“They were both Bloodwalkers.” I’m riveted to be hearing this tale from one who lived it.
“They were, both powerful in the extreme.” He nods as he watches me. “Aesa was my Battle-General, her harem of drakes, my most elite fighters and Jarls. While her elder sister Hedda was our people’s Head Matriarch, our highest shamaness, her drakes some of our best shamans, seers, and sigilwrights, incredible in their talents.”
“All that was broken when the War started, though, wasn’t it?” I say then, wondering how this all played out.
“Not at first.” King Örn Magnussen regards me sadly. “For decades, the Anderlen sisters and us, their Bloodmates, fought side-by-side to quell the uprisings of the Bone Mages and Blood Sages, and bring our people back to peace. The factions that were at war with one another spread like a cancer, however; the more dragons they killed, the more others joined them, on both sides, seeking revenge. We could not contain it, as it blistered across the countryside like a plague. It was then that Hedda lost her original First Drake in battle, our Head Patriarch, a noble shaman by the name of Aleric Blom. Darkness consumed her, then; she retreated from the light, with all her drakes, leaving the fight. Discovering a place she could be alone… this place—the City of Remembrance. Which had not been previously found, except by her most grieving power.”
“This place is old, isn’t it? Ancient, even during your time? None of my people can translate the arcane Blood Dragon runes written upon these walls,” I say now, curious about it.
“Yes.” He nods. “The language that decorates this place is an ancient runic dialect of our people, known asBlodskorring. Even in my time, it was only used as a sacred rune-language for ritual. It comes from a time twenty thousand years back, and more. It is a masterwork of our forgotten days, back when our Ancestors were still united in their Blood and Bone Magic. When they were masters of all Dragondom, and dominated the skies.”
“United in their magic? How?” I ask, curious that this King knows stories from our ancient past, that us modern Blood Dragons have forgotten.
“Long ago,” King Örn Magnussen intones, as he gestures beyond the mirror-space to the underground vault, “our people were united in their magics. You could say that everyone was a Bloodwalker, because Blood and Bone Magic were not separated then, but as one inside us. We were powerful; insanely powerful in the dragon world, our bodies far larger than even in my time. Then something happened; a dire schism in our magic, for what reason even the ancient tales did not recall. Some thought the gods themselves had punished us, because we had grown too masterfully vicious in our magic, and too bloodthirsty in our ambitions over all Dragondom. And so, our powers were split into a day side and a night side. Evermore, a youngling from the Dragons of Blood and Bone was born only into one power. Except for Bloodwalkers… in which the united magics persist. Although unstable and immature, until the Bloodwalker balances it.”
“With Bloodmates,” I say, knowing this part of the tale.
“Or ancient sigil-binding magics.” King Örn Magnussen looks at me. “But we digress. For now, you must only know that Hedda rediscovered this place when she was unhinged in her powerful grief over her First Bloodmate’s death. She secluded herself here with her drakes, poring over the ancient histories written upon every wall for years. Gradually, she formulated the idea for a masterwork of sigildry and magic. A creature that could bindall soulsfrom death… and end this terrible war, at last.”
“The Dragon of All Souls.” I see where his tale connects. Blinking, I glance back at the passage beyond the mirrors. “She got the idea for it by reading all the ancient histories written here, throughout the walls. And she got know-how from the ancient writings entombed in the library, didn’t she?”
“Much.” King Örn Magnussen nods, his gaze dire as the gold in his eyes flares brighter. “For it was in this place that Hedda’s knowledge of the most powerful magics grew a hundredfold, as she studied what the ancients knew. Aesa would come and visit her here; together, the sisterswould pore over star-charts and chronicles of Void-flow, as they talked into the wee hours about what Hedda hoped to create.”
“But something went wrong, didn’t it?” I know, as I watch him.
“Gradually, Aesa became aware of her sister’s madness.” King Örn Magnussen nods now, intense. “For Hedda had lost something of herself when her First Bloodmate died; something she could not get back, even though she at last replaced her mate with someone else. My brother, actually, Gunthr Magnussen… but we will speak of that anon. Suffice it to say that Aesa became aware that Hedda had lost her valiant sense of right and wrong, as she dove into this vision she hoped to create. As the masterwork developed, Aesa saw it was a cancerous thing that had taken her sister. Plus all of her drakes; for they all lost some part of their sanity and goodness when Aleric was ripped from them. A piece of their own souls was torn away by his death… as can happen, when those who are so closely bonded lose a Bloodmate.”
“They had a multi-way bond, like my drakes and I do.” I understand then, as King Örn Magnussen nods. “They shared everything… including the agony of their First Drake’s untimely death.”
“They did.” King Örn Magnussen’s golden eyes pierce me, alert. “It was then that Aesa warned me of what Hedda was up to. Hedda became suspicious of her sister before we could act, however; she used her magic with her drakes to seal the city from us, so even Aesa could no longer get in, to keep tabs on her progress. She continued, lightning fast in her intent. She found others she could manipulate into having a zealous belief in the creature she was about to create. She got them to donate their very blood, bones, and souls to the creation. Creating a thing of madness that rampaged through the skies.”
