Chapter 31 Heal
HEAL
My Bloodbond and I kiss for a long while, as we celebrate being returned from death. Somehow, the cyclone of my auric fire swept everyone up above the cavern’s rim when I faced off with the Black Dragon; as we laugh and rejoice, only belatedly do I realize others are watching.
A massive swath of dragons gathers around us now, everyone naked and returned to human from the Black Dragon’s Void, just like us. Astonished laughter spills from everyone’s lips as they look around, amazed and returned from death; and I laugh in astonishment with them, as I finally look around.
Because as I sit up from my drakes’ smooch-pile, I realize the black curse-ropes from the Black Dragon and its Rift are gone. The land has been scoured clean of their taint, with only a fresh breeze stirring newly growing grass and wildflowers in the ruined city, no snow in sight.
All those who died from the Usurper’s curses have been returned to us as well, hale and whole. I glance over to the cavern and watch the last of the Black Dragon’s gargantuan form get razed by our blazing auric wildfire, along with its curse-ropes.
The remains of the Dragon of All Souls slough away in white ash on the wind, as the very last of the leviathan malevolence of the Black Rift wafts away, too.
Ash from the Black Dragon falls upon the Rift, and I see blazing white sigils sear all through it.
The entire cavern floor with its ancient sigils lights up now, too, blazing bright as day as all the walls and columns light up.
Searing like the sun—as the Rift is healed now, completely.
The sigil is whole again as a massive shockwave pummels from the cavern. That blast stumbles the thousands of dragons standing upon the bare earth above; as it hits me and my drakes, I feel a sudden locking-home inside me, of something that wasn’t there before.
I feel it lock inside each and every Blood Dragon now, as a gargantuan change in our magic blazes through us. As white sigils ignite on every dragon now, a sudden, ultra-massive surge of auric fire pours from us all.
I feel our magic become forever changed inside us, then—united, as the Rift inside us heals. Because we’ve healed the Rift and the Black Dragon not with war and divisiveness, but with love and togetherness.
As the Dragons of Blood and Bone suddenly become one.
Shocked laughter spills from every throat upon the battlefield, as we all feel our magnificent magic restored to us. Because we are no longer a people of Blood or Bone Magic alone. The Rift that divided us since ancestral times is repaired, and our Lineage’s entire magic has been repaired with it.
Every one of us is a Bloodwalker now, as I see everyone around us rub their chests, eyes glowing as spontaneous laughter takes them. My Bloodbond had already united in our Bloodwalker abilities, but that ability is now everyone’s, as I laugh with my people, overjoyed.
My drakes and I crash together in a knot with Laerke as we hug and kiss, celebrating this massive victory, which restoring our people’s magic brings. But most of all, we celebrate that we are alive again.
Able to love and enjoy each other another day.
My uncle, King Huttr, and my cousin, Prince Halfdir, come to us now, glowing with the change that has been suddenly restored to them.
My stepfathers, Svanhild Magnussen, Annika Eriksson, Mathilde Eriksson, Olander Mortensen, and everyone else we love who perished from the Black Dragon are with them, alive and well.
My lieges sink to one knee before my Bloodbond now, and we break from our kissing, taking in the vast honor they do us, humbled.
But even as my King sets his fist to his heart, his head deeply bowed from what we have done for our Lineage, I kneel down.
Raising him up, I clasp his arms, and he clasps mine.
Then a booming laugh roars out of Huttr as he sweeps me into his arms.
Spinning me around in the biggest bearhug ever.
As he sets me down, my cousin Halfdir does the exact same thing. We are surrounded by friends and beloved family then, as they all come to us.
I am inundated by my stepfathers, as Bjorn is swept into Svanhild and Olander’s arms, and Strom is surrounded by Annika and Mathilde and all the sisters and family he thought he lost in this fight.
Those who perished at the Old Palace and Stockholm have not been returned to us, however. It’s only those who lost their lives here in this final battle in the far north; but it is enough, as I celebrate being alive again with so many people I love.
I blow a kiss to Maryse up in the skies now, feeling her celebrate our vast triumph, as I hear her roar out in the stars.
My father and mother’s voices are with hers, loving and jubilant.
They know, like I do, that we have found a different fate for our entire Lineage, as new magic stirs now in everyone.
