“Do we run any risk of your father killing us outright,” I ask now, “when he has to cut us?”
“Not as much, no.” But Bjorn’s look is not good. “He doesn’t have to cut shallow or deep, though. He simply cuts… and whatever happens is fate.”
“Fucker’s going to slash us to the bone,” Ström snorts, shaking his head.
Suddenly, Ström’s rising from his seat before the fire, as I feel the dark crimson-green drake of his Bone Magic rise inside him. A slow, violet-black aura of Bone Magic whirls around him now, with deep crimson and forest green flickers, as Ström raises his dragon power as much as he can in his manacles.
Going to his knees, Ström strips away his polar bear pelt, then the jacket of his buckled leathers from the Old Palace, and finally, his undershirt. Before I can saylickety-split, he’s naked from the waist up, the ornate red and gold dragon tattoos that devour his chest and shoulders glimmering in the brazier’s light.
They snarl around his strong, wiry muscles, intertwined with raiding ships, whirling oceans, and Celtic-esque designs from our people.
Formidable and scary, with his dark Bone Magic whirling all around him.
“Did I miss something? Is it time to get naked? Since maybe we’re all about to die…?” I chuckle, though seeing Ström half-naked with his dragon’s natural power roiling off him like that sends my inner drakaina into a riot as she slithers hard inside my veins.
Ström’s Bone Magic is something he hides from all but the closest who know him. It makes everything roar up inside me with eagerness now, as Ström bares to us who he really is.
Something he’s only done a handful of times, so far.
“If we have time for sex, maybe.” Ström’s emerald eyes glint in the brazier’s light as he gives me a wry smile, though his emerald green irises have already gone brimstone-red around the edges with the power of his dragon. “But first, I need to do something. Bjorn, hand me your shoulder pelt.”
“Why?” But Bjorn doesn’t argue with Ström now, not like he once would have. He unbuckles his own white polar bear pelt from his shoulders, handing it over.
“Because the buckle is pure silver, if I’m not mistaken.” Ström is intent now as he deftly unclasps the buckle from the pelt, handing the massive pelt back to Bjorn but keeping the large, ornate buckle. “And I need something silver to do what I’m about to do next.”
“What are you going to?—”
Before I can even get the rest of the sentence out, Ström casts the silver buckle into the brazier. My eyebrows lift as we all watch the silver burn, slowly becoming molten in the brazier’s heat, since the sorcerous fire is forge-hot to keep it nice and toasty in our big, drafty cell.
As the silver runs from the buckle, the entire thing becoming misshapen as it melts, I wonder what Ström’s going to do. But then he concentrates all his magic, whirling slowly around him. Like a lance, he thrusts it down into one hand.
Then bends, sticking two fingers into the fire.
Ström takes up a dollop of burning silver—pressing it right to the tattoos over his heart. As he delivers the silver plus his magic there like a punch, he gives a short scream; I yelp too, as I feel pain skewer deep into my own heart, through the sliver of bond we still share.
Bjorn gives a bellowed grunt; we’re trying to pull Ström’s hand away, because even though he used whatever Bone Magic he had left right now, Bjorn and I can feel that molten silver burning Ström’s fingers and the skin over his heart down to the bone.
Ström fights us, however, shoving us both off, even though he can’t hammer us with his dragon’s magic right now. His lean form is wiry; he’s got far more power in his tight body than either Bjorn or I give him creditfor. Even without magic, he has us stumbling to our asses upon the massive bear rug as he gulps deep breaths.
Tears of pain streaming down his face—as he holds his burning silver fingers to his heart.
“Don’t hold me back! I have to do it long enough…!” he gasps, as Bjorn and I watch in horror at what he’s doing, maiming himself like this.
“Those fingers won’t heal until you can shift, Ström—! Until these manacles are off and we head out for the Trial!” Bjorn snarls at him now, though it’s out of care, rather than wrath.
“I can deal with it!” Ström snarls back, even as he gives a keening cry between gritted teeth. “I have to awaken them! I have to call…”
Ström swoons then, and it’s all Bjorn and I can do to get to him fast enough before he simply falls over. We do, shoring him up under both arms as he collapses between us.
He comes to with a cry deeper than agony now; I feel a strange rush of power move through him, as something like memories flash inside my mind from our bond.
But with a shake of his head and a snarl through gritted teeth, Ström banishes whatever just happened, coming back to the moment. As his silver-burned fingers come away from his heart, I see a blistered hole coated in silver now, where they were.
That hole mars his most beautiful tattoo, right over his heart. Where once there was a snarling red dragon, roiling with golden geodesic lines and serrated scales over his left shoulder as it coiled around his heart, the face has become disfigured. That dragon had crystalline, sapphire blue eyes piercing out from its terrible, snarling visage.
One of them gone, now that the silver hole’s replaced it.
Ström’s flesh is still burning where the silver is. I can smell it and feel it through our truncated bond as he keens, as if whatever he just tried to do didn’t work.
