Chapter 29 Unite
UNITE
As I inhale, ready to unleash the Black Dragon upon my sister Lithava and her drakes, shredding their souls to the everlasting universe, I feel my drakes roar in hell, knowing what I’m about to do.
They still fight going to their darkest place.
My drakes find a synergy with each other now, and with Laerke, as a blazing unity rises between them—that they will not give up.
But nothing is a barrier to me now, not even the light I once shared with my drakes.
I seize onto the energetic signatures of Lithava and her drakes, and their very souls in the Void.
I gather those signatures to me in the cosmos, clenching my taloned fist to grip the threads of their everlasting fates in my hand.
As I prepare for my final drive, I know my true purpose. Because my fate was always this—to become this severing darkness in the universe.
I was always supposed to channel the Rift-energy from the Void; I inhale now in tandem with the Black Dragon, ready to shred my sister and her drakes all throughout the cosmos just as Hedda once did to her sister, Aesa.
But even as I do, someone roars and surges in before me. Two someones, I cannot halt my roar with the Black Dragon as it tears from my throat, along with the Usurper’s.
A black drake, vicious as the night is long, his lithe, mamba-like form is hit square on by our soul-shredding scream, as the stunning opal-white and green drakaina beside him gets hit, as well.
An unmentionable shriek tears from both their throats as my worst curse boils all through them both, ripping them apart from the inside out.
They fall together in a complex knot—even as incredible tattoos of black and crimson seethe out all over the black drake’s chest now, and throughout the white drakaina, too.
Done in oceanic red and black Blood Dragon designs with sea-monster dragons and raiding ships, those tattoos shine a towering white so bright it burns my eyes now.
As auric fire bursts from both of them, I feel some force in those tattoos counteract my ultimate destruction, as they blaze my infernal sundering away.
It’s like some kind of acid of their truest heart has singed my drive. I roar in rage and wrath now, as a dark crimson and green drake surges in before their fallen bodies, snarling in protection of them.
But although I didn’t manage to shred their souls from whatever their tattoos did, my roar with the Black Dragon was potent. Both dragons fall limp as their hearts beat their last.
Cursed by the Usurper’s heart-killing blast instead of its soul-shredding one.
I feel their souls rush to the Black Dragon now, adding unmentionable power to the beast from their vicious might. But something about their sacrifice has damaged me; pain blisters through my entire body now, as I roar in agony.
But the twins’ valiant action has destabilized some resonance inside me; the Black Dragon shrieks now as my connection to it is lost. As it goes Berserk and Wraith again, roaring its infernal hell-fire to the skies, it whips its head everywhere, decimating the last survivors of the battle and making them plummet like swatted flies all around.
Its power grows as it takes their souls. It becomes wild, roiling in its own living hell as its horrifying roar blasts everywhere.
But I remember the Thorsen twins now, as both Mikkel and Laerke’s shrieks echo through my mind.
Shock hits me with a towering wallop, as I see how both have fallen, heart-cursed by my own vicious wrath.
As their indomitable souls fly to the creature’s Void, I feel a vicious sensation tear my insides, as if something precious—like the true love of a loyal mate and a sister—has been ripped from me.
As another dragon roars and barrels in before me now, blazing blue-white like the most ancient stars in the cosmos, I feel his towering roar shake me to my very fundament.
Rikyava! There is always free will and choice! Baldur is desperate as he roars to me now, trying to get through to me in my unhinged state. Fate is not predetermined—it can change! It can change!!
I shift down in the chaos as I feel Baldur shine brighter than the brightest star inside me. I feel him gather up everything I am there in the place of our Ancestors, as he works his tremendous magic—to change my fate, in the most incredible effort of his life.
Even as his soul shines, with no trace of darkness or addiction anywhere in him now, I feel him get hit by the Black Dragon’s blast. Baldur goes down with a roar, as his attempt to change my fate in the Void shatters.
I feel him bring down every last wall between us as he dies, showing me his true heart and how it shines, all for me.
But Baldur is not returning to the everlasting Void now as I scream, rushing to him in my defenseless human form as he falls in a tangled heap, heart-curses from the Black Dragon riddled throughout his dragon body.
The hell oil from the Rift surges everywhere now, thrusting outward like a bomb as Baldur’s tremendous light is added to it via the Black Dragon. The Usurper goes crazy, amok as it feels Baldur’s cosmic power added to its inner hell.
