Sad that she was taken from the world before her time.
We have no time to converse,she says now as I feel Aesa push forward again, needing to tell me one last thing before my Archangelic blessing fades completely.Take my scale; find my brother. He knows he is supposed to be yours, just as our people knew our destinies to be Bloodwalkers, and those bonded to Bloodwalkers, in times long gone. Bond him; find our mutual enemy. For she will wreak havoc and ruin all of Blood Dragondom, even the entire world, if we do not stop her. Find her… and bring her down.
But who is this Bone Mage drakaina who is our enemy?I shout now, because I can feel the veil around me descending fast, Hekla’s beautiful sky-blue dragon nearly vanished from me now.Who is the Bone Mage drakaina, Litha?
Hekla is too far away now to speak through my rapidly descending curse anymore. But like a lance of pure, bright noontime sky, I feel one magnificent thrust of her power hit me, spearing right into my brain.
Visions spiral through me, intense and catastrophic. It’s too much; I struggle to hold on to all she’s showing me—of a lithe, small drakaina with nearly my own colorations but far darker, streaking through the skies and decimating others in battle after battle.
I know she’s our enemy Bone Mage, Litha. When the visions change suddenly to a tirade of memories from my childhood, however, I reel, overwhelmed and not understanding.
Because our enemy Bone Mage is not in my visions of my past. Only my parents are, long dead and gone, and my older sister, also dead since the coup she led on King Huttr, which she nearly won, destabilizing the monarchy and decimating the Grand Palace.
All that is ancient history, however, as I fight to understand what Hekla is showing me and get nothing. The blue drakaina’s power exhausts now, and I feel Aesa push in once more.
Even her golden brilliance is almost gone now, as the cursed veil around me rolls back into place.
Take my power,Aesa says, as I feel a thousand megawatts of her energy thrust right through me now, into her Truthstone.Take as much as you can hold to stabilize you until you can find your Fourth Bloodmate. For though my power is strong, ever was my sister’s stronger. You need to find the source of the curse that drains you. Find it and drag it out by the roots. Lest our one, best hope of fighting the Black Dragon be erased. Before you have even begun to challenge it.
With that, Aesa’s presence before me snaps out. I’m falling from the cosmos, back into my body as the bitter, oily veil of my Bloodwalking-prevention curse surges up around me once more.
Insinio has me, cradling me on the floor as he pours a silver-brilliant Archangelic light into my flesh. I gasp awake in his arms and he ceases.
Still cradling me until I can come all the way back.
It takes a while. I don’t know how long it is before I blink and am finally aware of my surroundings. As I come back to myself, I don’t just register Insinio now, but Bjorn before me, sitting cross-legged on the chapel’s floor, with Ström and even Mikkel beside him.
Standing behind her brother, Lærke watches me with intense concentration, her fingers gripped into her arms so hard, she’s left marks. As I finally take a deep breath, my attention roving them all, I see each of them relax. Bjorn scoots in now, claiming me from Insinio’s arms.
And the big Archangel lets him.
Bjorn cuddles me on the floor, as Ström scoots to our side and reaches out, touching my face. Mikkel’s not touching me, but his dark eyes are wary with concern and even a budding affection, rather than wrath or lust as he leans in, rapt. Rubbing my chest, I feel the hot glow of Aesa’s Truthstone slowly fade.
Though her protection moves all through me now, filling me.
It’s not quite complete, as I close my eyes, using my inner vision to find my true Bloodwalker drakaina again in my mind. Where those cavernous, black holes of my curse were, a shimmering golden light fills them now, helping me be whole again.
I see in my inner sight, however, that Aesa’s power is being drained now instead of mine. I know she’s sacrificed herself to stabilize me for a little while, as I swallow hard.
Aesa’s given me her everything to help us vanquish the Black Dragon. This curse will drain her, just like it was doing me. Taking her who-knows-where in the Void.
Before it starts draining me again, and all my drakes—completely.
“We don’t have much time,” I say now as a fierce motivation fills me, knowing what to do. Glancing around my drakes and Lærke, I pin them with my gaze, feeling the full, robust sensation of my Bloodwalker power roar up inside me at last. “I spoke with our blue Icelandic drakaina in the Void just now; she was Baldur’s sister, and she gave us a way to find him. We need to get to Iceland, stat. She said he already knows he’s supposed to be my mate, he’s already expecting?—”
I don’t get to finish my thought, however, as Mikkel touches me. As if he couldn’t quite help himself, he only touches my boot, not even my skin—but his vast dragon sweeps me now, and all my drakes, into a tremendous metaphysical dragon-knot.
Of memories, visions, and fear.
Because Aesa’s power, even Hekla’s, are all tangled up with mine right now; I feel the amalgamation of so many dragon-magics inside me blast us wide open—visions, memories, and more roaring through us now in a tumult.
As each of us relives the deepest fears of our life, thanks to Aesa showing us our deepest inner truths, I see it all. Not only that, but Hekla’s strange visionary power catapults us each into seeing how those fearsmight play out in the worst possible way, as future visions of terror and death claim us.
Mikkel’s and my darkness careens through all of it, twisting us up into one terrible, powerful knot. Though he’s been revived, Bjorn is no match for all that, as our emotions and fears suddenly get rolled oh-so-terribly dark.
We twist in the pits of hell, screaming and fighting to get through it. As we all descend into a kind of spontaneous Bloodwalking I never want to repeat, we are each faced with truths about ourselves we’d rather forget.
For Ström, it’s memories of all the people he killed while he was in Denmark, under the sway of Alfhild Fey. He’s aware of all those deaths now, and has come to terms with the fact that he was coerced to kill. He hasn’t forgiven himself, though, as he roars and I feel tears fill his green eyes, ravaged. It was his magic that did the deed, and Ström punishes himself for it. It drives his Bone Magic to wrath, deep inside.
