It’s a long process, and I feel it’s nearly sunrise before everything is done. At last, as Lærke fills one last sentence in on the documentthey’re looking at, she closes her eyes, rubbing her temples as if dispelling a headache.
Mikkel heaves a deep breath as he sets his pen down, then leans back in his chair, cracking his knuckles and stretching his back. He arches like a cat, making the most of his lean, long form as he twists and rises from his seat. His grace is so fluid and fast, I almost miss him rising.
Until he’s standing before us, beaming at me.
“Well, it’s finished. You have a fascinating set of documents here. Though Lærke and I translated them, we can’t make heads or tails of most of them. One document is a genealogy scroll, and wasn’t actually written in code, just an old Bone Magic dialect. And most of the documents read like recipes—add a thimbleful of this, and a pinch of that… andvoila!Magic.”
“The woman who wrote these did masterful work.” Lærke comes to us, having drifted away from my side in the past hours as she worked with Mikkel. “She was an ingenious inventor with Blood Dragon magic. All of her runic designs, spell recipes, and such are completely unique—not things Mikkel and I have seen replicated anywhere, down through the centuries. She was a Bloodwalker; she worked with Blood and Bone magic, both. And she wove them together in brilliant, and almost insane ways… to create what she did.”
“The Black Dragon,” I say, as we finally get a new lead on that monstrosity, grateful for the twins’ help.
“She called itThe Dragon of All Souls.” Mikkel lifts an eyebrow at me now. “Because it took several souls to help her create it.”
“Explain,” Bjorn says with a dark frown.
“See here.” Lærke indicates a certain passage on one vellum from a codex now, then the corresponding text on the computer as she scrolls back a bit. “This passage talks about thedonation of many souls, to create the Dragon, then goes on to catalogue the magical process by which that was done. From your ancestor’s words, Mikkel and I understand thoseinitial drakes and drakainas who were chosen to create the Dragon donated themselves to it, to give it life.”
“Donated, how?” Ström asks now as he raises an eyebrow at Lærke, realizing as I do that the process of creating the Black Dragon was a bit more sinister than we imagined.
“Bodies, hearts, and souls.” Mikkel jumps in now as he taps on the scroll. “She’s pretty clear right here that the rituals she devisedaccepted and imbuedher new creation with the blood, bones, and souls of those who were chosen. They freely gave their lives; offered themselves up as sacrifices to the thing she was creating. To give it their flesh, blood, and life… meldingAll Soulsinto one—inside the beast.”
“Holy shit.” I blink, as a dark sensation floods me to know what my ancestor was doing when she created that thing. “That’s like… Frankensteining a dragon. Only using not just the flesh, bones, and blood of what was donated to create it, but taking their souls, as well.”
“Binding them into the creature.” Lærke nods as her fierce gaze holds me. “So their souls would never return to the Ancestors, but be stuck in that thing, powering it.”
“Forever.” I breathe now, horrified at what my ancestor did. I finally understand why she repented so much when it went amok, and tried to kill it. “Those souls she bound into the creature would never return to our people. They would never cross the Veil into the Void and return to the Ancestors, who are their true home. They would be in limbo forever.”
“Or at least, until that thing could be put down. At last,” Bjorn growls, fierce.
“We owe it to them to break the cycle. Those lost souls trapped inside the creature…” Ström says now as he ponders this new, horrific development. “We’re not just protecting our people from that thing now, trying to bring it down, but we have a duty to those who went before. Those who didn’t know they would be trapped in that thing for all eternity. And suffer—endlessly.”
“Apparently, they knew what they were in for.” Mikkel clearshis throat now as he taps another section of the scroll. “She says plainly here that sheinformed each one of them of their eternal soul’s destinybefore accepting them as a donor for her Dragon.”
“And they did it anyway,” I say now, horrified. “Gods. How awful was this war of the ancients, that all those Bone Mages would agree to put their eternal souls in limbo forever, just to stop what was happening?”
“Terrible, from all our ancestors’ stories,” Lærke says now, her voice quiet. “The Bone Mages were being wiped out completely, so they did something even more complete… to have a chance at fighting back.”
“Except the Black Dragon got away from them and began to wipe everybody out.” Bjorn snorts now, caustic. “How many Bone Mages committed their souls to this thing?”
“Thirteen,” Mikkel says at once. “Though… there was the possibility for an additional five, if things ever went badly.”
“The Black Dragon Five,” I say, as that part of the story makes sense now. “They created the creature and wielded it with their Thirteen donated souls already inside it. They kept room somehow for their own magic, though… if things ever began to go wrong.”
“Like a failsafe.” Ström frowns. “In case they ever lost control of it.”
“Which they did,” Bjorn grumps, as he crosses his arms over his chest. “From the information we’ve gotten so far, it sounds like the Five fought it, but they lost to it after it gained its own mind and will. Aesa and her group finally brought it down—the original Black Dragon Knights. Though it took nearly all their lives to do it.”
“A deep conundrum.” Mikkel’s gaze pins me. “But how does this information help you track it or bring it down?”
“I don’t know yet.” I chew my lip as I ponder everything we’ve discovered, thanks to the twin’s help. I hold out my phone now to Lærke. “Can you download everything you’ve translated and put it on this?”
“I’ll do you one better.” Leaning over, Lærke taps through a few screens on her laptop, then hits enter. At once, my phone dings as a text message pops up on it with a link. “Magically bioencrypted link.” Sheglances at me with a tight smile. “The three of you will have to scan your biometrics and magic on this phone app to unlock it,” another link dings through as she sends it, “and it’ll take all three of you to do it. But you can access the document anywhere, as long as you three are together. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks,” I say now, impressed by Lærke’s security measures.
A life I once led, in my position as head of security at the Red Letter Hotel Paris.
“So. We’ve decrypted your little project for you to read through at your leisure.” Mikkel faces us, clapping his hands briskly. “Now it’s time for someturnabout is fair play. Rikyava, I do believe you and I already tried to connect to get my memories back through your silver stone and it was disastrous. I suggest Lærke try now, so we can get our missing memories returned. And then we’ll fuck up this red-headed woman who banished them from us. Probably Alfhild… though we’re uncertain about that still. Shall we get started?”