What’s more, the Black Dragon and the energy it was bound to—and those who bound it—have been dissipated by the fires of our burning love, right back to the endless universe.
As I hear their vast celebration out in the stars, I feel how Hedda, her drakes, and her Jormungandr are not there anymore, having dissipated back to the endless cosmos as we shattered the Usurper’s Void.
Because we burned up the curse on the Black Dragon’s heart and sealed the Black Rift; we eliminated the presence of that cosmic rift energy on our earth from our ancient Ancestor’s event, and everyone who was bound to it.
And we have restored Bloodwalker magic to our entire people. I know that magic will need to be nourished and tamed as it rises, as I suddenly understand a new angle to all of this that I’d never thought of before.
A deep responsibility grows inside me now to help my kin, as I gaze around and understand how so much is now different. But there are those who are no longer with us; a kind of sadness fills me now, to see the dead forms of Lithava and her four drakes lying so still beside the cavern’s rim.
I step over to them, lying dead upon the stony ground.
A strong cadre of Kingsguard surrounds them, though I know from their half-open, glassy eyes they are gone.
They have been freed of the Rift’s taint in their death; sadness fills me now, as I hunker beside my sister’s body and see her vivid blond complexion returned to her, though dull, as she is gone.
Running my fingers over her face, I contemplate Lithava and her drakes, as my King, my loved ones, and my drakes surround me.
I take a deep breath, feeling how my sister and her Bloodbond are not even in the Void.
They had been so bound to Hedda and her drakes via the black rings that they were burned back to the universe when the Usurper’s Void shattered.
Lithava’s violet gaze is no longer taken by black sigils, as she and her fallen drakes wait for whatever will become of them now.
As my gaze peruses her, Bjorn’s gaze pins his dead father, Oggi Magnussen.
Mikkel and Laerke’s gazes are firm as they take in Emil Beck lying upon the stony ground, Lars and Arvid’s motionless forms receiving a chill look from Mikka Halsbrand, standing with us.
I say nothing as a strong wind of compassion moves through me now; curls of white auric fire blaze off my skin, and I stand strong in my Bloodwalker power, united with my drakes.
Because we are alive and they are not; I can feel how the black rings upon their fingers are empty also, just like their dead forms, as I gaze down upon them.
Finished—just like Hedda herself.
I say nothing now, as I raise my auric winds all around me, and my drakes do the same. Our united wildfire razes over Lithava’s dead body and all her drakes. They char to nothing but white ash now upon the wind, the last of their remains sloughing away, just like the Black Dragon.
As they go, Mikkel and Laerke watch the place where Emil Beck lay, a complex look in their eyes. Bjorn watches the spot where his terrible father, Oggi Magnussen, was for one moment longer.
Before wrapping an arm around me, and kissing my temple.
“Only the Ancestors know where their ancient fate lies now,” King Huttr says, as he steps to my side, gazing down at the place Lithava had been.
As Insinio Brandfort and Heathren Merkami move through the throng to us now, their silver-black Archangel wings spread wide, I know it’s better that my sister and her drakes did not survive everything that happened here.
“Living out the rest of their days imprisoned would have been just.” I glance from the Archangels to my King. “But an eternal judgement faces them now, wherever they’ve gone out in the stars.”
“So it does.” Our King is magnanimous as we turn to the Archangels, and I nod. Nodding back, the Judiciary duo set hands to weapons, though I can tell both are relieved we won this fight today. Insinio gives a pleased grin and a wink, but Heathren is endlessly thoughtful now, as he takes me in.
As if wondering with me where my sister and her drakes’ souls have gone, far out upon the cosmic winds.
Our King has other business, however, as he turns to the Thorsen twins. Still gazing down at where Emil Beck had been, they wear pensive frowns as Mikkel bends now, retrieving his black ring from the earth.
For the black rings did not perish when our auric wildfire razed them. As a fell energy breathes from them now, I feel how Mikkel and Laerke sense it. I move to them, taking up their hands and startling them out of their twin-thoughts.
“What now?” I ask, as I nod at their betrayer’s ring, still in Mikkel’s hand.
“Head back to Denmark, get our entire empire he stole returned to us,” Mikkel says at once, as if the twins had already decided between themselves. “Return things to the way they should be, just as soon as we can do it.”