As Emil pins me with his serpentine black gaze now, a terrible death-knell goes off all inside me. Because I realize what he’s referring to; that hisBloodwalker is the person central to liberating the Black Dragon from its ancient resting place, and that he is one of the renegade Bone Mages we seek.
As an icy feeling fills me to my very marrow, I dive into my inner Bone Magic. I have no goodness or remorse left in me as I stare Emil Beck down and know he’s a Bloodmate of our enemy Bone Mage drakaina Litha, who liberated the Black Dragon.
Who we now know is a Bloodwalker like me.
“Litha. You’re her Bloodmate. But I thought you told us at your hotel that you were a Bloodwalker?” I say now, snarling to my very core as a wave of power thunders all around me. It’s not just me that’s snarling all through my dragon now; all my drakes are, and none so hard as Mikkel, as his and Lærke’s wrathful fury hammers through me.
I can’t contain it, though in our exhausted state, it’s not enough energy to trigger retaliation from the Jarl or his rune-cursed hall yet. The seal beneath me and my mates flares hot, however, with a seething red, black, and gold fire.
Ready to kill us if need be.
“Yes. I amLitha’sBloodmate, and I am also a Bloodwalker. Two of a kind can bond, you know—or perhaps you didn’t know.” Emil’s gaze pierces mine as a slow, nasty smile spreads over his face. He puts a strange emphasis on our enemy’s name, making me understand that’s not her real name, only a moniker she uses. “Though I have taken many mates over the years, Litha is the most recent, and my bond with her is the most important. For she is someone I have waited for, for a very long time… though I’ve had many whelps over the centuries with lesser drakainas. I believe Mikkel and Lærke’s mother was descended from one of those lesser lovers of mine, one I never bothered to Bloodbond. Too bad she went rogue against her family and life-mated with their lowborn father, who didn’t have a drop of Bloodwalker lineage anywhere in him.” Emil’s gaze pins the twins. “Or did you not know your mother was my great-great-granddaughter?”
Mikkel and Lærke Thorsen gape at Emil Beck in shock now, as that terrible smile devours his face. “Where do you think you two get all your mercenary tendencies from, anyway?” Emil asks. “Or did you believe my charade as your do-good stepfather, EmilBeck?”
“Liar!” Lærke spits at him, as I feel her inner drakaina power up with everything she’s got left, for a fight. “Our mother wasneverone of your kin!”
“Check your genealogies.” Emil Beck examines his perfectly buffed nails before slamming the twins with his black gaze again. “In any case, I had to betray her to the Jarl’s people when she would not give your father up. Though she served me in my agenda to protect Bloodwalkers, I have no trouble pruning certain branches from our ancient family if they do not fall in line. Your mother deserved what she got, and so do you two ungrateful whelps.”
“We’ll never go down without a fight!” Mikkel snarls now, as I feel him power up with his drake’s wrath, though he’s still fatigued and it only produces a roiling black energy in the air.
“Fight me, please.” Emil’s black eyes flash a pure, sparkling diamond-white now as he smiles. “You ragtag miscreants will never prevail against Litha or me. She Who Speaks In Dreams has told me of Litha’s incalculable power; that she shall never be bested. She will lead us to glory, all dragons everywhere bowing down to the world us new Bloodbonded will create. All thanks to something the dreamspeaker built long ago… a dragon of infinite power that my Bloodwalker already has the ability to wield. Which will shake the earth—to its core.”
“Dreams?” Ström’s picked up on something, as he suddenly snarls at Emil. “Who’s been coming to you in dreams, telling you to resurrect the Black Dragon and wield it so Bloodwalkers can conquer the earth?”
“She Who Speaks In Dreams is a mysterious creature,” Emil pins Ström with his gaze. “She has spoken to me all my life, telling me to wait for the one who would come to me—Litha. She does not reveal to me her voice, nor her name, nor her face. Only her towering dragon-energy,infinite in the Void from whence she speaks. A Void so vast, there is room there for all dragondom. Everyone, if they oppose us.”
