“Not going to tonight’s healing session?” he asks as I fume.
“No.” I decide then, though I had already decided. “They’re not working. Nothing they’ve tried has helped, and I don’t think it’s going to. It’s probably because I’m a Blood Dragon, not a Storm Dragon. They’ve never tried their healings on someone full-blooded of our kind. Rhennic may be half Blood Dragon, but his magic is Storm Dragon through and through. It’s different.”
“It is.” Ström kisses my brow before glancing at a long, white oak table at the far wall. It’s where we’ve been pouring over the now-deciphered scrolls fromUnhaemmertenall week. Fortunately, Alfhild Fey overlooked taking our lockbox of scrolls from The Chartreuse when she captured us, thanks to everything in it being magically dead and generally useless. We’d picked them up on our way down here from Copenhagen.
As if feeling as dejected about the scrolls as I do my healing sessions, Ström shakes his head. “I feel as stumped as you right now, Rikyava. I’ve been poring over those scrolls all week, and most of it is just as much gobbledygook to me as it was to Mikkel and Lærke. Arcane formulas, detailed descriptions of reagents, tools used, and star charts; it’s like the Black Dragon of All Souls was created by some insane genius. Whatever else your ancestor was, she was certifiably brilliant. Magic like I’ve never seen, used in ways I’ve never even heard of.Unfortunately, it means that Mikkel, Lærke, and I have gotten nowhere with them.”
Breaking from each other, though we still hold hands, we move over to the scroll-table now, with its plethora of burned-out magical items. Nothing here is valuable; a laptop sits open upon the table and Ström fires it up, our translated documents already magically un-bioencrypted so we could work on them this past week.
Even though I left that to Ström, as Bjorn rested, and I went through treatment after treatment, what little I’ve peeked at from the translations has left me with nothing, as well. Staring down at them and feeling at a complete dead end, I glance at Ström, who is bending over now to squint at the computer screen. “Is there nothing here that could help us?”
“Not nothing,” he says now as he straightens, tapping one document open on the screen. “Strangely, the most useful thing here so far has been the genealogy scroll, the one that mentions all our families and how someone from each of them was part of the core five who created the Black Dragon. Between you, me, Bjorn, and Mikkel, we represent four of them. But there is still one family we have no connection to: a Blood Dragon family called the Sigurddians.”
“Siggurdians?” I frown. “That’s not a Blood Dragon surname. Not one I know, at least.”
“It’s not. Not anymore.” Ström nods, though intrigue glitters in his green eyes. “I did some digging into a few ancient palace annals King Huttr gave me access to, and I found out the Siggurdian family is extinct. The last of their clan were killed in a vicious clan-battle about two thousand years ago—no one survived.”
“So it’s a dead end. And there is no fourth drake we could find who would come from the last original family.” My hope drops through my feet as I feel a deep keen inside my soul for Bjorn.
Who won’t make it if I can’t find a fourth drake to bond.
“Not technically, but this is where it gets interesting,” Ström says.Leaning against the table, he crosses his arms as he lifts an eyebrow. “The Siggurdian family were from Iceland, so I called my great-grandfather to see which modern Icelandic Blood Dragon families the True Knights have been watching, which could be connected to the ancient Siggurdians. I thought it was a dead end, as my great-grandfather sighed on the phone and told me that the bloodlines are too convoluted to know with certainty.”
“Why is that?” I ask, frowning.
“Among Icelandic Blood Dragons, it’s common practice to mate with whomever you like, be they a life-mate or no, so their family branches are insanely complicated,” Ström says. “The True Knights just end up watching all of Iceland, really. Since their clan is so small, however, they need all the younglings they can get, in any combination of genetics that will produce a healthy baby. I did some deeper research in the King’s annals for our most likely prospects and found that there was one bastard youngling of the Siggurdian’s highest clan-shaman who survived when the family all went to war, a drake of twelve named Hans. He was a powerful shaman like his Siggurdian mother, but because he wasn’t a pure-blood, he couldn’t take the surname Siggurdian. You’ll never guess what surname he did take, though.”
“Enlighten me.” I purse my lips at Ström, though it comes with the slightest smile, because his Sherlock-like sleuthing and how proud he is of it, is just too adorable.
“Sigurðsson.” Ström’s lips twitch into a smile as his green eyes sparkle. “A family which came into being at that time and had two members, siblings, still alive until about sixty years ago. One was lost and presumed dead at the Battle of Riksfold, though her body was never recovered, a drakaina by the name of Hekla Sigurðsson?—”
“And one who still lives. A drake by the name of Baldur Sigurðsson.” I blink as astonishment floods me. “The artist. The one you and I saw at The Vault in Sweden. At Mikkel and Lærke’s club.”
“How are you so aware of that?” Ström cocks his head at me, his gaze intense. “I can feel how far your memories have slipped again, Rikyava, since our sex early this morning. You shouldn’t be able to recall Sweden at all right now. How are you so able to recall seeing Baldur when you and I went to The Vault?”
“I don’t know…” I reach up, rubbing my temples. Because Ström’s right; I shouldn’t be able to recall anything of that event, or of that meeting right now, since it all took place in Sweden.
But I can.
As I think about it, the image gets stronger in my mind, even more vivid, of when I first met Lærke in all her statuesque perfection, and of seeing Baldur across the vast cavern that gave The Vault its name. As I see it all again, I don’t just see the strange artist Baldur Sigurðsson across the cavern anymore, butfeelhim—as if his opal-gold and crimson eyes press right into my very soul.
Beautiful. So beautiful.His voice whispers through my mind again as I lock eyes with him in the memory. Most dragons can’t speak mind-to-mind without being life-mated, but I feel power rush over my body yet again from that one connection.
The power is so vast, it staggers me now as it pours like runnels of sunlight over my flesh, dancing in intricate patterns almost like it’s being painted upon me. I have to grip the table as an eroticism so tremendous it’s overwhelming has me panting hard now, as Ström straightens in alarm at the table.
He catches me, before I fall from that incredible, delicious sensation.
“What wasthat?” Ström asks as he nets me in his arms. I don’t fight it, heaving with an eros so vast, it’s like I’m being drowned in luscious light, the slick touch of wet paint, and the soft whisper of a paintbrush.
“I don’t know.” Aesa’s Truthstone is buzzing on my chest like a hive of bees now, though not in a bad way. As the memory of Baldur fades, that sudden heat of sex and lust goes with it.
But not before I feel a whisper of touch upon my lips, like a kiss. My lips fall open; Ström’s do too.
“I felt that,” he whispers as he stares at me. “Was that… Baldur?”
“Holy fuck.” I blink, as my gaze snaps to Ström. “That’s impossible. We’re not life-mated. He didn’t put any sort of curse or magical connection on me when I was in that cavern with you and Lærke. There’s nowayhe could touch me now. Or you.”
“Isn’t there?” Ström’s intense question has me thinking, however, as I feel so many threads of everything that’s happened recently, finally pull together.
