Rake My Lust (Dragons of Blood and Bone #3)

7. Bones

7

BONES

A s Bjorn, Strom, and I dive towards the bottom of the lake for our Trial of Truth, one thing becomes apparent. The closer we get to the massive pile of dragon bones at the lake’s chill center, the more the Truthtalon slices in our skin begin to hum.

I didn’t notice it at first, but now I feel like my entire body’s thrumming, vibrating with beautiful harmonies, the closer we get. We’re so close now, the bones at the bottom of the lake are like a mountain before us.

Dominating my thoughts and all my dragon’s instincts.

As that sorcerous singing hits a pinnacle, calling me forward to get lost in the bones and touch them, some deep shock goes off inside me. As if responding to a ten-alarm fire, my inner Bone Magic drake rises like a leviathan of night now, roaring with a terrible sound all through my body—for me to get back.

My brighter Blood Magic drakaina doesn’t understand what calls to her down here; she wants to move in and hear that soulful singing more. But my black drake knows the score; it knows that sound.

My Bone Magic roars a terrible awareness through me now; its power thunders inside me as I hear that soulful singing like fell voices, calling across the sea to heartbroken mariners. I understand then that the sound emanating from the pile of bones only sings for me to come find solace in the endless embrace of the deeps.

The endless embrace of death.

I roar now as I hear it, shock flooding me. I jerk back from the pile of bones as adrenaline rips through me—undoing a sensation of being oh-so-tempted to touch that gleaming white pile.

Bjorn and Strom are a short distance away, each within a scales-breadth of touching a skeleton on the pile. As if we’d all been in some kind of trance, listening to that music as we swam, we’re far too close to the bones now for comfort.

As my black drake blares a terrible warning all through me now, Strom’s Bone Magic drake echoes it. Together, we flood Bjorn.

All of us jerking away—as we struggle to not roar out in fright.

What the fuck?! Strom’s clear tenor voice cuts through my mind as we hold ourselves back from heaving breaths, with the adrenaline coursing through us.

It’s some kind of ancient enchantment. Bjorn thinks as we swim back together and he eyeballs us. Leaving the towering pile of bones, we make for a large boulder at the bottom of the lake. We settle onto it to cease swimming and conserve our air, regarding the pile from a safe distance.

And feel only death emanating from it.

They all died, because they felt this death-song calling them, and they didn’t wake from it in time to stop from touching those bones… adding themselves to the pile. I think, as I regard the pile from a distance. My dragon makes me curl up barbs-out now on the boulder, as I glance at my drakes. All I feel from that entire pile is death. You?

Death. Strom nods, his big green dragon eyes with their brimstone-red ring regarding me as he fights to not curl up like I just did.

Death . Bjorn nods also, as his massive, blocky head swings around to regard the pile. He’s done better than Strom and me, not curling up defensively as he rakes a taloned hand through the water, at the pile and the boulders surrounding it. Do any of you feel life anywhere, like Jarl Jorg said to us? I feel something… but I’m not sure where it is.

I survey the cold, blue deeps of the lake now, taking it all in. The water’s so clear, we can see to either shore and all around, though there’s only white ice above, other than the massive hole we came in by.

I don’t feel any signature of life anywhere in this place, not even with my dragon’s exacting instincts and senses. Barren, not even the hardiest seaweed and fish move in the lake’s depths.

This place is dead, as is everything in it, save for us. I have to close my eyes, feeling the silent flow of the water all around us now as I open my Blood Magic to the max, the brighter side of my power that’s full of life.

Before I finally feel it.

There. I nod at the forbidding pile, as a deep instinct fills me that this is what we seek. It’s at the very center of the pile. At the bottom. A feeling of life.

For fuck’s sake. Strom’s growl ripples the water around us, though he’s careful not to use much breath as he flares his red and green spiked mantle from his skull.

Of course, the very thing we have to touch is at the center of the stuff we’re not supposed to. Bjorn snorts as he bares his teeth. He rakes a talon through the water again, as if trying to tear down the pile. Great.

We need to figure out some way of getting through that pile without touching any of it. I think now as I cock my head. A slow ache has begun in my body, and I glance down to see blood still seeping in runnels off me and my mates, clouding the crystalline water. Not only that, but my lungs are aching, too. We’ve been down here about five minutes; we’ve got five or ten minutes more, give or take.

Assuming none of us gives out before the rest—which would probably be me, unused to holding my breath in such cold water anymore .

Even as my dragon.

Should we hammer it with our power? See what happens? Strom says now as he cocks his head at us, swishing his barbed tail through the water.

Worth a shot. I feel Bjorn gather his strength. As he whirls suddenly, heaving a blast of metaphysical power through the water right to the pile, I feel his massive wave hit it. But it’s like that towering pile of bones has roots of lead; not a single bone is displaced as Bjorn’s strike dissipates with a ripple through the water.

Having no effect whatsoever on that abattoir of death.

Shucks. Strom’s chuckle is cheeky, but echoes our disappointment. I really hoped that would work.

