Chapter 30 Light
LIGHT
Avast sensation fills me, of understanding my true purpose at last, as blistering white sigils spiral all through me.
Somehow, I have awakened that ancient power inside this terrible Void; I gaze down at my hands now, as pure white auric wildfire blazes off them, pulsing out around me now with each beat of my heart.
Because my heart does beat in this place. Though I have left my body behind, my truest heart has come with me, here at the end of things. It will remain with me, as that auric fire pulses hotter, reaching out wider around me with each towering beat.
And I transform in this endless space—into a towering drakaina of burning white and gold light.
In this place, I am my dragon now—but not a dragon I’ve ever been before. As I walk through the Usurper’s Void and hear the towering beat of my own heart resonate through the space, I am a luminous creature, all-white with sparkling ruby and gold markings.
I am not unlike Aesa herself, as I hear a sound begin to accompany my heartbeat now, like the echo of gongs and the breath of reed flutes, and the boom of drums in the deep.
I wander, feeling drawn towards certain sections of darkness as that powerful sound sings from me in the black; souls congregate all around me now, lighting up from that intense, beautiful music.
It reminds them of who they are as an ancient melody sings through all our veins, the powerful drums thundering through our bones. Their hearts light, as thousands of souls illuminate all around me now in the darkness, rather than just a handful.
A starry night fills the emptiness now, everywhere I look. At last, I feel my drakes and Laerke, drawn by the endless power of my shining heart.
I feel them cleared of their writhing darkness as they find me now. As they come to me, I feel how their lights are far stronger than the others, nowhere near gone out.
Like me, my drakes and Laerke kept some of their powerful heart-light when they came into this space. Even when they died, claimed by the Black Dragon’s curse, they kept the beautiful lightness they had found, thanks to our unity together and our love.
They brought it with them into this place. It makes them shine like a constellation now, brighter than all the rest, as they draw close.
I feel the booming thunder of Bjorn as I smell good whiskey and battlefield char; I taste the river water fragrance of Strom, as his sweet singing teases all around me.
I’m immersed in the echoes of the true Void as Baldur comes to me, upon his ephemeral sunlight-and-paint fragrance. Laerke is a song of birds in springtime to my heart, even as Mikkel is the dark seduction of drinking old-world cocktails at midnight beneath the endless stars.
I find them now, reuniting with them in a whirl of magic and light—and I am reminded of our love. Endless, that love brightens everything a thousandfold now, as we flood into each other, beyond death.
Our auric dragons merge now, coiling around each other in such joy to be reunited, as I feel our Bloodbond and our family bonds reconnect beyond death. Though our physical hearts were severed from each other by the Black Dragon’s curse, our everlasting souls could never be torn from one another.
And I understand that now, as I cavort with them out in the endless stars, at last.
Because the stars are endless now as they surge, shining all around us. Our light is galaxy-bright, as we coil and braid back into our ancient Ouroboros, loving each other beyond death.
Laerke’s brightness surrounds us all, holding us in this beautiful space.
I see my drakes’ auric bodies celebrating being together now, despite this place.
Because we could do this forever—and it lights up the darkness now, as we shine like a united supernova, brightening the Black Dragon’s Void in all directions.
As our auric dragons spiral together, reconnecting our Bloodbond beyond death, I see how we light with those ancient sigils, searing through our auric dragon-flesh. We reunite our Bloodbond, each connection blazing back into being, as I feel the massive unity we create.
For it is creation—the opposite of the destruction energy from which this Void was made.
As if the darkness has a presence, I feel it screech from our united light now, as it roils and surges all around us. As that terrible madness retreats now from our scalding light, something gargantuan is revealed in the darkness.
A massive heart towers before us now as the darkness seethes back. Lit by a terrible ruby light, that heart is not made of one creature, but many, as it pulses before us now, ugly.
I feel how that heart struggles to be bright, as little flares of auric fire cascade off it now and then. But mostly, it’s riven by darkness, as larger swathes of hellish black-violet flare off it with each towering pump in the darkness.
I know whose heart this is, as my drakes and I draw together now, igniting the Void around us like true day, everywhere we look. This is the Black Dragon’s heart, as it surges and pumps before us; tremendous compassion engulfs me now, to look upon this horrible, misshapen thing.
