As I remember Ström can penetrate minds with his power and do strange things to them, I nod. I know he won’t take it too far; Ström is agood man and has no vendetta against this guard dog of the Council, unknown to us.
I feel it like a black wind as Ström opens his true power wide. When we’re in public, he always puts his regular shielding in place to make others think he has only regular Blood Dragon magic.
As he opens his true power now, however, I feel the vast tide of his Bone Magic sweep us. His magical aura is tremendous; the guy on the ground cowers before Ström now, though his eyes still hold defiance.
Not about to break, unless Ström does his worst.
Ström has better tricks than that, though. As he pushes his power into the man now, I feel it like deep water swamping the man. It’s like the blackest depths of the ocean as Ström stares at the man’s eyes; the drake on the ground tries to shut his eyes to break contact, but Ström heaves another wave of his power into the guy, and his eyes flicker, then pin open wide.
Crouching, Ström presses his power deep inside the man’s mind now. I feel it roll him under the blackest lake.
And then all his secrets are just tumbling out.
“The Council wants you dead,” he says to Ström as he gazes up at my Second Drake. “They know what you are now; you can’t hide at the Old Palace forever, under the watchful eyes of your Jarl and family. Sometime, you’re going to slip up; when you do, we’ll be there to gut you. Bone Mages aren’t tolerated in this world. You are anathema… hiding behind your false vows to the Black Dragon Knights all this time.”
“My vows were never false.” Ström’s voice is cold as he stares the man down. “They were just sworn to better ideals than this current Council have ever stood for. Tell me, who leads the Council since Bintha’s death?”
“Ruta Bein has taken the position of Head Matriarch, after Bintha Lofta’s demise,” the man says, no hesitation now, with Ström’s incredible power surging through his mind, swamping him and making him tell us the truth. “She ordered this stakeout and knows you often associate with the Thorsens. She has told us they are Bone Mages andsent us here to guard this place, in case they, or you, came back. And here you are.”
“Fucking hells.” Bjorn curses as his golden gaze pins Ström. “The Council knows your allies are Bone Mages, Ström, and they’ve put two and two together about you.”
“It was only a matter of time…” Ström says, though not letting anything frazzle him as he keeps his gaze pinned to our informant, his power focused. “Tell me… did Ruta act alone on this order, or was this the outcome of a Council vote?”
It’s a question I want to know, as well. Ruta is looking far more like an enemy to us, rather than the ally I always thought she was.
As I wonder now if she was the one who betrayed us—all this time.
“It was a full Council vote on the matter,” the man says, as he stares at Ström. “She gave the order, as per their wishes.”
Relief flows through me to know Ruta was simply doing her duty as Head Matriarch to enact an order the full Council voted on. It leaves me wondering, however, if it was Secret Piercer Anya Bittersuss who found out this information about Ström and the Thorsens, or someone else.
A terrible feeling hits me then, as I recall Ruta was at the battle in Jurggadden. She would have seen what Ström really was, as he fought in that clash.
She’s done so much for us, though; she saved me, my mates, and Maryse’s from certain death after the Black Dragon’s attack on the Council hall, then saved Vjen after the fight at Jurggadden. Still, I feel doubt linger in me, where there had only been certainty before.
As a shared thought passes between Bjorn, Ström, and me—to not involve Ruta in any of this from here on out.
“Where have the Thorsens gone?” Ström presses the man now, as I feel his magic dive even deeper inside him. “Are they still in town, or did they go someplace else and shut the club down?”
“If we had those answers, we’d be attacking them right now rather than just you,” the man says with a scowl. “The Thorsens are sneaky; wedon’t know yet where they went. Probably cleared out of Sweden, since we have fewer correspondents telling us of suspects’ whereabouts beyond this country.”
I believe the man and Ström does, too, with his power pouring all through the guy. As we run out of questions now, we come to the part where we either kill him or let him go.
But Ström has an answer for that, too. “I can wipe his memory… make him forget he ever saw us. And forget what information he gave us.”
“Do it,” Bjorn says with a decisive nod, his boot still on the guy’s neck. “Even though the Council sent them after us, I’d hate to get even more blood on these nice boots by breaking his neck with my foot.”
“So pragmatic, Bjorn.” It gets the tiniest smile from Ström, but he still has to keep his gaze locked on the guy we’re interrogating. He refocuses on our Black Dragon Knight as a fell wind from his power sweeps the alley—deep inside the man. “You will forget you ever saw us. You will forget any of this ever happened. You will forget what you told us and discredit your fellows if they mention the attack. You never encountered us; we were never here. You and your men were just involved in an alley brawl with a bunch of upset club goers. That’s all.”
As Ström pushes these suggestions into the man’s mind with his power, I feel the drake resist. It’s clear he has some strength; though he rolled to our interrogation, he’s being quite a lot more resistant now to forgetting all this entirely.
Ström focuses hard now, roaring his Bone Magic into the guy like an avalanche, as I lend it my Bloodwalker’s might. As my own Bone Magic rises like a dark leviathan inside me, towering over my brighter Blood Magic drakaina and blocking out her crimson light, I feel it engulf me like a night full of stars.
I’m gone to that immense power inside me now, as Ström uses it like a hurricane, hammering it into the guy on the ground before us. I don’t even know I’ve blacked out from that immense sensation until Bjorn catches me.
And Aesa’s Truthstone flares—seething a blinding white wildfire through my chest.
That blistering light floods like a torrent all through me, as it swamps my Bone Magic out. It roars into Ström via our wide-open connection; he screams as that resonance reopens the tirade of his missing memories, swamping him for the second time in as many days.