You and me both. Bjorn snarls, though he’s still careful to conserve his breath beneath the water.

I think we have to swim around it. See if we can find a way in. I scowl at the towering pile. Some Magnussen Blood Dragons have survived this. If they solved this riddle, we can, too.

Beauty before idiocy. Strom grins toothily now as he nods at me, then Bjorn. Bjorn gives him a withering eyeball and a flare of his spikes; I’m already swimming forward, though, heading around the pile to see what we can see.

I traverse the gargantuan mountain of bones for a long while with my two drakes before I see it—or rather, feel it. As a place hits me where the death-song lessens, I feel the song of life break through, at last.

Like a blaze in my heart, that living beauty swamps me, hard. I feel it resonate as my Blood Magic drakaina trumpets in my veins, boiling my blood towards righteous life as everything inside me is reinvigorated.

The runnels of blood spilling from me are less now; I note it, even as I nod to my drakes to check their own wounds. They do, and find our talon rakes have lessened a bit in our scales and dragon-flesh. We’ve healed, after hearing that life-song for just the briefest moment.

As I circle back to the spot where it rang clear, I squint at the pile, feeling the way in but not seeing it. To me, it just looks like death ahead and all around. My Blood Magic knows life is in there, however, as I feel the black drake of my Bone Magic nod, too.

Confirming it.

That’s the way in. I glance at both my drakes now, as I feel this renewed life-energy surge through all of us. We follow the vibrancy of life inside our blood and we’ll find it—whatever we came here to find.

Ladies first. Strom nods at me. You’ve got the balanced power to feel both sides of this magic, Rikyava. I’m still only mostly feeling the death pull, other than a sliver of life-song coming through our bonds from you.

And I can barely feel the death magic, Bjorn confirms as he eyeballs me. If it wasn’t for your Bone Magic’s warning, I would have already touched that pile, not knowing it meant death for me and us.

Follow me, then, I say now as I regard them both. Like with Strom at Unhaemmerten, follow in my exact path like you both are bot flies on my ass. Touch nothing until we get to the life magic’s source, and we’ll get through this.

Hurry, Strom says, as I feel fear flash through him. Though I was born near the sea, I never was the best at holding my breath underwater, even in dragon form. I’m already feeling the struggle… and we still have to make it back out.

It shocks me to hear Strom may be the worst of us at holding his breath, when I thought it would have been me. But as I nod soberly now, I turn, focusing on that vibrant life-song flowing through my veins and heading on in.

It’s a tight squeeze in our dragon forms, into the pile of bones. As dead dragon skeletons tower all around us, forming a vault above our heads and a cavernous floor below, I see the way in.

It’s a small tunnel that digs into the tower of bones, twisting and turning. I follow it now, swimming as quickly as I dare in the compact space without touching anything.

The song of the dead inundates me as we swim into the pile. The bones of my Ancestors call to me, as they crowd all around now. My Bone Magic listens, understanding the deep solace of death, to my core. Because something about death is peaceful and endless, as it sweeps all the pain away. Something deep inside me wants that infinite solace.

Though something far more stubborn inside me wants life.

I hold on to my brighter Blood Magic now, as it guides me through this gauntlet of death. Far chillier than even the vast halls of Unhaemmerten , I sense something truly awful happened here, which first created this ancient pile.

Though I can hear that vast death-song calling me to touch those bones, something about it is not right. It’s just a vast flood of sound, I realize; I can’t hear any individual voices from these dead as we continue on.

It’s not the norm with my Bloodwalker power. As if some terrible magic stripped their soul’s voices from their bones forever, a deep, strange silence envelops my Bloodwalker’s senses through the Veil as we swim through this gauntlet of death.

Despite that siren-like song coming from the pile, these bones are empty, their souls not inside the Void of Ancestors; that thought chills me far more than anything else, as I swim further, navigating the tight twists and turns.

Like an octopus, I ease my coils and scales oh-so-carefully around every jutting knob of bones, because now I know some ancient terror happened here. Maybe a battle, maybe a massacre; these oldest Blood Dragons died because something attacked them, then kept their souls from entering the Ancestor’s Void or even remaining in their bones.

It’s something that annihilated them in a single swipe. I know that something is the Black Dragon—I feel its sinister power echo throughout the bones at the very bottom of the pile as we swim through them now.

What I don’t know is what happened to all those dead dragon souls, as we twist and turn our way down into those ancient bones. I begin to see the charred black runes of the creature burned into every femur and spine. Just like the Black Dragon’s terrible works above, these sear with a caustic red oilslick color shining through the black. Utterly diseased, their cruel slashes are the work of a beast far worse than any mortal Blood Dragon.

A thousand times worse than even Jarl Oggi Magnussen, waiting far above.

At last, we come to the epicenter of the bones. At the place where the life-song is strongest, I see a small clearing now, something in the middle of it.

