Page 27

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DEATH

E very bone in my body shudders as the Black Dragon roars. Every drop of my blood leaps to its call, to leave my veins and send me right to the Ancestors for my trouble at opposing the Usurper, as it unleashes its fullest might upon my drakes and me now.

The Dragon of All Souls roars that awful wave of magic right at us, trying to blast through our Bloodshield and take us down forever. I won’t let that happen, as I suddenly return to my larger senses from wherever I went in my darkness when the creature faced me.

I’d tried to command it and failed; now is the time to fight, as I roar with my mates and L?rke, holding our united Bloodshield for everything we’re worth.

Because that’s all that stands between us and the demon’s power, as it roars again, shuddering us to our bones and trying to tear our shield apart with its power.

Its curses already spiral through my hands and wrists as I heave them up, shaking, trying to hold our protection strong. Those terrible, acid-dark curses eat into the soles of my feet where they stand upon the stone, too, digging like knives into my ankles and calves now as I scream and my drakes and L?rke echo me.

Bodies are falling all around from the battle once raging through the skies. Because the Black Dragon is killing everyone now, heart-cursing them all in its terrible, wraithlike fury as it tries to get at us.

The only dragons left standing are Emil and our enemy Litha, as bodies thud down hard now, crashing all around. Even they are grounded, on their knees, as they roar in unison, trying to control the Black Dragon’s terrible power.

Managing it—barely.

Its wrath is not for them, however, as it redoubles its efforts to wipe my drakes and I out from all existence. As dragon-bodies thud down all around, I hear Mikkel and L?rke’s terrible cries. Many of those returning to human in death were their people from The Chartreuse.

Many had survived the initial fighting, and even the Black Dragon’s arrival, vicious fighters as they were for the twins. But none can withstand the Black Dragon’s terrible onslaught now.

As it decimates everything, trying to get us.

There is no battle anymore as the Black Dragon roars at us and Emil and his Bloodwalker Litha barely command it. Though it hasn’t broken our shield yet, clearly not returned to its fullest power, it’s got us cornered—and Emil and Litha are using that to their advantage, as I already see Emil recovering.

He’s using the Black Dragon’s power and his Bloodwalker’s, as he somehow draws from both to heal every rent and puncture we gave him in battle. As he flaps his wings hard, returned to full health now, Litha trumpets in glory.

That her drake has survived—and me and all of mine are about to perish.

We’re still holding on, however, as I feel Baldur give the last of his energy to support us now in a masterful heave. Starbursts go off behind my eyes as his brightness combusts through my entire universe; then Baldur is spent, collapsing to his knees with a cry as Bjorn dives in to shore him up.

But Bjorn is nearly done, also, from holding our brightness against the Black Dragon’s terrible might. He doesn’t have enough energy to synergize with Baldur now. It leaves us in a bad place as Strom roars with me, both of us resisting our inner brightness snuffing out.

It’s a terrible thing, as Strom’s, Mikkel’s, and my Bone Magic rises to dominance inside our barrier. The entire shield loses its light, everything surging acid-green, crimson-violet, and void-black now, as we fight to oppose the creature.

Worse, I feel myself spiraling back down again, away from the brightness of my inner drakaina. I feel my Bone Magic stepping to the forefront hard now, even worse than it did a moment ago, seizing my brighter magic in its jaws and harrying it like a terrier with a rat, as it tries to make my Blood Magic go away, forever.

They’re vastly unbalanced inside me now, thanks to the Black Dragon’s power calling through my blood and bones, cursing me. Everything is out-of-balance, crashing into an unforgivable darkness as I feel Bjorn’s terrible cry, and hear his multi-toned roar, for me to not give in to this most awful place inside me.

That darkness is vast, however, as I feel it resonate now with the creature trying to take us down. I feel myself meld with those ancient, bone-dead white eyes as that horrid spiking sensation blazes through my brain.

And something inside me rises—to make it hear me.

