Mist dragon, p.6
Mist Dragon, page 6
part #5 of Dragon Misfits Series
Jason thought of the lost jungle dragon. There might be others that had not survived, hunted and attacked because they were different. It saddened him, and he sensed a similar sadness within the dragon.
They circled, flying in the thin air above everything else. Every so often, Jason reached through his connection to the dragon, borrowing his sight, and looked down upon the world to see what existed below him. There wasn’t much he could make out from where he flew, though occasionally he caught glimpses of snowcapped mountains and swirling snow. He sensed contentment within the dragon when he saw the snow and the wind and the inhospitable conditions.
Surprisingly, it was a contentment that Jason shared, at least in a way. Having grown up in a village where snow and ice were a frequent companion, something was refreshing about it. His sister didn’t share that emotion. Not anymore. Kayla had adjusted to her time in Dragon Haven, coming to grips with the change, entirely happy to abandon the village.
“You’ve been quiet,” the ice dragon said as they flew. “You have not wanted to speak of him.”
Jason chuckled. “Sometimes, I forget just how much you can recognize my emotions.”
“As you can recognize mine,” the dragon said.
“Yours aren’t nearly as easy as I wish they were.”
“Neither are yours,” the dragon said.
Jason smiled again and leaned over, looking down upon the world below him. “I don’t know why he never would have told me what he was.”
“Perhaps he could not.”
“Why did he choose our village?”
“Perhaps he did not.”
Only, Jason didn’t think his father had been sent to the village by the Dragon Souls. He had no idea what role his parents had, only that his power was gifted to him by his parents, and they must have known what they could do. His father, at least, must have known.
“You’ve avoided seeking answers,” the ice dragon said.
“I haven’t avoided it.”
“You’ve hunted.”
“Because it’s been necessary,” Jason said.
He felt as if it were necessary. After the attack in Lorach, he felt as if he needed to better understand what they faced. He had helped dragons. Countless dragons. By freeing them from Dragon Souls, Jason had changed the dynamics of the rebellion. For the first time, the rebellion teetered toward overthrowing the power of Lorach.
Only, first they had to stop Jessica from controlling other dragons. It was why he hunted.
“We need more misfits,” he said. “And we need to find them before the others do.”
“The Dragon Souls won’t be able to find the others,” the ice dragon said. “They aren’t patient enough.”
Jason laughed a little bit. They started to descend, heading through the clouds, and when they poked free, the snowcapped mountains loomed in front of him, closer than he had expected. The ice dragon banked, twisting off to the side, forcing Jason to dig his heels in and grip the icy spikes more tightly. Water beaded around his hands.
“They aren’t patient, but they are determined. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re persistent, as well.”
Persistence was the key, at least when it came to the misfits. Partly that was trying to understand just where to find the misfits.
“Besides, knowing Therin as she did, I suspect she’ll know how to find them. Especially now that she’s seen how powerful you are.” And different. She wanted both. “Which is the other reason I’ve been hunting.”
“That is not the other reason,” the ice dragon said.
He sensed a bit of amusement, mixed with irritation—at him.
“You don’t want me to find them? If she traps them and uses those dragons against us, then—”
“You need to better understand yourself before you go chasing this sort of power,” the ice dragon said.
Jason grunted. “I understand myself well enough.”
He fell silent as they circled around one of the snowy mountains. Down here, the brunt of the wind and the swirling snow crashed into him, the snow feeling more like needles that burrowed into his skin. He had to maintain his connection to the iron dragon to ensure it didn’t harm him. The ice dragon seemed to feel that pain—and seemed amused by it.
“You don’t have to take such joy in tormenting me,” he said.
The dragon chuckled, the sound disappearing into the wind as they banked, turning and heading off to the west. They flew, staying low and close to the ground.
As before, Jason reached through his connection to the dragon and used the ice dragon’s sight. He wasn’t able to make out much of anything, though every so often, he caught blurring movement. After the third time catching that movement, he motioned to the ice dragon.
“Do you see that?” he asked.
“Of course,” the dragon said.
“What is it?”
“Food.”
Jason laughed. “To you, everything is food.”
“Even you,” the ice dragon said, turning toward him and snapping his jaw.
Jason laughed again.
They twisted, turning and heading farther to the west. They stayed low, swirling through the increasingly warm air, as moisture dripped from Jason. The moisture turned to ice that glistened off the ice dragon’s back, gleaming along his surface. As they flew, the ice dragon twisted again, streaking toward the sky, toward colder air, and then back down.
Each time they went toward the sky and the colder air, Jason could feel why they did it. Heading to the upper atmosphere replenished power within the dragon, just as he recognized how the warmer air stressed him, challenging his ability to withstand the more temperate climates.
“Why do you do this to yourself?”
“I must be able to accommodate it,” he said.
“You don’t have to.”
“If I am to stay with you, I do.”
There was the key. The ice dragon wanted to stay with Jason.
They dove back toward the ground again, and movement in the far north caught his attention. It caught the ice dragon’s attention as well. The ice dragon twisted, veering off toward what he had seen. They streaked through the air.
