Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,52

he could call upon, some part that he could use, and he recognized there was some power greater than what he had detected before.

It filled him, the power and energy of the mountains. That power burst everywhere around him. And Jason welcomed it. He wanted that power. He let it fill him, flowing from the mountains, from the sky, from the clouds.

The pressure continued to build, swirling around them, but Jason didn’t know why he should detect it so profoundly. He looked down, borrowing from the dragon in order to see far below him. All they saw were clouds.

Jason reached through his connection to the iron dragon. The iron dragon didn’t answer at first. Jason pushed again, sending a message through his connection to the iron dragon.

“Are you there?”

There didn’t come any response.

He tried again, pushing outward, letting that energy flow from him.

This time, he detected something faint.

It was a stirring, but as he focused on it, connecting to the energy within his iron dragon glove, Jason noticed that stirring coming closer to him, the power of the dragon coming across the distance.

For some reason, it was more difficult than usual to connect to that power.

Normally, when he reached across the distance, connecting to the dragons, he could feel that energy flowing out, away from him. In this case, as he strained, searching for some sort of connection, he didn’t find it.

He pushed again. Power exploded out from him.

There.

“What are you doing?” the dragon queen asked.

“I’m trying to uncover what happened to the iron dragon.”

“You have a dragon made of iron?”

“Not exactly. Only…” He looked at her, a decision made. “Listen—if you’re going to stay with me, I need your name.”

“You don’t need my name.”

“I can’t keep calling you dragon queen.”

She was silent.

Jason listened for something else, another sense of power, but there was nothing. He knew that he’d felt something but couldn’t tell where it had come from. Distant, but why?

What was Lorach after now?

“Janeya,” she said softly. “That is my name.”

“Janeya. That’s a lovely name.” She frowned at him. “I’m Jason…”

He felt another pressure.

This time, he knew it as a calling—and one for help.

The ice dragon felt it as well.

They turned, heading across the mountains.

“Where are you taking me?” Janeya asked. “Jason?” she pressed when he didn’t answer.

The call was there. He knew it was. And that he hadn’t imagined it.

“To help a friend.”

12

The mountains stretched below him. They were a vast expanse of white undulating beneath him, like some massive jaw that separated one land from another, and as he passed over them, the ice dragon soaring, drawing the power of the cold and the north, Jason focused on that cold, feeling it flowing within him. There was a strange connection to it, a bond that he had never known before.

“You’re doing it again,” Janeya said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re doing something with the ice dragon.”

“Actually, I’m not. I feel the power of the north, and for some reason, it’s flowing through me in a way it hadn’t before.”

“How is it you are connected to this?”

“I was raised in a land not too far from here.” Jason pointed, and he could practically feel the village in the distance. It was almost as if he were aware of the swirling wind, something about it that drew him toward his old village. “When I was younger, I lived in these mountains, struggling to survive. Much like the ice dragon, I became attached to my surroundings. I suppose you could say it shaped me much the same way it shaped the ice dragon.”

Even as he thought about the power around him, Jason was aware of the energy here, the way that the power continued to build, and he held onto it, letting it flow around him, granting him an awareness of the sense of these mountains and a feeling of the place around him.

He could feel something more within it. By holding on to what he detected, that energy that existed out there, he recognized that power, and he could feel some part of him filling with that power.

Janeya looked over at him, watching. “Even now, I can feel the way you’re doing that,” she said.

Jason shook his head. “I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing.”

“It’s every time you try to draw upon the power of this place. I can feel the way it fills you. There’s something to it, some aspect to that power you’re drawing upon.”

Jason could feel the energy coming up from within him, but he didn’t