I see my people divided, fighting each other for this slight or that offense, as we battle to the death. I see us as we torture each other and ourselves with our rage and wrath, unhinged, because we can’t contain how much we sunder to it.
In those dreams, I feel how our emotions are unbalanced as we fight each other to the last dragon. We’ve lost our ability to find unity and balance deep within our hearts and souls, like we once had when we were whole.
It’s created this endless wheel of kin-fighting, keeping us divided as families go Berserk and Wraith, torn by death on both sides. The Dragons of Blood and Bone only war now, pushed by this massive division energy all throughout time, ever since we were Bloodwalkers.
A time that is long gone now.
Just as we will be soon.
There is another way, youngling.
Even as I despair, however, a voice cuts into my nightmares. As her strong, noble voice comes, my dreams of unending war are shredded apart. As they dissolve to nothing but the endless cosmos now, with the eternity of the Void all around me, I feel a presence here.
I turn and look to see Maryse’s towering crimson and gold Matriarch drakaina standing in the stars with me. Beautiful silver and midnight blue streaks run through her scales, an incredible amalgamation of her Blood and Bone Magics, magnificent in the cosmos.
Peace radiates through her as she stares down at me from her great height. As a deep calm suffuses me from her, pouring into me in the everlasting cosmos, I know this is not just a dream I’m having, but a Dreamwalking event.
Where I Bloodwalk in dreams, and hear my Ancestors in the Void.
Maryse…I choke up now in the dream, as tears prick my eyes.I’ve missed you.
And I you, youngling,Maryse says with her mysterious intensity, as her great dragon smiles just the slightest bit in the stars.But we have no time for pleasantries, child. For I have been traveling among the endless stars since my death, and the souls here that occupy them. I have been listening to our most ancient Ancestors, to a bitter tale—and now, you must listen, too. For there is another way to address the wars that divide you, and all the Dragons of Blood and Bone. Once, our people were whole. It is a wholeness you can reclaim—though it will take your everything to do so.
Do you mean the wholeness we once had when we were Bloodwalkers?I ask now, aware of what she speaks.
Yes.For once, we were one people,Maryse says now, as I listen intently, understanding she has come here to tell me something of great importance about our past.You can be so again. Though others have tried and failed to repair the Rift that lies between us, sundering us from ourselves, you could besuccessful. You have the heart, the righteousness, and the love to carry it out. But you must walk in a world already contaminated by those who have failed. Like Hedda… polluting our world with her failure ever since.
Hedda tried to unite the Dragons of Blood and Bone as Bloodwalkers, to stop the war that killed her First Bloodmate, Aleric Blom.I know it now as I think about her story.That’s what her Black Dragon was for.
She found a way to re-create our ancient Void, a place where she could gather all souls and unify them.Maryse nods now, serious.That way was tainted, however, by her own uncompromising desire to see that unification done, and her grief. She could not come to her solution in her purest heart; so that solution was badly tainted by the Rift. It continues to taint everything it touches… just like those who created the Rift did, with their own hubris.
The Black Dragon,I say, understanding as I inhale.That’s why it gathers Blood Dragon souls… so it can hold all those divided souls inside its Void while Hedda works her final ceremony to unify them, so they can be reborn into the world as Bloodwalkers.
Yes, but her ceremonies are flawed, little one.Maryse nods sagely now, as her eyes penetrate me, deep.The Black Dragon cannot capture only our kind within its great Void; it can devourall souls. And when it feels the insanity and torture of those imprisoned inside it, screaming to rejoin their kin in the true Void where they know they should be, madness claims it. Then it devours everything. Decimating our world rather than uniting it.
What do I have that could solve this Rift better than Hedda?I ask with desperation now, as hopelessness takes me.She was a Bloodwalker matriarch with thousands of years of life, and a masterful Sigilwright. She knew things about the stars, sigildry, and the movement of ages I could never even hope to master in a thousand years.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are best, child.Maryse chides me sweetly now, as I feel her soft smile in the stars. A ripple comes then, like a talon stroking my back.Hedda was so accomplished, she could not see the simplest solution, which was right in front of her snout. For war and death cannot repair the Rift—they only provoke it. The Rift must be ended withlove. With healing, graciousness, and compassion, in the most open and loving heart. That is the only way to heal the Rift that divides us—with loving unification. You have all the right qualities to do that. Should you only open to it, completely.
How do I do that? I ask now, as I swallow past a lump in my throat.
You will know how when the time is right,Maryse says as she watches me. I feel her ancient eyes bore into my very soul, seeing things there that I never have.Until then, trust yourself, youngling.For I can feel inside your deepest heart of hearts that you already know the solution to ending both the Black Dragon and the Rift. Know that the understanding of the problem lies within your heart; I feel it. You can be successful, no matter what happens next, because the light of understanding already lies within you. And no one can ever take that from you, even should they stop your brightest and most beautiful heart, and cause it to cease its worldly beats.
I want to ask Maryse what she means, her words ever mysterious and cryptic. But Dreamwalking is a tenuous thing, even at the best of times, and before I know it, the dream flashes out.
As the stars blow out to their normal endlessness once more, I sleep without dreaming for a long time. When I at last wake, I find I’m in a dragon-nest with my four drakes, snug and warm.
My eyes blink open, and I realize it’s a group nest at the Old Palace. Beside the nest, I see Lærke sitting quietly, though with a sharp alertness that tells me she wasn’t sleeping.
Her lavender eyes flick to me; relief is in their depths as a ring of battle-ready chartreuse sparks in them. Lærke smiles; I smile back. It’s only then that I feel how much the dream of Maryse repaired me while I slept.
As if all hopelessness was driven from me, like the world’s best pep talk ever, I feel stronger than I have in a while as I smile at Lærke now, and she returns it.
For she is my sister, not Lithava—I realize that now as I feel how much love and goodness Lærke offers me, through her twin-bondto Mikkel. Freeing a hand from my drakes, I raise it, though I’m inundated by sleeping men and can’t move much from my current spot.
Smiling and with a chuckle, Lærke rises from her cross-legged seat, extending her hand to clasp mine. Trust flows between us; trust and readiness, for whatever comes next in this crazy life we’re living now.
Because, like me, Lærke is never giving up. And I won’t either, as I heave a deep breath, holding her fingers and receiving a ready squeeze back.
