“Ström,” I say, giving him a severe eyeball. “What are you going to?—?”
Before I can even finish my sentence, Ström plunges that little dagger right into his chest. He cries out, falling to his knees as I surge to him in furious shock, steadying him.
I see he’s thrust that small silver knife right into the lone good eye of his last crimson tattoo drake. I watch now, as that roiling red dragon viciously comes to life upon his skin.
As Ström’s blood flows down over the tattoo, his ancient Eriksson Bone Mage inking comes alive in the fey dark—twisting from his flesh as it roars and takes to the air. I know Ström’s sent his last dragon of protection to his great-grandfather and Jarl, even before it evaporates. Because his great-grandfather is also the leader of the True Black Dragon Knights.
Who needs to move into battle, at last.
“They have to know. The True Knights must know what the False ones are up to. They have to protect the King—they can’t leave him fighting all this alone!” Ström gasps now as I hold him up from collapsing. Bjorn gets beneath his other arm, shoring him up as his legs give out. The dagger wasn’t long enough to pierce Ström’s heart, but he’s definitely hit a lung with that thrust.
As we now have someone entirely new to worry about.
Bjorn, Mikkel, Lærke, and I are already pouring everything we have left into Ström to get that lung puncture to heal fast. The last thing weneed is to lose one incredible drake over something so fucking infinitesimal, all because he was too exhausted to heal it himself.
“You fucking idiot. I thought you could only do that with burning silver?” Bjorn growls at Ström now as we ease him down to his back on the hall’s stone floor. But even I can tell Bjorn is impressed as he pours healing energy into Ström, everything we can spare, though we’ve already given most of it to save Baldur.
“It just has to be silver. And fucking hurt. A lot,” Ström says with a humorous grin, despite everything. “And you’re welcome.”
As we settle in to finish healing Ström, I can feel the last of the evening’s daylight waning outside. Night is taking over now, though the strange luminosity inside this underground hall doesn’t change.
“Well, I suppose we’re here for now. Wherever here is.” I look around for some kind of better shelter than sleeping by the fountain on the moss-covered flagstones, beneath the silver trees. “Do you have any idea where we are, Bjorn?” I ask him now, because he’s the one who got us here.
“No fucking clue.” Bjorn scowls, then glances around with me. “I just made the portal… and it took us wherever it took us. By the looks of it, we’re in some kind of underground ruin leftover from the ancient wars. An entire city, though a small one.”
I wonder now what connection Aesa’s Truthstone and my ring from my ancestor who made the Black Dragon might have with this place, since they flared together to open the door. But it’s a mystery to figure out another day, as we focus on survival now. Because though we’ve completely lost the day against the Jarl of Copenhagen, Emil Beck, Litha, and the Black Dragon, we’ve survived to tell the tale.
And that is win enough in my book.
“Right now, we just have to focus on surviving the night,” I say, feeling how devastatingly weak we are, barely able to heal a simple puncture wound between the six of us. We’re hanging on by a thread and we’re in unfamiliar territory—a place we’ve found water, but little else so far.
“More water, food, and someplace proper to sleep. That’s what weneed tonight to power back up.” I glance around. “Everything else can wait, as we figure out where we stand—and trust that Ström’s tattoo-dragon can get to the True Knights to protect our King.”
“To protect everyone, while we’re down for the count,” Bjorn growls now as I feel the barest edge of his natural rage rise. “I hate being in this position, but you’re right, Rikyava. We can’t do anything for our people, much less our King, when we can’t do much for ourselves. We rest—and live to fight another day.”
But even as I cuddle close to my drakes and Lærke in the underground hall, finishing healing Ström, I pray we can all survive the night. Because I feel how Baldur’s curses from the Black Dragon are still pulling at him, draining all our flesh.
He’s fighting them as hard as he can out in the Void. But like the touch of those curses once did upon me, the remaining curses still singed into Baldur’s beautiful flesh are pulling on all of us, hard, through our bonds.
And it doesn’t bode well, as we all fight to stay conscious now.
“I’ll find food for us and someplace warmer to sleep. Be back soon,” Bjorn says as he struggles to his feet, stubborn as the night is long.
“Like hell are you going alone.” Lærke struggles up to stand beside Bjorn, wavering on her feet but holding steady. “I’m the least bonded to your group; I’ve got more left than anyone else. If you faint while out looking for a decent spot to bed down, you need someone to carry your ass back. That someone is me.”
For a moment, Bjorn looks like he’s going to tell Lærke to piss off. Then I see him sigh as she stands tall in the wan light, tossing her long ultra-white hair back and daring Bjorn to defy her.
The smallest smile quirks Bjorn’s lips.
And then he’s bending, placing a sweet kiss on mine. “Back in a trice.”
“You’d better be,” I say with a twist of smile now as I feel the deep love that flows between me and my First Drake. Bjorn is my first love, and thefirst person I ever life-mated. That bond shores us up now when all feels lost as I stare into his ridiculously beautiful golden eyes.
And see nothing but love there for me, too.
“I will be,” Bjorn says, as love and pride for our Bloodbond surges through him. And then he’s off, turning with Lærke to go find some place decent for us all to crash overnight, a place smaller and less drafty than this gargantuan hall of ancient trees and carvings.
I’m left with Ström, Mikkel, and the incapacitated Baldur, still unconscious on the floor. As our healing of Ström gradually wraps, he sits up, rubbing the closed but still ugly dagger-wound in his flesh. As he looks at Baldur, frowning, we all gaze around.
