy from the dragon, wondering if there was anything he might be able to learn. It was unclear to him.
The Dragon Soul remained near the center of the clearing. Jason watched, searching for any sign of what David might be doing, trying to understand just what it was, but he couldn’t tell. The man was making his circle, muttering, and yet… There came an energy from him, too.
That was the source of what Jason was detecting.
He headed back over to the Dragon Soul, stopping just outside of the circle he formed. “What are you doing?”
“You cannot disturb this.”
“What are you doing?”
The Dragon Soul flicked his gaze up. His eyes had taken on an orange hue, and sweat dripped down his brow. “I am trying to summon the creature.”
“You want to control it.”
“Not control. The dragons need to be trained.”
Jason wanted to lash out, to strike the Dragon Soul, but if he could draw the dragon to them, then perhaps he could try to find some way of connecting to it.
The only problem was that if the dragon reacted the same way the iron dragon had, then it might be angry at how it would have been summoned.
“How are you summoning it?”
“I am calling to its nature.”
“We don’t know its nature.”
“We know enough about it to be able to call to it,” David said.
The circling continued and the muttering persisted. Jason stood on the other side of the circle, debating whether or not he should interrupt what the Dragon Soul was doing, but decided to let him continue.
He stood back a step, watching, feeling the energy David was producing.
Would there be anything he could do to add to the Dragon Soul’s efforts?
Not to try to summon the dragon, but perhaps to prevent David from harming the creature if it finally appeared.
He focused, pushing power out through the dragon pearl.
That was a mistake. He couldn’t use the power of the ice dragon, not as the dragon was straining to overcome the effects of this place.
Was there another way he could do it?
There were other dragon pearls. The Dragon Souls had carried them, and he could use one of those.
He reached into his pocket, feeling one of the dragon pearls, and pulled it out. It had a bluish color to it, streaks of black running along its surface, and it was perfectly smooth and round. It was slightly warm and he squeezed it, attempting to push a hint of power through it.
As he did, he felt a strange reverberation.
David looked up. “What did you do?”
“I was going to help,” Jason said.
David glanced down at the pearl in Jason’s hand. “You just alerted them.”
“Alerted who?”
“The others.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I felt it.”
“This is a dragon pearl. It’s connected to the dragons.”
“And which dragon do you think it’s connected to?”