I don’t even care about my morals anymore, or whether Jarl Alexander Christensen supports my uncle the King, as I feel my black inner drake roar up inside me, hard. Copenhagen’s Jarl is a demon; I understand that now, what Mikkel and Lærke have always known about him, after seeing it through the twins’ eyes.
I could even feel Emil Beck’s wrath with their Jarl as we made our plans today, becoming ready to execute them by sundown. Because Emil already knew we couldn’t leave Mikkel and Lærke even one extra minute in their Jarl’s care.
Three days’ lenience before execution, or no.
Time is of the essence now; any delay tonight might cost those I love dearly, who are fighting for far more than their lives. They might lose their very souls—because that’s what I’m feeling from Lærke now, even though Mikkel is passed out and unable to be tortured more for the time being.
I’m worried about Mikkel’s torture and potential death; but even though she’s not being tortured personally right now, I’m almost more worried about Lærke. Because what I feel from the more stalwart-minded twin right now is nothing but wrath. Nothing but cold, terrible emptiness as she rages as her dragon, over and over, trying to get to her twin.
It’s almost worse than what our own enemy can do, the Dragon of All Souls, as it curses and ruins Blood Dragons. I know we’ll have nothing left of Mikkel or Lærke if we delay even a minute longer than we have to tonight; they’re going to be gone, lost to the blackness that drives them.
They’ll be lost to their poison and inner darkness, and they won’t be coming back unless my other drakes and I can stop it. We’re on that mission now, as we park our bikes at the Mindehøjen memorial mound in Søndermarken Park.
Wild and rioting with blossoming flowers and trees here in the Twilight Realm, I find it’s a much different place than in the human world, though I can’t take any time to enjoy it. Not just a lone grassy mound rising before us with an iron grate barring our way, this is a vast complex of mounds, which have served a very different purpose here in Copenhagen than the landmark in the human world.
Because this is a place of dead dragons. I feel it as the black endlessness of my Bone Magic towers up inside me now, its dark eyes glittering like ancient stars as it sniffs the cool midnight wind, smelling death here.
It’s a death worse than most dragons get, as we all dismount from our bikes. As we shuck our helmets, I feel Ström, Bjorn, and even Baldur bristle for war now in their black motorcycle leathers.
Knowing this place is the Jarl of Copenhagen’s fault.
Bone Mages or not, we feel what still lives in this ancient place. Asearing sensation grips my chest as Aesa feels it, too, flaring her knowledge through her Truthstone; a signature of terrible death, of both Bone Mages and Bloodwalkers interred here, after they were killed off for opposing the ancient rulers of Denmark.
Jarl Alexander Christensen is just the most recent of those rulers, having held his position for some six hundred years and counting. He’s added plenty of corpses to this pile, however; the sensation of dead Bone Mages and Bloodwalkers here makes me shiver to my fundament now as I stare at the only way into the mounds, an ornate silver and gold gate which shimmers beneath the high moonlight.
Because I can feel how each and every dead Bloodwalker or Bloodwalker’s mate here received the same torture Mikkel and Lærke are going through right now. Like his predecessors, Jarl Christensen has been brutal to our kind.
Only Bjorn stands strong in the darkness, a tower of stalwart focus in the face of everything we’re up against, and the tortured ghosts that linger here. Because like Baldur’s dead sister, these Bone Mages and their Bloodwalkers didn’t leave their dragon-bones when they died.
Some part of their soul lingers here where their remains lay. Not only that, but I feel not just a few, buthundredsof dead here beneath these mounds.
A vast network of grassy knolls, covered by vines.
Of Bloodwalker death.
“Of course, the entrance to Alfhild’s most private sanctuary would start in a house of the dead. Bloodwalker dead—every one of them.” My voice is low and snarling as I growl against the scents on the midnight wind, and Mikkel’s limited time.
“I always had a terrible sensation of death when she would blind me with her power and lead me along the cursed gauntlet to her boudoir.” Ström sets his hands on his hips now as he evaluates the place.
He’s been here before, but can remember little. Ström has told us how he was always blinded by Alfhild’s power when they went to her mostpersonal, private sanctuary—all of his senses, except for his most innate dragon abilities.
Now, we have to find our way through it, to get to her innermost private vault and try to find her passages that lead beneath the palace. It’s that, or join Emil trying to bust in through the front door.
Which he has assured us, isn’t our best option.
“Insanity, to make your home here.” Baldur snarls now as he stares down the entrance to the mounds like an adversary and bristles. Before us, the ornate whorls of silver and gold that make up the beautiful grate gleam as he spreads his bright auric power over it beneath the high moon.
I feel it as Baldur unfurls his dragon’s endless might. Though he’s not a Bone Mage like Ström, Baldur is ten times more powerful in what he can do, as his stars-in-the-cosmos dragon aura curls all around us now, like a shimmering vapor in the night.
It reflects the starlight as it spreads in a wave around us, as Baldur evaluates the door. Glimmers of ancient galaxy colors flash in its depths, stunning in the semi-dark; I feel his vast power flow through my veins like wildfire, now that he’s bonded to us via my Bloodwalker magic.
Bjorn feels it, too. He shivers, as a fierce ecstasy rushes through us now, from Baldur unleashing his power. But after a moment of perusing the gate, Baldur frowns. He pulls his power back, glancing at me and shaking his head.
“Nothing’s on this gate. No signature of power; no curse-work or anything I can sense from the Void. Just a lump of twisted silver and gold runic work, though we can feel the death behind it.”
“Baldur’s right.” With hands raised as he walks up to the ornate door, Ström evaluates it with his power. Like Baldur, he frowns as a deep rush of his forest green and burgundy Bone Magic flow out before him, filling the space.
I watch as his power flows over the gate, far more potent than ever before, thanks to us having Baldur in our mix now. With a lift of his ash-blond eyebrows, Ström shakes his head, turning to me. “There’s nothing here; no curse-work or signature of power from Alfhild at all.”
