Chapter 12 Soul
SOUL
As Baldur shuts me out, preventing me from understanding what’s going on with him right now, I narrow my eyes on him. My inner dragons roar that he’s withholding something from our Bloodbond; I tense as he squeezes my hand in reassurance, everything inside me rigid.
As a low growl slips from me, dominance challenging him now as my dragon-energy roars up around me in the library hall, Baldur’s eyebrows lift in surprise.
I don’t take it back, however. We’re life-mated now; we have to discuss what’s happening with him and why he feels the need to block it from me and the rest of my drakes.
No matter how much of a hermit Baldur was for a thousand years, he needs to know he’s not alone anymore. If he can’t play ball with me and my drakes, going rogue with his power and doing only what he feels he needs to inside our bond, that’s just not going to work for me.
It will not work, period—because so many lives depend on our bonded power.
Not just his alone.
A tense moment passes between us as I feel Baldur wrangle his inner drake away from rising to my sudden challenge. As he takes a moment to smooth his energy back down, he doesn’t cease shutting me out, or apologize.
Although pain sparks in his deep blue eyes with a quick flash of crimson anger, to hear me growl at him, he holds his ground. I don’t give in, either, because he’s putting all our lives at risk by hiding secrets and I just don’t tolerate that shit.
Even though we need to talk about Hedda’s scrolls right this moment, I know it’s long past time Baldur and I had words.
Which I fully intend to do now—no more waiting.
“Alright. We need to address this shit one issue at a time,” I say tersely now, as I pull my hand from his.
My move is subtle, but lets him know my severe displeasure with all his secrecy bullshit.
I stare him down hard now, letting him know that we are going to circle back around to why he’s hiding shit from me. But first thing’s first.
“So you believe you’ve found something useful in Hedda’s scrolls?” I prompt him now as I watch him.
“I’ve found something I believe gives us a chance against the Black Dragon, yes.
” Baldur smiles at me, though his smile is tense now, uncertain, as he feels my ire.
“I was able to dream-read your Ancestor’s scrolls while I slept, Rikyava.
Keeping a part of my mind and aura here to focus on them and evaluate them, even as I rested out in the Void. ”
“What have you found?” I ask him point-blank now, because I need my hermit-turned-lover to communicate with me, not hold back.
“Actually… I believe I’ve discovered your Ancestor was quite mad, Rikyava.
” Baldur breaks eye contact with me now to nod at the scroll that’s open upon the gargantuan silver mirror-stone.
“From what I’ve evaluated so far, Hedda was an insanely magically literate Bloodwalker shamaness.
She knew things about the stars and their alignment, the movement of auric winds in the Void, and about sigil-binding those forces into objects here on earth that I could only imagine in my wildest dreams. It’s been illuminating, to evaluate what must have been her masterwork, preparing all her calculations and ceremonies to bind the Dragon of All Souls into its flesh. And also… terrifying.”
“Terrifying, how?” I watch him intently, because I can’t feel his emotions through our bond right now, so I have to watch for physical tells instead.
“Hedda’s work is like a puzzle, in a painting, in 3D.
” Baldur frowns, pensive now, as he watches the scroll.
“Like a magic eye picture, where there is far more to be seen in every layer, I keep having to adjust my consciousness to even come close to understanding what she’s saying in every phrase of sigil-binding she created.
It’s not… putting myself someplace nice in the Void, to figure it all out. ”
“What do you mean?” I push him now, as my drakes all listen to the conversation with me, intently.
A deep wariness shared between us, at what Baldur’s just said.
“I have to… put myself someplace dark, to evaluate this creation,” Baldur says quietly now as he watches the scroll like he’s entranced, then blinks hard, looking back at me. “Someplace where the cosmos loses all light.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound good.” As Strom crosses his arms, he looks at me, his emerald gaze piercing. “Are you sure it’s safe for him to be looking these things over, considering his condition, being cursed right now by the Black Dragon?”
“Baldur?” I press him, pinning him with my gaze, intense.
“I’ll be fine. I can handle it,” he says with a stubborn streak, not all that different from Bjorn’s. Behind me, Bjorn harrumphs, as I feel his energy get beyond furious, knowing Baldur’s holding out on us.
Because all of us can feel how Baldur’s not letting us understand how this process might be dangerous for him. Everyone maintains their silence, however, letting me grill Baldur on all this alone just yet.
