To find us some place safe, at last.
2
SAFE
Iwake, wrapped in brawny arms and hearing a soft snore beside me in bed. Bjorn’s massive body feels good cuddled around me, despite the smell of mildew upon my pillow. As I surface from dark dreams of the Black Dragon, I let my gaze wander over the sky-blue silk canopy above me and the threadbare covers pulled up to my chest.
I lay in our massive bed of ornately carvedsilberskraein the underground citadel and I give myself a moment to come all the way back. I don’t even care that everything around me in the once-beautiful bedchamber is in tatters. My drakes and I are safe, and that’s all that matters for the moment.
Everything else just details.
As I stare up at the ruined silk drapes on the bed’s canopy, however, some part of me notes this mysterious place we’re in is thousands of years old, if it’s a day. Everything here comes from a far-away time in our Blood Dragon past; even the bed mattress sprouts mushrooms and is half-devoured by the roots of asilberskraetree, grown right up through the floor.
Some ancient magic still lingers here, however, keeping this place farmore hale than it has any right to be. As I glance at the walls, I see a bare shimmer move through copious silver and gold runes, a detailed inlay that curls around every column and through every vault.
As I take in that ornate runic script, plus the sumptuous furnishings, I understand this bedchamber, in a quadrangle of them we found, was once meant for royalty. From the delicately carvedsilberskraefurniture, to the sumptuous textiles and clothing nearly gone to dust, this was a place for kings and queens of our Ancestors, I know.
Yet despite the last threads of magic that still live here, everything has been overtaken by luminous mosses, trees, and vines. I watch an orange and green gecko scurry up the tree grown through the bed now, its tongue licking out to seize a glowing purple moth in its jaws.
At least this place has a bed, the bed still hale enough to use. That, plus the four fireplaces embedded in the walls, which flare at a low burn now, makes the vaulted room nice and cozy despite its towering height.
It’s magic long-lost to Blood Dragons, as those fireplaces burn with no fuel, lighting the moment we entered the room. Transparent barriers with a shimmering sheen remain around the room, as well—storage areas of the ancients.
Filled with items we can use.
I had thought to only find rot and ruin behind those barriers when we first arrived—and was amazed to find massive stores of still-fresh food and beverages, from someone who had placed them there and never used them.
The food Bjorn and Lærke found, plus their battle-leathers and magical torches, came from those caches. I haven’t rummaged through them yet, though; sleep was most important after we finally had warmth, food, and safety.
My well-rested body is howling for food now, though, as I ease out of bed to not wake Bjorn or disturb the still-out Baldur on my other side. Ström was with us when we fell asleep, though Mikkel and Lærke took a room next to ours, which was in as good a condition as this one.
As I focus on Ström now through our bond, I feel him wandering some place else in the underground city. He’s well, as I feel his energy stable like mine, though still tired.
It’s enough for him to go exploring now, however, as I feel his curiosity—to see if there’s anything else in this underground citadel that can help us in our current predicament.
My focus is on food, however, and maybe something to wear, as I glance at the glimmering caches in the vaults all around the massive bedchamber. I take a few dippers from a fountain of fresh water burbling out of the wall by the bed, then head over to the nearest cache, which holds food.
It’s far more than regular Blood Dragon high-north fare; I find another bag of dates and wolf them down greedily, then a big bag of jerky which tastes like beef, rather than venison, and set to.
The jerky is dry and I have to chew a lot, but the meat refills my energy in a way fruit just can’t. As I eat, I wander over to a collection ofsilberskraetrunks that hold clothing. I rummage through Blood Dragon battle-leathers thousands of years out-of-date, seeing how they’re all ridiculously ornate.
Tooled with gold and silver sigils, they’re the garb of elite warriors from our long-ago past. I find a woman’s set in my size, done in a tawny fawn leather like Lærke’s, then haul on the leather breeches as I find a silk singlet to go under the jerkin, covering my nakedness at last.
As I do up the silver clasps of the jerkin’s crossover flap, though not all the way, leaving my upper chest exposed, I feel a fighting energy fill me at last. It’s good, as the last remnants of battle-magic simmer through the silver and gold sigils, tooled upon the leather in artful Blood Dragon designs.
As I pull on the tall boots, that magic comes to completion, locking home inside me. I square my shoulders and set my jaw; determination floods through me as I feel that ancient magic hold me. I heave a deep breath in the bedchamber’s quiet.
Feeling like me again, at last.
I say a solemn thanks to my Blood Dragon Ancestors who last used this place, leaving all this down here, as I take in the room again. As I do, munching my jerky and ripping off big chunks to swallow, Bjorn finally wakes with a snort.
He sits up in bed, his fierce golden eyes pinned to me. His irises blaze with the hot all-gold of his drake; as our connection renews with his waking, I feel how he was mired in bad dreams, too, just like me.
As understanding finally fills him of where we are, he takes a moment to check Baldur’s pulse, grunts, then rolls out of bed, coming to me. As Bjorn arrives, fully clothed because he went to sleep that way, he glances down and I look up, feeling my inner bright drakaina stir eagerly in my veins.
Though I’m dressed like him, we’re both still disheveled from bed; I don’t know where my white-blonde locks end and his long, lion-gold ones begin, as we stand together in the crackling silence.
My bright inner drakaina slithers deliciously through my body now, to have him so close with me. Bjorn’s bright drake echoes it, his inner dragon coiling up hard with mine as I feel his drake rise to my drakaina.
