It makes my drakaina snarl inside my veins, but my black drake is evenmore furious than that. I feel it as my Bone Magic rises high inside me now, a leviathan of wrath that Ström—its true mate—just got hurt.
But then I see a ripple of magic go all the way through Ström’s tattoos. He sees it, too, and gives a relieved cry now as Bjorn and I help him down to sitting on the bear rug. We watch in amazement as the tattoos upon Ström’s skin come alive now.
Writhing over his entire body, as dragons move, and roar in wrath.
It’s incredible as we watch those tattoos curl, whirl, and dance. The ancient knotwork they create is fascinating; closing his eyes, Ström takes a deep breath, then sets his palm to his ruined heart. He winces, but is committed to whatever he’s going to do.
“Go to my great-grandfather,” he says as I feel him spiral deep within, to the very center of his exhausted power. “Warn him of our predicament. Now.”
Like wildfire, I see Ström’s tattoos disappear from his skin. Where once there were a plethora of dragons, curling and snarling around his stark muscles with the big blue-eyed dragon in the center, they all rush off now, disappearing like mist from his ink.
It’s incredible, masterful Blood Dragon mystical work, as I watch all those feral dragons vanish. At last, Ström is left with only the largest dragon, coiled around his heart as it wraps around his left shoulder and ribs, to his back where it spirals up and down his spine, protective.
The big blue-eyed drake.
Its ruined eye is now repaired, however, as all the silver falls from Ström’s heart and fingertips, cold. Ström’s skin beneath the tattoos is vivid with red scarring, but at least his burns have healed somewhat from whatever magic his inkings possessed.
His fingertips, likewise, have healed; they’re not just raw bone anymore, but actual flesh, though those two fingers are contracted now from the damage they’ve taken. The skin of his fingers is a vicious red, mottled like the skin over his heart.
I’ll take it, though, as Ström breathes easier. As he finally inhalesdeep, letting it out, he sinks back to his hands on the bear pelt. He winces from his damaged hand—not just the contracted fingers, but also because it’s the same one he punched the wall with earlier—then simply flops down to his back.
Heaving a deep breath out.
“I’ve done all I can.” He glances at us. “Hopefully, it’ll be enough.”
“What in seven hells did you just do?” Bjorn asks in amazement as his gaze peruses Ström’s mostly bare skin now, though his last remaining dragon is still intense, stunning in its wrath.
“I sent my guardian dragons to my great-grandfather, my Jarl.” Ström gives a cheeky eyebrow lift now, as he manages a smile. “You didn’t think all that was just pretty ink, did you? It was done by my clan’s ancient ways, in my youth. To protect me, and help me, in times of great need. Of which, I believe this counts.”
“So you just… sent your guardian tattoo dragons to your great-grandfather, and they what, go give him a message?” I blink, astounded and having never even heard of such magic. “Is that a Bone Mage thing?”
“It’s just a deep Eriksson Clan secret, Rikyava.” Ström chuckles, though he cocks his head. “But now that you mention it, I’m not entirely certain the magic used to create these things for Eriksson Clan heirs aren’t Bone Magic. They’re powerful in battle with what they can do. Makes sense to me they might be ancient Bone Magic, kept sacred by my people for generations.”
“Amazing.” Bjorn whistles as he shakes his head. “What I wouldn’t give for that knowledge, to ink something like that upon my body. So you called your great-grandfather with your ink? Now what? Does he send a message back?”
“Hopefully, he sends a cadre of warriors, flown in to bust us out of here.” Ström growls now, though his eyelids droop as if the pain of burning himself with molten silver plus the metaphysical might of whatever he did with his tattoos was too much in his mostly magically-blocked state right now. “But it’s not a sure thing that my message will reach myJarl, Bjorn. My tattoos have power, but they’re intended to protect the one they’re inked upon. That protection diminishes the further I send them from me. If my great-grandfather isn’t at the Old Palace right now, but someplace further away like Stockholm?—”
“The tattoos might not reach him,” I say, shocked as my eyebrows rise. “If they can’t make it to your great-grandfather… will they come back to protect you again?”
“Unfortunately, it’s sort of a one-use deal.” Ström pushes up to his elbows. His green eyes watch me, devoid of crimson now, as he gives it to me straight. “We’re in a bad situation right now, Rikyava, and if I can get us out of it without having to do the Magnussen Clan’s Trial of Truth, I’ll take that chance. Even though I’m left with only one protector now, my strongest, I’d sacrifice the others all over again if it meant we had even a fifty-fifty chance of surviving this. But a seven percent chance? Bjorn is right to fear this Trial. Because even for powerful Royal Blood Dragons like us, those are wickedly bad odds. And I don’t think Oggi Magnussen is going to do anything to help us survive this. He very well could make it a helluva lot worse.”
“You gave up your clan’s protection to save us,” I say now, touched, as I set a hand to his thigh. “I will not forget that.”
“Me, neither.” Bjorn sets a hand to his heart, honoring Ström gravely. “You’ve done a tremendous thing for us, Eriksson Jarl-Heir. I will remember it.”
“Hopefully, it gets us something.” Ström growls, even as he heaves a deep sigh. Relaxing to the floor again like he’s had the mickey taken out of him, his eyelashes flutter closed as he laces his fingers at his chest, avoiding the injured ones. “Now, I think I’ll take a little nap. Wake me when it’s time to get a move on.”
Bjorn and I glance at each other before we settle down beside Ström. As Bjorn wraps me in his big arms and I cuddle into Ström, we cinch close before the brazier’s warmth.
Waiting for what very well may be the hardest fight of our life.
5
TRIAL
Bjorn, Ström, and I manage to get some rest that night in our cell, though all of us are too tired to do much more than kiss before the fire, pondering what is to come. We’re awakened first thing in the morning for our Trial, by guards who startle us out of sleep as they unlock the magic upon the cell door.
It seems everything has been arranged on short notice, as my mates and I are now ushered out of our prison. Once again, we’re escorted through the palace, but this time to a high tower rather than the Jarl’s hall.