My compassion makes a tremendous blast of white auric fire blaze from my heart, as it banishes the darkness from around the Usurper’s heart.
So it can speak, at last.
Maker. You have arrived… The Black Dragon sighs from all around me now, though its voice comes strongest from its beating heart.
Its voice no longer screeches in torment, thanks to us brightening this terrible hellscape within it.
It holds infinite sorrow, however, as the woe of its tormented life devours it.
Yes. I am here. I move forward from my drakes now, approaching it. They come with me; though we cease swirling together, our massive light does not diminish.
If anything, it grows stronger as we approach the heart of the beast. Our united love ignites a towering wildfire inside the creature’s Void, as we all feel compassion for it. It sweeps us now, how much we care and want to give it a gentle death, despite everything that’s happened.
As we all come together now, directly before the heart, I know where our compassion comes from. Because this creature did not wish to be made; it did not want to become this thing, pieced together from fragments of different souls and bodies and hearts.
And it does not wish to live now, as we approach it with the deepest compassion of our ever-living selves.
We stare up at the towering, misshapen heart, and I feel that this is what we’re here for.
Who knows what will happen to us; but it is our mission now to give this thing mercy and break the Black Dragon’s creation from within.
Destroying it and returning all these trapped souls to wherever they will go next.
Even if it means destroying everything we love, it must be done. My drakes, Laerke, and I are ready now, as we prepare to end the heart-curse upon the Black Dragon, and free the souls trapped within it.
Especially its own soul, cobbled together from all those who gave it life.
My Bloodwalker power has an affinity for healing hearts; with the deepest intuition of my life, I finally know my destiny is to heal the heart of the Black Dragon, as I see terrible black curses with caustic crimson runes spiral all through it.
The ancient work of Hedda, it is my task to draw these most terrible curses out from the creature’s heart, and return it to the universe. As I set my hands to the heart, my auric body is no longer a dragon now in the creature’s Void, but human, as I feel its sad pulse.
A wind of all creation surges around me now, as I feel its desolate sigh; but that sigh is accepting, as the Black Dragon makes peace with its fate.
I comfort it, letting it know with my bright auric fire that all this will soon be over, as I recall a snippet of one Unhaemmerten scroll I was able to read when I was lost in trance.
Beware: the Risen One shall have mind, thought, and matter. And will Choose its own Fate. I understand the fate the Black Dragon has chosen now—to find its true death, as it dissipates into the ancient universe.
I am the only person who can fulfill that fate; I ready my deepest Bloodwalker magic, harnessing the Bloodwalker power of all my drakes to wield that energy with me, as Laerke holds space for us.
As my drakes and I join our new powers as one, uniting inside the beast, a massive explosion of auric fire heaves from us. It inundates the Black Dragon’s heart, as we all set hands to it now, pouring that ever-living fire right through its very center.
Black runes dissolve from it; caustic red flares away, as the violet light emanating from it retreats.
Our united Bloodwalker power begins to dissolve the ancient rune-binding curses upon the Usurper; our Bloodbond’s massive Ouroboros unites infinitely now, as a gargantuan auric flame whirls in a cyclone around the heart now, from us.
But those who created the Usurper don’t accept what my drakes and I are doing. A soul-ruining shriek issues from all those black curses throughout the beast’s heart, as I feel a different presence thunder towards us in this Void.
Infinitely black, five demons of dragons surge to us now, riddled with caustic crimson sigils as ultraviolet fire pours through their veins. The stars scatter, other souls fleeing, as Hedda and her drakes surround our light in the Black Dragon’s Void.
Hedda and her Bloodmates seethe with ultimate malevolence as their gargantuan black dragons roil. But as they arrive, I see they are not alone in their midnight madness. Lithava and her drakes’ dragon-spirits are with them, overrun by the malevolent souls of Hedda and her drakes.
I see how Lithava and each of her drakes have been completely consumed by Hedda and her ancient Bloodbond; nothing of my sister or her mates exists anymore, as I see her dragon melded so completely into the seething darkness that is Hedda, that I do not know where one begins and the other ends.