Page 13

13

AWAY

T he pull of Hekla’s blue scale directs Bjorn and me inland, away from Reykjavik. As we leave the tight alleys and quays of the town, we find ourselves up on a lonely hill of heather, willow shrubs, and tall grass, overlooking the twinkling lights of the city.

The wind blows fiercely up here at night. Bjorn and I huddle together now for warmth, getting down parkas out of our fly-bags and donning them before using my charm to shrink the fly-bags back down and stash them away.

We’re warmer, but not by much. And it’s not just the wind; I feel Mikkel’s dark energy surge through us again in a riptide as he fights being contained by Strom and L?rke, and it saps our natural dragon-heat.

A massive chunk of Aesa’s protection, and Bjorn’s newfound energy, goes with it. He staggers in the wind and I shore him up. It’s not good, as we glance at each other and share a thought: that we better find Baldur soon, before Mikkel rips everything from us.

And we’re toast.

Hekla’s blue scale drags us towards a sprawling patch of heather now, backed by a stand of short willow bushes, as I wonder where it’s taking us. There are no houses or anything up here; I have only a moment to ponder it, however, when I experience the high whine in my ears and the gut-wrenching disorientation of going through a portal.

Bright white flashes in my vision; rather than a portal between Realms taking us to the human world, however, this one transports us to some place else in the Twilight Realm.

I shake my head and stagger as I’m spat out upon a lonely beach of black sand. Bjorn is beside me; he growls and grips his head, shaking it, as we realize Hekla’s scale led us right into a portal that we didn’t even see or sense.

And we now find ourselves in a place unknown.

“Fucking hells!” Bjorn sets his jaw, his golden eyes sparking in the night. Though it’s dark out, the aurora continues to whisper above us, vivid as it winds through the starry sky in hues of purple, green, and gold, just like in Reykjavik.

That, plus the black sand beach all around, makes me realize we’re still in Iceland. Only this island has such stunning beaches of volcanic rock; it’s confirmed as I point to towering black cliffs of hexagonal basalt that loom up behind us.

Evidence that we’re on Iceland’s southern coast.

“At least it didn’t take us far.” I glance at the blue scale in my fist. Beneath the aurora, Hekla’s colors look otherworldly; her bright blues and whites, and deeper ceruleans are almost mesmerizing now as I watch them, before looking back to the crash of the surf on the beach.

“I didn’t even feel that portal for fuck,” Bjorn growls now. As we both glance behind us, I see nothing on the beach, though natural and even dragon-made portals give at least a glimmer in the air to let someone know they’re there.

“Whatever that was, Hekla’s scale led us right to it,” I say as I glance around the beach, wondering if Baldur’s here.

Other than us, the beach is empty, however, except for the crashing of the waves. No one is about; there aren’t even any fishing cottages up on the cliffs. We’ve come to nothing but a lonely stretch of sand, with nothing else.

Nothing except a new pull coming from Hekla’s scale, indicating for us to walk the beach’s length.

At my nod, Bjorn grunts, then extends his hand for me to go first. I do, letting the vibration of the blue drakaina’s scale lead me on.

Like a song in my heart, it seems stronger somehow, beneath the ancient aurora on the black beach with the crashing waves. As if something older and wilder lived inside Hekla than any of the rest of us modern Blood Dragons, I feel like I’ve stepped back in time now as Bjorn and I walk the empty strand.

We listen to the waves in the darkness as the haunting aurora twists high above. It’s freezing now, as the hour grows late. The wind has only gotten fiercer, as I feel the scale lead us to a blank section of basalt cliffs.

There’s not a cave or anything in it; I wonder if the scale is going to have us climb right up when another high whine assaults my ears, my gut twisting as my vision blasts white.

We’ve come through another portal, as I stumble out on the other side. I fall to my knees, dry-retching at the portal’s abuse; as Bjorn helps me up, I see we’ve arrived at a high stretch of glacier.

The coast is far away, too far to be seen now; all around us stretches an endless white landscape of glacial valleys and peaks, our new location in the middle of a frozen mountain range.

It’s beautiful, but deadly, as Bjorn wraps an arm around me for warmth, because even we are challenged in our parkas as a thick snow falls all around. Blood Dragons can weather hard winters, but we are smart about it; there’s nothing for Bjorn and I to take shelter in here, however, as a dark growl rumbles from his throat.

Incensed to the max.

“What the fuck is this?” Bjorn brisks my shoulder and his chest to keep us warm, as he does a Blood Dragon heating breath in-between sentences. “Some kind of fucked up game of hide ’n’ seek? ”

“It’s clear that whatever kind of person he is, Baldur doesn’t want to be found.” I imitate Bjorn’s heating breath, a series of rapid pants through my nose, as I look at him. “L?rke said Baldur’s cagey, and that no one knows exactly where he lives or how he comes and goes. Stands to reason that if he’s got portal-magic, he could set up a series of these things to take someone who-the-fuck-knows-where if they tried to follow him. And get hopelessly lost along the way.”

