The portal is big enough to get our entire army through, here in Harnakje. Bjorn thunders a massive three-note roar all through us now, shaking the skies where he’s crash-landed in the middle of the burning palace, and we know that towering call.
It’s a call all Blood Dragons know to our bones, to protect our King. Exhausted Erikssons and True Knights shift up all around us now in Harnakje, roaring up towards that gargantuan portal as they feel a renewed rush to fight, my drakes and I with them.
Bjorn and Baldur have melded their power now, as Bjorn holds the portal open in Stockholm, and Baldur holds it open here at Harnakje. Bjorn has crash-landed with our King and Prince in a section of the palace that is not burning yet, but the day is black as death. Soot scalds through the air upon terrible cyclones of black fire, ravaging everything else.
As Ström echoes Bjorn’s roar now, towering up as his lithe crimson and green dragon, he takes up the mantle of Eriksson Jarl, at last. Unleashing his passionate heart, Ström roars for his Eriksson forces to protect our King, as I feel his incredible love for his people flood me.
Ström leads his people to war now, as I flash through that portal with Mikkel and Lærke, to do what I was born for. Holding the portal, Baldur trembles from the massive amount of magic it takes to hold a portal of that size open long enough to get hundreds of dragons through. Blazing like a star, he’s determined in our darkest hour.
I ground Baldur’s immense magic through my own Bloodwalker power now, synergizing with my First and Fourth Drakes to hold the portal open, even as I dart through, on a mission. Mikkel and Lærke are with me, as we bypass the Black Dragon and Lithava entirely, striking rightdown into the burning palace where Bjorn alone protects our fallen King and Prince.
It takes everything I have not to go Berserk or Wraith, as I dart down into the carnage. Dragon bodies litter the wreckage; blackened with soot, burning with a terrible scent of charred flesh, death is everywhere as I dive like a mad thing into the fray, led on only by my heart through the billowing smoke.
I’m following my Bloodbond to Bjorn, as he protects our fallen King and Prince alone now, coiled up as his immense golden drake around their frail human bodies. With massive roars, he battles back anything that comes at them from the skies; heaving falling debris away with his tremendous flaps from his wings, he hammers back burning timbers with his blocky head, preventing them from crushing his lieges.
Our Old Palace fighters surge into the fray, harrying the Black Dragon and helping the King’s forces battle it, as a terrible feeling engulfs me. I arrive at Bjorn’s position with Mikkel and Lærke, winging to a quick halt in the small space, and see how bad both our lieges are.
Pale and drawn, long bones broken and blood pouring from him in countless terrible rips from the Black Dragon’s voice, my cousin Halfdir was hit hard by the Black Dragon’s curses, though he’s alive. Like Bjorn, he was not square-center when the heart-stopping curse was roared at them from the Black Dragon’s maw; blessedly spared, he got the lesser version of the Usurper’s cursing, though it’s bad enough.
As Lærke and Mikkel rush to Halfdir, I hear Bjorn’s strangled roar hammer all through me,Rikyava! The King!even as I rush to my uncle now. Torn and bleeding from countless wounds, his bones smashed and pulverized in a dozen places, and covered in oilslick-black curses, I feel our King’s heart suddenly beat its last as I shift down fast from my dragon.
Heaving forward, I set my hands to the terrible black curse-work spiraling all through my uncle’s chest. King Huttr was the intended target of that heart-stopping blast; I can feel the Black Dragon’s terrible masterworknow, where it dives into Huttr’s heart. As my King’s towering life snuffs out, I roar with everything I’ve got.
Taking everything left inside me and thrusting it down through my hands, locked into talons now on his chest.
I give my everything as I pour my magic right inside King Huttr’s heart to save him. I give him every bit of love I have for kin, for family, for our Lineage and the ending of this terrible war, as I let my magic do as it will for him.
As both sides of my power crash together inside me, my Bloodwalker magic hauls from my drakes in a riptide. It dives into our King, as I pour all my love inside him now, for the wonderful father he was to me after my parents died, and how he’s been that stalwart figure in my life ever since.
Not to mention that he’s an incredible King. I know that if we lose him, our Lineage is done for—everything inside me knows it, as our combined auric flames blaze off me in a firestorm now, rushing down into our King’s heart.
It seethes through all my drakes now, as they cry out with ecstasy and abandon to that towering wave of love and fire filling them. As I pour my everlasting love deep inside my King and uncle’s heart, I feel it rush into my cousin, too, via our familial bonds. I banish the heart-curse from one, healing the countless rips and broken bones, as well, as the curse-work on the other is banished, too.
King Huttr’s heart gives a hard pound beneath my hand, his breath returning in a rush. With that breath, he roars out his power and supremacy to the world, as the Blood Dragon King.
Then promptly passes out.
But both the King and Prince have been restored by my magic; even as all my drakes gasp from how much power it drained from them, we roar, celebrating to the skies that our lieges live.
Prince Halfdir’s voice thunders with us. It’s weak, but my heart sings to hear my cousin’s determined snarl now as he stumbles to his father withMikkel and Larke’s help, slamming up a massive spiked Bloodshield around himself and our King for protection.
As Bjorn’s shift suddenly fails now from the intense magical exhaustion we are in from saving our lieges, plus his own near death a moment ago, we draw into a tight knot around our fallen royals.
It’s up to us to save our King and Prince—both Bjorn and I will fight to the death to keep them with us, as enemies crash-land down all around us.
Lithava and her drakes smash into the burning rubble, as the Black Dragon crashes down behind them in its black flames, roaring its terrible curse-work right at us. We slam up a shield of our purest auric fire all around us, even as I feel Bjorn haul energy out of us in a wave of righteous fury.
He uses his uncanny ability to harness all our powers now. I feel him lock onto Mikkel and Lærke’s vast mind-control abilities, and Ström’s incredible talent to mesmerize. Baldur he latches onto for the towering synergy they form with their power, and me he seizes in a thundering love, for my blazing heart.
As he seizes me in truth beneath our shield, pressing my lips with a hard kiss, I feel Bjorn’s magic heave the most thundering mind-sending all through the battle now, to our allies.
“Defend Stockholm!” Bjorn roars with the furious snarl of his dragon in his voice, as he breaks from kissing me to command the battle, still raging around us. “Rip their fucking throats apart, and remind all those who rebel who our King’s loyal fighters really are!”
Bjorn refers to Lithava and her drakes, as we face off with them now in the burning rubble of the palace. Even as they snarl at us in dragon-form and we hold our position as humans inside our burning shield of light, the Black Dragon roars to the skies at our defiance.
Diseased, oilslick-black runes coat the sky; roped, bloody-black trails char the earth as it heaves its wings through the decimation. Runes blister everywhere like bloody ropes across the burning land. Everything aroundus shines gory and red like an open wound, as those horrid Bloodrunes curse everything.
Still, our firestorm of an auric shield holds, burning with the power of our united hearts, as we defend that which matters most to us. Keeping our injured King and Prince protected, my drakes and I face off with the Black Dragon and its masters.
