And I can never get him back.
That understanding makes me lost to both my Berserker and Wraith, though I feel someone trying to restrain me in my unhinged madness. Four someones, they’ve weathered my searing hell-acid to tether me with the strongest Bloodropes they can manage. They force me back from my insanity, thrusting me through a portal.
They haul me down to earth as the evening sky glows dark cerulean all around now, rather than burning. As they get me grounded, my towering resonance with the Black Dragon finally snaps out, the creature too far away.
But even without the Usurper, I am still a mad thing, as I rage and wrath in my darkest midnight.
That my beloved First Drake has been torn from me—forever.
Bjorn’s signature is nowhere inside me, as my remaining drakes and Lærke fight to get me back. I hear Mikkel’s voice, then Baldur’s, and Lærke’s; but even Baldur’s brightest light is not reaching me now, as I roar, insane in my loss.
Only one mind can reach me as I scream in bitterness, seething with retribution for what happened. Only one mate has the power to surge in, clamping his jaws around my neck and finally restraining me, even as I pour the bitterest acid through his veins now, from my caustic state.
It’s Ström’s fangs I feel, as he sinks them deep into my nape. And it’s his uncompromising, endless love that finally reaches me, as he pours all of himself deep inside me now, with his strongest mesmerizing powers yet.
Rikyava! Bjorn needs you! Only you can bring him back! Please!!!
Ström’s clear tenor voice pierces through my mind as he growls like thunder into my flesh where he’s bitten me. It’s then that my fugue breaks; as the shock of remembering I might be able to save Bjorn hits me, I shift down, freed from my madness.
Towering love fills me as I hit the ground in human form, rushing on unsteady legs to Bjorn. I barely register we’ve made it back to Harnakje, with the portal to Stockholm closed. I heave to Bjorn, falling to my knees beside him as I slap my hands to his chest.
Everything I am spirals deep into his blood, bones, and flesh, as I feel them already cooling from how long it’s been since Oggi’s infernal lance killed him. Terrible white-and-black sigils spiral all through Bjorn’s chest and deep into his heart; with the most horrible growl ripping from my throat, I recognize the Black Dragon’s power in this cursing, plus something else.
It’s that ungodly power Oggi Magnussen harnessed with those sigils tattooed upon him, to kill with the Black Dragon’s own heart-cursing strike in this way. Somehow, that blast was even strong enough to break the resonance of the Two Rings in its malfeasance; it’s up to me now to undo it, as I fight against it, for everything I’m worth.
I have to save my First Drake; even as I gaze down upon him, I see his golden-bearded face is ashen, his soul already long gone to death. But I have to find him in the Void to get him back; desperately, I haul from all my drakes, even from Lærke via our familial connection now, to restore him.
I feel all the Usurper’s curses locked around Bjorn’s beautiful heart, from Oggi’s vile blast. As I roar, digging hands gone to talons into his chest, I haul from my drakes and Lærke in an insane tidal wave, pulling from their very last reserves to dig far down into the black madness that lances deep into Bjorn’s heart.
My drakes are with me, as all our love for Bjorn ignites between us. He is not just the most precious thing to me; he’s precious to all of us,beloved, as all my drakes and Lærke crowd around me now, touching me and giving their everything to my united Bloodwalker magic.
As our deep love flows into Bjorn, right down through his chest, super-powered by my Bloodwalker magic, I feel all our talents become one. Ström’s talent for figuring out curses unites with my ability to open and break all locks. Mikkel and Lærke’s vast mind-abilities lance into Bjorn’s body and mind, holding whatever’s left of him steady to this towering magic, even as they hold us and convince everyone to give our all for this.
Baldur’s cosmic light pours through us, thundering through our bodies, hearts, and souls as he assures us we can do this. More than anyone else, I feel the massive amount of energy he pulls right down from the stars themselves, channeling it into me so I can thrust it into Bjorn.
And find him, wherever he’s gone so far away.
Seething white sigils burst throughout our bodies now, as our love unites. Every-color auric fire ignites all around us in a massive wave, as I feel other dragons watching us gasp and surge back.
Our love is a firestorm of magic now, roaring around us in a hurricane of blazing light. As that storm of love floods through us, channeling right down through my heart in a wave of searing love, right into Bjorn’s, I finally feel those ultra-black and ghastly white curses upon his heart shudder.
Then break.
Bjorn’s life comes back to him in a vast wave, as he gasps. As his heart gives one towering thud, then another, I know he’s returned to us.
I heave myself over my First Drake as I lose it, then. A furious exhaustion claims me, and all of us, as I seize him in my arms and drape myself over him like a widow over her dead mate returned from battle.
I cry my entire heart out as something inside me breaks to pieces, so afraid I’d lost him. I feel our firestorm gradually flare out to the early morning breeze as my exhausted drakes and Lærke cuddle close around me and Bjorn now, holding us in a pile of warmflesh.
They heave out their sorrows with me, at everything we’re up against. We fight waves of near-fainting as we rejoice in the feel of Bjorn’s deep, thundering heartbeats, steady now that we’ve poured all our love for him deep into his blood, bones, and flesh.
Despite his body’s revival, however, Bjorn does not wake. I know why, as I feel his soul still so far away. He’s not returned to his body after being hauled back from the dead. Because he had been out there too long; his body lives, but his soul is still gone.
Lost somewhere beyond the Void.
I feel it now, how Bjorn’s not in the regular Void where all Blood Dragons go to die—because he was cursed by the Black Dragon’s heart-killing power, wielded through Oggi Magnussen.
And it means Bjorn isn’t in the regular Void, as I sob and kiss his soft lips now, knowing in horror where he’s gone.
