A concussion blasts from the ring as it flares hard at Emil’s roar. That concussion slams me, the Jarl, all of my drakes, and Lærke to our asses, sending us skidding across the hall to smash into the pillars.
It blasts out the floor all around Emil Beck—exploding the roof from the hall. Chaos devours the battle now, as Emil’s forces receive new life.
That’s not the worst of it, however, as Emil’s dragons suddenly break free from their cordon and take to the skies, fighting with renewed strength against the Jarl’s guards. All of us who were benefitting from the hall’s runes aren’t anymore, as the entire roof is blasted off the space.
As a crushing fatigue suddenly slams through me and my drakes, I can’t stop myself from shifting down.
Falling out of the skies to crash upon the ruined marble below.
I can’t move and I can barely see, gasping for air on my back in the ruined hall in the worst pain of my life. My drakes and Lærke are only slightly better as they crawl to me on hands and knees, shifted back down to human and drained nearly to death, just like me.
But Jarl Alexander Christensen got the worst of it; as the epicenter of all this vampiric Bone Magic, he somehow got the brunt of the recoil from the hall’s runes breaking. With a strangled roar as his dragon, Jarl Christensen shifts down to human on the broken floor.
And passes out cold.
We’re relying only on the Jarl’s guards now as the fight rages far above in the cloudy skies. They still outnumber Emil’s people, and Emil is badly injured. I see now how that’s not enough, however, as I gasp on the ruined marble below, surrounded by my drakes and Lærke.
I sit up as Bjorn helps me; Ström, Baldur, and Mikkel crowd close, allof us needing the bare skin contact that helps shapeshifters, as we try to recover as fast as we can.
Even Lærke touches me as she crowds close to Mikkel; at a surge of power from Baldur, we’re able to stumble to our feet. Bjorn gives the most furious growl I’ve ever heard as he slams up a crazy-spiked Bloodshield all around our group. I feel him draw hard on Baldur’s power, Ström’s, even Mikkel’s, as all their colors of magic seethe through that shield.
A talent I didn’t know he had—to use everyone’s magic so effortlessly like that.
It’s a mystery for another day as we try to recover fast now, however, relying on the Jarl’s forces to chase the injured Emil and his retinue through the skies.
Even as we do, though, I feel something else coming. The blast that Emil sent out from his black ring didn’t just sunder the runes throughout the Jarl’s hall; it did something else, too. I feel thatsomethingcoming like a hurricane of power and darkness all through my mind and Void-senses now.
Headed right for us.
A spike of black pain skewers right through my head and I’m down on my knees, roaring with insane overtones and basso notes in my voice as I clutch my head and fight it.
As a dead white eye opens in my mind, fixing right on me, I also see that dead dragon-orb fix upon Amalienborg Palace from the skies.
I see it with my own eyes and through the Black Dragon’s also, as the terrible Dragon of All Souls crashes down on the scene. Its diseased black-crimson ropes of ungodly magic sear everything, bubbling like tarry acid, as its bone-sundering roar shatters the skies.
It sends the clouds scudding in a hurricane of sound and wind, as its gargantuan bone-black body smashes the palace, all around the Jarl’s hall. Talons big as cars rip up ancient stone as the Black Dragon roars, hurling stone everywhere, along with its diseased curse-magic.
Shrapnel is flying in a war zone, as the oilslick-black andscalding red curse-ropes from the demon fling everywhere. Bjorn roars in distress, shoving all our bound power hard into our combined Bloodshield now to keep us safe.
Nowhere is safe, however, as the Black Dragon roars, spewing forth its terrible evil, bodies dropping from the skies. The Jarl’s people fall hard to crunch all around us now, bones cracking and blood spouting from them in gruesome waves, as the Black Dragon’s power hammers them.
Within our shield, my drakes and I are spared the worst of it; Bjorn roars like a madman now, pushing every ounce of our power into our shield as the rest of my drakes and I echo it.
Even Lærke screams like a harpy as she pours a ferocious white-green acid through that shield now, making it untouchable. But the Black Dragon doesn’t need to touch us; its roar is inside me, through me, and all around me as it opens that great bone-dead maw and thunders to the skies again.
Indomitable.
I scream, madness enveloping me as everything inside me goes black. The pain is devouring me from its terrible curse-work, from my bones twisting and shuddering, wanting to crack, and my blood surging and writhing, wanting to rip out through my veins.
But it’s also a part of me that calls to the creature and it to me, which writhes in utter torment inside me now. Some blackest part of me wants to rip out and take command of my very blood, bones, and soul—a part of me that is just like the horrible monstrosity that kills the very skies now with its power.
Dead birds drop all around us on the broken stone. Part of me glorifies in it, wanting to rip, tear, and rage into my worst kind of ruin, as that ancient, undead power calls to me.
As the shockwave of the Black Dragon’s call tears through our mortal world, punching through to the Void from its indomitable wrath, I feel how I am tethered to it, and it is tethered to me.
Somehow, because of my ancient bloodlines passed down from itsmaker, I am one with it. As the Dragon of All Souls’ terrible, multi-faceted roar shatters timber and stone, blood, bone, and everything else, I know I’m a part of this terrible behemoth, roaring like a demon of the ancient skies.
The darkest hell inside me.
