“I’m sure I can—”
A strange sound caught his attention and he tipped his head to the side, listening. It had come from his left, toward the cave. It was slightly downslope, and it sounded something like a strangled cry.
Or it could be nothing more than the wind. Jason didn’t know if he was hearing anything correctly or not, and if it was just the wind, then anything else could be his imagination adding to it, twisting it so that it made it seem as if he were hearing something else.
Angus didn’t seem to notice.
“Why don’t you keep going. I’m going to see if I can’t find my bow.”
“You’re going to what?”
“I know where I might’ve left it.”
“Dreshen, you’re not going to find anything like this at night.”
“I have to look before the storm rolls through.”
“At least let me come with you.”
“There’s no point in both of us getting caught out in the night.”
Angus regarded him and finally shrugged. “Good luck.”
He headed upslope, pulling his cloak around him.
Were the situation any different, Jason might find it strange that Angus would abandon him within the storm, and yet he didn’t owe him anything, and more than that, Jason wasn’t risking himself by staying out in the storm.
As he stood there, the strange sound came again.
He didn’t know if he was imagining it, but against the night and with the wind being what it was, it was difficult to let it go.
He hurried back down the slope, veering off toward where he thought the cave entrance would be. If nothing else, he wanted to grab his bow and quiver so that when he did return to the village, he would have some way of explaining his absence. It took much less time to make his way downslope. Every so often, he would drop and slide before catching himself and getting back to his feet, scrambling along the snow. He found that he didn’t plunge nearly as deeply as he had before, though he wasn’t really trying to float along the surface of the snow.
Reaching the cave, he hesitated. The strange cry had not come again, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been something. He frowned before heading into the cave. He did so carefully, pushing his back along the wall, gliding his feet on the lip of ground. He slid forward, and then once inside, he staggered free before collapsing on the ground.
His quiver and bow were where he’d left them.
As he grabbed them, he realized there was something else in the cave with him.
Jason reached for the dragon pearl, pushing a hint of power into it, just enough for the pearl to start glowing and illuminate everything within the cave. The light caught the crystal surface of the cave, reflecting it like a lantern, and he came face-to-face with the dragon.
Jason dropped the pearl, and the light in the cave blinked out.
2
He scrambled for the pearl, sweeping his hands along the floor of the cave, trying to find where it had fallen. As he did, the only thing that filled his mind was the memory of the dragon’s icy blue eyes and the way the creature had looked at him. It had been weeks since he’d seen the dragon, and in that time, the creature seemed considerably larger than before. Large enough that he worried it would soon outgrow the cave. Then where would it go?
It surprised Jason that he would feel any sense of sadness at the idea of losing the dragon, but there was some part of him that wanted to keep the dragon around, if only so he could better understand the creature and whether he was at all connected to it.
He found the dragon pearl and raised it in his hand, pushing power through it. It began to glow, reflecting light off the top of the cave once again. When it did, it seemed almost as if the dragon were watching him, amusement flashing in the creature’s eyes.
This time, Jason held on to the pearl, clutching it tightly, watching the dragon. The creature sat back on its hind legs, resting on its wings. It was easily three times his size, large enough that it filled the inside of the cave, and yet he’d seen it glide through the stream, folding itself up to become small enough to fit within that space.
He swallowed. This close to the dragon, some ancient part of his brain felt fear of facing it and yet, he knew the dragon didn’t want to harm him. If it did, it would’ve done so other times. There had been ample opportunities for the dragon to have killed him or to have simply allowed him to die, yet it had not.
“You’re getting big,” he said.
It felt like the wrong thing to open with, but he wasn’t exactly sure what he should say to the dragon. He hadn’t seen it in long enough that he didn’t know.
The dragon rumbled, folding its wings in, wrapping them around its body. “And you remain the same size.”
Its voice was a strange scream, like ice shearing.
“I think I’m mostly done growing,” Jason said.
“And I am not.”
The dragon backed away from him.
“Was that your cry I heard?”
He flicked his gaze toward the entrance to the cave, but there was no sign of any other movement. After he’d reached the cave, he hadn’t heard anything else, though it was possible he wouldn’t.
“I was hunting,” the dragon said.
“Hunting what?”
“Hunting.”
“Where do you go to hunt?”
“Down.”
The hunting would be better down the slope. The trees were thicker, and there were other animals farther down the mountain. Rabbits and squirrels were more plentiful, and even the deer that occasionally wandered this high up the mountainside would be easier to find.
“What did you catch?”
“Food,” the dragon said.
Jason smiled to himself. “How do you make sure no one sees you?”
“No one hunts at night but me.”
It was an easy way for the dragon to be safe. People in his village stayed inside during the night, or at least within the village itself. Heading out of the village at night and risking one of the usual storms was typically a death sentence.
“Where were you earlier today?”
“Hunting,” the dragon said.
“You were hunting during the day then?”
The dragon rumbled. “I was hungry.”
He looked around the cave. If the dragon was leaving that often—and he knew it had to be—it would explain why there was little evidence of the creature. It would be gone, and much like anything else that happened outside with the snow and the swirling wind, any remains it might leave would be carried away.
“I could help you,” Jason said.
“Help me hunt? You’re so little.”
“Little, but I have my uses.”
He watched the dragon, thinking of the way Henry had ridden the other dragon. If he could do the same with the ice dragon, how much more would he be able to find?
It was possible he’d be able to travel to places he wouldn’t otherwise be able to approach.
It was likely to raise questions if he were to do so.
“Where would you go?” the dragon asked.
“Elsewhere,” Jason said.
The dragon rumbled. “That is not an answer.”
It lowered itself to the ground, curling up, resting its back along the wall. Within the glowing light of the dragon pearl, it seemed as if the dragon itself glistened, catching that reflected light, and it sighed softly. Strangely, there was a warmth within the cave that seemed to radiate off the dragon, though as far as Jason had been able to tell, the dragon was tied to snow and ice, not to heat, as the other dragons were.