other dragons had disappeared, leaving them isolated, as if by hatching the egg, those dragons had been pulled somewhere else.
The misfits had not followed. Jason wondered if it was even necessary. They could track what he could feel of the dragons without needing to chase them.
“We’re going to have to get closer,” Jason said to the ice dragon.
Janeya shifted in front of him, holding tightly to the ice dragon. She seemed comfortable on the ice dragon from the beginning, so different than anyone—even those in Dragon Haven—had been with the misfits. Janeya had a connection to them, different than even Sarah had.
I have to stop thinking like that.
He stared into the distance. A steady sense started to build within him, a calling sensation. He grabbed for Janeya. “Are you ready?”
When she nodded, Jason jumped.
Jumping this time was less concerning than the last time. He understood what he needed to do, and as his fall carried him down, he used the power from the cold northern wind to guide himself down.
At the last moment, Jason blasted the energy through him, using the cold to swirl him gently down to the ground. Wind whistled around him, and when he landed, he did so surrounded by Dragon Haven people. He had seen the people of Dragon Haven on the ground, marching.
He couldn’t help but wonder where the others that were not dragon sensitive had gone. He closed his eyes briefly, focusing on the night dragon, and though he searched, he did not see anything.
What had Jessica done with them?
There were hundreds of them, all marching forward, ignoring him, as if whatever had happened to them had left them unmindful of everything else in the world around them. He still didn’t know how Jessica had done it.
Not the egg.
Had it been the egg, they would have improved by now. He looked over at Janeya. “It’s not better. There’s still something here.”
“I feel it, but I don’t know what it is.”
He could feel her holding onto power through her connection to the dragons, and he could feel the rumbling of energy through her that came from the earth dragons, but it also came from the mist dragons and the smoke dragons.
Now that he was on the ground, he looked at all of the people of Dragon Haven. As Jason stared around him, he could see them in a line. A blankness washed over them, and Jason needed to find a way past it.
He found a woman he recognized, a dark-haired woman named Mandy who had worked with Sarah’s parents. “Where’s Sarah?” he asked, touching her on the shoulder. The woman looked at him, a dazed expression in her eyes. “Mandy. Where is Sarah?”
Mandy stared at him with a lost expression in her eyes.
Jason moved on.
How many others were going to be like Mandy?
That worried him. It meant that maybe there was something else going on. Maybe Lorach had some other plan at play.
Maybe they all would suffer, all of them struggling with the nature of this attack.
Jason began to work his way through the line of people. He continued to search for anyone who might be able to help him. By looking through the crowd, he strained, wanting to find someone. Anyone.
Where was Sarah?
He had felt her, Henry, and William from above.
Even his sister and mother.
All he had to do was see if he could follow the energy they put off.
Jason was aware of that energy. He could feel it and the way his sense of them built within him. He recognized something about it, a familiarity. It was different than detecting their dragons. This was detecting them, and their connection.
Why should I be suddenly aware of it?
He darted through the Dragon Haven people, moving from one to the next, focusing on the power he had detected before. That energy was there, that sense of familiarity existed, and all it took was for him to reach it.
There.
Jason approached, moving through the line of people. Janeya held onto his hand.
He found Henry first.
The old Dragon Soul was dressed in his dragonskin, and he had a sense of power to him. He was a burly man, with a thick beard, and even without the heavy furs he’d worn when Jason had first met him, something was intimidating about him. His dark eyes stared blankly, and his hands were empty, hanging loosely at his sides. He shuffled forward, his lumbering gate making him look as if he were injured. Maybe that was nothing more than just the effect