Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,79

push, adding more power, using everything in his ability to override that energy, and threw icicles again.

How am I doing this?

It was something to consider another time.

As he held onto that power, he continued to fling the energy of the north.

The longer he did this, the more he began to feel something changing.

He pushed again. Cold whipped around him.

When he had used cold before, he had done so with an illusion.

He had shifted reality, using that energy in order to be able to summon that cold, to create it around him, but in this case, what he drew upon was not necessarily the illusion, and he didn’t have to even shift anything. This was him calling upon the cold, creating a swirling wind mixed with snow and sleet and the energy of the north.

It raged around him.

Jason stood in the midst of it, feeling that energy, feeling something familiar about it, a sense of power that roared within him.

He had known that power and that cold his entire life. He had known that energy, and he had known throughout his entire life that there was some way to use it. As he focused on that power, Jason let it rage within him, roaring up through him. He filled with that power. He didn’t fight it.

There was no reason to fight it. Jason could feel that energy; he could feel the way it flowed and the way that power needed to be unleashed. Cold came through him.

Jason called it down.

A burst of ice lightning streaked from the sky.

When he had felt it before, it had come through the ice dragon, and this time, it had come because Jason had summoned it.

And then everything was quiet.

He looked over at Janeya and found her watching him.

“That isn’t the power of the dragons,” she whispered.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said.

“I don’t either, but I fear we need to find out.”

There might not be time.

Now that the Dragon Souls were down, the resistance shifted and there was no more pressure building around him. Jason pushed against it, drawing on the power of the forest dragon. When he did, everything shifted around him again.

People appeared.

For a moment, Jason thought they were Dragon Souls, but that wasn’t it at all.

They were the people of Dragon Haven.

And they were all in front of him.

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There were hundreds lining the road, all those who had an affinity for the dragons, far more than he ever would’ve imagined that Dragon Haven contained, but all of them seemed sensitive to the power of the summons. Some of the people were dressed in jacket and pants while others were dressed in their small clothes, as if they had been called out of bed.

Were Sarah and Henry down there?

What of his mother and sister?

Others that he knew. The Dragon Guard. Even William.

He couldn’t tell. It was difficult to see through the illusion, and other than that they formed a line, he could not make out much about them.

“How are there so many?” Janeya asked.

They marched, heading in a line along the ground. Somehow, whatever power that Jessica used on them called them forward. Somehow, she must’ve found some way to summon these people, using power she didn’t have before.

Jason stared at the people of Dragon Haven, horror filling him. It looked as if they were in some sort of trance. These were people that he knew. People he cared about. All of them were drawn.

But not all of the people of Dragon Haven, though.

As Jason looked along the line of people, he couldn’t help but wonder where the others were.

There were hundreds here, but not the thousands that occupied Dragon Haven.

The ones here consisted of those he knew to be in the Dragon Guard. Henry. Sarah would have to be here. Maybe William?

People who were dragon sensitive.

“I don’t really know,” Jason said.

“What are they doing?”

“It seems that they’re responding to a summons, though they shouldn’t. I thought that by shattering Jessica’s illusion, they would be able to get rid of the effect, but…”

Even as he focused on it, the illusion started to form again, taking hold. Jason tried to stand amidst it, feeling the effect of it, but the illusion formed around him, yet excluded him. It was almost as if he were separated from it. What about Janeya?

“Do you see the illusion Jessica is forming?”

It had to be her, didn’t it?

Jason tried to look beyond but could not see what he needed. He couldn’t tell the source of the illusion, either,