heat the farther they went, and as they traveled, he wondered why the earth dragon would call him here.
“Where did he find you?”
She looked back and shook her head. “He never said.”
“Why not?”
“It didn’t matter. He found me. Saved me. And said that had he not brought me with him, I would have been killed.”
“Why?”
She glowered at him for a moment, but then the irritation in her gaze softened just a little bit. “You have already mentioned why.”
“Lorach?” Jason asked.
She nodded, then turned away, hurrying into the darkness.
He held out the iron dragon glove, letting the power flow from him, the energy glowing, and he tried to keep up with her. He felt like she was moving too quickly for him, though.
“Why would you have been in danger from Lorach?”
She shook her head. “He never said.”
Her dragon connection. That had to be it.
Had he stayed in his homeland, he probably would’ve died. At least, he would have before learning of his connection to the dragons. Once he had connected to the ice dragon and had his help hunting, Jason had been given an advantage that he wouldn’t have otherwise.
What would have happened had his parents never left Lorach?
He would’ve been a Dragon Soul. At least, he would’ve had that potential.
Would that mean I would have tried to control the dragons?
He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind, but it was difficult to do so.
“Is it because you have a connection to the dragons?”
That might be it. And it certainly would be enough of a reason for him to have done it, especially knowing what Jason had come to know about the people of Lorach and the way that they would take those who had any connection to a dragon and controlled it.
“He never said,” she said again.
“Did he teach you to use your connection, or did you have it already?”
“He taught me,” she said, her voice going softer. “He wanted me to understand the dragons. He taught me about my connections.”
“Which dragon did you connect to first?”
She looked back at him and slowed, no longer hurrying through the cavern. “Earth,” she said.
“That’s why it upset you that I had connected to the earth dragon.”
She nodded.
Jason could still feel the tremor in the earth dragon, and he realized that there was some sort of connection that had formed, though he didn’t understand why that connection had formed. Maybe the connection had been there from the time he had first connected to the dragon, back when he had used that power to stop Lorren.
“Mine was ice,” he said, looking over his shoulder, back toward the end of the tunnel. Jason was aware of the ice dragon, though he had returned to the sky, to the cold, and had welcomed the swirling energy that was high overhead. “I found him near my homeland.”
“How did a dragon like that survive?”
“That’s a great question. I think Lorren had a hand in creating him, somehow.”
“Lorren would not have.”
“You know where Lorren had been before?”
She frowned. “No.”
“Could he have been involved in any of this?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“I don’t know, either,” Jason said. He shrugged. “I believed it was a man from Lorach named Therin, but even that, I’m not entirely sure.”
Her brow furrowed at the mention of Therin.
She knew him.
Of course she would, though. Jason had suspected that she would have known that name, especially as Lorren had been the one to have taught Therin, and he suspected that Lorren would have mentioned Therin to others.
“Did he warn you about Therin?”
“He spoke of him,” she said softly. “He called him a traitor.”
“I think he was,” Jason said. “He’s gone now.”
“As is Lorren.”
Jason nodded. “He is.”
“Because of you.”
“Because of me.” There was no point in denying it, especially as he had been the one to have destroyed Lorren, but he needed for her to understand.
“Did he ever talk to you about what he did with the dragons?”
“He freed the dragons,” she said.
She turned away and hurried into the cavern, toward the rumbling of the earth dragon, leaving Jason looking after her.
He tried to find where she was going and tried to catch up to her, but could not.
The heat radiating around him called to him, and Jason hurried forward until he could catch up with that heat.
As soon as he did, he stopped.
Bones.
There were a dozen different bones in here. All of them were different sizes, shapes, and all of them came from dragons.
Each of the bones had a different energy, and it seemed