I’m the one on the ground now as Bjorn vaults to Ström, wrapping him in a hard embrace and swaddling him in his fierce, fire-bright Blood Magic to keep Ström with us and not go Wraith and shift up. Ström stays human this time, but barely. Our position with our Knight is now lost, as the man scrambles away from us and shifts.
Vaulting up as his dragon into the starry night sky.
We’re left heaving hard breaths in the alley, as Bjorn manages to get Ström under control with his power. But Ström’s gone inside his eyes for a long minute, his brimstone and emerald dragon raging inside him until the red clears and he blinks at last.
The rest of the unconscious Knights are waking now, however. We either fight them all over again, or we scram and take ourselves elsewhere.
Bjorn and I get under each of Ström’s arms and hustle him out of the alley, twisting and turning through so many avenues I’m thoroughly lost before we finally slow. Ström seems to know where we are, though, as his head clears; pointing us to an archway, he nods us down an extremely tight alley, and we come to a guarded door.
He nods at the guard; the man recognizes him and nods back. In a trice, we’re back inside the walls of the Old Palace, in the tiniest little walled garden you’ve ever seen.
As Ström sinks to a stone bench beside a mermaid fountain, Bjorn and I settle beside him. I hold his hands as Bjorn rubs his shoulders; shaking his head, Ström blinks, though I can feel he’s back with us.
“Ström? Where are you?” Bjorn growls as he checks in with the third of our trio, making sure he’s okay.
“I don’t know. The memories are gone, again.” Ström glances at us inbefuddlement. “I got more of them now. I had images of Denmark; Copenhagen, where I was when all this shit went down and my memories were erased. I saw Mikkel and Lærke there, in a few clubs they own, though they looked like they did back when I was there in my youth. There was someone else with them, a woman. She—” But Ström cuts off then, as he scowls. “Shit. It’s gone again.”
“What else do you remember? Quickly, before it fades,” I say, knowing these memories are important.
“I saw… her…” Ström says with uncertainty now. As he closes his eyes, I feel him put himself back in that place. “She was influential in Copenhagen, but those memories are still a jumble. I see a warehouse, maybe by some docks? I don’t know. It’s not a place I’ve ever remembered. But then there were other memories…”
“Others?” I ask, holding his hand and feeling Aesa’s stone hum upon my chest now, as if helping him.
“I see a wide field, green rolling hills,” he says, as if he’s gone deep in trance. “I see a battle, or the remnants of one… Riksfold.”
“Riksfold?!” I take a sharp inhale, as Bjorn sucks his teeth. We all lost family at the Battle of Riksfold over sixty years ago, and it’s a sore point for each of us.
“I was there just after the carnage happened,” Ström says now, as that strange lilt takes his voice. “I was left behind at the palace with a subset of younger Kingsguard to protect it… we came to the battlefield afterwards to help with the dead. I was searching for my brother. Everyone was looking for the dead, for fallen loved ones. I found him, broken and bloodied upon the field, dead. But when I did, I also saw… ”
He pauses then, as a dark frown takes him.
“What did you see?” I press him, feeling this is important, as Aesa’s stone hums even more brightly upon my chest.
Pushing him with its Truth-telling power.
“She was small,” he says then, his voice so soft I can barely hear it. “The smallest drakaina, almost like you, Rikyava… but her energy was pure might. She seared through the skies, pausing to see me down below with my dead brother. She swooped at me like she might kill me too, but a massive golden drake intervened, and she flew off. I knew her energy, though. I knew what she was about to strike me down with. It was Bone Magic, through and through. I thought I’d remember it forever… but then I forgot her along with the rest of my missing memories.”
As Ström finally blinks his eyes open, it’s like a sleeper come awake. He inhales a deep breath, then pins me with his emerald gaze. “When we were in the battle at Jurggadden, Rikyava, I saw that same small drakaina. She was with the Bone Mages we were fighting, just for a moment. I saw her strike down Bintha Lofta, the blow that killed her. And I saw her send the curse that blasted Maryse’s bracelet off your wrist.”
I stare at him, astounded, as we get the truth. But Aesa’s stone hums like wildfire now at my breast with a flare of brimstone magic inside me, and I know Ström’s right.
Even though I only saw that small, lithe drakaina kill Bintha, Ström saw far more at the fight over Jurggadden. He didn’t remember it until now; until our resonance with Aesa’s stone revealed yet another truth to him.
That the same enemy Bone Mage drakaina was at Riksfold.
The battle that killed my parents, Bjorn’s mother, and Ström’s elder brother, sixty years ago.
17
FLASH
Bjorn, Ström, and I are suddenly faced with a choice, as we make it back to the Old Palace and digest everything we’ve learned tonight. We cool off with whiskeys after our fight against those Knights, sent after us by the Knights’ Council, as we argue about our potential next step.
We could either head down to Copenhagen in Denmark to see if we can find Mikkel and Lærke Thorsen and maybe get a lead off our cypher documents. Or we could follow Ström’s intriguing vision and head to Riksfold, to see if that former battle site has any clues about our enemy Bone Mage drakaina, and perhaps even the Black Dragon itself.
In the end, Riksfold wins—simply because it’s on our way back down the coast towards Denmark, inland near the ancient city of Uppsala. We decide to hit that first, then fly to Copenhagen, hopefully picking up the trail of the Thorsens and where they escaped to when the Knights came calling.
It means leaving the protection of the Old Palace, however, as we fall asleep in an exhausted tumble after a brief lovemaking, ready to leave bymorning. Ström’s already said goodbye to his great-grandfather the Jarl and his sisters so we can get an early start.
