Chapter 19 Remember #2
“She made her Usurper kill everyone, didn’t she?
” I say now, as a terrible knowing fills me.
“Bone Mages, Blood Sages… it didn’t matter to her and her drakes.
They sent it against everyone, just as our current enemy, Litha, desires to do.
To bring all of Blood Dragondom down. And leave only the Bloodwalkers standing in the end. ”
“She did.” King ?rn Magnussen gives a tired sigh now as he regards me.
“There came a time as it was rampaging, when Hedda and her drakes seemed to repent. They joined with us in a massive battle to take it down. It killed Hedda, and all her drakes. We found out it was all just a part of her master plan, however—to imbue herself and the four souls of her drakes fully into the beast. Giving it their united mind, flesh, and intent: to ruin all of Blood Dragondom, forever. Except they went too far into darkness… and the beast rampaged, killing everything. Scourging the earth—not even Bloodwalkers left in the places it went.”
“Jesus.” I whisper, horrified to finally understand the full evil of my Ancestor Hedda and her drakes. “Me and all my drakes are related to that?”
“Not directly, no.” King ?rn Magnussen cocks his head now as he regards me.
“For Hedda and her drakes had no younglings. Neither did myself, Aesa, and our Bloodbond. You and your drakes are related to the family bloodlines of Hedda and her drakes, but none of you are direct descendants of them. Hear me now, and hear me well, Bloodwalker. As the Black Dragon was rampaging and Aesa and I formed the Black Dragon Knights to oppose it, we set a watch on all those related to the Black Dragon Five. A watch that would continue after we died, to monitor the families of the Five for any desire to resurrect the beast. Though Aesa and the rest of our Bloodbond, and my remaining armies, gave our everything in the battle of Konigslac to stop the creature, however, Aesa already knew that the same bloodlines of the Five had a chance to produce five individuals who might someday bond to stop it. You are the progeny of those bloodlines—you and all your drakes.”
“But so are whomever resurrected it. Litha, Emil, and all those who are trying to bring it back to its fullest power.” I understand now, as fury churns inside me.
“Beware, Bloodwalker.” King ?rn Magnussen regards me, intense.
“For the temptation to wield the beast lives in all of us. Even Aesa tried, before the end, and failed, terribly. It was her and all our Bloodbond’s undoing, though we stopped the creature temporarily.
The bloodlines of the Five that bound it call to us all, however—and call to us still.
A terrible call, to the very blood and bones that make us. ”
“So I’m discovering,” I bite now as I contemplate how much I’ve been tempted already to wield the beast, with near-disastrous results myself.
“That you have come to this place at all bodes well and it also bodes ill.” He regards me, wary. “For it means the Usurper’s strength is gathering anew—and its strength is directly tied to this place.”
“Because Hedda made her Frankenstein dragon here, didn’t she?” I understand suddenly, as I glance back, beyond the mirror-space. “Somewhere, deep beneath this city… she found a place she used to build it. Using all the power and knowledge encoded here.”
“The black cradle of the creature’s birth calls to it.
” King ?rn Magnussen nods now as he watches me.
“This underground citadel has a chamber, ancient as the world is old, where Hedda fashioned the Usurper and performed her rituals to bind its flesh. That place is a locus of extreme power, used by the ancients who made these halls. Hedda used that power to create her demon—before Aesa and our Bloodbond found this place while she and the beast were out rampaging. We stole it from her, magically sealing it off from her ever finding it again, making it the last holdout of the Knights before our last battle in the city above, and at the lake. Our power safeguards this place still… but I feel how my beloved Aesa’s magic wanes now in the universe.
She is failing. When she fails, so too will the protection that keeps this place hidden from the demon. ”
“Us hiding out here really was too good to last, wasn’t it?” My smile is wry now, though I listen intently to the ancient King’s tale. “Why is this place so special? Why did Hedda use it as the spot to create her creature?”
“I do not know; Aesa never figured it out, either.” King ?rn Magnussen shakes his head as his golden eyes pierce me.
“Aesa believed her sister discovered the true story of how the ancient schism in our magics took place, however, splitting the long-gone Bloodwalkers into the Blood Sages and Bone Mages. Dreams came to her from the Void, telling her that Hedda’s rituals with the beast were incomplete.
That there was some extra, final ritual to be done, after Hedda and her drakes imbued themselves into the beast. For the Black Dragon attacked here in the end, ruining the skies in its madness to return to the place of its birth.
Aesa and our Bloodbond sacrificed ourselves to draw the creature to the Konigslac, instead—where my beloved Aesa worked the most incredible magic of her life.
It was the magic that killed her, and all of our Bloodbond, save for me.
Though it stopped the creature enough that I could take it to an unnamed Outer Island and bury it.
Cursing it to lie forevermore beneath the volcano.
Before my heartbreak finally broke me… and I came back here to die. ”
“How did Aesa stop the creature in your time?” I ask, as we come to the most important part of the old King’s tale.
How I might kill the Black Dragon now, in my time.
