Page 20

20

REMEMBER

T ime is not on our side as Bjorn, Strom, Baldur, and I roar through Copenhagen at night on our Ducatis. Though the midnight city in the Twilight Realm is beautiful, I can’t enjoy it, as we dodge and weave through the brightly lit Blood Dragon old town now, heading towards our destination.

We’ve barely finalized a plan with Emil Beck a half hour ago, to get Mikkel and L?rke back from Jarl Alexander Christensen. We’ve hardly rested or eaten all day, working in shifts to round up the twins’ scattered people and summon Emil’s own allies for an attack.

An attack can’t happen, however, unless we can get into Amalienborg Palace, the Jarl’s personal residence. And that’s far from easy, as we zoom through the city’s southeastern center tonight, on a mission.

As we roar along the nighttime cobbled streets, all of us are blazes of furious intent, zipping on our crotch rockets through the tight twists and turns. We’ve left our belongings and the lockbox of items from Unhaemmerten back at Emil’s hotel, well-guarded inside one of his vaults, because we need to be fast and unencumbered tonight as we give the Jarl of Copenhagen an attack he won’t soon forget .

Our plan includes an attack, though that part’s just a ruse. The actual mission is to get quickly and quietly into the deepest dungeons of the palace, where Mikkel and L?rke are most likely being held.

And get them the fuck out—as Emil mounts a front-door distraction the Jarl won’t be able to ignore.

There’s just one problem we have to navigate first, however; the legacy of the heinous, and now quite dead, Alfhild Fey. After talking to Strom, who told us Alfhild had her own ways of getting into the Jarl’s palace, secret ways she would use to steal powerful items from him from time to time, we knew this would be the center of our plan.

Tonight, we have to get in through Alfhild’s secret ways, get Mikkel and L?rke, then get the fuck out by her same secret passages as Emil hammers the palace’s front, distracting the Jarl and all his guards.

We’re hot on the trail of where we need to go now to get our vicious Thorsens back. Because like hell am I leaving them in the Copenhagen Jarl’s clutches, as I feel Mikkel get skewered anew by the latest terrible lance of pain as his guards torture him.

Mikkel’s been through hell over the past twelve hours, as his captors ruin him and make him writhe. The Jarl’s not even doing it; he doesn’t care that he’s caught the Thorsens and doesn’t need to gloat.

He’s simply letting his underlings do their worst to my mate and his sister, making sure they keep Mikkel and L?rke barely alive. And I will not rest until I get them back—both of them.

I set my jaw against more searing pain now, ripping right through my own body, thanks to Mikkel’s and my connection. It’s not as strong as what the Jarl did as he thrust that Bloodlance right through Mikkel’s eye to get at me. But it’s enough, as I feel Mikkel get hit now, bludgeoned by merciless Bloodwinds and even fists, as his guards gloat and laugh, punishing him.

He’s trussed up to the catacomb’s ceiling in magic-dampening manacles; Mikkel can’t shift up into his dragon or use his poison. His captors are reveling in it now as they hit him again, making him spit blood .

The only hope we’ve got in this terrible situation is that L?rke shifted up fast the moment they got her down to the dungeons. She sensed her own manacles as the guards tried to clap them on her wrists and ankles; they had a previous set on her from her capture, but they weren’t enough to hold her magnificent power, as she shifted up with an incredible display of magic into her white and green drakaina.

Roaring, she’d spewed caustic acid everywhere she looked. It’s perhaps the only thing that saved her from the worst rape and torture of her life, as she lies coiled up now and seething in the dungeon.

Rabid with wrath.

The guards have erected a thick wall of spiked Bloodwind and Bloodlances between her and Mikkel now; though she keeps spitting volley after volley of poison at the magical wall surrounding her, and hurling her body-snaring magic at the guards over and over, it has no effect, as the twenty guards in their dungeon make sure her containment stays in place.

She can’t reach Mikkel. And though the wrathful L?rke isn’t able to be touched by the guards right now as her dragon, they can touch her twin to punish her for her insubordination.