Settled in a niche made by a few massive boulders, that something shimmers through the darkness of the water inside the pile; with an amazed snort, I feel the signature of brightest life emanate off it, even as the deepest death surrounds it.

I swim over now to peruse the object—and realize it’s embedded into the gargantuan skull of one of the most ancient Blood Dragons. I can’t tell what the silver artifact is as it sits in the ridged forehead of that skull, right between the gaping eye holes. It looks like some kind of adornment, but I know it’s more than that.

Still bright, it shines through the water with an inner light, when genuine silver should have tarnished long ago. The blazing sensation of Bloodwalker magic seethes off the object, beautiful and terrifying.

It’s coming off the skull, too; I don’t know who made this artifact, but I know it was made for this ancient dragon by a Bloodwalker, as I assess the massive dragon skull and the thing embedded in it with my power. I know this is what we’ve come down here to find, as I understand also that it will test us.

Test us, and discover if the truth we hold in our hearts is absolute—or flawed.

Who goes first? Bjorn regards me, understanding that this is the life-giving item we’ve come down here to find, this strange adornment embedded in the skull.

We touch it all together, on three, I say as my drakes spread out around me now, equidistant from the skull. Don’t go crazy and bite it or anything—a single talon will do. I’m pretty sure this thing was made by a Bloodwalker, whatever it is. And Jarl Jorg is right: it’s gonna blast us with the Ancestors the moment we touch it. So get ready for some kind of metaphysical fight. Don’t touch the skull itself, because it carries the death-energy. And Strom… hold on to your air.

Will do, Captain. Strom thinks snarkily now, though I know he’s dead serious.

See you on the other side. Bjorn glances at me, reaching out a talon as Strom and I do, as well.

I love you, both of you. Whatever happens. I tell them as I glance at Bjorn, then Strom.

We know. Strom winks back as Bjorn rumbles his agreement. And then we’re all touching the blazing silver object, without touching the ancient skull.

And my world is blasted with light.

Who has touched my Truthstone?! Disturbing my bones from their ancient rest? A powerful voice assails me now from that massive light. Brightness floods me so powerfully, I feel like I’m being burned alive, though some part of me knows my body is simply floating in the water at the center of the bone pile.

My talon riveted to the silver artifact, as this magic traps me to it.

We haven’t disturbed your bones! We’ve touched this silver thing that calls to us, giving us a signature of life, rather than death. I shout inside my mind now as I blister in that ultra-bright metaphysical space, writhing in what feels like white fire, blazing all through me.

You speak rightly and tell the truth. The voice seems to settle. From the searing cacophony of brightness, I feel a presence watch me now. Massive, it’s like a towering white dragon of sunlight.

Endless as the stars themselves.

Who are you? I ask inside my mind now, as I feel Bjorn and Strom having their own conversations with this ancient dragon. I’m not party to them; it’s like we’re all having individual invasions by the ancient soul that still inhabits this skull, bound down here by her own amulet embedded in her bones.

Strom, Bjorn, and I are still connected, but we’re not able to hear what’s happening with each other. We’re cut off, each of us going through this alone.

As we’re judged by the ancient creature who now assails us.

Who I am is not important. It is who you are that matters. And the truth inside your heart. That bright dragon responds now, as I see the outline of a blazing white drakaina at the center of the light. I think I see a shimmer of golden lines upon her, or serrated gold scale-tips, but everything is so dazzling, I can’t be sure.

I am Rikyava Andersen, Hog Skjaldm?r of the Blood Dragons of Norway and Sweden , I say now, giving it my title in my Lineage as I squint inside my mind to see the white drakaina better.

Lies! The ancient drakaina snarls at me now, as the brightness increases tenfold. I cry out, feeling like my body is about to boil from the inside out from my very own blood, as I writhe to escape that infernally bright power.

But I can’t, as I understand how all these dragons died now, those who came here for their Trial of Truth.

Boiled alive for telling this ancient drakaina lies.

Lie to me one more time, blood-daughter, and I will incinerate you from your lifeblood out. The ancient drakaina snarls at me. My ancient Truthstone helps me tell inner truths from falsehoods. I ask again: who are you? No more lying to me—or to yourself.

Suddenly, I understand what this ancient creature wants. It needs to take my measure, and only speaking from my truest heart will do. I refocus and tell it the deepest truth of what I am now.

Certain to my blood and bones it’s right.

My name is Rikyava Andersen, I say as a snarl of instinct surges inside me now, bolstering me for this fight. I was born a Blood Dragon of Sweden, but my real home lies at the Red Letter Hotel Paris, a place I was adopted into twenty years ago and where I truly feel I belong. I am the lifemate of Bjorn Magnussen and Strom Eriksson, two incredible drakes I want by my side, always. I love them to the roots of my being, though I am a warrior, through and through, and battle is always the song in my blood. Fuck with me, and pay the price, ancient one. By my very blood and bones, I swear it.

I feel the vast dragon pause in its blinding brightness.

And then it laughs, ringing with incredible harmonies all through its magnificent voice.