Night Dragon An Epic Fantasy Adventure - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,80

only that there was illusion.

She shook her head. “I don’t see anything. When the pressure starts to build”—she frowned, wrinkling her eyes as she did—“they disappear. At least, they start to disappear. Then you do something and they reappear.”

“I push against the illusion, but I have to actively maintain that connection in order to know just what they’re doing.”

“There’s still the calling,” she said, looking over to him. “I’m fighting it but it’s almost too much.”

Jason felt the pulling as well. It was almost too much. The dragons offered some protection, but not enough.

“Is there any way for you to separate the summons?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I can’t even tell what they’re doing, or the way she’s doing it.”

That was the hardest part. Jason could feel the effect of the summons, but he couldn’t feel just what Jessica was doing or why she was doing it. He didn’t know how she could call the people of Dragon Haven.

She shouldn’t be able to.

All these people were connected to the dragons, and all of them marched forward. Jason wasn’t able to intervene. The people of Dragon Haven continued to march, heading forward.

Jason tried to override the illusion and the summons—they had to be linked somehow—hurrying through the crowd of people. Where was Henry? Sarah? William? His sister and mother?

It was almost as if the energy Jason detected, that of the summons, was hidden from him. The people continued to move past him.

Jason pushed against it, surging outward, trying to shatter the illusion, but it didn’t seem to matter. They were focused on their march. They headed directly toward Lorach. It would end the battle with the rebellion.

He focused on his connection to the night dragon. It was faint, wispy, but he thought of all of the dragons, he would be the one to help Jason look for what happened to the others. The night dragon could sneak away, and given his small but fast size, Jason couldn’t help but think that the night dragon would be able to look.

“Find the others,” he said, sending it through the faint streamer of a connection he shared with the night dragon. “Please find them.”

“I will do this.”

In summoning the others, Jessica intended to end the rebellion without any fighting.

There was a part of him that wondered if perhaps that was not necessarily a bad outcome. The rebellion had lasted a long time, and the people who had been a part of the rebellion had battled for more time than most even knew. If they were somehow able to stop that fighting, able to end the rebellion, end the war, the people of Lorach and the people from Dragon Haven could come back together, and…

And the dragons would still be held captive.

Even if they were able to come back together, that didn’t mean the dragons would be freed. That was what Jason ultimately wanted, the reason for the rebellion.

More than that, it was what the people of Dragon Haven wanted. They had wanted the dragons to be safe, freed, not under the danger of any summons, and not under the training of the Dragon Souls. If he did nothing, the dragons would be in perpetual danger.

Jason focused on the energy within him, feeling for the power that grew within him, and he continued to call to it, letting it flow. He recognized something more within it.

The power pulsated.

“Do you feel that?” he asked Janeya. “There is something about the summons. I feel it pulsing.”

“Where is it calling them?”

Jason frowned, focusing on that power. The people marching in front of him were all dirty. Filthy. Some of them were half-clothed. They all looked weak. Some were barefoot. All of them compelled.

“Lorach. It has to be.” Though there was something about the direction they were heading that didn’t feel right.

But Jason had only been there a few times, and knowing the power of Lorach, knowing what was there, he recognized that there was a certain distinct energy to it. It came from the dragons, but it came from something else as well.

Maybe it wasn’t coming from Lorach, at least not directly.

He needed to see from above. In the distance, he felt the ice dragon flying high overhead. Did he even need the power of the ice dragon in order to travel? Jason didn’t even know any longer.

He held onto power, letting it fill him. Then he summoned the ice dragon.

The ice dragon streaked out of the sky, hovering overhead. Jason grabbed for Janeya, and he used a