Staring me down with a righteous fire in his all-gold eyes.
Not like this, Rikyava.I hear his basso growl in my mind, clear as day,as a shining light burns from him, golden and bright, despite how I’m injuring him.We do not fight like this…
Suddenly, seeing my First Drake blaze before me, opposing me with the last of his righteousness and power, undoes me. Because Bjorn is full of his own magnificent light, while still filled with the very last of Baldur’s power, as he shines right through the very Void itself, facing off with me.
It makes me stop—and take a good fucking look at what I’ve become in my blackest wrath. As Aesa’s Truthstone blazes upon my chest and I’m thrust into a spontaneous Bloodwalking, I see the hellish, monstrous darkness that is me, as I writhe in my dragon-form out in the stars.
My Ancestors howl as they watch me transform into something far too much like the Black Dragon itself. It’s then that I know this has happened before—not with me, but with someone else—as the screeching of their endless voices claims me.
Usurper!They roar and snarl as they gnash their teeth at me.
And I know I have become the very thing I swore I would fight.
Shock shifts me down as I stumble to a hard seat on my bare ass in the freezing snow. My hellfire snaps out, along with my wrath, as I finally come back from that horrible black brink that nearly devoured me.
Bjorn roars and shifts down also, falling to his knees before me in relief, our intense standoff ended. He shudders to his bones; I can feel how everything inside him is done from the raw amount of power he just wielded to tear open space-time and get us here, plus facing off with me just now.
He opposed me just in time, however. Out of all of us, only Bjorn knew we had to get the fuck out of that palace and regroup. Only he remained in his brightness enough to understand what the Black Dragon was doing to us—and how much our entire Bloodbond was going dark, trying to command it.
How much I just went dark, trying to wield it.
All my drakes and Lærke are shocked back now from wherever we’d gone in our wrath, as everyone shifts down. Ström stumbles to Bjorn,getting fast hands on his heart and pouring a stabilizing energy into him to keep him from dying from all the energy he just expended, and all the terrible burns I just gave him with my hellfire.
Bjorn’s heart gutters hard now, like it’s about to snuff out, as Mikkel surges to Baldur. Lærke is with him, as the twins thrust their hands to Baldur’s sigil-cursed heart.
Trying their utmost to bring him back.
They begin an ancient chant—pulling the blackness out of Baldur now, which thrusts him towards death. I feel it then, that he’s not completely gone. Though his heart has already ceased to beat, the barest shred of his light is still with us; I stumble to him as I feel it, putting my hands on his bare chest and pouring my heart into him.
Giving him everything I’ve got left.
As I open my entire Bloodwalker power now, shocked back from my terrible, ruinous brink, I manage to balance, at last. The fullness of my entire power spirals all through me, uniting inside my flesh, as I feel my actual Bloodwalker magic dive into Baldur now, rather than my blackest wrath.
Trying to save him.
“Please don’t die. Please don’t die! I need you…!” I am desperate as I use my magic to command him to stay with us—and to banish the death-sigil out of his heart. I feel my united power pull from all my drakes now, hauling energy from them in a riptide as I try to save Baldur’s life.
As Mikkel and Lærke pull all those nasty oilslick-black curses out of his flesh, I call to his luminous, beautiful heart. Everything roars inside me with woe, as I sense his beautiful light flickering, going out.
When I feel him suddenly hearken to me in the Void.
Baldur hears me, as I chant with all my breath and heart and life now, for him to not leave us—for him to not leave me. I feel his spirit rise back towards us from wherever he’d gone when the Black Dragon cursed him. The barest glimmer of light shines in my mind as Baldur’s blue eyes beam and he smiles. His bright energy briefly strokes mycheek.
And the death-curse evaporates from his heart in a blaze of light.
His heart gives a glorious thump of life, then another. I feel it as Baldur falls into his deep stasis now, rather than death, the place he goes when he heals.
As Mikkel and Lærke work with the last of their power to pull more curses out of him, I finally know he’ll live. As I heave a relieved cry, I suddenly burst into sobs.
Horrible, heart-wrenching, they shake me to my foundation; because it’s too much, everything we’ve just been through, plus how I nearly lost my Fourth Drake.
I cry for our impossible situation, but also, I cry for myself. Because I don’t know what I’ve become; deep in my heart, I still feel the Black Dragon’s disease, as the curses which once riddled me burn and ache now from the Usurper’s taint charred inside Baldur, as well.
It’s something he and I share now, having been touched by the beast. And that resonance with the creature nearly undid me just now, as I feel it lance and burn through me, still wanting to take me back to that terrible place I went in my utmost wrath.
I don’t know what Baldur’s additional cursing from the Usurper will do to us, as Ström and Lærke get Bjorn and Baldur heaved up into their arms now, me stumbling along with Mikkel through the thick, driving snow.
The wind howls, and it’s only now that I can see the ancient, crumbled stones of some massive ruin all around. We’ve come through to I-don’t-know-where, as my exhausted drakes and I stumble towards the towering, broken edifices of an ancient citadel, searching for shelter.
