Chapter thirty-six
Revna
We were too late.
Panic filled me as Arne bellowed, sliding from our back at the sight of his sister in a pool of her own blood.
Kindra roared in kind as we watched Eisa fall into the Rift.
Without thinking, she dove, speeding into the crevasse where we had seen our Drekadrottning’s body fall, desperate to reach her.
Our body was yanked back, a black tail pinning us to the stone floor as a huge, glittering black serpent peered down at us with amber eyes.
A serpent with wings.
YOU ARE NOT WHO I WANT. The voice was ancient and cruel, an assault on my mind where only Kindra should be.
Kindra cowered in terror, losing the shift as I shrank back into a woman, trapped beneath the glittering black scales of the monster that had emerged from the Rift.
Arik lay on the floor several feet away, his back bloody and raw, his eyes shut.
Was he unconscious? Dead? Kindra was too terrified to confirm, every instinct begging me to shift and get our mate out of here.
“Fuck, Arik!” Arne ran to him, but he wasn’t fast enough. The monster seemed to forget me as its barbed tail whipped out and struck him across the thighs. He was thrown backward almost to the edge of the chasm where Eisa had fallen.
Kindra didn’t think. She took control, shifting once again with a defiant screech and scooping Arne into her golden claws as she took to the sky.
No! I screamed, pounding at her mind, demanding that she turn around. But my protest was useless. She was already flying high and fast as a stream of cold, black fire erupted behind us.
Cold. So cold.
Kindra rolled, the fire narrowly missing us and leaving freezing tendrils of ice clinging to our wings.
We have to go back! I screamed, as a second stream of the icy fire barely missed the claw that held Arne. We need to get Arik!
But she was lost to panic and instinct, her fear for our mate driving every other thought away. No matter how hard I beat at the barrier between our minds, Kindra ignored me. She didn’t stop until the ruin of Hovedstaden was far behind us, and I was weeping in anguish inside her.
You left them! I howled, furious with my dragon for the first time in our lives. I pounded at the connection between our minds in fury. In rage. We need to go back for them!
It is too late. Kindra’s voice was full of despair as she accepted my fury, her heart breaking. They have both gone silent.
No. They couldn’t be dead.
Fuck. I tried to still our thundering heartbeat. Tried to think between the sobs of guilt and fury that wracked my mind. What was that thing?
A pair of glistening wings flashed in the distance, and I braced myself. Had the black dragon-serpent-thing somehow gotten ahead of us?
Relief was a tiny drop in an ocean of panic as I realized it was Bryndis. She screeched in welcome, looking as smug as a dragon could ever look, and Kindra replied in words I couldn’t understand.
Bryndis’ answering screech was a lament of such misery, I would have thought she’d lost her mate.
We landed heavily, releasing Arne a few feet away so he didn’t end up on top of us again.
“What do you mean she’s gone!?” Bryndis had shifted, leaving a frantic Branka in her place. Jorgen was running toward us, the odemarksdyr who had eviscerated the land nowhere in sight.
“The odemarksdyr?” I asked, staggering as an exhausted Kindra lost hold of the shift.
“Fled. What do you mean she’s gone?” Branka took my shoulders and shook them until my teeth rattled. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I knew Bryndis must have told her what Kindra had already told me. “Where is Eisa?”
I couldn’t hold back the sobs any longer.
We had lost her. Arik had lost her. And if she was gone, he would follow, if he wasn’t lost already.
“She fell,” I said, between sobs as Jorgen came running up to meet us. I clutched Branka’s wrists, needing something to hold onto. “She fell into the Rift.”
There were no smiles or laughter as we sat around a small campfire watching as the sun rose over the ravaged land.
The kingdom was in ruin. Thousands were dead. We’d seen their bodies as we’d flown over Hovedstaden, and I knew more must have fallen to their deaths in the Rift or at the claws or teeth of the odemarksdyr.
