Chapter 28 Black
BLACK
As the Black Dragon of All Souls resists my united Bloodbond’s call, I know we are lost. Our brightest light cannot command it—only our darkest can, as I suddenly know what I must do.
This battle, this resistance, this fight; none of it will mean anything if I can’t make a connection to the Black Dragon and get it to listen.
Because its mad rampage will devour everything; there will be no surviving this, as I let go now.
And let the infernal blackness of my darkest inner Void take me.
I’m swallowed into an endless pit as I give in to the darkness inside. For I must try to wield the Usurper in my darkest state now, or all of this ends—because it is my own endless division which resonates with the beast.
I don’t hear Hedda’s voice gloating inside me now as I let everything go to resonate with the Black Dragon. I hold on to the incredible, ever-blazing light of my new unity with my drakes to anchor me as I plummet. Like a star of the ages, the light of our united Ouroboros fills me, even as I fall.
As my body bursts into a vicious black dragon with violet-dark light seething from my flesh, a sudden starburst of white-gold sigils explodes all around the valley—and it didn’t come from me.
Shocked, I glance over to see a massive sigil-field fill the skies; as that vast net erupts into being all around, blazing figures crash into the battle.
Seven-layer wings spread wide, the Intercessoria Archangels burn brighter than sunlight as they arrive. Their massive web of Archangelic magic cuts through the Black Dragon’s curse-ropes, plus the leviathan tentacles of the Black Rift, severing them as neatly as a butter knife.
The Black Dragon shrieks in pain, as those all-devouring curse arms are sliced off like its very own limbs. A subsonic roar issues from the Black Rift as well, screeching with overtones so high it skewers right through my ears.
But as two Archangels with opal-black wings burn brighter than the rest, leading a fresh charge against our foes, I know Insinio and Heathren have come through for us. I will not waste it, as power as dark as hellfire itself boils all through me.
Knowing it’s time.
As my most diabolical Bloodwalker power sings through every pore of my body now, I know I must use this advantage with the Archangels while it lasts.
Even now, new coils thrust from the Black Dragon and the Rift, hammering that incredible incarceration as white-gold Archangel sigils burn away, charred to nothingness.
Other sigils scroll in fast to replace those that were destroyed. This deterrent will fail, however, if we can’t get the Black Dragon to stop its madness with the Rift, annihilating us between their endless jaws.
We have to ground it! A sudden instinct fills me about how to bring this ancient hellion down.
On it! A plan from Strom bursts into being, that he floods into us all, as he lights up his vast mesmeric magic inside us.
We meld our minds to his, as I feel us all surge with Strom’s mesmeric power and also Mikkel’s mind-paralysis. Their abilities light into an immense amalgamation now, as we add Bjorn’s pure strength, and Baldur’s cosmic power and blazing certainty we can do this.
As I yoke us all together, ripping power from us like the ocean and ravaging our bodies, hearts, even our very souls from this dark state I’m in, I feel how I draw on Bloodwalkers, awakened. Each of my drakes is a Bloodwalker now, not just me; it superpowers our might as I ready our attack.
I hold on to my brightest light, even as I descend into my darkest, and gather all our mind-powers, hard. Then, thrusting that magical drive out with everything we’ve got, I hit the Black Dragon square between its eyes as we roar at it in unison.
A towering wave of love, light, and death rushes through our newfound Bloodwalker powers—and smites the Black Dragon. With a shriek, it’s paralyzed, its mind overcome by our masterful maneuver. As the Usurper plummets, its body immobile and its wings useless, it tumbles into the cavern of the Rift.
It crash-lands among the Rift’s seething tentacles, and I feel how the pain of that landing casts our mind-maneuver off.
The Usurper can’t rampage through the skies anymore, though; as my drakes and I dive like eagles on the hunt, I see how it’s crushed one wing beneath its gargantuan body as it fell into the cavern’s hole.
Its black taint ripples through that wing now, however, making bones crunch and mend. Worse, the leviathan darkness of the Rift feeds it, as those massive coils of darkness boil all over the creature, restoring it.
As my drakes and I screech down to the Black Dragon’s position, I finally see our King—protected within one of his powerful Bloodshields now, rather than lying inert on the stones. King Huttr’s massive crimson-gold dragon roars in pain, as his Bloodshield is swarmed by the Rift’s taint.
