As I note them, Ström comes over, bending down and whispering his fingers over the ash. As his power eases out, vicious crimson and olislick-black cursing surge to life in those piles. It strikes at Ström with a nasty bite.
And I inhale—knowing where we’ve seen curses like that before.
“Our enemy Bone Mage drakaina, Litha! She was here!” I hiss as Ström rises, backing away from the pile he nearly touched.
“She must have come here after she killed Alfhild.” Bjorn scowls now as he gazes around, seeing how many little piles are in the space. Maybetwenty in all, each of us avoids touching them now that we know how seriously cursed the fuck up they are. It’s a blessing none of us wandered into a pile previously, as Baldur sets his jaw hard now and whips his power into a bright Bloodwind.
Sweeping all those little piles up and whirling them into one big heap upon the bed.
“There.” Baldur heaves a deep breath, his cosmic-bright magic lowering so it only maintains a light glow in the space to see by.
“What a piece of work to leave booby-traps like this for us,” Bjorn growls now as he moves over to the bed, setting his hands on his hips and scowling at the ashes.
“I don’t think they were booby-traps.” I frown, gazing around as I think it through. “I think our enemy drakaina Litha came here to cover her trail, in case we ever found this place. She charred very specific items to ash… probably so we wouldn’t discover important information about her.”
Ström’s focused now, as he whispers his hands and power over the walls of Alfhild’s lair, looking for her hidden ways that access Amalienborg Palace.
“There’s something here,” he says from where he’s moving his hands over a portrait on the wall. As he takes it down, I see not a doorway, but a magically encrypted safe behind it, similar to what we use at the Red Letter Hotel Paris.
I move over to inspect it. “Breath encryption; pretty standard. I can crack it. Do you think it’s important?”
“Maybe. My magic’s flagging it as something we should look at,” Ström says now as a faraway look takes his eyes, then he nods at me. “There are no curses on it; it’s clean. Show us what you got, drakaina.”
“Sure.” I haven’t been Head of Security for twenty years at the Paris Hotel for nothing; as I step up to the safe now and crack my knuckles, raising my magic, I feel both my inner dragons rush forward, eager to break this lock.
Normally, they would need to meld together into the vast, true power of my Bloodwalker magic; right now, they’ve remained melded the entire time we’ve been inside the mounds, united in purpose in a way I’ve never been able to sustain before.
But it’s not something I can think about now, as their blood-dark power sweeps me. Bloodwind rises around me now, not crimson or black, but a beautiful amalgamation of red, white, and gold as it rushes all around me.
I flick my fingers and those lovely droplets, full of Aesa’s own colors, whirl forward into the encrypted lock. As I close my eyes, I feel the dance of the magical protection on this piece, and the locking sigils they form deep inside the steel. The character of the dragon-breath that affects it matters; as I swirl my magic into the lock now, I enter a light trance.
Similar to the trances that contact my Ancestors, it’s a space of feeling and listening I enter now, rather than cognition. As I finally feel the very center of the lock where Alfhild’s breath decrypts it, I open my mouth. One slow puff of my breath is all it takes.
As the encryption flares gold, red, and white—open to me now, rather than Alfhild Fey.
“We’re in.” As the complex lock chunks open deep within the safe, I reach out. Hauling it open, I keep my magic raised, in case there are any nasty surprises. There are no curses on any of this, though. I gaze into the shadows as Baldur comes to us now, offering a light from his power, and I heave a relieved breath to see nothing within.
The safe is empty, except for a small black velvet bag on one shelf.
“Think it’s something we should look at?” I ask Ström, as he fixes upon the velvet bag now, staring at it and slowly raising his power like it’s some kind of adversary.
“Alfhild didn’t keep her sellable items here.” As if in a trance of his memories now, Strom reaches inside the safe. “Most of her valuable stuff disappeared into one of the countless storage facilities she used for trafficking stolen goods as she searched for buyers. Stuff she kept herein her boudoir were just oddities she fancied… not things of significant value she could get big money for.”
“So what is it? And why is it flagging your power?” Bjorn joins us at the open safe, his magic bristling for threats. But as Ström reaches inside, taking up the small bag, he receives no surprises. Slowly, he opens the bag.
And goes pale at what he sees within.
“Ström?” I can’t feel his mind right now; I can’t feel his emotions or thoughts at all. He’s so carefully blocking them from our bond at this moment.
I do see the confused mix of horror and awareness that takes his face as he empties the velvet bag into his palm, however. As he holds a stunning set of a silver bracelet, earrings, and a pendant necklace in his hand now, dripping with beautiful moonstones, I’m shocked to realize they are a specific set of jewelry he gifted to Alfhild Fey long ago.
When he was trapped in his love for her by her power.
And she treated him like trash.
22
CLEANSE
