Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,53

know what she could feel. He couldn’t deny that he was pulling upon power. He knew he was, much like he knew there had to be something he could do to hold onto that power, but he didn’t fully know what that something was. He held onto the energy within him, trying again to better understand the power and the magic flowing within him. As he did, he could feel the shifting from somewhere deep inside him.

Once again, the power of the northern mountains began to flow, heading out into the distance and whipping around, filling him with its energy.

“My home was different than yours,” she said. “Lorren raised me out here, beyond the mountains.” She pointed into the distance, indicating the far south.

When she did, Jason stared, following the direction she pointed. He could feel the changing landscape, and as he started holding onto that energy, he recognized there was something else within it that he could feel, some aspect that seemed to flow within him.

“What was your experience out here?”

She looked into the distance, a bit of sorrow in her eyes. “Loneliness.” She took a deep and steadying breath. “We didn’t have much out here. He feared the people of Lorach, and he feared them coming for us, and he worried about what would happen if they were to acquire the dragons he’d been raising.”

“Did you spend any time with Therin?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t have the opportunity. He was before me.” It wasn’t surprising that Therin would have been before her. Jason didn’t remember all that Lorren had said to him about training Therin, but he remembered Lorren’s irritation about how Therin had abused what he’d learned from Lorren. How he had twisted it and used it.

“Therin is the reason that I came out of my village.”

Jason looked down, the mountains and snow swirling around far below. They were nearly to the edge of the mountains, and as they continued to fly, Jason could feel the changing landscape drifting past them. Eventually, they would move beyond that, and then they would head toward a distant land, another place.

Beyond.

“Do you hate him?”

Jason stared off into the distance. “My feelings toward Therin are complicated,” he said. And they were. He couldn’t deny he’d been given an opportunity he wouldn’t have had otherwise, but at the same time, he’d also been responsible for what had happened to the people of Dragon Haven, the dangers they had sustained, and because of Therin, there had been an attack on those lands and dragons.

Had he not come to the mountains, Jason might never have known about his connection to the dragons. He might never have been able to save the dragon misfits, and he might never have known the connection he now did about how to bind himself to the dragons, understanding that connection and feeling the power that came from them, joining with him.

All of that was because of what Therin had done.

In the distance, Jason saw something that worried him.

A dragon.

Strangely, he could feel the energy out there, and he could feel something that was taking place, but couldn’t tell what it was or why he should be so attuned to it. He looked over at Janeya and found her staring out into the distance, her gaze sweeping across the mountains.

“Do you see that?” Jason asked, nodding toward what he had observed.

“I see nothing,” Janeya said.

He frowned and borrowed quickly from the ice dragon’s eyesight, looking through the dragon’s eyes, but couldn’t see anything more. Just a bit of movement.

His own dragon sight had allowed him to see that movement, and he hadn’t needed to use the ice dragon’s eyesight in order to be able to make out much else, though with that help, he could see a flicker. A glowing brightness was the energy that he detected and the energy that he recognized.

It was that energy which he needed to get to.

He motioned to the ice dragon and they started moving more quickly.

The ground streaked below them.

“What did you see?” Janeya asked.

“A dragon, I think.”

“Why is that important to you?”

“Out here?” Jason looked around, but even as he did, he couldn’t see anything more. “Out in these lands, dragons are unusual. It’s either a dragon that I’ve helped, or…” The other possibility was that it was Lorach, and if it was Lorach, then it was reason to be extra cautious.

“Do you fear the dragons?”

He stared through the ice dragon’s eyesight, using that to help him understand whether there was