I didn’t know where the monsters had gone. Odemarksdyr did not flee. They would be back, and more death would follow.
The evil that had long been kept at bay was somehow here and basically fucking invincible.
And we’d lost our Drekadrottning. Our Drekonungr. My friends.
I lost them.
I had silently doctored Arne’s injured arm, as well as the new injuries across his thighs from the black barbs of the serpent’s tail.
They’d been almost as vicious as the garmr blood, cutting deep, and Kindra spent her final reserve of energy healing as much as she could, slipping into unconsciousness around dawn.
Arne said nothing as I’d worked. Simply stared into the flames, a man lost to his grief.
Branka spent most of the night crying in Jorgen’s arms while he and I watched the sun rise in anguished silence. I had no idea what to do or where to go, or how to go on in this new reality.
What do we do now? I asked Kindra.
She didn’t reply, only pulsed faintly in my mind, her gold dulled to almost bronze with fatigue.
Branka was staring into the flames. Her sorrow had morphed into rage during the night, and her beautiful eyes were tight with fury. “Tell me again. What was it?”
I sighed. We’d been over this five times by now, and nothing I said would change anything.
“An enormous black dragon or serpent. Wings, but no legs.
Amber eyes. Barbed black tail. Poison teeth, based on the injuries on—“ I swallowed, shaking my head as I forced down my guilt. “On Eisa’s back. And when it spoke, I could hear it in my head, like Kindra.”
Branka nodded, wiping a tear away angrily. “And how do you kill a dragon?”
I shook my head. “It’s not a dragon.”
I glanced at Jorgen, who reached for his mate. “Love—“
“No!” She stood up, stepping out of his reach, and Jorgen looked for all the world like it broke his heart. “This thing killed my best friend. She was my best friend, Jorgen.” Her voice broke. “And I want it dead.”
She turned, looking toward the black tendrils that stretched across the plains from where the monsters had appeared.
“It’s like the odemarksdyr, right? Made from darkness.” She whirled on us, looking furious. “Well?”
“I guess so,” I said as I looked to Jorgen for help.
“And what kills the odemarksdyr?” Branka pushed.
Jorgen’s jaw was tight. “Dragonfire. But I can guarantee you that Idunn and Baldur would have tried that. And if they couldn’t—“
“They were only two.” Branka had a gleam in her eye that I had never seen before. Fury. Vengeance. “What about two hundred?”
Jorgen met my gaze, his jaw hard. Our job was to defend Stalheim. To protect innocents from the odemarksdyr. And we had failed this night.
We wouldn’t fail again.
“We need to evacuate,” I said, rising as I clung to the tiny shred of purpose that Branka’s words had planted in my heart. “Get everyone as far away from the Rift as possible.”
“?strheim,” Arne said dully. He was staring at the horizon, his face pale and haggard, and I was torn between the desire to comfort him and revulsion at myself for being so selfish after losing my Reirleder. My Dragehersker.
My friends.
“What’s in ?strheim?” Jorgen asked.
Arne stood and brushed the dirt and dead grass from his clothes. His gaze flicked to mine for a moment before turning back to Jorgen. “Evacuate everyone there. It’s the farthest east ye can get, and we can keep people fed for a time.”
Jorgen frowned and rose to his feet as well. “To get the entire population that far east would take—“
“About two hundred dragons,” I said, meeting Branka’s gaze. She nodded, our plans aligned. “We get the word out to flee east. Half of us evacuate the zones closest to this new Rift while the others run patrols and root out the odemarksdyr.”
“And then we kill the black dragon,” Branka finished, her eyes hard. “For Eisa.”
“And for Arik.” Jorgen put his arm around Branka’s shoulder, and I was relieved that she didn’t shy away.
“For Ingrid.” Arne’s eyes met mine again, and this time they stayed.
“For Stalheim,” I agreed, holding his gaze.
He nodded. “Let’s fucking kill the bastard.”