again he had to respond, pushing the healing energy through him.
What is it?
Dragons.
As he slammed into the dragons, he realized he had fallen too far. Too fast. He no longer had control.
Now he was nearing the ground. Now he felt the energy as it continued to work around him, swirling, and he couldn’t tell if there was going to be anything that he would be able to do to stop the nearest dragon from—
Another dragon slammed into him.
Jason cried out.
He embraced the cold. He embraced the fire within him.
Everything exploded.
A bubble of energy worked around him, forming a barrier.
It was the raging winds of the north. It was the angry fires of lava deep beneath the ground. It was the heat and the cold. It was everything. Jason used that energy, and he let it fill him, holding onto it, and power coursed through him.
Now the barrier surrounded him entirely. He continued to drop, now holding onto the barrier, determined to ensure that when he did land, he would not be too far off course. The distant sense of the egg pulsing below him guided him, and Jason knew he needed to find his way toward it, to focus on that power and energy, to feel where the egg was guiding him. As he flowed with the north wind, that power streaking him toward the ground, Jason could feel some other aspect to it. He had to welcome it. He had to know it would guide him down.
He created more of a barrier. And then he caught a flash of darkness.
The ground.
Energy came up from the ground.
He focused on that energy.
It was the egg pulsing.
As he raced toward the egg, Jason focused on the power within it, and used it to guide him. Something about the egg felt off. It was a painful sort of sensation. As he neared it, Jason realized it was calling to the others, feeding the way the eggs in the boneyard had fed, but something about it felt wrong. There was more power building than the egg should have.
It was the last thought he had before he reversed the power of the north mountains through him, and he slowed his descent. When he landed, he came crashing next to the egg.
Seven Dragon Souls surrounded the egg.
21
The Dragon Souls stood near a pile of pale white dragon bones. They were of different sizes. Some looked like legs, some looked like ribs, and he saw part of the skull. Jason didn’t have much time to process it. Whatever Lorach intended with the bones was tied to the egg, but he didn’t have any idea as to what—or why.
The Dragon Souls started toward him, turning their power toward him.
They were all connected to dragon pearls.
And they were powerful.
But Jason was more powerful.
Connected as he was to the dragon misfits, he reacted.
He found himself reaching for heat and ice, iron and ice mixing, creating steam that surrounded him, a fog that enveloped the Dragon Souls.
From there, he used the energy of the forest dragon. He created an illusion, an empty void all around him, and solidified it.
The Dragon Souls screamed.
A thought came to him.
Maybe it was his own, or maybe it came from the dragons, but whichever it was, Jason didn’t care.
These Dragon Souls had intended to harm him. The dragons.
They had intended to do something that would destroy others.
He solidified the mist around him. Freezing it.
And then he borrowed from the earth dragon, and he collapsed it down.
The Dragon Souls disappeared.
Jason shifted the illusion and looked over to the egg, ignoring what he had done.
It was enormous. Larger than any other egg he’d seen.
He turned toward it, holding his hand out to it. This one was strange.
It was drawing upon power. It was feeding. He turned, looking at the freed dragons, then looking at the people of Dragon Haven, and he could feel the energy coming off them all.
The power continued to drain. Up close, he could tell it was drawing off him, drawing off the dragons, and drawing off the people of Dragon Haven.
Somehow, he was going to have to find a way to stop that egg from drawing the power of the others.
The egg pulsated with that power. It was simply too strong.
He could feel that the new dragons, the misfits flying overhead, had used their power. That energy continued to build, swirling around, and as Jason became aware of it, he felt something more within it. He tried to focus on that power.
He was connected