As I roar straight at the Black Dragon from within our Bloodshield, I feel it suddenly fight Litha’s commands. Confused to hear my voice in the mix again, it pauses in its onslaught, raking its diseased fore-talons through the stone all around our little shield.

I know we only have a moment to change its mind before that terrible undead thing crashes its magic through our failing barrier and uses its worst power on us.

But even as I think, Stop it! Fucking stop it!! , towards the Black Dragon, putting my everything into my continued roars, I feel something inside me shredding.

As the brighter part of my magic sunders to my darkest, I scream up at the Black Dragon like a harpy of the elder worlds, roaring at it with all of my Bone Magic unhinged inside me, all my most terrible night. Mikkel’s power is in it, and Strom’s, as both drakes roar, too, feeling this terrible power take us all.

Though they’re not Bone Mages, Baldur and Bjorn have their own inner darkness—and their darkness is harnessed to mine, as they both roar like screaming banshees as well now, up at the Black Dragon. It’s taking us, this darkest place, changing us, as I feel it rush through me now, nearly complete.

My inner light and goodness failing fast.

The Dragon of All Souls stops at our combined roar. Glancing down, the Usurper snorts—and then Litha is shrieking at it again, harrying it more as she flies around its head and buffets its dead bones with her wings.

She’s trying to regain control of it, this demon of the ancient world that she and her bound drakes resurrected from its island grave to do their bidding. As the Black Dragon swings its gargantuan head, larger than half the hall, back and forth between us, it gives a snarling, truncated roar—because it truly doesn’t know whom to attack now.

It thunders all our bones, almost shattering them, as Mikkel and L?rke put their all into their roars now, to command the Black Dragon with me and take out Litha and Emil Beck.

Baldur has beef with Litha, too, for killing his sister at Riksfold, as I feel his inner brightness shatter to his vast, seething hate. A side of him I’ve only glimpsed before comes barreling out now, roaring through all of us, as his own innermost darkness swamps his beautiful light. I feel our Bloodshield, still mostly supported by his power, shatter.

Leaving us unprotected against the Black Dragon’s might.

Litha and Emil aren’t having it, as the Black Dragon thrashes now, not knowing whom to attack. Redoubling their efforts upon the behemoth rather than coming at us, they harmonize, as an incredible concussion of the blackest magic explodes from them like a pulse.

The Black Dragon ceases thrashing as it looks at me. Inhaling again, it’s ready to attack.

Something inside me goes utterly black then, as that gargantuan beast prepares to end me and my drakes yet again. Something inside me dies, as I understand all through my bones that this is what I have to be in order to command it.

Even as Litha flies close by and I see that a scar rips across her forehead, the resting place of her Void inner sight, the rest of me doesn’t. Because I’m gone now, into my blackness—and I’m not coming back, as I inhale just like the Black Dragon.

To do my worst.

I shift up into the blackest, most terrifying dragon I’ve ever been, as a maelstrom of death surges through my bones. It’s in my bones, my veins; my everything now, as that terrible sensation of power and ruin fills my entire aura to the brim.

I am death. I am destruction. I am the black dragon as I stare into its undead eyes and command it now from the very center of my being. I command it like I’ve never commanded anything before—not with words or roars, or even power now, but with something that rips out of the blackest part of my soul, howling all the way.

As a terrible black Bloodwind of oilslick-dark insanity surges off me now, it ignites into a firestorm of hell. As has happened only a handful of times before, my drakes’ and my combined power surges with my vast emotions, combusting as that raging hellfire goes rushing through the hall now.

There’s no light anywhere in it as that terrible darkfire blasts from me, coating everything in its path with a diabolical crimson-black oilslick. It sets even the stone in the hall aflame as the Black Dragon snorts, hit by that blast wave but not even singed by it.

It focuses hard on me, then; I feel the Black Dragon listen to me .

Because it feels the energy that created it inside my very bones and flesh.

