The heat began to compress, squeezing in upon him.
Therin took a step toward him, watching as he did. He smiled. It was a dark and angry expression, and Jason trembled.
“You have made a mistake in thinking you could take on the Dragon Souls. Pride will be your downfall.”
There had to be some way to overwhelm this power.
He had other dragon pearls. He thought about mixing fire and ice, exploding it. It had worked on the wall between the cells. It had to work on Therin, and all Jason had to do was bring that power together.
He couldn’t reach into his pockets. His hands were squeezed by the heat.
Therin neared him.
He dipped his hand through the heat barrier, grabbing for the dragon pearls. He took everything Jason had. The ones he’d taken from the fallen Dragon Souls, the ice dragon pearl. The only one he didn’t take was the one clutched in his hand.
Heat rolled through Jason, and he squeezed the dragon pearl.
He tried to summon anger, but fear was the only emotion he knew right now. He wanted to run. He wanted to be anywhere but here, and yet he couldn’t do anything. He could barely even breathe.
Therin smiled at him.
“You thought to claim from the Dragon Souls. That was another mistake. With these, I can track the dragons you twisted.”
Jason strained, trying to take a deep breath, but his breath didn’t fill him as it had before.
He let out a cry of frustration.
The iron dragon stirred.
“Help me,” he cried out.
The iron dragon rolled and sent a hint of power, but it came slowly.
Therin reached for Jason’s hand. Jason cried again, trying to fight.
When Therin pulled his hand up, he started to peel back his fingers.
He wasn’t going to get the iron dragon pearl. Of all of them, Jason feared what might happen to the iron dragon most. The ice dragon had some resistance, and with the chill he possessed, he suspected he could use it to overwhelm the influence of the Dragon Souls. And there was something within the ice dragon himself that seemed to have an innate resistance. The iron dragon was different. He’d been tormented. Held captive. And anything the Dragon Souls might do to him would only make that worse.
Somehow, he had to fight.
He squeezed on the dragon pearl, pushing power through it, letting his anger fill him. Something within the dragon pearl began to change.
Heat flared in his hand, and the metal, if that was what it was, began to roll over his hand. When Therin pried his fingers open, it seemed as if he had dipped his hand into molten metal.
Therin stared at it. “What is that?”
Strangely, the molten metal seemed to connect Jason to the iron dragon’s power more effectively. He called upon it, letting anger fill him, but even that wasn’t necessary. He was able to connect to the iron dragon, and he used that power and pushed it outward, exploding it into Therin’s chest.
He went tumbling away.
The heat that wrapped around him and constricted him dissipated.
Jason glanced over at the iron dragon before running toward Therin. He held out his metal hand, forcing it toward Therin, and when he got to him, he pushed power out once again. He let the power of the iron dragon flow through him, and it slammed into Therin.
Therin staggered back.
Jason called upon it again, using more power, but this time Therin was ready. He wrapped some sort of protection around himself so that when Jason’s power struck, nothing happened.
“Interesting trick,” Therin said.
Therin twisted the dragon pearls that he’d claimed.
One of them was the ice dragon pearl, and it flashed, glimmering, and Jason lunged for it. He wasn’t about to let Therin take that dragon pearl with him.
Therin darted back, dancing away.
Jason staggered forward, trying to reach him, and he managed to swat Therin’s hand, knocking down the dragon pearls he was holding.
Therin laughed.
“Do you think I need those?”
He raised his hands and then brought them down. He slammed into Jason, knocking him to the ground. He crouched on hands and knees, trying to crawl forward, and yet there was nothing that he could do. Whatever Therin had done to him prevented him from moving. He tried again, attempting to crawl toward him, trying to find some way to knock him down, but he was unsuccessful.
More and more power began to press down upon him. He was crushed. His arms and legs slipped out from under him. He lay on the hard-packed ground, his face pushed into the earth.
Therin stood near him. “You will suffer.”
And then a strange sound occurred.
It sounded almost as if it were raining, but the sky was still blue. More and more of the things that sounded like raindrops began to shoot down, and Jason was able to twist his head off to the side just enough to see that spikes of ice were raining down around them. Therin shifted the focus of his heat upward, trying to melt the ice, but the ice dragon continued his attack, raining shards of ice, shooting them toward the ground. The heat managed to liquefy most of them, but not all. Therin was struck in the chest by one, and he dropped to his knee.
At that moment, the iron dragon swung his tail.
Jason thought that he might carve through Therin, but Therin shifted some hint of power, and it managed to catch the tail, preventing the Dragon Soul from being cut in half.
Jason sat up. The pressure on him had released, and he looked around.
The ice dragon hovered, shooting icicles at Therin. The iron dragon was on his legs, unsteady but swinging his sharp tail, the entire length of his body glowing with orange light. And other shapes appeared in the sky. Shadowed forms of dragons. A dozen of them. Maybe more. All of them attacking Therin, using their energy as they did.
Therin shot Jason a look, and then he twisted his hands in a strange pattern. A burst of flame shot from the ground, and then he was gone.
Jason sagged back, leaning on his hands and knees, and stared up at the sky.
The dragons had saved him.
21
He rested with his back against the iron dragon, who radiated a comfortable warmth. He glowed softly, though not with the same intensity as he did when he was attacking. The ice dragon had departed, though he was nearby. Jason could feel his energy, and every so often, the ice dragon sent a wave of healing washing through him. It helped to restore him, to strengthen him, and he couldn’t help but feel thankful for it.
David sat cross-legged not far from him. He stared into the distance. He muttered under his breath, and Jason wondered who he was talking to, though it might just be himself.
“He escaped,” Henry said. His arms were crossed in front of him and he had an angry tilt to his jaw. Blood had crusted on the side of his cheek, but whatever injury he’d sustained had been healed.
“He did,” Jason said.
“And now he knows about these two dragons.”
“He does.”
He looked up, trying to comprehend the dragons perched all around them. They were arranged in a formation, the five dragons that had come from Dragon Haven toward the center, and the others that Jason had freed with them. Surprisingly, the red dragon was alive, despite what Therin had claimed.
“What will you do?” Jason asked.
“We need to protect this land,” Sarah said, marching forward. “The rebellion had abandoned any attempt at trying to claim additional land, but if you can protect the dragons, pushing our influence might not be necessary.”