From Bjorn’s reaction as he storms back to the brazier and takes deep breaths with his hands on his hips, getting his shit together with his calming techniques, I know it must be bad. Ström and I make our way over to him.
Wary, as I put my hand on his shoulder.
Once, Bjorn might have shrugged me off in his rage. Now, he just heaves a hard breath, closing his eyes and lifting his chin towards the ceiling of our stone prison, containing his dragon before he speaks.
“You don’t know what you’ve gotten us into, Rikyava.” His voice growls with more than just rage, vibrating with emotion at our predicament.
“So tell me. What are we in for, Bjorn, with this Trial of Truth thing?” I know we need to hash this out right now, or things might just go disastrously awry with whatever we are going to face next.
The bright crimson drakaina of my Blood Magic slithers up inside me now, nodding her glorious head with its mantle of red spikes in agreement. As she rises, the void-like black drake of my Bone Magic rises also, like a tower of night behind her. Its obsidian eyes glitter like ancient stars as it watches me. Because both sides of my Bloodwalker magic know this is bad now, as a deep instinct fills me.
Beyond bad—especially if we head into it with no idea of what we’re getting into.
“Are we in for a shitstorm, Bjorn?” Ström asks now as he stands at Bjorn’s other side, though he doesn’t try to touch Bjorn. “Is Jarl Oggi going to throw like three hundred of his most elite fighters at us or something?”
“No.” Bjorn shakes his head, though his mood doesn’t improve. “It’s worse than that.”
“So enlighten us.” I grip his shoulder, massaging him as I pour my drakaina’s energy into him. It eases Bjorn, to have my touch like this. It’s camaraderie, yet still a lover’s touch, as his tension lessens.
Though not his rage at what we’ve all just agreed to.
“It’s like this.” Bjorn glances at me, then Ström, his eyes burning all-gold now with the power of his drake. “The Magnussen Clan Trial of Truth is a hard trial both physically, mentally, and also metaphysically to prove your worth. It goes beyond proving that you’re not lying about something; it goes into a place of true heart, where you have to live in extreme righteousness to even pull the Trial off. Much less be proven truthful to the Ancestors by it.”
“Okay, so it’s an Ancestors thing. Well, we’ve got that in the bag, Bjorn,” I say with a firm smile now, gripping his shoulder. “I’m a Bloodwalker, and speaking to the Ancestors is my thing. We can do this. I’m sure of it.”
“There’s more.” Bjorn eyeballs me, then gestures for us to sit upon the massive rug in our prison’s chamber, before the brazier. We do, eating now of whatever food is left, because Ström and I get the impression that we’re going to be up shit creek soon.
And we’re going to need our strength.
“Will they take these off so we can have our full magic for the Trial?” Ström shakes one manacle at Bjorn.
“They have to. It’s required that anyone who has called for the Trial be given their full power to do it.” Bjorn nods, though his look is still grim as he sets his jaw. “It is not a boon, though. Don’t count on the strength of your magic to get you through this. It’s the strength of your heart, and your conviction, that matters.”
“Tell us what we’re in for,” I say, as Bjorn’s dire manner has me more and more worried, both my dragon-magics churning deep inside.
“First, we fly far up into the mountains to a place where the Trial is conducted.” Bjorn glances at Ström and me, then gazes deep into the fire’s light. “Our hundred witnesses will come with us; by law, they will watch our entire Trial, and judge our Truth just as much as the Jarl does. The Trial opens with us in human form. My father will don a ceremonial item… then slash five deep rents across our bodies. Which won’t heal once we shift.”
“We do part of the Trial in dragon form. Injured.” Ström frowns, cocking his head. “Well, what the hell will we be doing, cut and bleeding out as our dragons? Fly a marathon or something?”
“We dive.” Bjorn glances at Ström. “The Trial’s location holds a lake that is sacred to our clan. We dive into that lake as our dragons and touch the Truthstone at the bottom… then the Ancestors judge whether we’re telling the truth.”
“The Truthstone?” I frown, as that term is unfamiliar. “What is that?”
“Who the fuck knows?!” Bjorn’s gold eyes burn. “I’ve never taken the Trial of Truth, Rikyava, for good reason. Only seven out of every hundred Blood Dragons who take the Trial ever live to tell about it, and they saynothing… only swear up and down they’d rather go to their living graves before doing it again. Ever.”
“Seven percent survival rate isnotgood odds.” Ström whistles low as his eyebrows rise. “Would we have been better off waiting around in this prison for a while to see if your father might cool down a bit?”
“For you and Rikyava, probably.” Bjorn snorts as I understand what deep shit I’ve just gotten us all in by demanding this Trial. “My father knows what a political shitstorm he would provoke by imprisoning either of you or by killing you. He was likely to let you both go after making you suffer a while.”
“You’re another matter.” I watch Bjorn as my drakaina snarls now in my veins, protective of her First Drake. “You’ve not only broken some very deep clan laws, you’re also a living contender for his Jarl’s seat. You should be the Magnussen Clan Jarl right now, since you beat your father in dragon-combat years ago, and everyone here knows it. And your father’s just the type of person to make an example out of you. Rather than show mercy for his only blood-son.”
“Mercy isn’t in a Magnussen’s nature.” Bjorn is wrathful now, as he simmers deep. I feel him, through our bond, churning with a dark bitterness in his heart, which has been there ever since he fought his father in single combat.
And won—but still failed.
“So to recap…” Ström interjects as we all stew about what we’re up against. “We get cut up by your father, who hates us, wielding some kind of magical ceremonial item that bleeds us like stuck pigs. Then we shift into our dragons and dive into a freezing glacial lake, down to the bottom, where some magical stone is. We touch the stone, have some kind of mystical encounter with the Ancestors, then hustle the fuck back up. Oh, and we have to not bleed out in the process or run out of air… something Blood Dragons are not terribly good at, breathing underwater, since we’re not fucking Sirens.”
“That’s about it,” Bjorn rumbles as he eyeballs us. “You can see why the odds of survival aren’t good.”