It’s the power of its maker that it feels inside me, from long ago. But even as that terrible magic cascades off me in continued rivers of demonic, roped hellfire and oilslick Bloodwind, I don’t get the chance to command the Black Dragon.

As someone suddenly tackles my dragon with his, I crash down on the broken stones of the floor, a huge, brawny body crushing me. The Black Dragon roars, my spell upon it broken. Its terrible heart-curse hurtles right at me now, even as someone else surges in, in human form rather than dragon.

I hear a brief cry as that terrible death-curse hits Baldur instead of me, because he’s jumped right in front of me and Bjorn, protecting us. And then all the light in our bond is guttering.

Going out, as Baldur’s beautiful heart dies.

I roar with all the rage, wrath, and darkness in me as Baldur falls. I go far worse than black, as I feel his light ripped from me, forever.

Insane with wrath now, still shifted up into my magnificent Wraith, I feel a darker-than-void energy fill me up—to the max. It’s bitterness, it’s horrid, and it’s nothing but death as that terrible sensation rises hard and fast inside everything I am, swamping me.

Vast, it takes me entirely as a pulse hammers out from me, straight into the blackness of the Void. It’s like a roar, emanating from my very soul, as that pulse shreds from me.

But it’s a roar that comes from my most awful place, as it’s also powered by the bonds I have with my drakes. None of us are in our right minds now, as Mikkel, Strom, even L?rke, course all-black, shifting up like me into their worst sort of dragons.

Nasty black-crimson oilslick sigils devour our dragon-flesh, seething with burning violet light, as Baldur’s brightness is torn from us. The hellish firestorm cascading off me seethes tenfold as all my drakes shed it from their bodies now, along with me .

Only Bjorn’s power remains clear, as I feel him give everything to wrangle the very last of Baldur’s dying light.

And rip open a portal—to get us the fuck out of here.

As the Black Dragon roars, furious at our sudden escape, along with additional roars from Emil and Litha, safe in the skies and away from our insane firestorm of hell, I’m already going, torn through space. My drakes and I stumble as our dragons as we come out somewhere else, in a furious snowstorm, as the light leaves the sky towards night.

We’ve come out of Bjorn’s spontaneous portal somewhere bleak, as a far-north storm howls all around. Nothing here is green or remotely known to me, as I feel the shock of the cold air and the pain of traveling hammer me, making me reel for a moment.

Still in my most terrible dragon-form, I turn on Bjorn now, roaring at him that he just stopped me from doing my worst. As my oilslick-black and diseased crimson fire continues to flood from me—me and all my bonded drakes—I know why I’m spinning all this hellish power upon Bjorn.

Because I wanted to wield the Black Dragon, as everything inside me seethes, utterly black. I wanted to command it and watch it curse Emil Beck’s and Litha’s hearts in retribution for Baldur, breaking every single one of their bones as it ripped all the blood in scalding waves from their flesh.

I wanted to make them feel the same pain I’m going through. The same pain that took me when Maryse was torn from me by their machinations and that terrible beast.

But as Bjorn faces off with me now in the howling snowstorm, a furious rumble fills his chest. He stands his ground before me as his blazing golden drake, even as his scales get scarred and singed by my drakes’ and my furious power.

Staring me down with a righteous fire in his all-gold eyes.

Not like this, Rikyava. I hear his basso growl in my mind, clear as day, as a shining light burns from him, golden and bright, despite how I’m injuring him. We do not fight like this…

Suddenly, seeing my First Drake blaze before me, opposing me with the last of his righteousness and power, undoes me. Because Bjorn is full of his own magnificent light, while still filled with the very last of Baldur’s power, as he shines right through the very Void itself, facing off with me.

It makes me stop—and take a good fucking look at what I’ve become in my blackest wrath. As Aesa’s Truthstone blazes upon my chest and I’m thrust into a spontaneous Bloodwalking, I see the hellish, monstrous darkness that is me, as I writhe in my dragon-form out in the stars.

