Chapter 8 Riptide
RIPTIDE
As the Eriksson Jarl and Head of the True Black Dragon Knights stares me down, I know I have to come clean about what I know concerning the Black Rift.
Because although every dragon here in this war council believes the Black Dragon is our worst enemy, only my drakes and I know there is something else we have to fight.
It puts me in a tough spot now, needing to convince this council that we must not fight the Black Dragon. Because every dragon here wants to battle our enemies.
My drakes and I are the only ones who know that would be our final undoing.
“Five thousand years ago,” I begin, as I search my brain for what I might say to them, “my Ancestor Hedda Anderlen, Head Shamaness to the Blood Dragon King, created the Black Dragon. She did it to stop a war that had already been raging for decades at that point: the War of Blood and Bone, in which the Blood Sages and Bone Mages were fighting each other to the death. That war pitted kin against kin and tore families and communities apart. Hedda’s own First Drake was killed, and thereupon she retired to devise her masterwork—the Black Dragon, a creature that could end the war. ”
“Or so she thought,” Jarl Jorg says astutely now, getting the full history, which I’m not sure even the True Knights recall anymore.
“The Black Dragon was once called the Dragon of All Souls because it can pull all souls inside itself using a special heart-killing curse.” Baldur jumps in now, digging into the story and knowing everything I know through our bond.
“Once it is returned to full power through a series of three ceremonies Hedda devised to happen at the cradle of its birth, the cavern of the Black Rift, it curses all souls it kills. It pulls them into the belly of the beast, its own Void, rather than allowing them to return to the true Void.”
“Hedda’s final ceremony has something to do with uniting all those souls within the beast.” I pick up again as Baldur and I share a glance.
“We don’t yet know how it works, but her goal was to kill all Blood Dragons who were not Bloodwalkers, pulling them into the beast and holding them there, until she could work the final ceremony to unite all those souls in their Blood and Bone Magic.
Making them Bloodwalkers, who could be born into the world once more. ”
“Peopling all of Blood Dragondom with Bloodwalkers, only.” Mormor Annika’s eyebrows rise. “Incredible.”
“Hedda believed she was doing the will of her ancient kin,” Bjorn grumps now as he crosses his brawny arms, glowering around the room.
“She was insane, believing she did but the will of Ancestors far older than her, who were once united in their Blood and Bone Magic. That they wished us to return to an age of former glory, where we were dominant among all dragons in the skies.”
“It was a time that existed.” Strom is thoughtful as he glances at his Jarl. “In our very ancient past, we were united in our Blood and Bone Magic. It made us frightfully strong—”
“Until those who lived back then sought more power,” Mikkel says, giving the assembly a wicked glance.
His dark eyes flash as he swirls his whiskey, then downs it.
He sets it aside on the table and leans forward, lacing his long fingers at his knees.
“Sometimes, those who seek power do good things with it. Other times, it corrupts. For our ancient Ancestors, the power they had was not enough; they sought something even greater, to give them ultimate supremacy in the skies. It was their undoing. When they laid down all their knowledge in that ancient city and created that hidden cavern with their massive sigildry, they tainted it. We don’t have the complete story, but we know that their hubris made their ceremony go awry, much like Hedda herself.
And they broke what they had tried to devise. ”
“Creating something else instead—the Black Rift.” Baldur nods as he glances at Mikkel.
“Whether the energy of the Rift was already there and awakened because of what our ancient Ancestors attempted—or whether they created it—we still don’t know.
” I take up the tale again. I know the Jarl needs to hear my especial insight on this matter.
“What we do know, however, is that the energy of the Black Rift is divisive. We thought at first it was just Bone Magic in its purest form, which tried to claim us as we did our ceremony to create the Soulstone. But what I’ve come to understand is that this energy is far more.
Bone Magic isn’t evil; it’s beautiful and powerful, even though some use it for great evil, simply because of its power. ”
Here, I see Jarl Jorg nod sagely, because he has Bone Magic. Like his great-grandson Strom, he knows all about it as he waves his hand for me to continue.
“What lives inside the Black Rift is truly evil.” I stare the Jarl down hard to impress my point.