“The Dragon of All Souls.” I inhale, feeling my heart clench at this ancient tale of woe.
“It was then that horror truly took root, for all of us,” King Örn Magnussen says, as I see an ancient terror still alive in his sorrowful eyes. “For Hedda used the knowledge of the ancients to create her beast; sheagreed with their beliefs, also—that Bloodwalkers were the pinnacle of our people, as we had been in times long past. That they should be the only ones to survive our petty, bickering wars, when all was said and done.”
“She made her Usurper kill everyone, didn’t she?” I say now, as a terrible knowing fills me. “Bone Mages, Blood Sages… it didn’t matter to her and her drakes. They sent it against everyone, just as our current enemy, Litha, desires to do. To bring all of Blood Dragondom down. And leave only the Bloodwalkers standing in the end.”
“She did.” King Örn Magnussen gives a tired sigh now as he regards me. “There came a time as it was rampaging, when Hedda and her drakes seemed to repent. They joined with us in a massive battle to take it down. It killed Hedda, and all her drakes. We found out it was all just a part of her master plan, however—to imbue herself and the four souls of her drakes fully into the beast. Giving it their united mind, flesh, and intent: to ruin all of Blood Dragondom, forever. Except they went too far into darkness… and the beast rampaged, killing everything. Scourging the earth—not even Bloodwalkers left in the places it went.”
“Jesus.” I whisper, horrified to finally understand the full evil of my Ancestor Hedda and her drakes. “Me and all my drakes are related tothat?”
“Not directly, no.” King Örn Magnussen cocks his head now as he regards me. “For Hedda and her drakes had no younglings. Neither did myself, Aesa, and our Bloodbond. You and your drakes are related to the family bloodlines of Hedda and her drakes, but none of you are direct descendants of them. Hear me now, and hear me well, Bloodwalker. As the Black Dragon was rampaging and Aesa and I formed the Black Dragon Knights to oppose it, we set a watch on all those related to the Black Dragon Five. A watch that would continue after we died, to monitor the families of the Five for any desire to resurrect the beast. Though Aesa and the rest of our Bloodbond, and my remaining armies, gave our everything in the battle of Konigslac to stop the creature, however, Aesa already knew that the same bloodlines of the Five had a chance to produce fiveindividuals who might someday bond to stop it. You are the progeny of those bloodlines—you and all your drakes.”
“But so are whomever resurrected it. Litha, Emil, and all those who are trying to bring it back to its fullest power.” I understand now, as fury churns inside me.
“Beware, Bloodwalker.” King Örn Magnussen regards me, intense. “For the temptation to wield the beast lives in all of us. Even Aesa tried, before the end, and failed, terribly. It was her and all our Bloodbond’s undoing, though we stopped the creature temporarily. The bloodlines of the Five that bound it call to us all, however—and call to us still. A terrible call, to the very blood and bones that make us.”
“So I’m discovering,” I bite now as I contemplate how much I’ve been tempted already to wield the beast, with near-disastrous results myself.
“That you have come to this place at all bodes well and it also bodes ill.” He regards me, wary. “For it means the Usurper’s strength is gathering anew—and its strength is directly tied to this place.”
“Because Hedda made her Frankenstein dragon here, didn’t she?” I understand suddenly, as I glance back, beyond the mirror-space. “Somewhere, deep beneath this city… she found a place she used to build it. Using all the power and knowledge encoded here.”
“The black cradle of the creature’s birth calls to it.” King Örn Magnussen nods now as he watches me. “This underground citadel has a chamber, ancient as the world is old, where Hedda fashioned the Usurper and performed her rituals to bind its flesh. That place is a locus of extreme power, used by the ancients who made these halls. Hedda used that power to create her demon—before Aesa and our Bloodbond found this place while she and the beast were out rampaging. We stole it from her, magically sealing it off from her ever finding it again, making it the last holdout of the Knights before our last battle in the city above, and at the lake. Our power safeguards this place still… but I feel how my beloved Aesa’s magic wanes now in the universe. She is failing. When she fails, so too will the protection that keeps this place hidden from the demon.”
“Us hiding out here really was too good to last, wasn’t it?” My smile is wry now, though I listen intently to the ancient King’s tale. “Why is this place so special? Why did Hedda use it as the spot to create her creature?”
“I do not know; Aesa never figured it out, either.” King Örn Magnussen shakes his head as his golden eyes pierce me. “Aesa believed her sister discovered the true story of how the ancient schism in our magics took place, however, splitting the long-gone Bloodwalkers into the Blood Sages and Bone Mages. Dreams came to her from the Void, telling her that Hedda’s rituals with the beast were incomplete. That there was some extra, final ritual to be done,afterHedda and her drakes imbued themselves into the beast. For the Black Dragon attacked here in the end, ruining the skies in its madness to return to the place of its birth. Aesa and our Bloodbond sacrificed ourselves to draw the creature to the Konigslac, instead—where my beloved Aesa worked the most incredible magic of her life. It was the magic that killed her, and all of our Bloodbond, save for me. Though it stopped the creature enough that I could take it to an unnamed Outer Island and bury it. Cursing it to lie forevermore beneath the volcano. Before my heartbreak finally broke me… and I came back here to die.”