They’re making Mikkel pay double, as one guard hammers a Bloodlance right through his groin and Mikkel screams. He passes out and I see no more; only pray that he can somehow heal all the damage, as I rev my Ducati to the max and harden my heart against Copenhagen’s Jarl.

Who is going to pay for all of this—with his death.

I don’t even care about my morals anymore, or whether Jarl Alexander Christensen supports my uncle the King, as I feel my black inner drake roar up inside me, hard. Copenhagen’s Jarl is a demon; I understand that now, what Mikkel and L?rke have always known about him, after seeing it through the twins’ eyes.

I could even feel Emil Beck’s wrath with their Jarl as we made our plans today, becoming ready to execute them by sundown. Because Emil already knew we couldn’t leave Mikkel and L?rke even one extra minute in their Jarl’s care .

Three days’ lenience before execution, or no.

Time is of the essence now; any delay tonight might cost those I love dearly, who are fighting for far more than their lives. They might lose their very souls—because that’s what I’m feeling from L?rke now, even though Mikkel is passed out and unable to be tortured more for the time being.

I’m worried about Mikkel’s torture and potential death; but even though she’s not being tortured personally right now, I’m almost more worried about L?rke. Because what I feel from the more stalwart-minded twin right now is nothing but wrath. Nothing but cold, terrible emptiness as she rages as her dragon, over and over, trying to get to her twin.

It’s almost worse than what our own enemy can do, the Dragon of All Souls, as it curses and ruins Blood Dragons. I know we’ll have nothing left of Mikkel or L?rke if we delay even a minute longer than we have to tonight; they’re going to be gone, lost to the blackness that drives them.

They’ll be lost to their poison and inner darkness, and they won’t be coming back unless my other drakes and I can stop it. We’re on that mission now, as we park our bikes at the Mindeh?jen memorial mound in S?ndermarken Park.

Wild and rioting with blossoming flowers and trees here in the Twilight Realm, I find it’s a much different place than in the human world, though I can’t take any time to enjoy it. Not just a lone grassy mound rising before us with an iron grate barring our way, this is a vast complex of mounds, which have served a very different purpose here in Copenhagen than the landmark in the human world.

Because this is a place of dead dragons. I feel it as the black endlessness of my Bone Magic towers up inside me now, its dark eyes glittering like ancient stars as it sniffs the cool midnight wind, smelling death here.

It’s a death worse than most dragons get, as we all dismount from our bikes. As we shuck our helmets, I feel Strom, Bjorn, and even Baldur bristle for war now in their black motorcycle leathers.

Knowing this place is the Jarl of Copenhagen’s fault.

Bone Mages or not, we feel what still lives in this ancient place. A searing sensation grips my chest as Aesa feels it, too, flaring her knowledge through her Truthstone; a signature of terrible death, of both Bone Mages and Bloodwalkers interred here, after they were killed off for opposing the ancient rulers of Denmark.

Jarl Alexander Christensen is just the most recent of those rulers, having held his position for some six hundred years and counting. He’s added plenty of corpses to this pile, however; the sensation of dead Bone Mages and Bloodwalkers here makes me shiver to my fundament now as I stare at the only way into the mounds, an ornate silver and gold gate which shimmers beneath the high moonlight.

Because I can feel how each and every dead Bloodwalker or Bloodwalker’s mate here received the same torture Mikkel and L?rke are going through right now. Like his predecessors, Jarl Christensen has been brutal to our kind.

Only Bjorn stands strong in the darkness, a tower of stalwart focus in the face of everything we’re up against, and the tortured ghosts that linger here. Because like Baldur’s dead sister, these Bone Mages and their Bloodwalkers didn’t leave their dragon-bones when they died.

Some part of their soul lingers here where their remains lay. Not only that, but I feel not just a few, but hundreds of dead here beneath these mounds.

A vast network of grassy knolls, covered by vines.

Of Bloodwalker death.

“Of course, the entrance to Alfhild’s most private sanctuary would start in a house of the dead. Bloodwalker dead—every one of them.” My voice is low and snarling as I growl against the scents on the midnight wind, and Mikkel’s limited time.

