one way to stop this. He had to feed the egg the same way he had fed those in the boneyard. When he did, he had to think that he could overpower Lorach.
Jason held onto the power within him, feeling the energy flowing from each of the different dragons. He tried to call upon that and then started to push it outward. As he did, the dragon within the egg started to pull on him.
It happened gradually, but then began to pull even more, the energy starting to siphon Jason, drawing even more power off until he could feel nothing but the energy coming off the egg, funneling through him. There was a considerable amount of power that flowed. It was that of the northern mountains. It was that of the flame from the iron dragon. It was that of illusion. It was even that of the night dragon, cascading energy around all of it.
That power filled Jason, and it poured into the egg.
He started to step away but hesitated.
He had to guide the egg. He had to ensure that the egg would not harm anyone else.
Suddenly, the egg cracked, and there was a small dragonling inside it.
It was tiny, not nearly as large as the other dragons had been.
It might be small, but as Jason probed for the power in the dragon, he couldn’t help but feel as if it were incredible. Strangely, there still seemed to be that streamer of a connection to Lorach.
Jason had to sever that, somehow.
With another powerful misfit, he couldn’t help but wonder what else was going to change. As this one got as large as the other misfits, how would the world change?
They had grown larger because of how the night dragon had fed them.
Jason pushed a bit of power out, connecting to this small dragon, and then sent a bit of soothing energy through, creating an illusion around the dragon and then solidifying it.
The dragon fell asleep.
Hopefully it would hold.
He turned to Janeya. “We’re going to have to step outside of this illusion.”
He took Janeya’s hand, and drawing upon the north energy, that power deep within him, Jason pushed off. It blasted them up and beyond the illusion. As soon as he was through the darkness that swirled around them, he saw the dragons high overhead. They seemed to fly without the same purpose and intensity that they had before.
Jason circled with them, staring off into the distance, straining for the people of Dragon Haven. They continued to march this way.
“Do you still feel it?” He looked over at Janeya. “I can’t tell if hatching the egg has separated the summons or not.”
There was still a strange and powerful draw from Lorach. Jason had no idea what it was, only that it stretched away from the dragon.
But not from anything else around him the way it had when the egg had been feeding.
“I don’t know,” she said, closing her eyes. “I can feel something, but I can’t tell if it’s what you did or if it’s something else.”
Jason looked up at the dragons.
He focused on the ice dragon, and the ice dragon dove toward him. A surge of ice lightning streaked with it, clearing a path through the other dragons. They darted off to the side, giving the ice dragon the freedom to descend.
Jason chuckled softly. “I should’ve thought of doing that when I dove.”
“You can do that?”
“Not as well as the dragon, but something similar.”
The ice dragon hovered over him.
“Do you detect anything?” Jason asked the dragon.
The dragon circled overhead. He was powerful, and he radiated the energy of the cold and the north, and his wings battered at the air, holding himself above Jason.
“I can’t tell if what we have done has been effective.”
There was only one way to tell. He had to talk with the people of Dragon Haven. He had to know whether or not the influence was still there.
He looked at the ice dragon. “Take me to them.”
22
Jason held onto the ice dragon, and they flew overhead. By looking down through the ice dragon’s eyes, he could see the landscape shifting below him. It was a line of people, making it difficult to pick out one person from another. There were hundreds of people, and they were filthy, but not all of them. Some he recognized as Dragon Guard, dressed in their dragonskin, though others were and tattered clothing that had worn out. He had no idea if they were still influenced.
Overhead, the misfits still circled. The