Even as I catch that glimpse of our King, still holding on, I see how his Bloodshield is weak, the last of his life guttering out.
The Usurper’s hell-oil boils all through the black cavern now, along with the Rift’s.
Nearly finished with its mend, the Black Dragon roars its terrible heart-curses up at the battle as it test-flaps its wings.
Even though we have the Usurper grounded, the Archangels’ containment is failing. Archangel magic is no match for our dissimilar Bloodwalker might, and their net spirals through with infernal darkness now as too many of its white sigils burn out.
The Black Dragon roars its terrible madness to the world, still inundating the battle from the ground. As it does, I suddenly see Olander Mortensen, then Mathilde Eriksson, crash down into the seething tentacles of the Rift.
The Rift’s hell swallows their dragon bodies. Bjorn roars in fury, and Strom screeches in horror, as I see how both our allies had the heart-curse of the Black Dragon spiraling right through their chests.
As Svanhild Magnussen gets nailed by the Black Dragon’s heart-cursing roar next, with Mormor Annika falling as well, I share in the wretched horror of my drakes.
Rageful wrath goes rioting through our Bloodbond; and it’s not just me, it’s Strom and Bjorn, even Mikkel and Baldur, as we watch so many beloved to us perish.
I try to stabilize that dark place inside me with my brightest light, but I’m already failing.
We’re all failing, as my drakes begin to seethe and boil with darkness now, losing their connection to our light.
As my cousin Halfdir suddenly gets hit by one of the Black Dragon’s blasts, everything inside me screams, so dark.
All three of my stepfathers also plummet from the skies now.
They’re swallowed by leviathan tentacles as power surges inside the Black Rift a thousandfold to have eaten such potent fuel.
And as the heart-cursing roar of the Black Dragon scorches into the cavern’s pit from its thrashing, it hits King Huttr’s Bloodshield. His shield shatters now, as that strike pierces right to our King’s heart, and I watch my beloved uncle fall.
Dead.
Madness surges in me, then—exploding all through me like a bomb. As my anchor of light flashes out, I seethe with diseased, violet-crimson death.
The sigils that spiral all over me are catastrophic, as annihilation claims me. I am not coming back, as I feel myself tip over into that cavernous brink.
Falling fully into that endless pit inside me.
I have entered the Rift inside me, as I am devoured. Something tears within me as that place takes me now, deep into my furthest heart and soul. A sensation like gouging talons and snapping jaws rips me the fuck apart as I am sundered, and everything inside me becomes unhinged.
Because I have been forever divided. A Bloodwalker who walked away from my power in my youth; a Blood Dragon royal who abandoned my people to live and work at the Red Letter Hotel Paris.
A woman in love who constantly tore up my relationship with my first lifemate.
A daughter who was so contentious with my adopted mother, we didn’t talk for twenty years, leaving Maryse almost a stranger to me when she died.
Division has torn me apart for decades, and it swallows me now, even as my drakes fight to resist it.
But the biggest division is that fate has finally mastered me. Though I roared and railed at my Bloodwalker fate to always do the will of my Ancestors, I have succumbed to it now, and I am not coming back.
Though I have always battled my destiny, believing in free will, I am trapped by it now. I can never escape my fate as an all-black, diabolical mamba, devoid of all life and feeling, coils deep around my heart.
Because it is me, as I am lost to my own Black Dragon. I fulfill the most diabolical fate Hedda and our ancient Ancestors set out for me, as I roar and wrath to the skies now, Berserk and Wraith both as a massive burst of black-crimson and ultraviolet wildfire surges off me.
The place where I once found unity with my drakes tears to smithereens, as that black fire bursts from me.
Because it kills everything it touches, just like the Black Dragon’s own magic; it hits my drakes, making them crash-land amidst the seething tentacles of the Black Rift as they try so valiantly to resist this madness overtaking me.
But they can’t. Even now, they’re almost gone, roaring and claimed by their own infernal darkness and mine—as I understand Baldur’s sister Hekla was right about the infinitesimal odds of our success against the Black Dragon.
Because the brighter Blood Magic drakaina inside me is gone, snuffed out to my diabolical black chasm within. Even my Bone Magic’s starry skies vanish within me as they are shredded to the division energy’s cosmic might.
Having either Blood Magic or Bone Magic was never the problem; it was the division between the two.
And I have only division left, as all of it goes out now, black.