Iknow who this is, as the black drakaina with the devouring soul-dark eyes stares at me from the Void. As Aesa’s Truthstone goes ballistic upon my chest, my inner Bloodwalker dragon is already searing with rage and wrath both, wanting to rip her apart.
Because I hate the creature before me, to my very blood and bones. As she stares down at me with disdain from the Void, I already know what she’s going to say. That she’s the creatrix of this vile Void-prison I’m stuck in, which keeps me from speaking with my Ancestors. And that she’s the drakaina who cursed my bloodline with her diabolical machinations.
Hedda Anderlen—my very own Ancestor.
And my nemesis.
Congratulations, Bloodwalker,she hails me now, as her simmering oilslick-black form roils all around me in the Void. Her cursed imprint seethes around my drakes and I in real life, too, thanks to the oilslick-black shimmer in the air, though her infernal, untethered soul-energy is not here.
Her echo of energy from the Void is enough, however, as it devours the cavern all around us and makes the sigils all go out now.
Dark.
You’ve finally found me.Hedda stares down at me with her soul-dark eyes, towering over everything in the Void, besides me and my drakes.We should speak, you and I… now that you are finally strong enough. Bloodwalker to Bloodwalker, at last.
My Ancestor’s voice fills my mind like a diabolical sea, drowning me in her infernal night as we speak. Her voice comes to me in the growls and roars of a thousand beasts in torment, a sultry, alto human voice also in the mix, as if it was once her own.
“Hedda!” I snarl now as I embrace my drakes upon the bed. I see her with my waking vision and my Void-sight, as she seethes everywhere in the cavern around us. We hardly have any light now, as even the magical torches that ring the space gutter low, threatening to go out from her terrible darkness.
“You put this black shield around me in the Void! Why?!” I confront her now as my drakes and I hold each other close. As we heave hard breaths upon the bed, we’re not fucking anymore; our Bloodwalking should have snapped out by now.
Except it hasn’t—all of us trapped in it, by the intense evil that holds us.
Thanks to Hedda’s infernal presence contacting us, the black ooze surges all around the bed like an infernal sea, rising from the fissure in the cavern’s floor. Lærke’s battle with it is still holding it back. It can’t come up on the bed as she snarls and strains with her power now, sweat glistening upon her in the meagre light as she holds her hands out in talons, half-shifted.
That black tar is close to us now, however, as it surges and licks up every bedpost—trying to devour us as Hedda speaks.
It is the challenges that make us, young Bloodwalker,Hedda answers me now as she stares down at me with her terrible black eyes from the Void, watching me and my drakes like puny ants. She rakes her talons through the stars as her gargantuan mantle of poisonous black spears glistens.
Shedding black oilslick drops that manifest now, blistering the floor of the cavern all around the bed.
I gasp as I see that manifestation come from the Void. Because although Hedda is no longer living, it’s clear she was possibly the strongest Bloodwalker to have ever lived, as she makes that power become real now, right from the realm of the Ancestors into our physical world.
Terrible.
I was not the strongest,she answers me suddenly, reading my mind as her ruinous dark eyes gaze down at me from her swirling oilslick scales.For there were others of our kind, far stronger than me, in times long gone. They made this cavern you see around you—and they broke it with their hubris. From that breaking came so many possibilities, however. Possibilities I harnessed when I made my creature. To bring us back to that holy state of unification, as we were long ago.
“The ancient Bloodwalkers broke this place?” I push her now for whatever information she’s willing to give us, if it might even give us the tiniest hope of killing the Black Dragon. “Our people, before they were split into the Dragons of Blood and Bone—they made this place and something went wrong with it? Something you harnessed as you made your Black Dragon of All Souls?” I gesture down to the fissure now that splits this cavern, and the gleaming midnight oil that’s still trying to overtake the bed.
Something to be dealt with in a moment—if we survive that long.
That is a far deeper conversation than you are ready for, youngling.Hedda eyeballs me now from the Void, as the shimmering black taint inside the cavern swirls.All you need to be aware of now, is that my creation is as yet incomplete. Even with all my copious forethought, I did not foresee the most basic of magic, which upended my creature’s supremacy in the skies.
As she eyeballs the silver ring on my finger, then snorts with narrowed eyes at the Truthstone upon my chest, I do not miss it. Aesa’s energy surges through me, making the Truthstone sear a shimmering gold-white as sister suddenly faces off with sister throughthe Void.
My drakes and I caught in the middle, pawns to their ancient game.
Aesa is dead.Hedda snorts now, as if even the massive power of her own Bloodwalker sister no longer bothers her agenda.My magic has wasted her back to the stars; soon she shall be gone, no longer troubling this world with her meddling. It is just as well. For my creation in our ancient Bloodline is what matters now; which is being carried out by the Bloodwalker who currently wears my black ring and has awoken my creature. She is my chosen champion to wield my Jörmungandr, for now. Until another Bloodwalker, my ultimate champion, can mature far further in her power and replace her. Delivering this world into our true Bloodwalker unity, so we may once again become the pinnacle of all flesh, and masters of all things. And that ultimate champion… is you.
“Yourchampion?” Everything inside me sears with the most terrible rage now, and the blackest wrath, as so much of what I’ve been facing with all this comes clear. “You put this black veil around me somehow through this other drakaina you’re using. All so you could mislead me and manipulate me into freeing your black-hearted soul and all your drakes fromUnhaemmerten… then come here to complete your Black Dragon somehow? So Bloodwalkers can take over the world like they did in ages past?”
You are not ready yet.Hedda eyeballs me as my drakes tighten around me now in a seething, vicious knot. All their amalgamated dragon-energies pour around us and through me now, as a renewed wildfire surges through the space.
It does nothing to Hedda’s dragon out in the Void, however. Nor does it do anything to the shimmering black substance coating the air, or the ooze surrounding us on the floor.
What it does, however, is make all the silver, gold, and white sigils around us in the cavern suddenly brighten. I see Hedda glance around at it with a snort, as if what we just did surprised her.
Until she looks back at me—raking a taloned hand through the Void again, dismissive.
