Baldur has beef with Litha, too, for killing his sister at Riksfold, as I feel his inner brightness shatter to his vast, seething hate. A side of him I’ve only glimpsed before comes barreling out now, roaring through all of us, as his own innermost darkness swamps his beautiful light. I feel our Bloodshield, still mostly supported by his power, shatter.
Leaving us unprotected against the Black Dragon’s might.
Litha and Emil aren’t having it, as the Black Dragon thrashes now, not knowing whom to attack. Redoubling their efforts upon thebehemoth rather than coming at us, they harmonize, as an incredible concussion of the blackest magic explodes from them like a pulse.
The Black Dragon ceases thrashing as it looks at me. Inhaling again, it’s ready to attack.
Something inside me goes utterly black then, as that gargantuan beast prepares to end me and my drakes yet again. Something inside me dies, as I understand all through my bones thatthisis what I have to be in order to command it.
Even as Litha flies close by and I see that a scar rips across her forehead, the resting place of her Void inner sight, the rest of me doesn’t. Because I’m gone now, into my blackness—and I’m not coming back, as I inhale just like the Black Dragon.
To do my worst.
I shift up into the blackest, most terrifying dragon I’ve ever been, as a maelstrom of death surges through my bones. It’s in my bones, my veins; my everything now, as that terrible sensation of power and ruin fills my entire aura to the brim.
I am death. I am destruction. Iamthe black dragon as I stare into its undead eyes and command it now from the very center of my being. I command it like I’ve never commanded anything before—not with words or roars, or even power now, but with something that rips out of the blackest part of my soul, howling all the way.
As a terrible black Bloodwind of oilslick-dark insanity surges off me now, it ignites into a firestorm of hell. As has happened only a handful of times before, my drakes’ and my combined power surges with my vast emotions, combusting as that raging hellfire goes rushing through the hall now.
There’s no light anywhere in it as that terrible darkfire blasts from me, coating everything in its path with a diabolical crimson-black oilslick. It sets even the stone in the hall aflame as the Black Dragon snorts, hit by that blast wave but not even singed by it.
It focuses hard on me, then; I feel the Black Dragon listen to me.
Because it feels the energy that created it inside my very bones and flesh.
It’s the power of its maker that it feels inside me, from long ago. But even as that terrible magic cascades off me in continued rivers of demonic, roped hellfire and oilslick Bloodwind, I don’t get the chance to command the Black Dragon.
As someone suddenly tackles my dragon with his, I crash down on the broken stones of the floor, a huge, brawny body crushing me. The Black Dragon roars, my spell upon it broken. Its terrible heart-curse hurtles right at me now, even as someone else surges in, in human form rather than dragon.
I hear a brief cry as that terrible death-curse hits Baldur instead of me, because he’s jumped right in front of me and Bjorn, protecting us. And then all the light in our bond is guttering.
Going out, as Baldur’s beautiful heart dies.
I roar with all the rage, wrath, and darkness in me as Baldur falls. I go far worse than black, as I feel his light ripped from me, forever.
Insane with wrath now, still shifted up into my magnificent Wraith, I feel a darker-than-void energy fill me up—to the max. It’s bitterness, it’s horrid, and it’s nothing but death as that terrible sensation rises hard and fast inside everything I am, swamping me.
Vast, it takes me entirely as a pulse hammers out from me, straight into the blackness of the Void. It’s like a roar, emanating from my very soul, as that pulse shreds from me.
But it’s a roar that comes from my most awful place, as it’s also powered by the bonds I have with my drakes. None of us are in our right minds now, as Mikkel, Ström, even Lærke, course all-black, shifting up like me into their worst sort of dragons.
Nasty black-crimson oilslick sigils devour our dragon-flesh, seething with burning violet light, as Baldur’s brightness is torn from us. The hellish firestorm cascading off me seethes tenfold as all my drakes shed it from their bodies now, along with me.
Only Bjorn’s power remains clear, as I feel him give everything to wrangle the very last of Baldur’s dying light.
And rip open a portal—to get us the fuck out of here.
As the Black Dragon roars, furious at our sudden escape, along with additional roars from Emil and Litha, safe in the skies and away from our insane firestorm of hell, I’m already going, torn through space. My drakes and I stumble as our dragons as we come out somewhere else, in a furious snowstorm, as the light leaves the sky towards night.
We’ve come out of Bjorn’s spontaneous portal somewhere bleak, as a far-north storm howls all around. Nothing here is green or remotely known to me, as I feel the shock of the cold air and the pain of traveling hammer me, making me reel for a moment.
Still in my most terrible dragon-form, I turn on Bjorn now, roaring at him that he just stopped me from doing my worst. As my oilslick-black and diseased crimson fire continues to flood from me—me and all my bonded drakes—I know why I’m spinning all this hellish power upon Bjorn.
Because Iwantedto wield the Black Dragon, as everything inside me seethes, utterly black. Iwantedto command it and watch it curse Emil Beck’s and Litha’s hearts in retribution for Baldur, breaking every single one of their bones as it ripped all the blood in scalding waves from their flesh.
Iwantedto make them feel the same pain I’m going through. The same pain that took me when Maryse was torn from me by their machinations and that terrible beast.
But as Bjorn faces off with me now in the howling snowstorm, a furious rumble fills his chest. He stands his ground before me as his blazing golden drake, even as his scales get scarred and singed by my drakes’ and my furious power.