“I always had a terrible sensation of death when she would blind me with her power and lead me along the cursed gauntlet to her boudoir.” Strom sets his hands on his hips now as he evaluates the place.

He’s been here before, but can remember little. Strom has told us how he was always blinded by Alfhild’s power when they went to her most personal, private sanctuary—all of his senses, except for his most innate dragon abilities.

Now, we have to find our way through it, to get to her innermost private vault and try to find her passages that lead beneath the palace. It’s that, or join Emil trying to bust in through the front door.

Which he has assured us, isn’t our best option.

“Insanity, to make your home here.” Baldur snarls now as he stares down the entrance to the mounds like an adversary and bristles. Before us, the ornate whorls of silver and gold that make up the beautiful grate gleam as he spreads his bright auric power over it beneath the high moon.

I feel it as Baldur unfurls his dragon’s endless might. Though he’s not a Bone Mage like Strom, Baldur is ten times more powerful in what he can do, as his stars-in-the-cosmos dragon aura curls all around us now, like a shimmering vapor in the night.

It reflects the starlight as it spreads in a wave around us, as Baldur evaluates the door. Glimmers of ancient galaxy colors flash in its depths, stunning in the semi-dark; I feel his vast power flow through my veins like wildfire, now that he’s bonded to us via my Bloodwalker magic.

Bjorn feels it, too. He shivers, as a fierce ecstasy rushes through us now, from Baldur unleashing his power. But after a moment of perusing the gate, Baldur frowns. He pulls his power back, glancing at me and shaking his head.

“Nothing’s on this gate. No signature of power; no curse-work or anything I can sense from the Void. Just a lump of twisted silver and gold runic work, though we can feel the death behind it.”

“Baldur’s right.” With hands raised as he walks up to the ornate door, Strom evaluates it with his power. Like Baldur, he frowns as a deep rush of his forest green and burgundy Bone Magic flow out before him, filling the space.

I watch as his power flows over the gate, far more potent than ever before, thanks to us having Baldur in our mix now. With a lift of his ash- blond eyebrows, Strom shakes his head, turning to me. “There’s nothing here; no curse-work or signature of power from Alfhild at all.”

“This is where we start, though, right? Where you’ve been before, with Alfhild?” Bjorn asks with a growl now as he crosses his arms. My First Drake is resplendent tonight in his classic outfit of black motorcycle leathers with a bombardier jacket, the white lambswool collar shining bright beneath the high moon. He’s towering and fit, his thick muscles bulging beneath his leathers in the moonlight.

Though I can’t take a single moment to enjoy it tonight.

We have Alfhild’s lair to find, and our twins to save; I nod, and we all face the door. Strom has it open in a moment with a clever twist of his magic; his Bone Magic loves all things cursed and magical and has figured out the minimal magical locking mechanism on this door in a trice.

I can even feel how Alfhild’s dark, devouring power is not in that door at all. What lingers here now is only the disaster of all the dead dragon bones still interred here.

A creeping horror of cruelty and death against Bloodwalkers and their mates.

“Fuck. This place feels a hundred times worse than Unhaemmerten ,” Bjorn growls now as Strom nods to the open gate and we all move forward to step in. Bjorn shoulders forward to enter first, always protective to the max, but it’s Baldur who gets the drop on him.

His lithe, willowy body zips past Bjorn in the night, his long blond hair braided tonight, swishing like a whipping ghost as he snaps past Bjorn. Bjorn scowls and snorts; but where he once might have lost his temper at someone showing him up like that, he only opens his hand ironically now, as if inviting Baldur inside.

Baldur’s already in, however, already raising his own cosmic-bright magic to make a light inside the cairn, as Bjorn motions us all inside. He protects our rear now as we come into a low rotunda of forbidding black granite.

No openings anywhere .

“If there are so many cairns, why are there no doors?” I ask as I grow frustrated now, feeling how time is far too short for my Third Drake and his twin. “Shouldn’t there be paths to each cairn, for the Blood Dragons who live in Copenhagen to visit their dead?”

“This isn’t a place for visiting.” Strom answers darkly now as he gazes around. As he raises his power in a midnight wave, dark crimson magic searing through his power, I finally see horribly intense curse-work on the walls.

