Then lean over, giving him a soft kiss right in front of my other drakes.
“Thank you. I owe you big time,” I whisper, before rising and giving him space to recover.
“HerreSigurðsson will recover quickly here in my establishment, I assure you.”
In all the commotion, I had missed Emil Beck, the proprietor of theForgyldt Burhotel, standing near us in the ruined suite. Immaculately coiffed as always, dressed in a sleek black tux with his black hair styled back in waves, Emil’s dark eyes are knowing as he moves forward now, effortlessly scooping Baldur up off the carpets and taking him to a red velvet scrollbackcouch.
“You two know each other?” My eyebrows rise as I blink at the hotel’s mysterious proprietor.
“We go back a decent way. Baldur and I are both in the True Black Dragon Knights, after all.” Emil smiles indulgently at me, before clapping his hands, brisk. He doesn’t explain his sudden revelation as he eyeballs all of us hard now.
“You four have a deep problem on your hands,” Emil continues as he pins us all with his eagle-eyed gaze, intent. “Mikkel and Lærke Thorsen are formidable dragons, but they are nothing compared to the Jarl of Copenhagen. Though even my own magics could not contain Mikkel just now, with your bonded Bloodwalker’s increase in power, the Jarl wields a force many thousands strong. Mikkel will fall, and his sister with him, if they assault our Jarl head-on—something I have always counseled them never to do, until the time was right. Unfortunately, the time is not right; Mikkel and Lærke’s empire is too scattered to assemble their forces quickly. And the Jarl keeps most of his strength right here, protecting his palace.”
“Shit.” Ström’s curse sums it up, as we all understand what Emil’s saying.
That the twins are fucked unless we can pull the proverbial rabbit out of our ass to save them.
“Right now, what you four need to do, before Mikkel can get himself and Lærke killed, assaulting Jarl Alexander Christensen’s palace, is fight in a coordinated attack,” Emil says as he looks at me, sharp. “You may leave all your things here; I will make certain they are well-protected until you get back. Together with my people, plus the Thorsen’s remaining dragons here in Copenhagen, we can?—”
Even as Emil speaks, I feel how we’re already too late, though. Because Mikkel and Lærke flew straight to Amalienborg Palace from Emil’s hotel; it’s not even that far a distance to drive, and dragons fly far faster than any car.
I feel an eruption of power from Mikkel now as he rains down anunholy hellfire of chartreuse green acid on the Jarl’s defenders. Winging around the palace and roaring his wrath to the early morning skies, Mikkel is a creature unhinged as he swipes and dives in, spewing ugly electric green death, then wings away.
Barreling and diving in intricate patterns that even one of Huttr’s Kingsguard would be proud of, Mikkel has skill when he fights. Still, I watch in horror as I see the battle through both his and Lærke’s eyes now, as she catches up to him.
Lærke’s shining white dragon with her chartreuse green markings roars as she zips through the morning, coming to Mikkel’s side to fight. I feel how Lærke is desperately battling to save her brother—because Mikkel’s gone. Only the snarling instinct of his terrible black drake is inside him as he roars and barrels through the skies to attack the Jarl’s ever-growing force.
Dragons are pouring out of the Jarl’s palace now, and every one of them is a fighter worthy of the Kingsguard. Mikkel has skills, but he’s not a career warrior; even Lærke, with all her quick thinking and vicious fury, is not a match for the Jarl’s efficient, brutal force.
In a matter of minutes, the Jarl’s personnel have Mikkel and Lærke tightly contained within a series of ever-tightening Bloodnets. Full of spiked projections as they heave more and more Bloodlances at the twins by the moment, the duo are having trouble dodging and barrel-rolling away from all those terrible projectiles now.
Even though they have their mind-powers, Mikkel swiping his head at a section of guards and making them drop from the skies by stunning their minds, as Lærke mind-paralyzes their bodies, it’s just too much.
And we’re too far away to help, as I see a barrage of projectiles skewer Mikkel now, right through his hind leg and tail.
Mikkel fights like a demon, even injured, roaring to the skies as that coordinated Bloodnet cinches in tight all around him. Lærke is also winged by a section of projectiles now, as the Bloodnet cinches in, catching them both.
The Thorsen twins roar as they thrash in distress, caught and plummeting from the skies.
Everything inside me screams as I watch my Fourth Drake and his twin get captured. I don’t realize Bjorn’s got me wrapped solidly in his strong arms, preventing me from shifting up and flying right to Mikkel, Berserk, until I feel Ström seize my face in his hands, pouring a tirade of his Bone Magic into me to calm me.
An exhausted Baldur jolts awake upon the couch now from his healing stasis, and I feel his sinewy hand seize mine. As Baldur pours the last of his exhausted magic into me, pulling me up into the Void where I can spend my power and not shift my flesh, I feel how my drakes desperately need me to stay sane.
If I fly off after Mikkel, responding to his wrath and doing what he and Lærke just did, then I’ll be no better than them. I’ll get caught too, trussed up just like a Thanksgiving turkey for the Jarl—who I have no clue if he’s friend or foe to someone born of the royal family.
We already know the Jarl has been no friend to Bloodwalkers and their mates over the ages. It leaves me in an impossible situation now, as I feel Mikkel get skewered by over a dozen Bloodspears, right through his belly and chest, to restrain him.
I scream, roaring, as Mikkel is pinned to the bloody ground by someone’s implacable power. That someone juts his chin and Lærke is hammered, knocked out by the strongest thrust of Bloodwind I’ve ever seen.
As the Jarl of Copenhagen finally comes into Mikkel’s strained view, my Fourth Drake fighting unconsciousness with everything he’s worth from the agony of all those barbed spears in his flesh, the Jarl stands strong.
Surrounded by two dozen massively impressive guard-drakes and drakainas, Jarl Alexander Christensen has the darkest, bloodiest red eyes I’ve ever seen on a Blood Dragon.
Of unimpressive stature, slender, and even with a bit of an aged stoopto his lean shoulders, the Jarl of Copenhagen has a short shock of dark hair streaked with silver and a neatly trimmed silver-black beard.
If my first impression of Mikkel was that he was a pirate, Alexander Christensen is twenty times that, looking the part of an aged marauder to a T. As Old Silverbeard stares down at Mikkel with the burning brimstone of his dragon hot in his eyes, I feel how he has no mercy.
And never did.
