Unlike the ruined city above, however, this space is hale. The massive, semi-dark hall of alabaster and sky-blue stone features carvings of Blood Dragons cavorting and flying, just like on the doors, everywhere we look.
Ornate and almost Fey-like, though sturdy in ancient Blood Dragon style, the towering columns and archways house a kind of space I’ve never seen our ancients create, even in places like the Hollows of the Damned.
Even in my deathlike exhaustion, the mystery is intriguing, because it’s not the Blood Dragon usual. Not to mention that the entire place is absolutely coated in gold and silver runic sigil-script, though none of it glows, cursed or otherwise.
I get the sense it’s a massive history as it shimmers across the walls, columns, and floor in the strange fey incandescence, written here to preserve for generations. I want to read that ancient tale.
But we need to last the night first.
A pair of small fountains burble from the wall, flanking the doors at the entrance to the underground space. They create a small stream that flows through ornate channels in the hall’s floor, from which the roots of the trees and the vines get freshwater; my drakes and I head to the nearest stream now, because water is life.
Kneeling down, everyone drinks their fill, with no clue when our last drink was. Blood Dragons can survive a lot, even on very little; but after all the metaphysical craziness rescuing Mikkel, the fighting in the palace, then battling for our lives against Emil Beck, Litha, and the Black Dragon itself, we’re in bad shape.
We sink to a seat on the moss-covered stones of the ancient hall now, our backs up against a tree growing beside the open doors. Baldur’s still out cold in his strange stasis. His heart beats only twice a minute as I pressmy fingers to his pulse now, his breath coming even more seldom than that.
Closing my eyes, I feel him, way out in the Void. As I check in with him, I feel his dragon gathering more power, out where our Ancestors live.
He’s not there completely, but damn close to it, as I put my hand on his bare chest over his heart. I feel the sluggish way his blood moves through his veins, as caustic black and burned crimson oilslick sigils still writhe through his arms and legs.
They’re the ones Mikkel and Lærke were too exhausted to finish pulling out of him. I pray they can be eliminated completely, as I sigh hard now and rest my forehead against his.
Kissing his lips, and once again thanking him for his sacrifice.
“Rikyava. I am so sorry.”
Mikkel’s rough voice makes me open my eyes. I sit up slowly because I’m fucking beat and having a hard time staying conscious from everything we’ve been through. I look at him.
Mikkel’s dark eyes are the sorriest thing I’ve ever seen as he watches me. Beautiful, haughty, broken, a thousand apologies pour from him as he watches me in the hall’s fey light.
Naked and beat to shit, he’s covered in barely healed lacerations from everything he went through during his torture. I watch him for a long moment, tempted to be cold—but something inside me thaws as I feel his sincerity through our bond.
And I feel how much he’s hurting, deep inside.
It’s not a pain of the flesh that devours my Third Drake, as I feel his sorrow in the underground hall. It’s a pain of the heart; that I might reject him now for everything he’s done and all it’s caused.
Mikkel fears I might cut him loose for everything that’s happened. Because it was all thanks to his black-as-shit dragon that we even got into this mess in the first place.
He’s afraid I might give him the ultimate rejection now, as I shun him and maybe even separate him from our Bloodbond. He fears he mightnever become the better man his bright copper magic indicates, that place he so desperately tries to hide, deep inside. He despairs that I’ll turn away from him now, because he’ll never fit in with my heroic band of drakes.
I reach out a hand—offering him hope instead.
Mikkel startles as his dark eyelashes flicker. He gazes down at my hand, hesitating, before he takes it.
I feel it as the massive iron wall inside him comes down. Tears roll down his face for the second time today; Mikkel doesn’t sob, but I feel his terrible heartbreak as I offer him love instead of wrath.
I scoot close to him now as he hitches a hard breath, then another. Sitting, I spread my legs and cuddle around him like a monkey, as Lærke cinches close to our side, shushing him and combing back her brother’s hair.
We hold Mikkel in the fey underground hall, she and I. He doesn’t quite break down this time, but I feel the tears that roll down his face as he presses his cheek to mine now, heaving devastated sighs.
“What could I ever do to make this right?” he asks, as Lærke and I hold him. As he grips my arms wrapped around him, Ström scoots close to us, touching Mikkel’s thigh.
Even Bjorn has come into our huddle; though he’s not touching Mikkel, he’s scooted close to my back to be my chair as Mikkel rests on me. It leaves us in a cozy pile, as I reach out one hand now to touch Baldur, resting nearby.
Baldur’s chest rises and falls in a deep sigh.
As his heart compresses for me, once.
“You can start by not being an idiot. And tell us next time if you feel you’re going to go Wraith so we can pin you down and stop you,” Lærke answers as we all touch and grieve. Her sad chuckle is everything as Mikkel barks a ruined laugh. Pressing his forehead hard against Lærke’s, he sighs.
