11
WRATH
As Mikkel shifts up into his furious black mamba of a drake, there is no humanity left in him. He’s so big, he blasts out the stained glass roof of the chapel with his gargantuan wings as he roars, spewing caustic chartreuse poison everywhere, then launches into the skies.
My drakes and I are on it fast, with Lærke. She also received whatever bad news came from their people just now, probably linked to our sudden wild vision of The Chartreuse being raided, but she’s still got her wrath under control.
Mikkel hasn’t, however, as he surges up into the late afternoon skies on wings of devastating midnight, spewing poison everywhere as he roars. There’s no beautiful copper of his higher self in his dragon’s markings right now.
Only violent black and green death.
Mikkel fights us, as we all shift up into our dragons now to contain him. He’s rolling, diving, heaving tremendous swaths of vivid green poison at us as we try to hem him in with Bloodnets, to hammer him with our wings in hard drives of Bloodwind and get him back to the earth.
He’s not having it, as he fights us all now, even his own sister. There’s no humanity left in his eyes as his black aura devours the skies, reaching out like a leviathan of night to poison the rooftops of Chambord, and the grounds, searing all the flowers and trees black. He’s a demon in truth, as he fights to get out of our cordon.
And race through the skies—straight to Copenhagen.
My cousin Rhennic’s Storm Dragon guards are on the situation, fast. We’re not the only ones fighting Mikkel and trying to get him grounded, shifted back to human so we don’t have to kill him before he does too much damage.
He’s reckless and wild, insane with whatever news he and Lærke just got from their people. As even I give my all to battle him, I feel his wildness surge out-of-control inside me and my other drakes.
A Wraith right now, rather than a dragon.
My cousin’s people are hammering drive after drive of lightning at Mikkel, trying to blast him down out of the skies. In a rush of lighting and a boom of thunder, Rhennic himself shifts up now, into the fray.
Watching a Storm Dragon shift is like watching a storm become incarnate; as Rhennic emerges from a roiling cocoon of cloud and mist and lightning, down by the chapel, huge storm-blue wings scrape the sky.
Rhennic roars to the clouds, and sheet lightning of a thousand colors races through the sky; a sonic boom slams the air as his talons flicker with lightning, blossoming all through his scales. Every spine on his back and every serrated plate of his armor rush with storms like lightning in a bottle; the Storm Dragon King is truly terrifying as he bends his tremendous neck.
Then roars—that my mate is ruining his home.
Rhennic is up into the battle, fast. I try to dart in, in front of Mikkel to tell Rhennic I can handle it—but a furious wash of Mikkel’s chartreuse green poison sears over my wing, and I’m falling from the skies.
With a hardwham, I hit the ground, barely able to arrest my momentum with my good wing as the other sears in blistering pain fromMikkel’s acid. I’m out of the fight as Lærke strangely dives to me, shifting down fast and checking to make sure I’m alright as I shift down as well.
Cursing a blue streak as I fear for my Third Drake—now battling the Storm Dragon King in the skies.
Mikkel is fast, but Rhennic is faster. Mikkel is a gargantuan drake for a Blood Dragon—but our people are the smallest of all dragon-kind, and Storm Dragons are the biggest.
Tremendous like a Crystal Dragon, armored to the teeth and with vast swathes of sheet-lightning racing to his command, Rhennic has my Third Bloodmate hemmed in fast, as Mikkel snarls and roars in chartreuse green wrath.
As he’s struck by a blast of lightning now, straight to his head, I know my cousin hit my mate with a blow to stun him, rather than kill. If it was kill, Rhennic would have lanced Mikkel’s heart. As it is, Rhennic’s lightning is powerful enough to ring Mikkel’s bell, and my Third Drake dumps to the earth now as his body shocks hard, wings spasming and useless.
Mikkel’s made of stronger stuff, however; all Blood Dragons are, and it takes more than a single strike of lightning to kill us, as he coils up barbs-out now on the promenade. He’s snarling and heaving hard breaths, shaking his head to clear it from my cousin’s strike.
It doesn’t clear him of his wrath, however, as he stares in vicious hate up at the Storm King now, circling him with a tight retinue in the skies. I see Mikkel judge that this isn’t a fight he can win right now, not with fifty Storm Dragons corralling him in and more arriving by the moment. I feel it as he changes direction.
We aren’t his true enemy anyway and will get ours later for battling him.
Before I can so much as shout a warning up at Rhennic and my mates, Mikkel launches up hard, back into the air. He makes straight for our weakest drake—Bjorn, as he streaks like a barbed dart now, into the fray.
He doesn’t even use his poison; with a hammeringthud, Mikkelcrashes bodily into Bjorn and slams him out of the way. Then our Third Drake is escaping.
Flying fast for Copenhagen and Danish airspace, where the Storm King has no sway.
Half of Rhennic’s retinue whirl in the skies now to follow Mikkel. Rhennic has already shifted down, though, striding to me and checking the vicious burn on my arm, as Lærke does some healing on me now with her power, easing the pain.
I’m growling through my teeth at how disastrously shitty everything’s suddenly gone. My only solace is that Rhennic gives a short series of roars as his guards make to follow Mikkel.
