“Don’t be afraid to use your rage, rather than your calm,” Bjorn rumbles now, as he stands with us, holding Baldur around the waist. His gold eyes blister as he gives my Fourth Drake a piece of his mind, and wisdom, from all the careening emotions he’s fought over the decades. “Sometimes we need the power rage can give us when we’re temped to surrender to a dark place. Hold the ideal of who youwantto be hard inside your heart. Let your inner rage fuel you to go there, rather than be drawn into the call of your vast siren-dark.”
“Bjorn’s right,” Ström says as he stands in this place with us, brave and kind. “Because our light can never be as truly bright as it can be until we stand strong inside our deepest dark. Go there; see it. Take a deep breath and dive on in. Because we’ll be there with you, to hold your light and reflect it back. Don’t be afraid, Baldur. When you see that your worst nightmares are just that—nightmares—you’ll finally understand truth from reality. Reality is that you have an addiction. Truth is that you are Light. Remember that, always. We’ll remember it for you, too, whenever you dive into your deepest dark.”
“We’re with you, all the way into the darkness,” I reiterate to him now as I hold his face in my hands. “And we’re coming back out again, you hear me? We’reallcoming back, together. Into this incredible, beautiful light we’ve found, as one. Which produces this magic between us in the first place. Because we’re not just separate souls anymore, Baldur, but one which is shared. Can’t you feel it? This incredible amalgamation of love and endlessness we’re all making together?”
I hadn’t known that’s what I was feeling until the words pour from my lips. They’ve come from my deepest heart, however, as I feel them lance right into Baldur’s deepest heart, too, and bolster him there.
Because we’re all feeling it now, this incredible union of magic we’remaking. It’s affecting all our hearts, as something inside us and all through us begins to pulse and pound as one.
The runes around the walls feel it. They brighten tenfold, then a hundredfold, searing with an incredible daylight clarity now as their call surges. For the first time, we stand strong in it, Baldur’s beautiful heart unwavering now as his eyes glance at the runes blazing all around us.
I see him, ready to do this, at last.
“No time like right now, I suppose,” Baldur says as his gaze returns to me. The slightest smile plays around his lips now, as I feel him come back to his brighter side, and the humor that lives in it.
“These runes feel like they want to show us something.” Ström turns away from our group now, glancing at the walls, the floor, the columns, and even the ceiling, high above. “But what?”
“What we came here for,” I say then, as I ready myself for what I know I must do now. I lift, kissing Baldur upon the lips and letting him feel my massive heart, ready to be here with him always.
Then I turn, taking a deep breath as I feel the voices of the ancient dead whisper harder through my ears, attentive to me.
Because I’m about to do what Bloodwalkers do best.
And command them to do my bidding—to get us what we want.
“Hearken to us, old ones, you who made these halls. We’re here to discover the secrets of the Black Dragon of All Souls, the Usurper who was named Jörmungandr,” I tell all those millions of simmering runes now, informing them of our quest. “We’re ready now. Take us to the place where the creature was born. Reveal to us the darkest innermost secret this ancient citadel has to hide. Of how Hedda Anderlen made her most vile and villainous creature. And where she gave it its black-hearted, Frankenstein life. Because we’re here to kill it. But first, we must understand it. Then… we’ll take it down.”
As I finish speaking, the runes on the walls blaze into a raging firestorm of life. They make their own auric flame now, as theyseethe and pulse with the ancient souls of millions of unknown dead, conversing about my request.
But then they coalesce into a single burning line of light. That line leads us right through the now-empty dining hall, out the nearest set of doors.
Onward to our destination on this endless underground night.
24
MIST
My drakes and I dress in new battle leathers from our bedroom’s vaults, since our previous ones got burned up in our insane firestorm earlier, then leave the dormitory area. We follow the searing rune light—far brighter and thicker now, than the whispering incandescence that led me on the night I found the triptych mirrors. The ancient silver and gold runes on the walls flare hot tonight, seething with their own inner fire as they lead us to our destination.
We follow—to find the birthplace of the Black Dragon, at last.
We’re tense, silent, as we pass through chamber after chamber and hall after hall. With each twist and turn we take, however, an instinct inside me grows; that we’re following a path we’ve walked before—countless times.
When we finally arrive at the library with the gargantuan floating silver mirror stone in the center of the space, my suspicions are confirmed. As the seething runes flare throughout the walls and floor now, lighting up the vaults high into the ceiling above, I suddenly feel like we’ve been cheated.
Because there’s nothing here, except the towering stacks of tomesand vellums, and the gargantuan silver stone in the center of the space. It shows nothing right now, only blows with its millions of infinitesimal rune-phrases, scrolling through it and giving it its antiqued look.
“Was this a bust, do you think?” Ström says now as we halt in front of the silver mirror-stone. Inert, it does nothing—even though the runes have lit up like a simmering wildfire all around the space now, showing that this is our destination.
“Well, they’re not indicating any other place in the library,” Baldur says with a frown as he gazes around, then nods to the mirror. “Whatever we’re looking for, I’d say it’s connected to this mirror.”
“The mirror shows us what we focus on; what we want to see.” A thoughtful look takes Mikkel as he glances at me. “Should we all focus on finding this secret creation chamber of Hedda’s? See if the mirror will show us where it is?”
“Worth a shot.” I nod, his logic sound.
We all face the mirror, then. I feel it, as each of my drakes and I focus our thoughts and intentions on one phrase:let us find the birthplace of the Black Dragon.
As before, however, when we asked to find our enemy Litha and her drakes, we get only a scathing tirade of runic gobbledygook from the mirror, as it swirls in a maelstrom.
