had formed between them, it was possible the dragons did know everything that he knew, the same way that it seemed Janeya knew what he knew.
Why would I have this connection with a stranger?
Power built from them, from her, and he felt the rumbling. Then the stone near the edge of the clearing began to shift. Three dragons appeared. They were enormous.
The dragons emerged from the ground, almost as if hewn from the rock themselves, made of gray and brown stone, dirt clinging to their sides, with massive bodies but small wings. These were not dragons that would be able to fly. These were dragons designed to move underground, to navigate easily in the vast darkness beneath them.
And these were dragons who shared a very different connection to the world than any others that he had ever met.
Jason still didn’t know where the night dragon had gone.
He was the reason Jason had returned when he had. You’re needed. Otherwise, Jason might have searched for more dragon bones, wondering if he might be able to save more dragons. Instead, he felt a different urgency—one that filled him with a desire to destroy Lorach for good.
He had felt that before, but now… now it burned in him.
The iron dragon roared his approval.
The earth dragons lifted from the ground, rising up quickly.
One of the earth dragons rumbled toward him, taking lumbering steps, carrying power within him. He stopped in front of Jason, lowering his head. This was the earth dragon Jason had bonded to.
Jason watched the dragon, feeling the power coming from the ground. In the distance, he recognized something else, the power coming toward them. It came from someplace distant. It was the energy of other misfit dragons, the energy of that of the mist dragons, that of the smoke dragons.
“The two of you have found a shared bond,” the earth dragon said.
“You formed that shared bond,” Jason said.
“By necessity,” the dragon said. “You were needed.”
You are needed.
It was the same thing the night dragon had said.
The earth dragon and the night dragon had been communicating.
Within that shared bond, Jason was able to feel something more, some power, and he recognized the energy within it. He looked over at Janeya, and then he pushed outward. They were connected.
He wanted to ask the earth dragon if he knew what Lorren—or had it been the night dragon?—had planned, but power still built around him.
More dragons were coming.
There were more than he had expected.
But then, between he and Janeya, they had connections to many misfits.
Maybe even enough to stop Lorach as he planned.
A fog began to swirl around them, layering on the distant trees, and within it, Jason noticed some shimmering shapes. The mist dragons. Not only that, but there came wisps of smoke drifting around: energy from the smoke dragons. They were near enough now. Now that he was here, feeling the power of the smoke dragons, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he could use the bond he shared with her in order to reach to those dragons.
One of the smoke dragons turned toward him and appeared out of the smoke. It lingered for a moment, then it disappeared again. There was something playful about it. The mist did the same thing when he turned toward it.
“What are you doing?” Janeya asked.
“We’re going to have to work together. But it’s more than just having to work together. We’re going to have to fight, but I’d like us to save the dragons. I don’t want to fight the other dragons. I don’t want to hurt them.”
“I’ve never wanted to hurt the dragons,” she said softly. “Lorren told me we might have to sacrifice some in order to save them. Lorren believed the fire cycled.” She reached her hand out. Smoke swirled around it. The dragon appeared and she rested her hand on his long nose. The dragons’s smoke spiraled around her before settling. “It does make sense if you begin to understand the nature of the dragons the way Lorren believed in them. He believed the fire cycled. There were only so many dragons, and that by freeing certain dragons from the control of Lorach and others like that, we were allowed to find them anew. We could bring them back, and we could save them in a different way.”
Before the boneyard, he hadn’t given much thought to what happened if the dragons died. There had been dead dragons that he’d experienced over the time that he’d been fighting with Lorach. Unfortunately, there