Chapter 26 Last #2
As everyone crowds around, we exchange embraces, holding them harder and longer than we normally would. Silence pervades our small group before Bjorn splits off with Svanhild and Olander to speak with them, and Strom steps aside with his family.
My stepfathers and Halfdir step to me, as Mikkel, Laerke, and Baldur move away to give us some space. Laerke’s on the phone, probably solidifying the twins’ empire before we head out, as Mikkel and Baldur speak low together, watching the rest of us.
But my stepfathers and Halfdir crowd around me now, giving me last hugs and holding them extra long. Khosh is tender as he kisses my forehead, and Vjen kisses my cheek. Halfdir gives me a crushing bear hug, despite the last remnants of black curse-work still evaporating from him.
And Trublut grips my arms, shaking me like a wayward puppy.
Before hauling me in and giving me the longest hug yet.
“We are here for you, youngling. To the end.” Trublut holds me now, growling protectively by my ear.
“Thank you.” I hold my sobs back, gripping him hard, this father of mine I love so dearly.
“We’re going to fuck them up today,” Khosh says now as I pull back from Trublut, lifting an eyebrow at me.
“They’ll never know what hit them.” Vjen is darker than I’ve ever seen him, as he lets his true Bone Magic whirl around him now in a thundercloud, his vivid Siren-blue eyes piercing out from all that furious power.
I smile, gripping his hand, and he grips mine back. Facing me, Halfdir grips my shoulder, squeezing it hard.
“We will be victorious today, cousin,” Halfdir says now, in the way of a King. I nod, knowing it’s his duty to shore me up and make sure all his forces are ready to battle.
Because we are his forces right now, not knowing if our King is alive or dead. Although King Huttr was stolen from us alive, I can’t feel his signature anywhere in my body right now, and neither can Halfdir.
“We’ll get your father back. I swear it,” I say now. Huttr means so much to both of us. I don’t need to tell Halfdir we might just lose all our lives in this last drive against our enemies. Strong like his father, Halfdir only nods, squeezing my shoulder again.
Before drawing me into one last, long hug.
It’s time to depart. Our farewells are said, though no one uses the word goodbye as we all nod or clasp hands with our family, then leave them.
They remain behind at our abode, watching us go as we stride off now through the Hollows of the Damned in the late day. None of us look back as my drakes, Laerke, and I make our way through the ancient ruined city to the place we must go next.
The Sanctum of Mystery—the very same place Strom and I nearly bonded, ages ago.
I haven’t been to the Sanctum since Strom and I got it on and almost ended up Bloodbonding there. We sneak glances at each other now as we walk to where the Sanctum is. Strom ends up grinning like a fool, despite everything we’re up against and how all our hearts are tense right now.
It lightens me, even though I feel rough after talking to our allies and telling them not to come. But as Bjorn gives a short growl and takes my hand now, squeezing it, I know he’s feeling my turmoil.
And backing me up, that what I did was right.
“Here we are. Yava, if you’d do the honors?” Strom says now as we arrive at the shimmering barrier that leads into a flower garden gone wild, nestled between two pillars backed by the rocky cliffs near the glacier.
As I step up to that barely-there barrier, it shimmers with a rainbow sheen I can see quite a lot better now that I’m fully Bloodbonded to my drakes.
I see now how it scrolls all through with millions of tiny white runes, nearly the same as what we saw all over the underground city of the Rift.
I lengthen my thumb into a talon and swipe it across my first finger now, drawing blood to open that barrier.
My finger bleeds; with it, I touch that shimmering nothingness.
I don’t know why my blood can access this place, and Maryse’s before me.
But as the barrier to the Sanctum drinks my blood, then shimmers away to reveal an arched doorway with a small circular glade backed by a ring of towering cliffs, thirteen stone statues of dragons in various stages of shifting within, I catch my breath.
Finally understanding why.
We move in, and my drakes and Laerke are stunned as well. As the barrier closes, leaving us in the haunting gloom of the towering cliffs, I finally see it.
Although most of the statues here are dragons I don’t recognize, ranging from sages with their heads bowed in penitent cloaks, to massive behemoths that roar up at the sky, the most impressive statue is one that features an incredibly beautiful woman with long twisting braids of hair in half-shift, screaming up at the sky.
And that woman is Aesa Anderlen.
I recognize her now, though I’ve never seen her as a human in the Void. Her human half-shifted form resembles her dragon, though; as I walk slowly around it now, marveling at it, I see how her level brow ridges and sharp bone structure, and full lips are the same.
Even more, I see how she resembles my own bloodline now, as I stare up at her.
“She looks like you,” Laerke says as she comes to stand by my side.
“She was my Ancestor,” I say with reverence, as I reach up and touch the statue’s foot on its high pedestal.
A humming sensation goes all the way through me then, as the towering cliffs echo all around.
In it, I hear a symphony of bells; the stone here has resonant properties, just like the cavern of the star-stones.
“This must be King ?rn Magnussen.” Bjorn has stopped at the statue to the right of Aesa’s. Gazing up at the towering, stern man in full kingly battle-armor, his deep gaze is intense. King ?rn looks exactly as he did when I met with him in the Mirrors of Memory.