Winging into the skies, it decimates the remaining battle in three-sixty now, as black fire surges from it in a tornado. Everything is pulled into that tornado of all-cursing hellfire, as I watch, horrified and fully aware now, from the cavern.
Only the small space with Lithava, her drakes, and mine has not yet been consumed. I can’t even see anything else anymore, as the Black Dragon’s terrible cyclone of power claims everything.
Swept into the pile of my dead by the cyclone, Strom thrusts the beautiful passion of his power into me, Hold on to your heart, Rikyava!
Don’t let it fail just yet! when he is hit by the sweeping roar of the Black Dragon, too.
Strom falls to the pile of our dead as the cyclone of power far above us doubles, the beautiful music of my Bloodbond to him ripped away.
Heart-wrenching sobs rip from me now as I clench my fist to my heart, gripping it and falling naked to my knees in the chaos. Because Strom’s most beautiful music has been ripped from me, as I feel every pain of my sundered Bloodbonds tear through me, devastating me from the inside out.
As Lithava and her drakes are hit by the Black Dragon’s madness now, it sunders their faltering shield, wiping them out in one terrible blast, despite the black rings they still wear.
I feel the protection that was once in those rings shatter; because nothing can withstand the all-devouring madness of the beast now, and the darkness that drives it.
They die, the light leaving all their eyes as their own hubris resurrecting the Black Dragon finally undoes them. Just two souls remain in this chaos now, as Bjorn wraps himself around me in human form, resisting the endless cyclone of my pain that resonates with the Black Dragon’s.
As he tries one last time to bring me back.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Rikyava.
We can be the powerful, burning light we feel inside…
rather than the devouring dark.” Bjorn’s voice is so soft, I barely hear it through the maelstrom, except that he pours it through my very blood and bones now with his power.
I feel him kiss my cheek as he wraps me in his powerful arms, so strong and warm, and good.
As Bjorn speaks, I feel him amalgamate all the powers of my deceased drakes. They live only in him now, thanks to the unity we all found recently as Bloodwalkers.
Using his own Bloodwalker power now, Bjorn pours them hard through my bones and veins, making me feel their love, still alive inside me.
As Strom’s beautiful dark magic flows through me, the scent of a fresh glacial river inundating me, Baldur’s paint-and-sunlight fragrance pours into me, making me shine like the endless stars, despite my hell.
Mikkel’s heady old-world cocktail fragrance fills me as Laerke’s beautiful springtime scent comes with it, casting me back to better days.
But it’s Bjorn’s powerful scent of scorch, battlefield char, and peat whiskey with good cigars that really takes me. Because he smells of both war, and peace—a unity of opposites that has always been a part of him, right from the start.
That understanding catapults me up to the cosmos in a spontaneous Bloodwalking now, as Bjorn shows me the fullness of who he really is. He shows me who I truly am, too, out in the stars, as he uses our Bloodwalker power to thrust me into this sudden, towering Bloodwalking.
I see myself in the cosmos now, not endlessly dark but so incredibly bright. A towering white and gold drakaina with crimson spikes and markings, as beautiful as Aesa herself, I know I am not the darkness as I see myself, so bright.
I am not this sundering energy that claims me, trying to put out my cosmic light.
I still shine, despite all the darkness shredding me apart.
My soul-light is still there, and I am the brightest star in the cosmos.
It hits me then—that I am not the worst evil but the best good in the universe; that this shining nature is who I am, united in all my endless facets.
United with the very stars of the Void, I wake up now to who I am. I wake up to the best Rikyava; the most righteous, the most heartfelt, and the most bright, as I see who I am as Bjorn holds me.
I turn my head, kissing him in the chaos now. That kiss is the most loving of our entire lives as it floods me, insanely bright to this hell of darkness cascading all around us in our worst night.
But as the Usurper’s madness suddenly swings our way, its towering roar blasting an inescapable heart-curse right at me, Bjorn spins us.
And takes the full force of that blast—right to his broad back.
Like a shield, Bjorn holds me in his arms, even as it takes him down. I scream, turning to catch him. But he is already falling, the light dying from his beautiful golden eyes as the Usurper’s heart-curse spirals all through him.