The ice dragon was a fast flyer. Perhaps one of the fastest of the dragons. In colder weather, the ice dragon was probably unrivaled. Even in the warmer air, he was still incredibly fast. The only dragon Jason had seen that surpassed the ice dragon was the storm dragon. Thankfully, the storm dragon had disappeared, led off by the forest dragon, and no longer a threat. At least, Jason hoped that it was no longer a threat.
As they neared, Jason recognized the blue dragon. What was he doing coming back?
“Can you speak to the dragon?” Jason asked the ice dragon.
The dragon snorted. It came as a heavy rumbling that echoed through the air. The wind tried to tear some of that sound away but wasn’t able to take all of it. “No, but I think it’s unnecessary.”
The ice dragon slowed, readying for the arrival of the other dragon. The blue dragon had no rider ever since David had fallen. Jason wasn’t sure if there could be one. Perhaps he wouldn’t accept any again. If he did, it would have to be somebody who was skilled—possibly even powerful. Would such a person be allowed to make a connection with him?
“What is it?” Jason called across to the dragon.
“Come,” the dragon said.
“Did you find Jessica?”
The blue dragon breathed a streamer of flame. “Come.”
He veered off, heading back in the direction he’d come. Jason tapped on the ice dragon, and they followed. Every so often, Jason tested to make sure that the blue dragon wasn’t tainted, that he hadn’t been influenced by a Dragon Soul, but each time he did so, he found a resistance to Jason’s magic. Some of that resistance had to come from what David had done, though some of it seemed to be natural, innate to the dragon itself. It was a strange thing to be aware of, stranger still that he could feel just how powerful that resistance was.
Perhaps the training David had used with the dragon had given him that resistance. Jason wasn’t sure, but then he hadn’t known enough about David. The Auran had remained a mystery to him up until his death and remained so even now.
The dragon started to slow, and so did Jason and the ice dragon. They dropped down near a river with water rushing through and waves burbling along, and the blue dragon settled down near it.
Jason climbed down from the ice dragon’s back.
“Look,” the blue dragon said.
Jason shook his head, staring at the river. “What am I supposed to look at?”
“Look,” the blue dragon said again.
The blue dragon headed into the river, and Jason followed.
The water rushed past him. It forced him to brace himself, holding on to power from the other dragons. Were it not for the energy of the ice dragon and the heat of the iron dragon, Jason might’ve been swept along by the current.
Of course, he doubted that the blue dragon would have allowed that. Even if he had, Jason could have used the power from the dragons he had connected to to break free. He felt the power and energy within him.
As he waded after the dragon, looking down to see just what it was that the dragon was trying to show him, he still didn’t see anything.
“Do you see anything?” he asked the ice dragon.
The dragon snorted. “No.”
“Look,” the blue dragon said.
Jason stopped when the other dragon did, looking down.
The only thing he noticed was the changing of the water, as if it were swirling around some obstacle in the river. “I’m not sure what you want me to see.”
“Look,” the dragon said.
Jason continued to stare into the water. He still didn’t see anything.
He tried a different tact.
Turning to the dragon, Jason tried to connect to him and borrow from his sight.
He didn’t have a connection to the dragon usually, but by standing close to him, he hoped the dragon would allow him to connect. If he did, then Jason would be able to see what he wanted him to see.
Perhaps that was what the dragon was trying to urge him to do anyway. Jason connected, and he looked through the dragon’s eyesight. It was different than what he saw with the ice dragon, different even than what he saw with the iron dragon. The water swirled around, creating a rippling of waves around an obstruction beneath him. At first, Jason thought what he was seeing was a rock, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
It was too round. Almost perfectly round.
Understanding dawned on him.
“An egg,” he whispered.
5
T he water swirled around the egg, and he tried to grasp just what it was that he was seeing. The egg was enormous, standing on end and reaching easily up to his waist. As the water rippled around him, the water looked clear, almost translucent. The sunlight glistened off the surface.
Jason backed out of the river, crouching near its edge, looking out into the water. “That’s what you wanted me to see?”
The dragon shook himself, heat radiating from his body so the water that had been on his scaled sides suddenly turned to steam. “You saw it.”
“I saw it, but the egg wasn’t intact.”
From what Jason could tell, the egg had either already hatched or had been damaged, and the dragon hadn’t survived. If the former were the case, it meant the river dragon or water dragon or whatever this one would be had already disappeared. If that latter, then it was one more egg that hadn’t survived.
“Have you seen where the dragon went?”
“No,” the blue dragon said.
“I don’t know how we will find it, then, unless we find something strange with water that we can’t otherwise explain.”
“We must hunt,” the blue dragon said.
“Jessica is going to be hunting, too,” Jason said.
If she uncovered a freshly hatched egg, it would be dangerous. Jessica might have already identified the dragon misfit. What would she do with a river dragon? It depended upon the power within the dragon.
“I didn’t realize you have been looking for these dragons,” he said to the blue dragon. “Will you continue?”
