Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,15

rage and anger, not wanting to be bound up in that violence. There was no point in doing so.

Letting out a deep breath, he looked over at the iron dragon, and he focused on the power from the dragon and tapped on the iron dragon’s side. They needed to find the bones—and why the dragons had been carrying them.

“It’s time for us to understand what they were after.”

4

Jason reached Dragon Haven, and he stood on the outskirts of the settlement. The city itself was massive, far more extensive than the number of people that filled it would require. There were times when he was left wondering what it might have been like when the city contained as many people as what must have filled it at its peak. How vast must Dragon Haven have been at that time?

He breathed in. The air smelled of the forest, along with the dampness of earth. Overhead the shimmering illusion held in place, protecting Dragon Haven.

The city had been protected from the very first moment that he had learned to place illusions. If it were up to Jason, he would maintain those connections and prevent Lorach from reaching him or the city.

It was as much a home as any place could be.

Even though it was, there was part of Jason that still didn’t feel as if the city was home.

It was strange to think that way, and stranger still he understood precisely why he did. Though he had been welcomed here, not only by Sarah but also by her parents and Henry and William and the others he’d met, there was a faction that did not welcome him. A faction, including the Dragon Guards, made him feel like he was still an outsider. That made him feel as if he were still a misfit.

Would that ever go away?

He wanted to protect Dragon Haven, but he also understood it was more than just protecting Dragon Haven. Jason wanted to protect the dragons.

When he had first come here, he had assumed that was what the people of Dragon Haven had wanted as well and had believed that they had shared values in that, but the more he had learned about these people, the more he had come to wonder if that was true or not.

He smiled to himself and started into the city, taking one of the main roads, before he veered off.

He needed to return to Dragon Haven, but there was something else he needed to do first.

He needed answers.

And he needed to check in on his small dragon charge.

He veered through the trees, ducking underneath branches that strained to brush at his face, focusing on the energy he could feel from the small night dragon. As he got closer to the dragon, he could practically feel the shadows starting to coalesce around him, as if some energy to them tried to wrap around him, to consume him. It was almost as if some power built up and around to squeeze upon him.

At first, he thought that maybe it was nothing more than his own illusion, but the closer he came, the more he realized this was not just the illusion he’d placed.

This was an illusion the night dragon had layered onto it.

It augmented it, adding even more power.

How much had the night dragon grown in just the last few days?

The night dragon had already proven he was incredibly powerful, and with each passing day, Jason had come to see and feel how powerful the night dragon would become. He was a mixture of other dragons, and that mixture made him into something more, something powerful, something incredible.

He passed through a darkened section of the forest, so dark that it pushed out all the daylight as if crushing it.

Jason paused. “You can reveal yourself.”

There was no response.

Strangely, coming into this part of the forest, he not only could feel the dragon around him, but it squeezed in such a way he could not feel anything else. It was almost as if the dragon prevented him from feeling any other connection. The sense of the ice and iron and forest dragons faded from him. The awareness of the dragons in Dragon Haven faded. It left Jason with nothing more than the energy that surrounded him. At least he could still feel that.

“You can step forward,” he said, this time more firmly.

He turned his focus inward, squeezing his iron dragon glove, reforming that connection, and heat surged in his hand, binding a connection back to the iron