“The records of the Black Dragon Knights don’t mention any Bone Mages at the battle of Riksfold.” Bjorn scowls now. “I know. I scoured them for ages, seeing if perhaps Bone Mages were responsible for my mother’s death.”
“There were Bone Mages at that battle, though. We know my brother was one, now that my great-grandfather has come clean about our family, and our historical involvement in the True Black Dragon Knights…” Ström is alert as he wanders away from the town, towards the battlefields that ran so red that day with slaughter.
Hands on his hips, Ström scans the ground with his vision as hespreads his Bone Magic wider. It’s a slow, cold movement of power that shivers me, even as it makes my black dragon sit up tall. Because Ström’s magic is just as erotic as it is powerful; I practically roll in it now as he opens it all around me.
My inner black dragon basking in it, like a cat.
“I felt that,” Ström says, eyeballing me with a smile, even as he goes back to scanning the battleground. “We’re supposed to be working, Rikyava. Get it together.”
“Sorry.” I blush, still feeling how much my Bloodwalker power is uncontrolled in both my Blood Magic and my Bone Magic now that Aesa’s stone is fucking with it.
Ström’s right, however; we’re on a mission here, looking for any clues about that small Bone Mage drakaina, to see if this ancient battlefield can lend us any insight about her. Ström’s vision told us little about who she is, not to mention why she was at Riksfold that day, nor why she went after Bintha Lofta during our fight at Jurggadden.
And me—blasting Maryse’s bone bracelet off my wrist during the fight.
We walk now as we scan the battlefield, though I’m not sure what we’re looking for. But even though Bjorn and Ström aren’t sure, either, a deep instinct takes me now, that scanning the battlefield rather than the town is where we need to be.
The longer we walk, however, the more it feels like this is just a lost cause. Aesa’s stone is humming on my chest like we’re doing the right thing, and I feel the sensation of Bone Magic lingering here from that opening blast, but it pervades the entire battlefield.
A product of the bones that lay beneath—and the ancient power such places contain.
Just as we’re about to give up, the sun at high noon and our bellies rumbling for food, Ström halts. I feel him spiral his Bone Magic down beneath the earth; as a strange look takes him, I step over.
I feel it then, what Ström has found. As if he had a dowsing rod andjust found water, his Bone Magic has picked up something deep beneath the dirt.
“Dig?” He looks at me.
“I think so.” I nod, then glance at Bjorn. “You’re the biggest and strongest. Care to shift and dig down, see what you can find?”
“Sure.” Bjorn doesn’t even give a single huff at being used like a construction excavator; once again, I’m impressed by the man he’s becoming. He shifts up into this big golden drake, not bothering to shed clothing because we’ve all been wandering around naked this entire time, then digs his massive talons into the earth, raking it up.
It’s only a few minutes before Bjorn hits something solid. Ström and I jump into his ample hole, helping clear dirt away so we don’t damage whatever it is, as I see we’ve unearthed a skeleton.
Small, it’s a Blood Dragon drakaina, still in dragon form, her bones never reclaimed by any kin. Bjorn has shifted back down; he, Ström, and I all exchange a glance as we clear the sandy moraine away from the dead drakaina’s bones.
I wonder who she is as we brush off the dirt and small rocks; by the angle of her pelvis and the delicate stature of her bones, I know she was a her, though all her flesh is gone. Many of her serrated scales still survive; as I unearth one now, I see she was a sky blue color, with darker lines of blue midnight running through her.
Not a typical coloration for a Blood Dragon, who tend to be black, red, and gold.
“She was blue.” Bjorn eyeballs the bones as he squats, clearing soil away from another scale. “Only Icelandic Blood Dragons are generally blue. Whoever she was, she flew all the way from Iceland at her King’s call… to fight here and turn back the Ice Dragons.”
“She was a strong Bone Mage.” Ström hunkers also, whispering his fingers over the blocky skull of the dead drakaina, and the massive spines that crest off her head.
As he touches her bones, I can feel what he’s feeling; a strong signatureof Bone Magic still whispers off this drakaina’s remains, as if her magic won’t quite be set free until her bones at last dissolve to time—or whatever keeps her magic here is at last resolved. It’s not something that happens with regular Blood Dragons; our power is gone the moment we hit the ground.
But not this drakaina—as her power whispers to us of time, battle, and an aching for release.
“Time to open up the ol’ Bloodwalker power,” I say now as I heave a sigh. “I’ll contact the Ancestors and see if I can find her.”
But even as I hunker, touching her bones to feel for her presence beyond the Veil and into the Void of Ancestors, I know I won’t find her there. I feel this drakaina is still trapped here inside her bones as I touch her remains. It’s something I’ve not dealt with before.
And something I don’t know how to address, if she’s not yet an Ancestor.
“Think you can open your power wider?” I glance at Ström now. “Get some resonance between your magic and hers to see if you can spy her final moments?” I don’t even know if that’s a thing with Bone Mages, but I feel a whispering from Aesa’s Truthstone upon my chest.
Telling me my instinct is right—that it’s something a strong Bone Mage can do, to interact this way with the dead.
“I’ll try… if you stabilize me.” Ström gets to his knees in the dirt to have a better seat and not topple over as he tries this. I do the same next to him as Bjorn stands at our backs. Ström extends a hand and I grasp it, while Bjorn sets two firm hands to our shoulders.
