As Lithava finally admits she truly is Bloodbonded to my First Drake’s odious father, Jarl Oggi Magnussen, everything inside me goes cold. Because she’s also brought up Riksfold—the battle where all my family, plus members of Bjorn’s, Ström’s, even Baldur’s family died, with a signature of Bone Magic cursed all through them.
Not just my parents perished in that battle, but so did Bjorn’s beloved mother, Ström’s Jarl-Heir elder brother, and Baldur’s visionary Bloodwalker sister. We’d thought it was our enemy Bone Mage, Litha, who had killed them.
As my head whirls now at Lithava’s words, my dual inner dragons roar, gnashing their teeth in rage and wrath both. Even though Lithava insinuated that Jarl Oggi killed his wife that day, I know what I saw from Hekla Sigurðsson’s last visions—our small enemy Bone Mage drakaina ending them all.
Who I now know is Lithava.
“Is Oggi Magnussen a Bone Mage? Was it he who actually killed allour family members at Riksfold? Or was it you?” I ask, needing the truth, as I stare my sister down hard now.
Rage and wrath churn inside me so hard I can no longer buffer it with my bonds to my drakes. A slow crimson-black sea spreads around me now, undulating with my power. It flashes diseased violet and bright white inside the ruby crystal cavern as my two powers war within.
My Bloodwalker magic emerging in its most devastating state, at last.
The Black Dragon snorts, lifting its head with rapt attention as my darkest power boils. Lithava stares me down hard, an answering wrath rising in her as her eyes go bloody-black with ancient sigildry.
The evil taint of the Black Rift surging all around us now with eagerness.
“I killed our parents at Riksfold, Rikyava,” Lithava says as she stares me down, unrepentant. “For they took Maryse’s side when she evaluated my Bloodwalker power and told me it waslacking.Not only did they side with her against me, but they were having suspicions about my budding relationship with Jarl Magnussen. I had already found Hedda’s black ring by that point, and the Jarl had his. We were drawn together first, before the rest of my drakes… and I could let no one stand in our way of raising the Black Dragon.No one.”
“So you offed them, ourparents,” I say with a horrific tunelessness in my voice now, as I finally get the full truth of what happened at Riksfold. “You killed our father and mother during that battle, disguising yourself as an unknown drakaina and killing other family of my drakes in the process—anyone who might have been powerful enough from the Five Families to stop you in your ruthless agenda to restore the Black Dragon. And you helped Jarl Oggi off his wife, so you could be scot-free to Bloodbond with him as your First Drake. And start this entire fucking process, raising the Black Dragon for Hedda.”
“Hedda knew I had to bond Jarl Oggi first to raise her creation.” Lithava holds my gaze, firm, as she admits it all. “She knew that,like she once did, a powerful Magnussen drake had to be my First for us to accomplish in the world what our Ancestors failed to do.”
“Hedda’s twisted your mind into believing her lies,” I snort back, incensed and barely keeping my shit together. “Her original First Drake wasn’t a Magnussen, did she ever tell you that? He was a Head Shaman named Aleric Blom. A really nice guy, so King Örn Magnussen told me when I spoke to him in the city down here. Too bad you never got to hear his story about how everything went down. Only Hedda’s lies, infecting you from this fucking black ooze, which was created by whatever ungodly magic our ancient Ancestors tried. It fucked them first, by the way, then Hedda, when she tried to engineer something to repeat it. Now you.”
Lithava isn’t taking my bait anymore, however, as she struggles up to her elbows, her vicious eyes flashing hate as her words spit at me like a viper. “Hedda was misled by nothing, and neither am I! Our ancient Ancestors knew our people should be ascendant over all dragons, over all the world, because of the power that lives inside us! When I searched the Void for someone to believe in me after Maryse abandoned me, Hedda understood what I could become. Her voice led me to her ring, to the place it was hidden; her words filled me with purpose. And I believe as she does, that our ancient Ancestors were working to bring us all to a powerful unity with their magic, which Hedda wished to complete.”
“Unity?” I scoff now. “I think you mean fucking barbaric destruction of everything, everywhere.”
“I meanunity, Rikyava,” Lithava says now as she stares me down. “Imagine it, little sister… Bloodwalkers, everywhere you look! Every one of us powerful and raised in that magic openly, no longer having to rely on one individual matriarch to develop us or refuse us, but able to learn about our power from everyone we encounter.Thatis the world I am working to create.Thatis the world I want every Blood Dragon youngling to grow up in—and never have to experience the soul-crushing refusal of one bitchy old biddy to mature our power. Fuck Maryse; andfuck you, too. I believe in Hedda, and she believes in me. Iwilluse the ancient itemsof Hedda and all her knowledge to bring her Dragon of All Souls back to its former glory. And return our people to who we should be, ascendant in the skies once more.”
Cold fury surges through me as I hear my sister’s words. I realize then that there will be no reconciliation with Lithava. Driven insane from Hedda’s poisonous mind, she will not listen to reason, as I see the zealous fervor that shines now from her sigil-taken eyes.
It’s a terrible look—a look that would sacrifice the entire world to get what she wants. Worse, it’s what she trulybelieveswill happen if she helps Hedda restore the Black Dragon to its former glory.
And terror.
It’s then that I feel everything inside me go black against my sister. I had been hoping to give her the benefit of the doubt. As I stare down at her now, cold and distant, however, I realize there can be no redemption for her.
There is no saving her—and I was wrong to try. As a terrible wind of darkness roars around me within the towering space the Black Dragon holds for us with its wings spread wide, I feel the darkness’s power come alive inside me.
Vast, it sweeps me as I stare down at Lithava with my compassion dying in my heart. I feel how I could slip into this utter darkness inside me, topple into it like my sister, and even Hedda, did long ago, giving in and never looking back.
The blackest taint surges around me now in the underground space, as the blood-red crystals seem to sing all around. They hum and chime with the malevolence of my unhinged Bone Magic as it rises, making that powerful, terrible music rush through me as its cacophonous sound lances up towards the skies, and even far underground.
The blackest voice sings to me from that sound now, as I finally let my wrath be felt. It sings for me to kill and glorify in it. To kill, and leave nothing alive in my wake.
Sundering all of creation, forever.
It’s not the Black Dragon in my thoughts, but the Rift itself now, as that terrible sound devours my mind, my power, even my very soul as I lose all compassion inside my heart. As the Rift’s evil, diabolical taint flares up all around us now, beyond the Black Dragon’s shield, I know I am the one resonating with it and causing it to gain strength.
I can’t stop, however, as all my vast hate fixes upon my sister now, in wrath.
Staring down at her as a terrible power fills me, blacker than black.
“You think you’re using Hedda’s power to further your own vendetta, sister, but you’re not.” I am cold now as I stand above her. “She’s only using you and all your drakes to open the path for her Five to return to the creature and wield it again, for their agenda only. When that happens, she’ll throw you away, discarding you like the dupe you are as she comes after me next, to complete our Ancestor’s ancient, diabolical aims. Wearing Hedda’s black ring may have given you her power in the Void, melded to yours like some kind of ancestral fucking Play-Doh, but she kept back from you that which was most important: her own mind. She let you kill people, curse me, raise the Black Dragon, even use Alfhild Fey to find the rest of her creationary items, scattered and lost to time, but she never let you in on the real plan. Train you up, use you to get to me, and get everything ready to go—then abandon you as she gives it all to me. Just you wait; she’ll forsake you when the time is right. Just like Maryse did. Just you fucking wait…”
Nothing I could have said to my sister could have speared her as much as this. I see my terrible black words hit her like a Mack truck now as I skewer them straight to her heart.