“Yes. The others search, too.”
“Others? Are there other dragons looking?” Jason looked from the blue dragon to the ice dragon, but neither of them offered him an answer. “What others are looking?”
“Others.”
Jason frowned. If not a dragon, there weren’t many others the blue dragon would refer to. It meant Lorach. Jessica. She searched for eggs.
“Is that what she’s doing? I thought she’s searching for Dragon Haven.”
“She does both. You must be careful in case she succeed. I will hunt, and you must hunt.” The dragon shook himself again, then launched into the air, circling for a moment until he disappeared into the cloudy sky. Jason hesitated, but then he connected to the blue dragon.
He didn’t know how long he would be able to do so, or whether the blue dragon would prevent him from reaching the connection, but as he connected across the distance, he could look down to see where he stood next to the ice dragon, and he had a sense of the blue dragon he didn’t have otherwise. It was almost as if the dragon permitted him to know him.
Then Jason tore that attention away. He didn’t want to maintain it any longer than he should. The dragon allowed a certain amount of connection, but he didn’t want Jason to hold onto it.
When he was gone, he turned to the ice dragon. “What do you think a river dragon will be like?”
“Is that what you will call him?”
“Are you sure that it’s a him?”
“Perhaps not,” the ice dragon said.
“There aren’t many females, though, so maybe we’ll get lucky.” He stared at the water, thinking about a water dragon and what it might look like, the way that he might fly—or swim. It was possible the dragon wouldn’t fly at all.
“He may not have survived,” the ice dragon said.
“All of the others have survived the hatching.”
“All of the others you have found have survived. There were probably others that did not.”
Jason hadn’t considered that, though it did make a particular sort of sense. “I suppose it’s good the blue dragon was willing to hunt.”
“I will look as well,” the ice dragon said.
“Good,” Jason said. “We haven’t found a misfit for a while.”
As he headed toward the ice dragon, the dragon shook himself, and spikes streaked off his back. When they struck the water, they floated for a moment before sinking.
“What was that about?” Jason asked.
“A plea for the dragon to come to us,” the ice dragon said.
“Will it work?”
“I don’t know.”
Jason turned toward the river, and he watched where the water swirled around the egg, wondering what it must’ve been like for that dragon. Within the river, there would’ve been no shortage of food. In other places where the dragons had hatched, it wasn’t quite as easy to feed.
When the ice dragon had hatched, Jason had assumed that he must have needed to hunt in the mountains, searching for game, but the more that he had been around the ice dragon, the more that he had begun to wonder if perhaps what he fed on wasn’t so much animals as it was the cold itself. That cold seemed to fuel the dragon in a way that nothing else did.
He climbed onto the dragon’s back. “We should return.”
It was time to get back to the city. He didn’t know what the Dragon Guard might be up to, but without being able to be a part of it, he couldn’t linger too long. The Dragon Guard intended to marginalize him, and that was something Jason was unwilling to do. If Lorach was involved, he was the best equipped to deal with it.
He wrapped his arms around the dragon’s neck, embracing him, and they streaked into the sky. They reached the thin air before dropping back down to the ground.
“What will you do?” Jason asked.
“Hunt with the other.”
It was good the ice dragon and the iron dragon got along well enough to hunt together. “Let me know if you find anything.”
The dragon let out a breath of cold air and then launched himself into the sky. Jason watched for a moment until the dragon disappeared above the top of the trees, parting through the illusion. When he was gone, the illusion formed around him, leaving empty sky.
Outside Dragon Haven, Jason had secured an illusion around the ice dragon so that he would look like an enormous raptor, but he had wondered how long he would have to hold onto that. At some point, he hoped the illusion would become unnecessary, that a time would come when the dragons were accepted and not feared. It was the same thing that all the dragons felt. None wanted to have to maintain an illusion. They wanted to fly freely.
Jason looked around the clearing. There were no young dragons here today. Three of the dragon instructors were nearby, watching Jason, nodding when he turned his attention to them. They weren’t trainers. They would never refer to themselves as trainers, not after the Dragon Souls considered themselves to be so, because using that word would admit they were similar to Dragon Souls. They helped raise the young dragons, trainer or not.
He headed through the courtyard, passing through the gate and into the streets of Dragon Haven. The sun shone down overhead, and he opened up the dragonskin jacket he wore, releasing some of the stored heat inside. He probably didn’t need dragonskin, not anymore, though there was some element of protection to it that was more than just what it offered from heat and cold. Having the dragonskin protected him were he attacked. Plus, there was the added benefit that it had once been David’s. By claiming the dragonskin for his own, he had a connection to the lost man.
The main building was much larger than the surrounding ones. Even though he knew it to have only a single level, it arced higher overhead, as if there were multiple stories. Once inside, the halls were wide and vast, and the dragon relics were far more prominent. As Jason reached the entrance to the main building, he paused, tracing his finger over the outline of a dragon etched into the wooden door. Most doors within this building had a similar symbol engraved upon them.