“Good thing you have that scale.” Bjorn eyeballs it, still gripped in my gloved fist. “Without Hekla’s essence leading us to her brother, we’d be up shit creek.”

“We still might be.” I nod my chin at the thick snowstorm all around us on the glacier-capped peak. “We need to move on or even with the supplies we’ve got, we’re going to freeze to death.”

“Lead the way.” Bjorn is terse, knowing the truth of my words.

He and I don’t waste our energy talking now, but soldier on as he nods me forward. We struggle through the bitter snowstorm, fierce at these high latitudes near the north pole.

As we trudge through thigh-high snow, part of me wants to shift up and weather this storm as my dragon, which can tolerate extreme temperatures far better than I can in human form.

I know we might miss another portal entrance if we did that, however, and it leaves us trudging up and down through the tall peaks, over the tricky ice of the glacier. This trek is also far longer than the one at the beach; it’s been over an hour when we suddenly flash through another portal.

Whisked away from the mountain snowstorm to someplace else.

Devoured by a glacial blue darkness with only the faintest glimmer of the aurora far above, I see we’ve come into a vast ice cavern, glassy and dark. As I blink away the light behind my eyes, and the searing whine from my ears, I haul a Bloodlight pendant out of my fly-bag and put it on, as Bjorn does the same.

It’s far warmer down here than in the mountains, as the meager crimson glow of our pendants lights up the glossy blue ice all around. But even though we’re warmer, thanks to the igloo effect of being beneath a glacier, even I know we can’t stay down here forever.

We have to get going and hope Baldur’s defenses will wear out before we do. Bjorn and I continue on, in silence. All night, we wander through the rugged beauty of Iceland, as we pass through portal after portal.

I can’t remember how many we’ve come through, as we’re spit out beside a towering waterfall, then walk twenty paces and are cast into another ice tunnel. We travel another half-hour before we emerge right at the rim of a fiery volcano that’s still active on the island.

We’re only at the volcano’s rim ten steps before we’re thrust into the rustling gloom of a birch forest. As we stumble into a natural hot spring, then back to another beach, then land waist-deep in a peat bog, we both fight to stay alert now.

Because with each venture through another portal and yet another, I feel my energy being stripped away—and it’s not just from Mikkel.

It’s as if with each portal we travel through, layers of innate protection all around me from my dragon-aura are being stripped away. As if all the defenses I erect around myself are being peeled back like the layers of an onion, I’m left with a raw, bare sensation now, as Bjorn and I both stumble to the ground, emerging through our latest passageway.

We’re beyond exhausted now; I feel it in my bones as everything inside me aches and shivers, screaming for rest. Though Aesa’s protection is still inside me, preventing the worst of what the Black Dragon Knights have done, I can feel how even her tremendous power is being sapped from whatever these portals have been doing to us, besides Mikkel still lost in his wrath far away.

Bjorn is no better as he growls and shivers even harder than me. Brisking his hands over his heart, he does his heating breath endlessly now to stay warm.

Through it all, he’s also still using his Blood Magic to brighten me against Mikkel’s wrath. I know Bjorn will not hold out much longer, as I watch him tremble and shake now like he has a palsy.

And I’m shocked to see his lips are turning blue.

“We need to get you inside somewhere. Now,” I say, knowing that if this rabbit-trail of portals keeps up much longer, I’m going to lose my First Drake. I feel his energy flicker, like a candle in the brisk wind.

Threatening to snuff out, as he swoons.

I’m up under his arm, fast. He tries to push me off, but with a growl, I maintain my position. Bjorn is too weak now to resist me. But it shocks me he could go from so vital earlier, from Insinio’s blessing and Aesa’s gift, to so drained tonight.

I feel deep inside how much Aesa’s protection has been stripped away from me, almost gone now from Mikkel fighting us as his Wraith all night and Bjorn and I crashing through all these unknown portals.

As a hard instinct snarls up inside me now, from both my black drake and brighter drakaina, fighting whatever’s happening to us, I know we won’t make it if we travel through even one more portal tonight.

Though I don’t want to be, I know we’re done; whatever else he is, Baldur’s a crafty fuck and we will not find him tonight. We have to cease searching, at least for a day, so we can regain some of our strength.

I glance up at the lightening sky, seeing that we trekked all night through this endless shit-maze, and morning has come. Though it’ll be less cold soon, it’s still going to be death for Bjorn if I can’t get him somewhere, fast.

But this most recent portal has tossed us out halfway up a cliff, only a secluded ravine with a tight valley down below. The center of the narrow valley is green, though patches of snow linger in the shadows of the cliffs.

I see no dwellings or a village, but a curl of steam rises from the little river that burbles through the ravine’s vale. One of Iceland’s natural hot springs, I pray that it’s warm enough to save Bjorn as I growl and heave him up to my back.

I shift now that we’re done searching for portals, diving into that valley as my dragon so I can carry Bjorn. Miraculously, he stays on, and we make it to the little river.

I splash down, shifting back to human. Bjorn is way ahead of me, already shucking his parka and clothing to the snowy shore as he chucks our gear to a patch of moss.

