I feel all that terrible magic in Alfhild’s barrier swirl inward now. I feel it as it hurtles into Ström—hammering him and making his Bone Magic sear like a bomb.
As all his power fixates on me, I’m a fly in a trap—and Alfhild has just sprung that trap as she activates some sort of sleeper curse she put inside Ström, long ago.
As he snarls back up into his lithe red and green drake, blasting up inside the barrier and roaring at me, I know he’s the only one of us allowed to shift up in here. Bjorn is suddenly between us. I feel Bjorn pour everything he has into our magic as he defends me—but whatever Alfhild did to Ström just now, Ström’s far too powerful, able to draw on Mikkel’s magic now through our bonds.
Ström’s dark green and red drake whirls up all his inner magic in a tirade. I feel him thrust all that power into Bjorn, telling him,get out of my way, with his power.
Bjorn fights it. Bless his noble heart, he fights it with everything he’s got. But three of us have Bone Magic now in the bond, which Ström draws on to give Bjorn that command, while Bjorn only has me to bolster his Blood Magic as he fightsit.
With a towering cry, Bjorn shudders from the strain of resisting Ström. Though I pour all the Blood Magic I can now into our bond, Bjorn collapses—and Ström has a free path to me. As he sidewinds to me fast, I know I’m a goner… because I can’t shift up in here.
Only Ström can, as Alfhild watches our destruction with glee.
It’s then that Mikkel rushes between us. Standing right in front of me as he shoves me back behind him, Mikkel does nothing, only stares Ström down with the full force of his black dragon in his searing dark-copper eyes. I feel it as Mikkel gives it everything he’s got, thrusting his indomitable dragon’s power right down through our new Bloodbond into Ström, along with all his mind-commanding abilities.
To wake Ström the fuck up.
Ström snarls, shaking his head to clear it, as Alfhild’s final curse inside him is shattered by Mikkel’s power. As it is, I feel the full strength of our combined magics returned—and I blast it up like a missile now, as I strike Alfhild’s barrier with my Bloodwalker magic.
The barrier blasts out in a rush of living fire, just like we made before. All of us are renewed in energy now that the barrier is gone; Bjorn roars back up as his dragon to attack her with Mikkel and me.
As Alfhild’s bound drakes rush in to attack us.
It’s a shitshow, as we clash as our dragons. Alfhild hammers waves of power at us from her impressive magics as her drakes engage us, but Ström’s right—she relies too much on her mind-magics and sneakiness in her dealings, and is weak in an all-out attack.
Ström, Bjorn, Mikkel, and I are superb at war, however, as we use our best maneuvers in the sky and on land to beat her people back. Many drakes in her thief ring are down already; as a piercing roar screeches at us from the skies, I see Lærke’s white dragon with chartreuse lines diving in to attack with us.
We’re getting them now; knocked unconscious, blistered by our power and gravely wounded, or killed outright by our snarling fangs and ruthless talons, Alfhild’s people are drawing back. And the searingcrimson dragon that is Alfhild herself, all-red like her hair, is pulling back with them as she realizes her mind-magic drives are no longer useful on us.
That old trick has been broken by Ström—forever now, as we almost take them down to a drake.
Alfhild herself is surrounded by us now in the skies, when something else barrels in. A lithe red and black drakaina, she’s so small that she flies like a barbed dart on the wind—but she surges in past my drakes and me now, gripping Alfhild’s jugular in her jaws.
She snaps Alfhild’s neck with one powerful bite, even as we bring down the last of Alfhild’s thief ring to get to her. I scream as my dragon, as Alfhild falls to the beach before the lighthouse with her neck broken. That quick Bone Mage drakaina we seek eyes us one last time. Then she darts high into the sky—flashing out.
As she makes a portal to escape us.
Portal magic is extremely rare among dragons, even more so among Blood Dragons. I blink to realize our enemy drakaina is gone; we have no chance of tracing her, since it takes etheric magic to make portals, which we haven’t got.
Wrath like I’ve never known consumes my heart as something goes all-black inside me. A searing, dark annihilation takes me as I firm my intent, rushing up towards where she went, to see if I can blaze through that portal, before it closes.
A massive body ensnares me then—wrapping all around me as he halts me from pursuit. We fall from the skies; I struggle in his iron grip, but Bjorn has me, as we plunge into the cold ocean. It shocks me from my rage as we dive under; spluttering, we swim back up to the surface and haul ass inland.
Back on the beach, shaking my scales off, I snarl at Bjorn for interrupting my hunt. He can only growl at me back, long and low.
Before he collapses on the beach—passing out.
Shock wakes me from my anger; I rush to Bjorn now as I shift down,putting my hands on him and pouring every bit of my Blood Magic into him to bolster him.
It works, barely. He’s already shifted down in his unconsciousness. I feel it as his thready pulse and rapid heartbeat stabilize now. Blinking back, he gazes up at me in confusion for a moment.
Before griping my hands sweetly and growling at me—admonishing me for nearly getting myself killed.
As Bjorn recovers, I know he’s right. I shouldn’t have dashed after that portal as it closed. Every dragon youngling knows that trying to rush through someone else’s closing portal is likely to get you killed, in the worst possible way, as you are shredded between Realms into nothingness.
Our enemy drakaina is a hunt I must give up right now—and not just because it could have killed me, but because it also nearly killed my First Drake. Bjorn is beyond exhausted from everything that’s happened right now with our power; as I help the trembling, exhausted Bjorn to his feet, we all stand naked on the beach now, unsure what happens next.
Ström, Mikkel, Lærke, Bjorn, and I stand around the fallen Alfhild as Bjorn recovers. Her brawny brutes are scattered around us on the sand, in various degrees of alive from our fight. Some who were just knocked out are waking, but they aren’t menacing us. Because Alfhild is dead, her curse-bonds upon them broken.