And exactly like Bjorn, should he live a thousand years to become King of our Lineage.
“The rest of them must be Aesa’s other drakes, and the founders of the True Black Dragon Knights.
” Strom is awed also as he takes a turn around the statues.
“I never knew why this area of the Hollows always drew me so much, even though I could never access it. I thought it was just my Bone Magic, and being able to see the remnants of battle near this glade, between the Blood Sages and Bone Mages…”
“You must have felt called to this place because it’s a power spot, claimed by our Ancestors,” Baldur says now as he stares up at one statue that must be his own Ancestor. A gargantuan dragon with whirling cosmic lines like a galaxy, the fiercely elegant drake looks much like Baldur when he shifts.
“In any case, this is where we do our ceremony.” Mikkel sets down his silk fly-bag and begins rucking in it, pulling out copious amounts of food. “Place feels like a million megawatts surging all over my skin. Zapping right to my fucking groin.”
As Mikkel speaks, I know he’s right. Even when I was here before, I could feel the crazy amount of heightened energy in this space.
Mikkel’s description is accurate, as I feel like I’m standing next to a power substation; placing my hand back on Aesa’s statue, I feel how that energy surges and bites deep into my body.
Vicious, electric, erotic, it catches my breath now as the ringing around the stone glade echoes more from all our voices and from us touching the statues. As it sings like a cadre of war-horns blaring, and battle-drums booming, a sensation of old gods watching us fills the space.
It’s powerful; and power is what we need, as we empty our fly-bags and set everything up in one corner of the glade, near the cliffs. We strip down because time is of the essence, then come to the center, within the ring of statues.
The flagstones are cracked beneath my feet; wildflowers spring up here, even in the gloom, as if the magical resonance of this place feeds them.
I feel that energy shiver all through my blood and bones now as my drakes, Laerke, and I join hands in a circle, Bjorn on my right and Strom on my left.
As my gaze peruses each of them, I see them all standing ready as they gaze back at me.
To do what might be our last Bloodwalking together—and lovemaking—tonight.
“We have an agenda with this Bloodwalking tonight.” I watch them all, and see them watching me back.
“Lay it on us, Yava. We’re ready.” Bjorn is supportive, with no darkness in him now despite everything we’re up against. It bolsters me as he squeezes my hand.
“You’ve all felt what’s been happening to us; this massive tightening of our Bloodbond, all through our bodies and far out in the Void.
” I gaze around them all, seeing everyone nod and knowing they understand.
“It’s trying to make us all Bloodwalkers, permanently—to allow us to share our powers freely, with each of us gaining the magic of everyone else.
That vast connection is ready to be made permanent between all of us, now.
So that’s what we’re here to do tonight.
And hope it gives us enough firepower to take down the Black Dragon, and close the Black Rift on that cosmic division energy it feeds in the stars, for good. ”
Everyone nods as I speak. We share thoughts like water now, rushing between our bodies as we open our Bloodbonds wide. Inhaling, I smile at them all, feeling so much love burst through my heart, despite my sadness.
“I love you all. I want you to know that. Whatever happens next… I want you to hear it now, and understand how much you mean to me.”
“You’re not supposed to say it to us like that, remember?” Strom chuckles, though he squeezes my hand as he smiles.
“I am supposed to say it like that.” I fight back tears. “Because, like it or not, this is our last battle. Maybe we’ll live to have more beyond the Black Dragon; but I’m not taking that chance. I’m telling each of you that I love you now. Because I don’t want you ever to think I don’t.”
“We love you, too, Rikyava,” Bjorn rumbles as he squeezes my hand again, his eyes shining so bright with gold now since he was returned from death. “And we know.”
As heads nod all around the circle, everyone giving a smile, I feel the love rocket up between us a hundredfold. What we’re feeling now is shared freely between us. Our love cascades from each one to every other in our newly unified Bloodbonds, so strong now ever since we returned Bjorn.
It doesn’t just go one-way anymore, as I feel the massive power between us rise. Because it’s the power of our deepest hearts, loving and towering and free. No matter what happens with the Black Dragon today, we’re in this together—and we’ll go out together.
Loving each other to the end of the world and back.
We’re ready; nothing more needs be said.
As we all squeeze hands, I hear a voice lift up among us.
It’s Strom’s angelic singing, as he croons a soft tune now like a whisper of our most loving hearts—but it goes winging up around the space like its own wildfire, as it rings the statues and the cliffs all around.
That sound makes my heart burn for him and all my drakes, as we begin moving to Strom’s soul-singing. With a smile, Laerke heads to her sentinel position by the food as my drakes and I begin our final encounter.
Hands are released to slide over skin; fingers glide over bodies, and no one cares now whose touch it is. Through it all, Strom sings with his incredible voice; it makes a resonance rise from each of us as it sings even through our united Bloodbond now, so bright.
An incredible ringing, like the stone of the glade, our Bloodbond sounds like music of the oldest gods as it fills the air. Because it’s inside me; it’s inside all of us, as we sing now with impossible harmonies pouring through our very blood and bones.
And we begin our final time together—at last.