Forbidding any dragon who might come here to visit those within.

“They were locked away, these Bloodwalkers and their mates,” Baldur says with a quiet intensity now as he sets his jaw, surveying the walls. “All their souls are still here, trapped inside their bones, forever in torment. Because of what was done to them… and how they simply cannot let it go.”

“These Bloodwalkers and their mates never returned to the Ancestors because of how badly they were tortured—and how much they want revenge,” I snarl now, bristling even more for war against Jarl Alexander Christensen than I was before. I know I’m right, as Aesa’s Truthstone flares on my chest now, snarling at what was done to all these ancient Bloodwalkers and their mates.

But even this is something to revisit another time.

“Strom?” I ask him now, because curses are Strom’s thing. He’s already on it, sweeping his dark, shimmering Bone Magic over each area of curses on the walls, inspecting them. After a moment, he’s done them all, the low rotunda not terribly large. Shaking his head, he looks at me again, his emerald eyes vibrant in the light of Baldur’s magic.

“This is pretty strong curse-work in here, but none of it is Alfhild’s.” Strom nods at one section of the wall, strangely blank of cursing. “All her shit must have broken when she died. This is our way in; the ancient cursing from the Jarls of Denmark is gone here, probably removed by her. This is the passageway to her lair. I’m certain of it. ”

“So are we going in or what?” Bjorn waves an impatient hand at the curse-empty section of wall.

“We’re going in.” Again, Baldur is the one to push forward, leaving Bjorn in his wake. Setting a hand against the empty section of wall, he pushes on it, then scowls—then thrusts a tremendous blast of his magic at it, shattering it. Stone chips fly everywhere, as Bjorn and Strom shield me from debris. As the dust clears, a vaulted stone passage is revealed.

Bjorn is growling like a raging bear now as he turns towards Baldur.

“What?” Baldur asks him as he lifts an eyebrow.

“Just fucking shred us all with shrapnel, why don’t you?!” Bjorn snarls at him now, waving a hand.

“You got shields up in time.” Giving a tight smile, Baldur doesn’t back down from my ferocious First Drake’s fuming, as hot diamond and dark sapphire take his eyes. I know an altercation is going to happen between them, some dark night when we’re not already occupied.

But that night is not now, as Strom chuckles and moves on through. “Well, I suppose the way is open.”

Strom waves at us to come into the vaulted stone passage, though I pause now. Even as everyone else moves forward, I stand riveted, swamped by a sudden, tremendous sense of doom.

I know where it’s coming from; far off in the Jarl’s palace, I feel Mikkel wake from unconsciousness, feigning still being out so he’s not tortured anew. He’s barely conscious and I know my other drakes can’t feel him as well as I can, even though we share power multi-ways now.

But as the feeling swamps me of never being able to survive this, of how horribly I just fucked up everything, my entire life and all the people I love, I know it’s Mikkel.

They’re his emotions and they aren’t, as my own inner darkness roils with his now, swamping me at everything I may have to put my drakes through soon to have any chance at even battling the Black Dragon.

What the Jarl of Copenhagen is doing to Mikkel is small potatoes to what we might face next. Because the Dragon of All Souls isn’t even remotely human, and it isn’t stopping, as a terrible sense of futility devours me now.

As everyone else enters the passage, I hide my intense upset from my bound drakes. One drake feels it, however. Stronger than the rest, Baldur’s gaze snaps around, his eyes burning opal-gold and crimson for battle now as that blue and diamond-white fire devours their center. Holding back, he comes to me.

Then takes up my hands, as he stares deep into my eyes.

Baldur’s ancient, galaxy-like gaze holds me as I feel a massive wave of light burst from him. Stepping in, he threads his fingers through mine, pulling me to him by our hands. It’s the gentlest touch; but living, cosmic fire pours through me now as his power caresses me, battling Mikkel’s darkness back.

“Feel no despair,” Baldur whispers as he eases his lips over mine. “Somehow, we will prevail … ”

Light crashes through me as he kisses me.

And I kiss him back, hard.

Needing it with every last breath of my soul.