Chapter 4 Curse
CURSE
Astonishment fills me as I gaze up at the scroll from Unhaemmerten, displayed larger than life on the silver mirror-stone.
I step forward now, inspecting the document; it’s exactly as I remember it, though it still makes no sense.
It’s one of my Ancestor Hedda’s scrolls, which has preparatory details pertaining to the Black Dragon’s creation.
It goes through endless references to star positions in the sky, triune this, and vector that.
Making my mind spin with everything my Ancestor knew and used to create the Usurper.
“The fuck?” Strom lifts his eyebrows in shock now, gazing up at the scroll on the silver mirror like the rest of us. “Did this thing just pick up a URL from the internet?”
“I believe so.” I keep inspecting the document, shaking my head in amazement. “Incredible.”
“Well, I suppose we can access the Unhaemmerten scrolls now. But they’re still of no use to us.
” Bjorn grumps, always practical, and I look over at him.
“We’ve tried everyone in our bond, Rikyava; none of us has any clue about these scrolls.
We still can’t understand what the hell your Ancestor was talking about, with how she made the creature—fucking gobbledygook.
And less than useful to our King, to help him fight that thing. ”
“Even though we can access them, we need someone else to look at them.” Strom looks at me now. “Baldur has yet to take a crack at these scrolls, Rikyava. Do you think—?”
“Baldur is still in stasis,” Bjorn says pointedly to Strom, as he lifts his chin at my Second Drake. “He’s not taking a look at anything yet. And we have no clue when he’s going to wake.”
“Still. Strom has a point.” I glance at Strom, knowing we’re not completely out of options yet. Though Bjorn huffs, he gazes thoughtfully at the document with us now, upon the silver mirror-stone.
“Baldur is over a thousand years old,” I continue, considering it. “He’s trained with some of the oldest Blood Dragon shamans in his clan. He knows sigils, alchemy, and gods-know-what-else. If any of us can even approach understanding these scrolls, it would be him.”
“Perhaps he could give us some real insight into what’s going on here, with Hedda’s ancient work.” Strom eyeballs me now. “Even if he can’t decipher her writings completely, he might be able to get us something useful against the Black Dragon. To fight it with.”
“It’s a long shot, but one we most certainly should take.
Once he wakes up.” I heave a hard sigh now, however, as we gaze up at the document.
“The problem is, we haven’t got a clue when he’ll feel well enough to leave his stasis.
And I’m not going to try to blast him out of it with my Bloodwalker power, because I fear his curses will get worse if I take him out of his healing before it’s time. ”
“Logical.” Strom nods, though he looks crestfallen now. “Well, at least we can access these documents once Baldur finally wakes. Without a computer.”
I’m about to agree with Strom, when the touch of a hand upon mine startles me. As my Fourth Drake, Baldur Siguresson’s hand clasps mine, I startle hard—because I didn’t even sense his presence in the hall, before he was just suddenly beside me.
As I lock eyes with him, however, Baldur just gives me a calm smile, his dark blue eyes beaming with love and a bit of humor, that he managed to startle me so badly.
I had no idea he was awake; even out in the Void, where I’d been keeping a part of my senses to monitor him, I’d felt nothing. Though he had awakened from his stasis, I hadn’t even felt him stir; because Baldur is just that powerful, even severely drained as he is right now.
As we touch, his inner dragon floods through me like a leviathan of light. As our auras twine together deep inside me in our Bloodbond, I smell paint and crushed herbs, and an ephemeral smell like sunshine.
Even as Baldur’s dragon roars through mine, however, I can feel how it’s far from his usual power. It’s only the smallest fraction of his regular cosmic brightness, as he brushes the fingers of one cursed hand across my cheek.
Still charred with diseased black Bloodrunes.
“Baldur! Holy hells! How… ? You’re awake!” As Strom gapes at Baldur, I know none of us felt my Fourth Drake wake from his stasis out in the Void.
Dressed in a flowing white shirt with silver and gold embroidery, rather than battle-leathers like us, Baldur has his shirt open nearly all the way down his lean, tattooed chest. He wears tawny leather breeches that suit him perfectly, tooled with gold and silver, and his bare, high-arched feet complete his beautiful wild man look.