“Evil, powerful, relentless, it is a division energy that permeates that place, just like the broken rift in the sigils themselves. An energy of kin against kin, it pushes us to fight; it wants us to devour each other. To kill each other off until there is nothing left. Nothing but death and darkness at the end of all things. Annihilation to its fullest.”
“Hedda’s secret name for her beast was Jormungandr,” Baldur says quietly now. “We first thought we understood that name to mean that it ends the world when it curses everyone, pulling them all into the belly of the beast.”
“What we understand now,” I continue, as I nod at Baldur and he nods back, “is that somehow, because Hedda’s rituals involved the Black Rift to give her beast life, it became infected by the Rift’s true agenda to destroy everything.
There will be no resurrection of all our souls as Bloodwalkers at the end.
Only unceasing battle, kin against kin until we all die. Until there is nothing left—at all.”
“You’re saying Hedda Anderlen was duped in her ceremonies.
” Svanhild Magnussen chimes in now, as a terrible look takes her wizened face, furious.
“That she had an agenda with her beast… but that by using the cavern of the Black Rift, and the Rift’s energy to make it, she ended up carrying out the agenda of the Rift itself. ”
“For the Rift powers the Black Dragon, and the Black Dragon feeds the Rift.” I nod now, as I stare Svanhild down, then Jarl Jorg.
“It takes every soul, and consumes every dragon… I felt it at the battle. The Black Dragon is the untethered extension of the Black Rift itself. Though the Rift must stay in one place and take the souls that come to it, the Black Dragon can fly anywhere, devouring entire continents to feed energy back to the Rift. The first time, when the Rift was accidentally created, the divisive outcome was so bad it split our entire magic, one side from the other—Blood and Bone Magic from our original Bloodwalker power. What will happen when the Black Rift gets all the souls it wants through division, battle, and bloodshed, kin against kin, mother against brother, against father? What will happen this time, other than our very own annihilation?”
“And the spirit of Hedda Anderlen continues to be duped.” Strom is dire as he watches his great-grandfather. “She rides Lithava Andersen, and her wights ride Lithava’s mates, through the black rings they all wear, sullied during the creation ceremony to make the Black Dragon.”
“All of them are possessed by the spirit of the Black Rift.” Baldur’s voice is very quiet now, as he holds my gaze instead of Jarl Jorg’s. “All of them tainted by it.”
“Tainted to battle in endless war,” Mormor Annika says now as she heaves a deep sigh. “Pushed by this terrible, all-devouring energy our ancient Ancestors created, to wield Hedda’s creature and kill not just us, but who knows how many innocents in the process.”
“Even Archangels cannot withstand it.” Mikkel’s dark eyes flash bitterly as he shares my memories of the discussion with Insinio Brandfort at Chambord. “If the Intercessoria are only building containment for it, knowing they, too, are susceptible to the beast, you know it’s bad.”
“But though the Black Dragon is terrible, and those who wield it are misled… it’s not our real enemy. It might even be… our ally.” I take a deep breath now, knowing I have to say this next part, though I have no clue how it’s going to be received.
“Explain.” Jarl Jorg’s silver eyebrows tighten as he frowns, though his shrewd green gaze is rapt upon me.
“The Black Dragon is unhinged in its incredible madness, but it… wants to die.” I frown, trying to explain it.
“Like a rabid beast, it’s… in pain. It’s tortured by all the souls inside it, driven to madness because they are mad, severed from their original home in the Void.
Like a diseased creature, some part of it knows it is insane—it wants to die.
The reason it made that blast wave in the skies to force our battle against Lithava and the False Knights apart was because I made a pact with it, that I would kill it.
It helped us because it wants to be put out of its misery, and sees me as the only dragon who can do that.
But I don’t know how far its help can extend with Lithava’s control over it, thanks to Hedda’s black rings. ”
“And if Lithava and Hedda can return it to its fullest power via their ceremonies, if they get the Soulstone… we have no hope of controlling it, or getting it to help us,” Bjorn says now as he growls.
“If the Black Dragon is not our truest enemy, are you saying it is this Rift?” Svanhild Magnussen asks now as she glances fiercely at Bjorn, then me.
“Yes,” I say, at the exact time Bjorn says, “Perhaps.”
We glance at each other, and I know my First Drake and I are of two minds, as I feel a contentious energy war deep within our Bloodbond.