“So what have you found that might give us insight into the Black Dragon?” I ask, ready to dig in—with talons, if I have to, to get him to spill his secrets.
“I’ve found out some interesting origin information about the Dragon of All Souls, and how its spirit-energy was put together, more or less, to give it life.
” Baldur dives in, gazing around at all of us before looking back at me.
“As you have already discovered, the Usurper was created out of thirteen original Blood Dragons, who all donated not just their flesh, blood, and magic to the creature to give it life, but their everlasting souls. Those souls were never again able to return to the Ancestors, so long as the creature was still in existence.”
“Which is why it’s called the Dragon of All Souls.” Strom interrupts, his look piercing as he stands with his arms crossed.
“Yes and no.” Baldur looks at Strom. “Through Hedda’s more arcane writings, I’ve discovered something else. That not only did it steal souls to create the creature originally, it also steals new souls when it performs its worst killing blow upon any living being.”
“The heart curse.” I lift my eyebrows, shocked, at this new information. “That’s the Black Dragon’s final killing blow. Are you saying that anyone who gets cursed by the creature that way doesn’t return to the Void of Ancestors when they die?”
“Precisely.” Baldur holds my gaze, intense.
“For inside the creature, Hedda created her own Void, like a replica of the Void of Ancestors. Anyone who gets the heart-killing curse from the creature goes there, to the Void that exists inside the beast… rather than the actual Void we all hail from, and evermore return to.”
“Damn.” Strom’s voice is low and astounded, as Mikkel gives a dire whistle. Bjorn rumbles one of the most vicious growls I think I’ve ever heard from him, as even Laerke catches her breath in horror at what my Ancestor did to create the Black Dragon.
“That’s why I couldn’t hear the voices of the dead beneath Aesa’s lake here in Magnussen lands, only feel that diabolical pull towards death, which was still imprinted in them.
” I am quiet now, horrified at what my Ancestor did.
“Because in that battle, the Black Dragon had reached its fullest might… and heart-cursed everyone into its own Void, rather than the real Void—stealing them away into its darkness forever. Then creating some kind of resonance in their bones that made others who touched the bone-pile lose their souls, too. The heart-killing curse passing on… even through the dead.”
“Hedda had a special name for her creation.” Baldur nods, dire, as his eyes darken. “She named it Jormungandr, though everyone else called it the Dragon of All Souls.”
“The serpent that destroys the world during Ragnarok, in our ancient mythology,” Bjorn rumbles as he mimics Strom, crossing his arms over his burly chest and scowling hard.
“Except in this case, it’s destroying all of Blood Dragondom as it devours us into its inescapable Void once it gets strong enough. ”
“And not just us.” Baldur glances at Bjorn. “Storm Dragons, Ice Dragons, demonics, angelics… anything it kills in that fashion gets added to its Void. And thus, its power. All souls. Not just all Blood Dragon souls.”
“So with every magical creature the Black Dragon takes down with its heart-curse, it gets that much stronger. Fuck.” I set my teeth, fighting a terrible darkness inside me that wants to wrath hard, vicious.
“Magical and non-magical. Even humans can feed it energy.” Baldur corrects, as he watches me, dire.
“Did Rikyava’s Ancestor intend for it to take down the world?” Laerke suddenly asks, as she watches Baldur, ferocious.
“Hedda never spoke of her overarching intentions with the creature, at least not in the scrolls I’ve evaluated so far.
” Baldur shakes his head, though his eyes are terrible.
“To Frankenstein a dragon like this, however, using stolen souls to power it… that is not the sigil-work of someone noble. You must remember that the original thirteen, plus Hedda and her four mates who were taken later by the beast, gave their informed consent to being added to the creature. I cannot imagine they were left uninformed about just what it would do once it was fully powered. Which makes me believe their Bloodwalker sect had an agenda of world-cleansing, not just world dominance. Else, why name the creature Jormungandr? Unless you truly desired for it to take down the world.”
“Jesus.” Mikkel’s horrified word says it all.
Silence pervades the hall now, as we all stand shocked at what my Ancestor—all our Ancestors—did, five thousand years ago.
Because as it comes clear to me that my Ancestor Hedda was not the good guy after all, but the worst villain I could ever imagine, creator of a creature that could murder millions and grow stronger with every death, horror consumes me.