Adding to our group’s darkness.
For Bjorn, it’s knowing that he’s not strong enough to be the shining knight we need right now. It makes him doubt his entire life and his future: of what might happen when he finally faces off with his father again, and whether he might fail. It makes him doubt his true strength—the strength of his passionate, roaring heart. His deep doubt makes him dimmer amongst us, less able to oppose our terrible Bone Magic.
As the darkness inside his own self takes too deep a root.
Mikkel’s deepest inner truth hammers me also, as I feel his darkest vision come to life. In him, I feel a despair so vast, it doesn’t even have any light, as he fights against the vicious, innate instinct of his dragon, born into him as he was gestating.
I feel how he fears he’s a demon, in truth; that he’ll never be able to find that bright place inside him to be a better man—human, rather than suffer forever in his dragon’s wrath. It’s why he developed such incredible control over his dragon so young. He’s afraid of what unleashing the fullest might of his demon might look like.
And if he could ever forgive himself, afterwards.
The saddest vision I receive is from Lærke, however, whom I didn’t even expect to, because she’s technically not a part of our Bloodbond. I see a youth of struggle and hate, of rape when she was just a youngling, by fierce older drakes who corralled her into bad situations as she was learning the grifting trade.
Lærke’s magic matured later than Mikkel’s, so she had to fight for every bit of power, and every scrap of dominance, until her dragon-magic came online in her late teens, powerful in the extreme.
I feel how her inner hate swamps her. I feel how she fights to not go black, with everything that’s been done to her and how her power wants to wrath. It makes far too much sense now why Lærke is strangely prudish for a dragon.
And why Mikkel is so protective of her.
But the worst vision comes from me, as I twist in that nowhere-space of our sudden, spontaneous Bloodwalking. Because some deep part of me knows there’s something terrible I have to face before I can bring down the Black Dragon.
And that something terrible—is me.
I know there’s something inside me that’s even worse than that behemoth, as my towering vision takes me. That something is already devouring me, as I see an image now of me in the Storm Dragon fight-hall recently, battling against Mikkel.
Because I went into my darkest state then, a place of terrible power, as my inner Bone Magic bested my inner Blood Magic. That place is strengthening inside me, I know, as I see it all again in my vision.
And this is just the beginning; I’m confronted with the worst in my vision now, as I watch my Bone Magic dominate and take over my Blood Magic so that my darkest power forces a unity of my dual magics.
It creates not my red, white, and gold Bloodwalker drakaina, but the most fucking horrifying Bloodwalker I could possibly ever be, as I see this even more powerful Bloodwalker fill theskies.
She shines darker than wrath, darker than night, an unholy thing as she spews Mikkel’s poison, wields Bjorn’s rage, and uses Ström’s curse-magic to dominate the skies.
She’s what I might become, if I give in to how Mikkel’s power is pushing mine without a Fourth Bloodmate. If I can’t stabilize my magic, if I can’t balance the two sides of my dual inner nature… then I become this.
A terror of the ages—perhaps even worse than the Black Dragon.
I feel it as Lærke rushes in then, hauling her brother away while Insinio charges in also, liberating me from the rest of my drakes. The visions and that terrible knot of fear and power snap out as soon as we all lose contact, though I still feel horrible echoes of what each of us went through, devouring us black.
As I heave hard breaths in Insinio’s arms and fight to get my shit together, Lærke’s pale gaze pins mine, on fire with wrath and bitterness. As we all gaze at each other and heave hard breaths in the sudden aftermath of that truly vicious Bloodwalking, I feel how all those revelations went many ways.
It wasn’t just me who got those deepest truths, but everyone who got everyone else’s. Because in this bond, our power is shared.
Along with our darkness.
Something else echoes through us now, however, on the backlash of our spontaneous Bloodwalking. It’s a sudden vision of an invasion, of a nightclub that’s just getting ready to open for the night.
With a start, I realize it’s The Chartreuse I’m seeing. Dragons are crashing in everywhere. And they’re not the twins’ people, as bartenders, servers and more are shifting up and battling back.
It’s a furious fight, as we all startle. But none shock so hard as Mikkel and Lærke, as they both grab for their phones.
A call beeps through on Lærke’s phone, even as she hauls it out. She answers quickly, as a matching beep comes from Mikkel’s phone in a pocket of his pants. He blinks, answering it, as well. Lærke’s face has gonedark at the news she’s already receiving. It’s Mikkel’s visage that truly gets me, however, as I see him go stone-cold now.
His humanity vanishing—as he stares at me with the eyes of his beast.
We don’t even have a breath before Mikkel’s roar thunders through the chapel. And then he’s shifting up into his black dragon.
Spewing chartreuse green devastation, as he takes to the skies.
