“If we can find your thief, we might just find a good lead on the identity of our enemy Bone Mage.” Bjorn glances darkly at Ström. “The question is… if we go hunting that red-headed thief drakaina, can you handle it, Ström?”
“I think I may not want to go anywhere near her. Maybe even by a hundred miles,” Ström says with a dire darkness now, all wit dropped. His green eyes pin me, searing red from the power of his dragon. “But I think we have to go hunting her. Not just for information on our enemy Bone Mage, but to break me free of her spell. I’ll be damned if I’m going to tolerate her cursed shit inside me even one more night. Pulling on my balls and making them betray me—while keeping me wrapped around her fucking metaphysical talon and keeping my mind enslaved to her diabolical might.”
“We’ll find her—and we’ll make her fucking pay. Just as we’ll do for Bjorn’s father.” I draw close to Ström, putting my hands around his waist. “That bitch better be ready. Rikyava Andersen is going to fuck her shit up. And make her apologize to my Second Bloodmate. Copiously.”
“I would rather like to see that.” Ström grins now, a genuine smile. There’s still darkness there, however, as the ring of brimstone red doesn’t leave his irises. His dragon’s raging for a fight against this woman who betrayed him.
And bound him to her service—making him forget all about it for decades.
“Come on.” Bjorn claps Ström on the shoulder, taking my hand. “Let’s gather our things and head to Uppsala. Get a beer and a room for the night.”
“Ten beers.” Ström chuckles. “Better yet, make that twenty. I think I’ll get roaring drunk and start a fight just so I can bash some heads and feel better. You two in?”
Before we can say how ready we are for a drunken brawl, somethingstreaks through the skies. It’s through our vision and past us so fast, I almost don’t believe what I saw until it’s gone, lost to the horizon.
But I know what I saw—what we all saw—as Bjorn, Ström, and I all jolt in shock.
The Black Dragon, far above in the vast blue skies.
“Fucking hells…!” Ström’s awed yet horrified expletive says it all, as that fearsome vision steaks past. If it saw us, it had other places to be, as it rushed past at ten times the speed a regular Blood Dragon flies.
Monstrous, it was fifty times larger than any of our kin, larger than any living dragon I’ve ever seen. Far bigger than even a Crystal Dragon, this thing was like a god as it barreled through the skies.
Worse, I couldn’t help but note it was filling out with new ropes of flesh over its diseased white-black bones. It’s returning to its former might from everything we did atUnhaemmerten, unleashing the souls of the Black Dragon Five to return to the beast. It’s returning to its former wrath as a god of wind and darkness, which leaves ropes of black blood streaking after it now.
Darkening the sky.
“The Black Dragon. Where do you think it’s going?” I’m horrified as I watch that diseased blood trail leave oilslick-black runes coating the sky.
“Nowhere good,” Bjorn growls, as that black horror show shimmers down, searing trails of destruction in the earth now. Where it touches the meadow and the trees, it kills them instantly. Bjorn, Ström, and I quickly sidestep as one of those roped, bloody red-black trails comes right down where we were standing.
Charring the earth so dead, it shines gory and red now, like an open wound.
“Jesus.” Ström gives a soft whistle as we see horrid red-black Bloodrunes blister everywhere those bloody ropes landed, searing the earth. “Fucker kills the very earth it touches. We need to stop in Stockholm and warn the King about what’s going on. And what direction that thing was heading when it flewpast.”
“Stockholm rather than Uppsala,” I say now as I glance at my mates. “You’re right; King Huttr needs to know right away what’s going on. Even though we have other leads now to help us figure out how to stop it.”
“Stockholm it is.” Bjorn’s low growl rumbles all the way through him. “And let us hope it wasn’t headed anywhere to cause further destruction, like it did at Jurggadden.”
“It’s got to be at least ten times stronger now with the power us freeing the souls of the Black Dragon Five gave it.” Ström nods, as he shields his eyes with a hand and gazes up at the skies. “Doesn’t seem like it’s returned to its fullest might, though… here’s hoping something is blocking it from all those souls returning to it. Though I wouldn’t count on it.”
“One night in Stockholm to warn the King and recuperate, then we have to get down to Copenhagen.” I am decisive as my mates look at me. “If this thing is getting stronger, we’re running out of time for an opportunity to fight it. Even now, it’s far faster than us—we can’t follow it through the skies, despite its caustic blood-trail. We have to learn about it, figure out who’s still controlling it and why, and where they might send it. Then get there, ahead of it. And give it everything we’ve got.”
As my mates nod, I know we all agree. But before we can get back to our things and head out, I feel something back down in the hole call to me. It’s the Icelandic drakaina, as I suddenly feel her Bone Magic reach out to mine again, the black dragon with starlight eyes inside me sitting up tall now.
Though I want to get going, to warn our King about the Black Dragon, some deep instinct inside me knows I can’t just yet. Not until old wounds here are laid to rest; vaulting back down inside the hole as Aesa’s Truthstone sings upon my breast, I crouch beside the Icelandic drakaina’s remains.
What do you need?I feel myself ask not the Void of Ancestors, but this drakaina through my fingertips now, as I feel her undying Bone Magic resonate with mine.How can I help you?
I don’t hear any words in my head, but I suddenly feel compelled to reach down and take one of her vibrant blue scales, cut through with dark midnight and white lines. As I touch it, a flash of memory goes off inside me, of seeing that Icelandic artist, Baldur Sigurðsson, at Mikkel and Lærke’s club.
As I lock eyes with him again in the memory, I feel Aesa’s Truthstone blaze upon my chest. I feel the blue drakaina’s lingering spirit surge to me then, heaving up into the piece of scale in my hand.
Demanding that I deliver it, to the man now in my thoughts.
Frowning, I grip that beautiful blue scale in my fist.I will find him. And give him your message.I promise this unknown drakaina now, though I don’t know why I feel so compelled to do it.
But my promise seems to give her relief; as Aesa’s Truthstone flares upon my chest, I feel the Icelandic drakaina’s spirit finally freed from her remains, her last memories seen and her last needs met. As her soul flashes away to the Void of Ancestors, I feel it cross the veil in a whoosh of energy. And then there is nothing, only the blue scale sparkling in my hand, devoid of any part of her spirit now.
