This place is dead, as is everything in it, save for us. I have to close my eyes, feeling the silent flow of the water all around us now as I open my Blood Magic to the max, the brighter side of my power that’s full of life.
Before I finally feel it.
There.I nod at the forbidding pile, as a deep instinct fills me that this is what we seek.It’s at the very center of the pile. At the bottom. A feeling of life.
For fuck’s sake.Ström’s growl ripples the water around us, though he’s careful not to use much breath as he flares his red and green spiked mantle from his skull.
Of course, the very thing we have to touch is at the center of the stuff we’re not supposed to.Bjorn snorts as he bares his teeth. He rakes a talon through the water again, as if trying to tear down the pile.Great.
We need to figure out some way of getting through that pile without touching any of it.I think now as I cock my head. A slow ache has begun in my body, and I glance down to see blood still seeping in runnels off me and my mates, clouding the crystalline water. Not only that, but my lungs are aching, too. We’ve been down here about five minutes; we’ve got five or ten minutes more, give or take.
Assuming none of us gives out before the rest—which would probably be me, unused to holding my breath in such cold water anymore.
Even as my dragon.
Should we hammer it with our power? See what happens?Ström says now as he cocks his head at us, swishing his barbed tail through the water.
Worth a shot.I feel Bjorn gather his strength. As he whirls suddenly, heaving a blast of metaphysical power through the water right to the pile, I feel his massive wave hit it. But it’s like that towering pile of bones has roots of lead; not a single bone is displaced as Bjorn’s strike dissipates with a ripple through the water.
Having no effect whatsoever on that abattoir of death.
Shucks.Ström’s chuckle is cheeky, but echoes our disappointment.I really hoped that would work.
You and me both.Bjorn snarls, though he’s still careful to conserve his breath beneath the water.
I think we have to swim around it. See if we can find a way in.I scowl at the towering pile.Some Magnussen Blood Dragons have survived this. If they solved this riddle, we can, too.
Beauty before idiocy.Ström grins toothily now as he nods at me, then Bjorn. Bjorn gives him a withering eyeball and a flare of his spikes; I’m already swimming forward, though, heading around the pile to see what we can see.
I traverse the gargantuan mountain of bones for a long while with my two drakes before I see it—or rather, feel it. As a place hits me where the death-song lessens, I feel the song of life break through, at last.
Like a blaze in my heart, that living beauty swamps me, hard. I feel it resonate as my Blood Magic drakaina trumpets in my veins, boiling my blood towards righteous life as everything inside me is reinvigorated.
The runnels of blood spilling from me are less now; I note it, even as I nod to my drakes to check their own wounds. They do, and find our talon rakes have lessened a bit in our scales and dragon-flesh. We’ve healed, after hearing that life-song for just the briefest moment.
As I circle back to the spot where it rang clear, I squint at the pile, feeling the way in but not seeing it. To me, it just looks like death aheadand all around. My Blood Magic knows life is in there, however, as I feel the black drake of my Bone Magic nod, too.
Confirming it.
That’s the way in.I glance at both my drakes now, as I feel this renewed life-energy surge through all of us.We follow the vibrancy of life inside our blood and we’ll find it—whatever we came here to find.
Ladies first.Ström nods at me.You’ve got the balanced power to feel both sides of this magic, Rikyava. I’m still only mostly feeling the death pull, other than a sliver of life-song coming through our bonds from you.
And I can barely feel the death magic,Bjorn confirms as he eyeballs me.If it wasn’t for your Bone Magic’s warning, I would have already touched that pile, not knowing it meant death for me and us.
Follow me, then,I say now as I regard them both.Like with Ström at Unhaemmerten, follow in my exact path like you both are bot flies on my ass. Touch nothing until we get to the life magic’s source, and we’ll get through this.
Hurry,Ström says, as I feel fear flash through him.Though I was born near the sea, I never was the best at holding my breath underwater, even in dragon form. I’m already feeling the struggle… and we still have to make it back out.
It shocks me to hear Ström may be the worst of us at holding his breath, when I thought it would have been me. But as I nod soberly now, I turn, focusing on that vibrant life-song flowing through my veins and heading on in.
It’s a tight squeeze in our dragon forms, into the pile of bones. As dead dragon skeletons tower all around us, forming a vault above our heads and a cavernous floor below, I see the way in.
It’s a small tunnel that digs into the tower of bones, twisting and turning. I follow it now, swimming as quickly as I dare in the compact space without touching anything.
The song of the dead inundates me as we swim into the pile. The bones of my Ancestors call to me, as they crowd all around now. My BoneMagic listens, understanding the deep solace of death, to my core. Because something about death is peaceful and endless, as it sweeps all the pain away. Something deep inside me wants that infinite solace.
Though something far more stubborn inside me wants life.