He slides his naked body down into the steaming water. As a deep exhaustion takes me, something I’ve never felt before from just shifting, I understand we’re both in far worse shape than I knew.

Since I’m a Bloodwalker and the center of our bond’s power, I’m not as drained as Bjorn. I can feel how Mikkel’s snarling has lessened, though, and Strom’s mind-work on him falters now, because what Bjorn and I have just been through was also draining them.

But the natural hot spring in the muddy bend of the river is warm; it’s just warm enough, as Bjorn and I cuddle together now, winding each other close.

It’s no time at all before we both fall into a deep sleep. We didn’t even have enough energy to eat something first; sleep is more imperative for us to recharge, as I feel us both go into a deep stasis, holding each other in the warm river with our heads plunked back on a patch of moss.

Ages pass before my vision, as I dream. As if I can see the aurora still curling and whispering above, I watch the rising dawn in my dreams as Bjorn and I recover.

We sleep, silent and heavy, gone to the world in the small hot pool, though some part of me remains awake. I’m in the dreamtime now, a place between the Void of Ancestors and waking that Bloodwalkers can access, though I haven’t done it much in my life.

It seems my exhaustion from being drained by all those portals has put me in this space now, however. I’m awake but not, my eyes closed though some part of my consciousness is still aware, as I watch a man walk down the sloping green valley towards us.

I don’t know where he emerged from; as the wild man with feathers and talons braided into his long white-blond hair hunkers beside us at the pool, checking our wrists for a pulse, I know he’s the dragon we seek.

Naked from the waist up, he wears wild huntsman leathers and soft fur boots in a style five centuries out of date, a long necklace of feather and talon fetishes dipping low upon his bare chest. His lean but ridiculously fit chest and torso are decorated with the most beautiful Blood Dragon tattooing in sky blue, silver, and white, his sigils like nothing I’ve ever seen, as they radiate a powerful magic.

The massive dragon aura inside him curls towards me, stroking me like a lover’s touch as he regards me. His high-cheeked face is masculine but kind; elegant but poetic. He’s somehow ageless, though he has small lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and I feel the weight of centuries in him.

His eyes are a deep midnight color, blue like the night sky as a whisper of brighter white moves through them, opaline and haunting like the aurora. I remember his eyes being fire-opal white and stunning gold with a crimson ring around them, however, when we met at The Vault. I also recall his body having no visible tattoos.

But I know that aquiline face as he watches me in the dreamtime, where I am neither unconscious nor awake.

Beautiful. So beautiful, Baldur Siguresson whispers to me without speaking, as his eyes devour mine.

And then he’s heaving me up into his arms as he levitates Bjorn with his massive, effortless dragon power. Aesa’s Truthstone and my own Bloodwalker power sing all through me as he carries me, as if I was always meant to be in his arms. My brighter Blood Magic drakaina roils through me now even as she recovers, recognizing Baldur as a potential mate.

An insanely powerful one.

He strides us back up the ravine until we see a house. That house shimmers to being out of nothingness, as I feel us pass through an invisible barrier of magic. I understand it was concealed from all eyes by his magic, as Baldur takes Bjorn and me up the house’s steps now and inside the small dwelling of timber, sod, and thatch.

The inside is marvelous, though the dwelling looked like nothing but an earthen hut from the outside. Within, Baldur’s house has been dug out of the ravine; glossy white birch wood floors spread below, as an incredible artistry of beams arch like the vaults of Elven ships far above.

As he steps me down a winding, beautifully wrought staircase to the bottom, I see that everything is white birch and rowan wood, and glimmering fetishes of blue and white scales with bird feathers and talons, everywhere I look. The river doesn’t bypass the house, but actually runs beneath it, visible through the floors by incredible swathes of glass inset into the wood where the river flows.

It’s like a hermit artist’s dream home, if that artist was also a shaman, as I see countless bundles of herbs drying from every vault and nook, along with paintings in progress everywhere. Salves of all kinds dot stout shelves in glass jars; remedies and tinctures and bundles of homemade incense are everywhere, as Baldur sets Bjorn on a big comfy chair, and lays me down on an overstuffed wool couch.

Standing over me, he stares down at me with his unfathomable blue eyes. It’s only then that I recall I’m still naked from my shift, as his gaze roves over my body before returning to my face.

But he only seizes a tremendous blanket made of white lambswool, slinging it over me. I’m cozy, and so comfortable now, as he kneels beside me.

He takes my hand, as I drift into an even deeper slumber.

Rest, Baldur’s voice whispers in my mind, as I somehow see him in my strange sleep. Recover, and we will say all we need to when you wake. For I have been waiting for you a long time, Hog Skjaldm?r—I have been waiting a lifetime for you to come to me. And take me as yours… as your Fourth and Final Drake.

I don’t know when I sink into a real sleep, but I do. Only the deepest part of me feels the soft kiss Baldur Siguresson leaves upon my lips .

Before leaving me alone with Bjorn in his home, for us to rest and recover our strength.