“Sarah once claimed the city was home to a people who understood the dragons far differently than we do.” As he looked at the statue, he couldn’t help but feel as if that were true. There was so much detail in each of the sculptures. “I wonder it what it was like then.”
“With the city this size…”
Jason looked up. As far as he knew, Dragon Haven was home to several thousand people, though not all of them had a connection to the dragons. Few, in fact, did. Those who did helped keep the free dragons safe, though did so by hiding them from the world.
“I wish I knew what it was like when the dragons were able to fly freely,” he said softly, turning his attention back to the sculpture. He held his hand above it, feeling a faint warmth coming from the sculpture.
“Some would call that dangerous,” she said.
He looked up, arching a brow. “Some?”
“Not me,” she added. He’d been working with her and the possibility that she could have a connection to the dragons and had begun to suspect she did, though she hadn’t demonstrated it. Yet. “I just meant some people.”
“Not the people who once lived here,” he said. “I feel a sense of power coming off it.”
Kayla leaned close to the statue. “I don’t detect that,” she said.
Jason smiled. “Do you think that you would?”
“Didn’t you say I have the potential to connect to the dragons?”
“I’m sure you do. That is why I’ve been working with you to develop that connection.”
“Not so much lately,” Kayla said.
He’d been distracted, and she deserved more time from him. “We can work together soon. Once this is over.”
“Will it be, though? There’s always something else you need to do. Some other thing you need to keep Lorach from achieving. When will it be enough?”
It was a strange question from his sister, but she wasn’t wrong. When would it be enough?
He stared at the sculpture and others like it on the street around him, knowing the answer. It came easily, almost as if he could see it in his mind. The connection to the dragons seemed to reverberate there, as if in agreement.
When the dragons are free again.
“We’re going to draw that ability out. In time. Had Mother and Father allowed us to learn about our connection earlier, we would have known about it by now,” Jason said.
“I know you haven’t talked with her,” Kayla started, and when Jason opened his mouth to argue, Kayla just smiled and waved her hand. “You don’t have to pretend as if you have. She’s told me. She also told me about why they ended up there.”
Jason watched his sister. It was a question that he hadn’t an answer to. He wondered, though, and knew that he had no choice but to do so. How could he not wonder why his family had ended up in the coldest part of the world, a place that had been so impossible to survive?
“It was how they were able to get away,” Kayla said. “At least, that’s what Mother said. Getting away from the Dragon Souls required committing to something else.”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean that they had to commit to something else?”
She shrugged. “I mean, they had to commit to watching for signs of dragons.”
Jason didn’t know what to say. It was something he would need to ask his mother about if he ever had the opportunity, but did it even matter? At this point, the only thing that really mattered was what he had ended up doing.
Getting away from his mountaintop village. Away from the cold. Away from the snow.
And he had ended up getting closer to the dragons.
“I know you don’t want to talk to her about it.”
“It has nothing to do with what I want to talk to her about,” he said carefully. “It has more to do with how they hid that from us.”
“Because they left,” Kayla said. “They couldn’t tell us anything. They weren’t permitted to.”
He doubted that was the entirety of the truth, but maybe it was true enough.
He breathed out heavily and shook his head.
“You got away, anyway,” Kayla said, her voice dropping. “Now that mother is better, I don’t have anything. Not like you do.”
Now, their mother had recovered, at least enough that she no longer needed Kayla the same way that she once had. Did Kayla miss working with their mother? Maybe she wanted to feel important—and working with the dragons would give her that.
Which was what he needed to do.
Find some way to give her responsibility.
He smiled at his sister and held onto the power of the dragons, summoning their power through his connection. He probed the dragon sculpture again, feeling a hint of energy that came from the dragons, echoing within him.
“Do you feel anything when I do that?” he asked.
“What is it you’re doing?” Kayla asked.
“I’m trying to see if there’s anything within the sculpture that might react to the dragons,” Jason said.
“What exactly do you expect to be able to feel?” she asked, her hand waving above the surface of the dragon for a moment.
He shook his head. “That’s just it. I don’t know if there’s anything I’m going to be able to feel. There’s a sense of something from within the sculpture, some energy that strikes me as familiar, though…”
He didn’t know. More than that, he had no idea as to the purpose of the sculpture at all. The only thing that he knew was that the sculpture demonstrated considerable skill in its detailed construction.
“What are you doing up so early anyway?” Kayla asked.
“I was taking a walk,” he said.
There were only a few who knew about the night dragon, and Jason tried to keep that limited to those who really should know. Unfortunately, his sister wasn’t one of them.
She flicked her gaze to the sky, then back to him. “So early?”
“I was checking on something.”
She turned back, looking toward the forest, frowning. “You don’t have to be the only to do that. Others are willing. Able. You can let them.”
It was something that his sister still didn’t understand, something that Jason wasn’t entirely sure how to explain. Maybe he couldn’t explain, anyway.
He smiled at her, knowing he couldn’t let others be the ones to protect the dragons.
It was his responsibility. He was the misfit who had pushed so hard on behalf of the dragons. It was him and him alone.
If he didn’t do this, there wouldn’t be anyone willing to do so.
“Let’s meet later to work on your connection to the dragons,” he said.
“You would do that?”
“You’re my sister. Of course I would do that.”
Jason hadn’t attempted to see if she could reach to any of the dragon misfits yet. If she’d been working with the Dragon Haven dragons, or even the freed dragons, it was possible there wouldn’t be anything within any of those dragons he would be able to help her reach, but the misfits were different. Not only was the power different, but the way that someone could connect to them was different.
She smiled and wrapped him in a quick hug. “Thank you.” She raced off, a lightness to her step.