As Emil speaks, I see him reach to one hand, touching a black ring on his left index finger. I had missed it before whenever we had spoken.
I see it now, since it’s the only thing left upon his naked body, when we dragons usually shed everything as we shift. That ring has a familiar design; with a shock, I realize it’s almost an exact copy of the ring I have on my own finger right now, despite all my travels and shifts.
Because Maryse’s ring, the ring of my Bloodwalker ancestor who created the Black Dragon, has a magic of its own. It comes with me wherever I go—and I’m shocked to see a vastly similar ring upon Emil’s finger now.
Rather than my ring’s six distinct stones, however, Emil’s has only one massive, black onyx stone at its center, like his eyes. A ring designed for a man rather than a woman, he holds up his hand, showing it to me.
“A family heirloom.” Emil smiles indulgently as he shows it. “Ever since I battled my father and took this from his finger in death, my dreams have been with me—just as this ring is, always. Something we share… though your ring will never hold the power of these originals. A sad facsimile.”
I want to press Emil Beck on what he means, that my silver ring with its snarling silver dragon coiled around a red garnet and four fire opals, plus an amethyst in its jaws, is a copy of his and not an original.
But then Baldur speaks up. “You’ve been masquerading as one of the True Black Dragon Knights for centuries. All so you could learn about the Black Dragon, and figure out if you could resurrect it, when the time came.”
“When I at last met Litha, yes. Just like you waited for your Bloodwalker.” Emil’s triumphant smile turns on Baldur. “Like you, I was not idle during those eons, however. I befriended and infiltrated the True Knights, learning everything about the Black Dragon—all the better to undermine them when the time finally came.”
“Snake,” Baldur snarls at him now, though Emil Beck ignores it.
“I admit, I didn’t know who you and your drakes were when you first came to my hotel, though it didn’t take me long to figure out.” Emil’s gaze flicks at me now. “I did not sequester that lockbox of precious items you got fromUnhaemmertenthe first time it was within my grasp. The second time you came to my hotel, I knew better. My Litha will be grateful for your gifts to help her control the Black Dragon, by the way—which she manipulated you into getting fromUnhaemmertenby pretending to be others speaking to you in the Void. Oh yes, and you also released the five soul-energies of the Black Dragon’s ancient creator and her drakes atUnhaemmerten, which are needed to restore the beast. Thanks for that. I assure you; we will make good use of them. Especially since I have what it takes to control the soul of the mate I am descended from—which all of you most decidedly, do not.”
Even though I’ve gone frigid to my very core as Emil speaks, I realize it’s not just me; the hall has gone terribly cold all around me. As I realize it’s the massive sigil-warding all over the timbers, the roof, and floor that are scalding us, ice-cold now rather than scorching and bright, an ungodly sensation comes off Jarl Alexander Christensen, like a hurricane of bitter high-north winds.
Because Jarl Christensen is the epicenter of the hall’s incredible power, as he stares down Emil Beck, impossibly vampiric.
With the coldest look I’ve ever seen—like hell freezing over.
“Your agenda that you would bargain for,” Jarl Christensen says now, “is for me to turn a blind eye while you and your Bloodwalker drakaina unleash the Black Dragon of the Usurper upon us? From my very own city? The demon of ancient times, which was created by Bloodwalkers and unleashed hell on earth, nearly destroying us all?”
“You put it so succinctly, my Jarl.” Emil Beck smiles viciously, as his black eyes flash white again with the power of his dragon. “Join me now and receive amnesty for your people. Resist me… and be the first Jarldom to fall when my Litha and I restore the Usurper to its fullest power.”
The hall goes so cold now, I can see our breaths puffing in the air. They fall in little ice crystals as the rune-wards on every timber and beam seethe with a terrifying power.
