of the summons and the trance that had been placed upon them.
“Henry,” Jason said, touching Henry on the arm. Nothing changed. He stared blankly. “It’s Jason Dreshen,” Jason said.
Still, there was no reaction from Henry. Jason touched him again, trying to tap on him to get his attention, but there was nothing.
Only the confusion in his eyes.
He continued looking at Henry, watching to make sure that he wasn’t building any power. He added energy to his tapping, using a hint of water and heat, mixing them together, sending it washing over Henry. Henry blinked, and for a moment that confusion cleared, but then it returned.
“Something’s not quite right yet,” Jason said, looking back toward the hatched dragonling. There was a vague sense of it, but also the illusion he’d formed around it in order to shield the dragon from Lorach. “I thought hatching the egg would make a difference but it hasn’t.”
He pushed power out, focusing on it, letting it wash over Henry, trying to heal him. That still didn’t work.
“What if there’s another egg?” Janeya asked.
“We’ll have to find it.” He focused on the dragons overhead. They would have to help, as well.
He would deal with that after he separated the people of Dragon Haven from what Jessica and the egg did to them. First, he would do that, then he could figure out if there were other eggs like this to be concerned by.
Could I use illusion?
If he were to do that, he thought that he might be able to bring Henry back, but it would involve twisting the illusion in such a way that would carry him out of the mind trap that he was in.
Jason had used something like this before.
He studied the man in front of him, feeling the power coming off him.
He was fighting.
That was why Jason had been able to detect something. Henry struggled with whatever was happening to him. What must he be experiencing? It was within his mind, the same sort of power and illusion that Jason had once experienced when he had gone to Lorach.
“Maybe there is another egg still feeding and calling them forward,” he said.
How could he separate them from what Lorach had done?
Healing hadn’t been enough.
A strong enough illusion might work, but it would have to be powerful.
Jason focused on the energy of the forest dragon, borrowing from her power, letting that sense of energy fill him. There was something within it that he needed.
The illusion formed, pushing out from him, and he drew upon as much as he could to separate his illusion. He focused on the ice dragon and the iron dragon, then he added that of the forest dragon, and by pushing all of them together, he squeezed in a way that created a surge of power.
Finally, it washed over the others.
He could feel a shifting. Jason maintained that connection, holding onto the power that was shifting, and he let that energy wash out from him. When he did, he could definitely feel something change.
Henry looked over, then he blinked. “Jason?”
Jason sighed.
It worked.
He could feel it holding. More than that, he could feel what he needed to do to maintain it. He pushed a hint more, maintaining his connection to the illusion, mastering everything that he could as he held onto that power, letting it flow into him.
“Henry. It’s good to see you back.”
“Back? What happened?”
Jason looked around, focusing on the power he still held. There were too many people here for him to be able to use this illusion the way he needed.
“All I can say is that somehow you were targeted by Lorach,” Jason said.
“Targeted? I don’t understand.”
He shared with him what happened, the egg, and the way the people of Dragon Haven had been used. As he did, Henry looked at Jason with a strange expression in his eyes that burned with uncertainty. It was the expression of a man who had suffered, and strangely, Jason understood it. He had gone through something similar, and he knew just how hard it would be to explain. At the same time, Jason needed to get to Henry quickly, and he needed to convince him to be of assistance.
He hadn’t shared with him the boneyard. Yet. He would have to know about those dragons soon. Jason looked around, motioning to the plains. “Do you know where we are?”
“This is the Flor Plain. It’s the outer edge of Lorach. All these people are here as well for the same reason?”
Jason motioned toward the egg. “The