My Ancestors howl as they watch me transform into something far too much like the Black Dragon itself. It’s then that I know this has happened before—not with me, but with someone else—as the screeching of their endless voices claims me.

Usurper! They roar and snarl as they gnash their teeth at me.

And I know I have become the very thing I swore I would fight.

Shock shifts me down as I stumble to a hard seat on my bare ass in the freezing snow. My hellfire snaps out, along with my wrath, as I finally come back from that horrible black brink that nearly devoured me.

Bjorn roars and shifts down also, falling to his knees before me in relief, our intense standoff ended. He shudders to his bones; I can feel how everything inside him is done from the raw amount of power he just wielded to tear open space-time and get us here, plus facing off with me just now.

He opposed me just in time, however. Out of all of us, only Bjorn knew we had to get the fuck out of that palace and regroup. Only he remained in his brightness enough to understand what the Black Dragon was doing to us—and how much our entire Bloodbond was going dark, trying to command it.

How much I just went dark, trying to wield it.

All my drakes and L?rke are shocked back now from wherever we’d gone in our wrath, as everyone shifts down. Strom stumbles to Bjorn, getting fast hands on his heart and pouring a stabilizing energy into him to keep him from dying from all the energy he just expended, and all the terrible burns I just gave him with my hellfire.

Bjorn’s heart gutters hard now, like it’s about to snuff out, as Mikkel surges to Baldur. L?rke is with him, as the twins thrust their hands to Baldur’s sigil-cursed heart.

Trying their utmost to bring him back.

They begin an ancient chant—pulling the blackness out of Baldur now, which thrusts him towards death. I feel it then, that he’s not completely gone. Though his heart has already ceased to beat, the barest shred of his light is still with us; I stumble to him as I feel it, putting my hands on his bare chest and pouring my heart into him.

Giving him everything I’ve got left.

As I open my entire Bloodwalker power now, shocked back from my terrible, ruinous brink, I manage to balance, at last. The fullness of my entire power spirals all through me, uniting inside my flesh, as I feel my actual Bloodwalker magic dive into Baldur now, rather than my blackest wrath.

Trying to save him.

“Please don’t die. Please don’t die! I need you…!” I am desperate as I use my magic to command him to stay with us—and to banish the death-sigil out of his heart. I feel my united power pull from all my drakes now, hauling energy from them in a riptide as I try to save Baldur’s life.

As Mikkel and L?rke pull all those nasty oilslick-black curses out of his flesh, I call to his luminous, beautiful heart. Everything roars inside me with woe, as I sense his beautiful light flickering, going out.

When I feel him suddenly hearken to me in the Void.

Baldur hears me, as I chant with all my breath and heart and life now, for him to not leave us—for him to not leave me. I feel his spirit rise back towards us from wherever he’d gone when the Black Dragon cursed him. The barest glimmer of light shines in my mind as Baldur’s blue eyes beam and he smiles. His bright energy briefly strokes my cheek.

And the death-curse evaporates from his heart in a blaze of light.

His heart gives a glorious thump of life, then another. I feel it as Baldur falls into his deep stasis now, rather than death, the place he goes when he heals.

As Mikkel and L?rke work with the last of their power to pull more curses out of him, I finally know he’ll live. As I heave a relieved cry, I suddenly burst into sobs.

Horrible, heart-wrenching, they shake me to my foundation; because it’s too much, everything we’ve just been through, plus how I nearly lost my Fourth Drake.

I cry for our impossible situation, but also, I cry for myself. Because I don’t know what I’ve become; deep in my heart, I still feel the Black Dragon’s disease, as the curses which once riddled me burn and ache now from the Usurper’s taint charred inside Baldur, as well.

It’s something he and I share now, having been touched by the beast. And that resonance with the creature nearly undid me just now, as I feel it lance and burn through me, still wanting to take me back to that terrible place I went in my utmost wrath.

