“And the spirit of Hedda Anderlen continues to be duped.” Ström is dire as he watches his great-grandfather. “She rides Lithava Andersen, and her wights ride Lithava’s mates, through the black rings they all wear, sullied during the creation ceremony to make the Black Dragon.”
“All of them are possessed by the spirit of the Black Rift.” Baldur’svoice is very quiet now, as he holds my gaze instead of Jarl Jorg’s. “All of them tainted by it.”
“Tainted to battle in endless war,” Mormor Annika says now as she heaves a deep sigh. “Pushed by this terrible, all-devouring energy our ancient Ancestors created, to wield Hedda’s creature and kill not just us, but who knows how many innocents in the process.”
“Even Archangels cannot withstand it.” Mikkel’s dark eyes flash bitterly as he shares my memories of the discussion with Insinio Brandfort at Chambord. “If the Intercessoria are only building containment for it, knowing they, too, are susceptible to the beast, you know it’s bad.”
“But though the Black Dragon is terrible, and those who wield it are misled… it’s not our real enemy. It might even be… our ally.” I take a deep breath now, knowing I have to say this next part, though I have no clue how it’s going to be received.
“Explain.” Jarl Jorg’s silver eyebrows tighten as he frowns, though his shrewd green gaze is rapt upon me.
“The Black Dragon is unhinged in its incredible madness, but it… wants to die.” I frown, trying to explain it. “Like a rabid beast, it’s… in pain. It’s tortured by all the souls inside it, driven to madness because they are mad, severed from their original home in the Void. Like a diseased creature, some part of it knows it is insane—it wants to die. The reason it made that blast wave in the skies to force our battle against Lithava and the False Knights apart was because I made a pact with it, that Iwouldkill it. It helped us because itwantsto be put out of its misery, and sees me as the only dragon who can do that. But I don’t know how far its help can extend with Lithava’s control over it, thanks to Hedda’s black rings.”
“And if Lithava and Hedda can return it to its fullest power via their ceremonies, if they get the Soulstone… we have no hope of controlling it, or getting it to help us,” Bjorn says now as he growls.
“If the Black Dragon is not our truest enemy, are you saying it is this Rift?” Svanhild Magnussen asks now as she glances fiercely atBjorn, then me.
“Yes,” I say, at the exact time Bjorn says, “Perhaps.”
We glance at each other, and I know my First Drake and I are of two minds, as I feel a contentious energy war deep within our Bloodbond.
“Our priority needs to be destroying the Soulstone, Yava.” Bjorn argues with me now, as I feel how he and I have decided on opposite paths of how to proceed. “The risk of keeping the Soulstone around for any reason is too great; if Lithava and Hedda get their hands on it, they can bring the Black Dragon back to full power. Then all our ambitions with the Usurper and even the Rift are gone, no matter how much resonance you share with the beast.”
“If we can’t get any information on how the Black Rift was created, and how to heal or close it, then we have no hope of ever truly stopping the Black Dragon.” I counter now, knowing which way I’ve decided, though Bjorn is the opposite. “We need to use the Soulstone to amplify my connection to the Black Dragon and the Rift, so we can find out information about it in the Void. Hedda’s drakes once wore the black rings; even though they’re inside the Soulstone now, they’re connected to the evil energy of the Rift, and the Black Dragon itself. We need to trace that connection back through time and find its origin. Without ending the Black Rift first… we’ve got nothing.”
Bjornharrumphs, even as he changes his posture to sit a little further from me now on the couch, though we are still beside each other. His big arms are crossed tight over his chest in his tactical sweater. Glowering at me from beneath his formidable golden brows, Bjorn isn’t giving in on this one.
Though I know I’m right.
“I can see you and your drakes are divided on the best course of action.” Jarl Jorg glances between me and Bjorn. “It truly is a chicken-and-egg situation, is it not? But which is the greater of two evils?”
“Clearly, the source of the Black Dragon’s magic is,” Svanhild Magnussen scoffs now, very much like Bjorn as she waves a fierce hand. “I’m sorry to say it, great-nephew, but your Bloodmate is right. Thoughyou would win the battle against your foe, you would lose the war, destroying the Soulstone to go after the Black Dragon first. For if what Rikyava explains is right, the Rift is the source of all our troubles as Blood Dragons. All our divisiveness, when we should be unified as a Lineage in both our magic and our power in the wider world… In-fighting when we could unite as a far greater force to be reckoned with.Thatis our history and legacy, which the Black Rift creates.Thatis our true enemy throughout time. And even if we defeat the Black Dragon this time, some other horrible creation will come to assail us in the generations ahead. Once someone else with Hedda’s vast understanding, ambition, and diabolical madness rises, to discover the Black Rift again.”
Svanhild Magnussen’s words silence all of us, as the room is claimed by tense thought. My stepfathers have been quiet this entire time, digesting the conversation, as have Ström’s sisters, gathered in a tight knot around young Mathilde, who swallows hard at all that’s been said.
Sadness engulfs me to see how much of this has been heaped upon her young shoulders as a Bloodwalker. With power that trumps many of her elders, she’s been included in this war-room, though she’s far too young to be here.
Cursed like our future generations will be, to save us from evil like the Black Dragon again someday, if we cannot eliminate the Rift.
Suddenly, as if my sadness for future generations has unlocked my deepest Bloodwalker power, a massive vision hits me from the Void. I’m inundated by the screams of our Ancestors, and their terrible gnashing of teeth as a hundred thousand fell voices roar,Kill it!,and I see the Black Dragon in my mind-sight.
As we connect again, its great bone-dead eye opening in my thoughts, I see how the Black Dragon is in the sigil-cavern of the Rift, rather than inside the ruby cave now.
The Rift’s energy has receded, though the Usurper is weathering a terrible torment. I see the Black Dragon has been incarcerated by amasterful plethora of sigils, which spiral up through the air from where its gargantuan body stands in the exact center of the cave, over the Rift.
That terrible energy seethes through the air in bitter, diseased crimson-black sigils that re-flood the entire cavern with their taint. Though the leviathan tentacles of the Rift are not very active at the moment, I see how Lithava stands with all four of her mates in a wide ring around the Black Dragon, using a number of Hedda’s instruments fromUnhaemmertenand a number I’ve never seen as adjuvants around the hall.
Beginning some ceremony to return their supremacy over the beast.
As the ceremony begins, the massive leviathan tentacles of the Rift shoot back up to ensnare the beast. The Black Dragon howls, thrashing from the agony of being incarcerated by that terrible energy, as I feel its mad mind thrust into mine.
Help me, Maker!It roars all through me now, like pummeling thunder and the screeching of nails down a blackboard.
But then its mind is gone, as I feel Hedda’s ancient spells retake her creation, wielded by my sister’s fingers. Terrible black sigils scrawl all over the naked bodies of my sister and her mates now, as they replicate Hedda’s first ceremony to regain control of the beast and return it to its former glory.
I see those awful, diseased markings bite deep into Lithava and her drakes’ flesh as they raise their hands with their black rings, using Hedda’s power to perform this ritual. As I watch, horrified, the sigils whirl and tear all the way across their bodies, rocketing out into the surrounding air.
They dance, swirling and diving into the leviathan tentacles of the Rift itself, as it holds the beast—and the Rift responds. The Black Rift’s tentacles of darkness surge to Hedda’s ancient sigils now, shooting up to coil in roped tentacles of hell around Lithava and her drakes, anchoring them into the ceremony along with the Black Dragon.
