“I bring a message from the Black Dragon Knight’s Council,” Mikka says, plain as plain for me and my drakes, though she waves a privacy barrier around us so none of Alfhild’s people can hear us. I feel Lærke crash part of Mikka’s barrier with her power, then step inside, folding her arms in a furious challenge as if begging Mikka to do something about it. Mikka’s eyebrows only lift at what Lærke just did with her magic.
Then Mikka faces me again, giving it to me straight.
“The Council gave you thirty days to investigate the blast on the Outer Island, which woke the Black Dragon… and now those thirty days are up,” Mikka says tunelessly as she regards me, no emotion whatsoever in her calm, penetrating gaze. “The Council will have your answer now, on the outcome of your investigation, and names of whomever it was that caused the blast.”
“I don’t have any proper names, though one of the thieves here said our primary enemy Bone Mage called herself Litha. We’re still on our enemy Bone Mages’ trail, but I don’t have their true identity yet. Only a description of Litha’s dragon, and that self-given name.” I blink now, having expected the Council to come after me, but never like this.
In fact, I had forgotten all about their original decree, thinking it was null and void now that Maryse was dead and so much had happened with the Black Dragon and our enemy Bone Mages. Clearly, I was wrong, as Mikka stares me down.
Not about to let me off the hook.
“I will hear your description,” Mikka says. As her eyes gofaraway, I know she’s communicating mind-to-mind with the rest of the Council, who can do that even at a great distance.
As I tell her a full description of our enemy drakaina now, and who she was liaising with, Mikka listens. A strange look comes over her face as I finish. It’s clear she’s listening to further instructions from the Council on this matter.
As her lips twist—in hate.
It’s such a brief moment, I think I’ve hallucinated it as Mikka’s face becomes impassive again. But as I feel a sudden shock pass through Ström, Bjorn, even Mikkel, I know they saw it, as well.
Something is not right amongst the Black Dragon Knight’s Council, and Mikka is livid about it.
Something that bodes ill for us, as well.
As we listen to her now pronounce our fate.
31
LOST
As we stand in the gusting sea wind upon the Danish beach, I am reminded of the iron talon-hold the Black Dragon Knights Council still has on all our lives. Their representative, Mikka Halsbrand, stands before us, here to bring me some dire pronouncement on my mission for them, tasked to me by Maryse when she was still alive.
But something is clearly wrong with the Council, and Mikka isn’t happy about it. Her moment of wrath from whatever they just said to her is gone now, however, as she faces us soberly.
Pinning me with her dark gaze.
“Hög Skjaldmær Rikyava Andersen,” she begins as she watches me. “The Black Dragon Knight’s Council has heard your words. They have deemed that your description of what you believe to be the leader Bone Mage drakaina, along with her self-given name, is not enough to exonerate you from the Council’s decree. You were tasked with giving them a true name—and not just of one dragon, but the full identity of all the culprits who caused the blast, in thirty days’ time. You have failed. The punishment for this failure… is excommunication from the Blood Dragons of Norway and Sweden.”
“Wait, what?!” I step forward, punching a finger in Mikka’s chest. “I gave you what I knew! I found out good intel for you, with that Bone Mage drakaina’s description and moniker, an evaluation of her powers, and details on what she was doing these past hundred years and who she was doing it with! That’s pure gold, if the Council knows what to do with it. They have the resources and manpower to hunt her down… fuck you if you think I didn’t deliver!”
“The Council is firm on their judgement,” Mikka says, stony, though I see something in her eyes thaw for my predicament. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. If you wish to petition them to repeal or change their excommunication judgement?—”
“No.Fuck them.” I’m seething with the darkest wrath I think I’ve ever felt now. As a terrible dark Bloodwind goes roaring around me, powered only by my Bone Magic now, Ström puts a hand on my wrist.
He doesn’t haul me back from Mikka, though, as I get right up in her face.
“You can tell the Black Dragon Knight’s Council to go fuck themselves. Tell them I did my job; I got answers about that blast and the most likely person who orchestrated it. If they want to sit around with their dicks up their asses and not act on that information, that’s their problem. I did my job—case closed. If they want to excommunicate me, go right the fuck ahead. I don’t care anymore. And I’m sure as hell not going to grovel.”
“So be it.” Mikka’s words are soft, as she makes her pronouncement. I feel her words travel back to the Black Dragon Knight’s Council on the other end of their telepathy, but I see a sudden, deep approval in her eyes for me.
It comes with intense sadness, however, at what the Knights will now do to me. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’ve never even heard about an excommunication being done before, but like hell am I going to be their whipping girl.
That’swaythe fuck done.
As I feel the strangest sensation now, like a black wind whirling all around me, I know it isn’t mine. It’s something the Council is doing to me by their deepest, most dire magic.
As Ström steps in and Bjorn cinches close, even Mikkel taking a step towards me now to protect me, I know this is nothing they can affect. Whatever the Council is doing, it’s happeninginsideme, as that black wind whirls in.
It’s deeper than any mind-magic Alfhild could have ever done, as I feel something strike at the most fundamental part of me, like a bite. It’s as if that awful magic just reached right in and took an enormous chunk out of me. I cry out, spasming and falling to my knees on the sand.
