A place where we can take wing and fly to our Trial of Truth.
All our belongings from the Old Palace are stuffed in fly-bags, carried by our guards. No fewer than thirty Magnussen Clan guards attend us as we’re placed in different silver manacles now, which still hamper our magic but allow us enough to shift. As Bjorn, Ström, and I shift up into our dragons and vault into the clear morning sky, our guards surge up around us, carrying our gear.
Escorting us to the unknown place where we’ll face our Trial.
It’s a long, grueling flight. As we leave the Jarl’s fortress, surgingever higher into one snowy mountain range, then another, I’m hard-pressed to keep up with our guards, much less entertain any thought of escape.
Because though I’m permitted enough magic to fly up into these towering, isolated peaks, my breath is labored and my heart beats hard from such fast flying at such high altitudes.
These peaks in the northernmost part of Magnussen territory are far more than fourteeners; they are all twenty thousand feet or higher. I know by how thin the air up here is now.
Ström’s red drake with its sparkling green geodesic markings is an agile flyer, but he’s a coastal dragon, and has to fight for breath now as he firms his determination like a lance to carry on.
Bjorn’s gold drake with its strong red tattoo designs was born in these high altitudes; but it’s been a long while since he’s been home, and he struggles for breath as much as Ström now.
Only our guards who fly these peaks are in any kind of shape to keep going, but somehow, my drakes and I do. The only thing that bolsters me as we fly, besides my sheer stubbornness, are my two drakes flying beside me.
With me to the end—no matter how far that goes.
The clear river water scent of Ström hits me now in these crystalline altitudes as he flies beside me, with its hints of aphrodisiacal elderflower. Bjorn firms my intent to get through this also, as I inhale his good pipe tobacco scent into my lungs, burning with peat whiskey, smooth honey, and battlefield char.
It puts a song in my heart to fly on, my drakaina intent with vengeance for him against his father. Just when I think I’m about to pass out from the elevation even in my dragon form, black spots blossoming before my eyes, we crest the highest stretch of mountains yet.
A steep vale below, surrounded by a tight ring of peaks.
The bluest lake I’ve ever seen fills that vale; it’s pure, pale color is only visible through an enormous hole cut into the twenty-foot-thick ice. We touch down on that glossy surface; as the wind whips around the tightvale, it stirs up magnificent gales of snowdrifts from the peaks all around us, into the high, sunny day.
We’ve been flying for a while; the sun is at its zenith, and every part of me roars for food now to replenish my exhaustion. But I know it isn’t coming, as our escorts shift back down to human, motioning for us to do the same.
Bjorn, Ström, and I do. We’re provided with massive furs to huddle in now, as we wait for other Magnussen Clan Blood Dragons to crest the peaks. As they wing down towards the frozen lake, I understand these are our witnesses, dragons who represent the highest echelons of the Magnussen Clan’s royals, judges, and military personnel. Bjorn watches them all, as many of them give him deep, honoring nods, knowing him from long ago.
And he nods back.
We’re surrounded in this valley now by the witnesses here to observe our Trials. It’s such a small vale, I can see them all; their craggy, strong faces are impassive as they take seats on incredible thrones carved right out of boulders, which have crashed down to the lake from the peaks above.
As we wait, I see a number of our witnesses enjoying a midday repast they’ve brought, and mead. We get nothing, however, as our guards keep their perimeter around us in the center of the ice, beside the gigantic blue hole.
At last, we see the Jarl himself wing down, with a formidable honor guard. They take their time coming to us, as if Jarl Oggi Magnussen is in no hurry, our demise already sealed by us asking for this Trial.
At last, the massive gold and black drake that is Jarl Oggi Magnussen has settled before us. I like him even less than when I first encountered him; the Jarl’s dragon is a brute, more gargantuan than anything I’ve seen, save a Crystal Dragon.
He towers over the rest of his guard, his golden body shimmering in the sun but his black markings stark. He’s a creature made for theseterrible heights; as Jarl Oggi raises his blocky head now, regarding us with his gold-black eyes, he snorts.
Sunlight cascades off his viciously serrated, gilded scales, scattering in rainbows across the ice. The Magnussen Clan Jarl is intimidating, impressive, and blinding as he coils up barbs-out in the sunshine with the white glacial ice all around.
He pauses in dragon form for a long while, before finally shifting down. His honor guard has already returned to human, and they step forward now to give their Jarl an impressively white cloak of bear, fox, and ermine fur, which he slings on around his shoulders.
It covers his nakedness, with draping sleeves and a high collar as he buckles it closed, though Jarl Oggi’s impressive stature is hard to miss. Even far more built than his son, Bjorn’s father is a massive brick house of a man, despite his later years. With a barrel chest, strong thighs, and massive calves, even his forearms bulge like a world-class strongman as he finishes the last buckle on his cloak.
Then pins us with his molten gold-black gaze.
“Rikyava Andersen of the Erdhelm Clan, Ström Eriksson of the Eriksson Clan, and Bjorn Magnussen, formerly of the Magnussen Clan, you have been brought here today before these hundred witnesses to complete your Trials of Truth, or die trying. What say you?” Jarl Oggi watches us, addressing us in what I’m sure are ceremonial words as he opens the proceedings.
“We sayaye,” Bjorn says without pause, knowing how this goes as he speaks for Ström and me, as well. “We three are here to invoke the Trial of Truth, for each of us, to let it be known before these witnesses that we speak the truth and have been wrongfully waylaid from our mission these past few days. I would additionally like to invoke the Right of Illumination now—that we may explain to our witnesses why we are here today.”
“The Right is yours.” Jarl Oggi gives a cold nod, though I get the sense he’d rather we not tell everyone why we’ve asked for this event today.
“Honored nobles and leaders of the Magnussen Clan.” Bjorn turns toface our witnesses, taking them in with a full sweep of his gaze now, rather than face his father anymore. “We have gathered before you today to invoke this ancient Trial, because we are being wrongfully detained in a situation most dire. A situation that is of utmost concern to our King and the security of this great nation, which he himself has tasked us to hunt.”