“To understand how Aesa stopped the Usurper, you must first understand the Two Rings of the Anderlen family. Ancient treasures, said to have been made from the time when our people were still united in our power, the Two Rings were identical, made of semi-precious stones in a pattern of five, bound by a snarling dragon surrounding them all.” He nods to my ring now, still on my finger.
“The Gold Ring was given to the Firstborn in the Anderlen family; the Silver Ring, to the Secondborn. Both rings were only ever given to Bloodwalkers, however; if a generation passed with no Bloodwalker younglings, the rings were saved until there were some. They came as a unit with four others; four gold rings for the Firstborn Bloodwalker’s harem, and four silver rings for the Secondborn’s harem as well. ”
“I’ve seen one of Hedda’s drakes rings,” I say, as I finally understand what Emil Beck had. “It was black, not gold.”
“The Golden Rings turned black, after Hedda created the Black Dragon, by some taint of the magic she wielded, which infected them. Before that, they were gold.” King ?rn Magnussen watches me, dire.
“These two sets of rings are ancient magic, which bond their harems together through resonance. Not only that, but the two master rings resonate with each other, as well—keeping the bearer of one alive if threatened with dire circumstance, while the other is hale. Those who wear the master rings are bonded in their lives. A way of preserving their family lineage when battle came calling—to keep Bloodwalker siblings alive and able to pass down their magic to younglings later, once battle had left.”
“Are you saying that so long as Aesa and Hedda both wore their rings, neither of them could ever truly die?” I inhale now, astonished.
“It was something that in all her calculations and preparations to create the Black Dragon, Hedda overlooked.” King ?rn Magnussen nods now, as a deep awareness takes his eyes.
“She was so used to the resonance of the Two Rings, which she and Aesa always wore, that she forgot to take them into account when she made the creature. It was the only way Aesa could work the rituals she did to bring down the beast. Because, thanks to the Two Rings’ resonance, her sister’s soul had not been pulled entirely into the beast when she died; thus, she never completely finished its creation.
It was a critical error; one Aesa used to draw Hedda’s soul back out of the creature, along with all her drakes during our last battle, trapping Hedda’s drakes inside their dead bones, and Hedda herself into a Soulstone.
All of it, I imprisoned in the last remaining cathedral at Seerselen, after I put the Black Dragon to rest. Then sunk it beneath the ground—so none would ever find them. ”
“So you were the one who put all of Hedda’s creationary items in that altar at Unhaemmerten,” I say, as so much suddenly makes sense.
“All the ones I could find, though there are more which she hid elsewhere, undiscovered.” He nods as his vivid eyes pierce me.
“If you have been to Seerselen, however, then Hedda’s black soul and those of her dead drake-wights have been freed.
Beware: they will seek this place, as the Black Dragon regenerates itself.
For this location holds the sacred energy they need to re-do the rituals, and re-imbue themselves into the Usurper’s flesh, to bring it back to full power again. ”
“Some part of Hedda’s soul is still tethered to my ring, isn’t it?” A conundrum sweeps me now as I glance down at it. “That’s how Aesa was able to call her sister back out of the Black Dragon. Its creation incomplete.”
“Hedda and her drakes are bound far more to the black rings, though, whose power they used to create the Black Dragon.” King ?rn Magnussen warns me. “Whoever wears those rings has a deep connection to the souls of the Five, fully bonded as a group with all the Five’s malicious intent behind them.”
“Are you saying that whomever wears the black rings has been infected by the souls of the Five?” I say, my eyebrows lifting.
“Infected, influenced.” He nods. “Call it what you will, but the souls of the Five are not truly gone. A part of them is forever bound to those rings, thanks to the Black Dragon’s creation.
The Five battled the goodness inside themselves and lost to their evil.
Some part of that evil remains in the black rings, still.
And whomever wears them now, calling forth the Black Dragon once more. Be warned.”
“What do I do?” A strange urgency grips me now as I sense the sun about to rise aboveground.
Like a fairytale, I feel like the spell that led me here tonight is about to break, now that our conversation is nearly over.
“How do I follow in Aesa’s footsteps and kill the Black Dragon, once and for all? ”
“You do not follow in Aesa’s footsteps, young Bloodwalker.
” King ?rn Magnussen seems tired now, as something about him begins to wane, insubstantial.
“For she was unsuccessful in completely killing the beast. You create your own way, you and your drakes, with the knowledge you have gained here tonight. For I am but a ghost; I cannot counsel you upon the course of the future, or the ways you must take. But carry the silver rings with you now; give them to your drakes. They will bond you together as a group, far more in your power than you could ever have imagined. Use that; be aware of the resonance of the Two Rings, and factor it into your plans, as Hedda did not. For the time is coming soon, when you will need to face the Dragon of All Souls. Bind your loved ones close, so it is not your souls that are stolen. Else, watch the world fall, as Hedda’s creation rages again. Complete in its ancient destruction.”
As King ?rn Magnussen says these last words, his form begins to flicker. His golden eyes regard me one last moment; as he gives a tired sigh, a powerful wind sweeps the nowhere space.
I’m thrust back by that wind, out of the mirrors. Not before I watch the ancient King dissipate, however, carried away by those ancient Void winds.
Only his burning gold eyes are left.
Until those, too, pass away into the Void.