His ultra long silver-white hair is done half-back in a loose braid; he smiles at me now as his dark blue eyes beam, a bright opal-white light searing from them. He looks like some kind of rebel prince just woken from a sleeping spell in some fairytale forest, as he lifts my hand, kissing it.
And though the energy I feel in him is incredible, it’s still only a hundredth of his usual power. Those charred crimson and black sigils from the Black Dragon still devour his hands and arms all the way up to his shoulders, beneath his white shirt.
Not to mention from his hips all the way down to the soles of his bare feet.
“When I felt your excitement at having found something that might help us fight the Black Dragon, how could I not wake?” Baldur’s deep blue gaze pierces me, then shifts to the massive silver mirror. He peruses it as it flows and whirls, still displaying Hedda’s scroll, then gives a sigh.
An intense fascination taking him.
“Technology of our ancient Ancestors,” he says as he watches the silver mirror, his gaze sliding over every part of it now, as if entranced.
“My sister Hekla had the privilege of using a few items like this when she was first training in our Icelandic shamanic arts ages ago. All those items were lost or destroyed during wars in her youth, however; I never got to see them, though she would often describe them to me. This, however, the beyond masterful sigil-work imbued here, to make this item come alive at the barest thought of the user… incredible.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask Baldur now as we hold hands. Though his curses from the Black Dragon sear hot and cold upon my skin, blistering me like fire ants, I don’t relinquish my grip.
If he can withstand that diabolical pain, I can damn well, too.
“Terrible.” His dark blue gaze flicks back to me, honest, though a subtle humor lifts his full lips. “You have found something that needs looking at, though. So I am here to take a look.”
“Baldur. You really should rest—” Strom’s protest is ended as Baldur holds up a hand, firm.
“You need me; I cannot rest any longer among the Ancestors when my expertise is necessary, not only for our survival, but for the survival of everyone we love.” Baldur is intense now as his eyes take on that ultra-hot, diamond-white glow of his dragon.
A crimson ring of battle-heat is around them, so bright it scalds me as his gaze flicks back to me.
“The Black Dragon and our enemies are not waiting to decimate anything that opposes their agenda of world domination. We cannot wait any longer to oppose them—with strength and knowledge now, rather than ignorance. You need me to take a look at your documents from Unhaemmerten, so I’m here.
I will rest as I need to while I study. And get us something we can use against the Dragon of All Souls. ”
Even as I nod, however, acknowledging that Baldur knows his body and can make his own judgments about it, I feel the tremor that goes all the way through him. It’s a tremor of pure exhaustion, as he fights to stay on his feet in the vaulted hall, having walked all the way here after us.
As Strom rushes to get a silberskrae chair from nearby, he makes it just in time. Baldur collapses; I get under him as he does, Bjorn rushing in to shore up Baldur’s other side as we ease him down into the chair.
Baldur heaves hard breaths as I feel him become faint through our bond.
Like he just might drift away into the Void forever and not come back.
“Baldur. Are you sure about this?” I kneel before him now, clasping his hands as I let him catch his breath. I don’t want to gainsay my Fourth Drake; he’s been on death’s door, though, ever since the Black Dragon cursed his heart and made him nearly leave this world, for good.
As I see him now, and feel how faint his life-force is through our bond, despite the cosmic brightness of his inner dragon, I know how tentative his grip on this world still is right now.
Baldur has always had faith that what he was doing was right. As he gazes down at me now, however, I see something in him I didn’t expect—doubt, as his dark eyelashes flicker and that diamond fire in his blue eyes dims.
For the first time, I see him doubt his aims and his mission in our Bloodbond. He loses the shining brightness of his faith, as he reflects on whether coming out of his stasis early was a good thing or not.
In the next moment, his resolve firms, though, as he sets his jaw. He stares at me hard now, with a stubborn look that’s almost like Bjorn, then nods.
“Show me the scrolls,” he says, even though his breath is a hard rasp, labored and uneven. “I will get us something useful to fight the Black Dragon with, Rikyava. Something we can take that black hellbeast down with, for good. I know it.”
I don’t refute him, only nod at his decided, forceful words. But I don’t miss the small flicker of doubt that passes through his eyes again.
Which used to be filled with so much certainty.
Even as Baldur reassures me he can do this, and get us what we need from Hedda’s ancient scrolls, he suddenly rubs the nasty, searing curses where they devour his wrists.