I don’t know what Baldur’s additional cursing from the Usurper will do to us, as Strom and L?rke get Bjorn and Baldur heaved up into their arms now, me stumbling along with Mikkel through the thick, driving snow.

The wind howls, and it’s only now that I can see the ancient, crumbled stones of some massive ruin all around. We’ve come through to I-don’t-know-where, as my exhausted drakes and I stumble towards the towering, broken edifices of an ancient citadel, searching for shelter.

We find it in a broken door that leads into a dark, gargantuan hall. There are no wards on the door, nor curses, as we duck inside through the massive tumble of stones, to find ourselves in an ancient Blood Dragon ruin.

But it’s the strangest Blood Dragon ruin I’ve ever seen, as lofty vaults and incredible pillars of beautiful white alabaster stone and pure sky-blue granite gleam in the towering gloom all around us.

The hall is broken to shit, cratered and crashed from some battle long ago. Still, its majesty is beyond magnificent, as we marvel at the almost Winter Fae or Elvish construction of the sweeping gables and vaulted buttresses high above.

This outer hall is drafty as fuck, however, as the wind howls in and snow skirls inside from broken vaults in the ceiling far above. We don’t have enough dragon-energy left to survive that cold without better shelter; stumbling in, we head towards a massive, scroll- and rune-worked arch that dominates the rear of the entry hall.

It leads to a small antechamber, then to a set of grand stairs that spiral down below ground. We head down into another small chamber—and find ourselves before the most beautiful white silberskrae doors.

Carved with glorious ancient Blood Dragons, the doors tower ten man-heights tall and could pass ten people, as we stare up at their majesty. They depict Blood Dragons living in a beautiful time of peace and prosperity; we stare up at their detailed reaches and see our ancient people living a blessed life, eons ago.

Those dragons dance and frolic, they rut and they fuck; they celebrate with garlands of flowers woven around their entire bodies as they cavort through the skies. After everything we’ve just been through, it’s so beautiful that I want to just fall down and weep. But I wipe my tears away now with the heel of my hand.

Because we have to survive now—that comes first.

“Strom?” Mikkel says quietly as we all take in that door. “What have you got left?”

“Just enough, I think.” Strom waves his hands over what I feel now are the last remnants of ancient locks and wards still upon that door.

It’s sigil-warded the fuck up, but there are no curses on them, as I add my own lock-breaking might to Strom’s, through our bond. Feeling our way through the wards and locks as we wave our hands in shaky, spontaneous patterns over the door from our magic, I finally see a few crystalline threads of ancient magic shiver as we make progress at unlocking it.

But then we hit something inside the door that will not budge. Some ancient lock, a series of sigils so complex and so massively detailed, it flares to life now on the door, barring us passage.

No matter how Strom and I work our exhausted magic, nor how much extra power Mikkel and even L?rke try to give us, it won’t budge. I think perhaps it’s a lost cause, trying to get into whatever’s been locked away here for generations, when Aesa’s Truthstone suddenly flares upon my chest. It’s so hot, it nearly burns me.

As another flare from my hand joins it.

I look down to see Maryse’s ring on my finger searing as it resonates with Aesa’s stone. As a scalding gold-white light seethes from the silver ring now, making it blaze with power, all six of its stones light up.

As an incredible magic surges off the ring, resonating with Aesa’s Truthstone upon my breast, I see crimson sigils from both spiral up into the air. They’re ancient and unrecognizable as they surge towards the towering stone door, making that last lock upon it flare white-gold and crimson.

Then give up, blowing away into the darkness.

Some massive locking mechanism gives a series of chunks deep inside the door, and then the entire door parts in the middle with a sigh. As an incredible scent of ancient stone and deep caverns of time hits me, from whatever is beyond that door, I inhale in surprise.

Strom and Mikkel reach out, hauling those doors wide.

Admitting us to an unknown mystery.

Hidden away for eons.