“Keep Sven's blade in hand,” came a deep rumble from behind. “Do not let go as the truth becomes clearer.”
“Uncle Bjorn,” Rokar exclaimed, happy to see the dragons that appeared behind them. “Uncle Heidrek.” He peered past them, eager to find someone else. “Is Dahlia not with you?”
Determined to remain here until the prophecy was fulfilled, Dahlia was Davyn’s deceased twin sister who fought alongside Bjorn and Heidrek in Múspellsheimr. Did that mean they weren’t witnessing a memory after all? Were they actually here this time?
“Dahlia is with us often,” Bjorn said, the love for his daughter obvious. “A welcome spy that keeps us informed of happenings in all worlds.”
“So we’re actually here?” Tess said, introducing herself. She had heard a lot about these two men. How their minds were in each other’s bodies because they were influenced by Skáld at the beginning but free from his grasp here on Múspellsheimr. At least for now. It was everyone’s hope their minds would return to their proper bodies once the prophecy lifted and they came back to Earth...or Midgard.
“You two are here in a sense,” Bjorn said, answering her question. “But your presence is different than those before you due to the Burn of Transition.”
“What do you know about that?” Rokar started to ask, but Heidrek cut him off.
“We have no time, we must go.” His eyes went from the battle and Skáld to Sven’s blade. “You must remember everything now so you can begin the end, then see the blade goes where it’s meant to next.” His emotion was obvious as his eyes stayed with Rokar’s. “See that my son Soren stays true to his path and leads as he should.” He shook his head. “Nothing must stop him...even himself...”
Then he vanished along with Bjorn.
She frowned at Rokar. “Sounds like Soren is going to have his hands full.”
“Yes,” he agreed. His troubled eyes returned to Skáld. More specifically to Soren’s dragon beside him, then to the female on the other side of the double-headed serpent.
“Ava,” Tess whispered, convinced of it. The female appeared to enjoy the battle as much as everyone else. Which sparked more memories. “She was almost as diplomatic then as she is now.”
Her sister had been convinced she could win Skáld over with time. By learning what made him tick, and becoming a clever voice in his ear where Tess’s dragon clearly thought to take more immediate action.
“I didn’t mess around, did I?” she said. Her old self certainly reflected a bit of her modern-day spunk. She flicked her tail enticingly in Skáld’s direction while eying Rokar and Big Red as if bored and unimpressed.
“Skáld is noticing you,” Rokar commented. One set of Skáld’s eyes peered at her with appreciation while the other set watched his sons fight. “I cannot say I blame him.”
She quirked the corner of her mouth. “Should I be jealous of my old self?”
“Based on the way my old self feels about her, perhaps.” He reeled her closer, his stance protective as they continued watching their past unravel. “He was most certainly infected with love.”
“Just like she is.” She recalled more by the moment. “But she wasn’t at first. In fact, she was as disdainful of it as everyone else...until the day she met you.”
“I remember the foreign sensation I felt when you sauntered past us in enemy territory as if you had every right to be there,” he said. “As if you knew exactly where you were going.”
“Because I did.” She recalled how determined she was to remain confident and aloof. “I’d had enough of what I saw happening to my people...the infection and death.” She shook her head, cringing at how much she had hated the idea of love. How foreign a concept it truly was to Múspellsheimr dragons. “I think I thought myself untouchable. Immune to it.”
“But you were not,” he murmured. “Any more than I was.”
“I felt it almost right away,” she said softly. “You and Big Red, pals that you were at the time, followed me, caught up...” Her eyes narrowed as the memory washed over her. “Hell, you two thought you’d take me right then and there.”
“It would not have been the first time we did such to a female.” He frowned. “We practiced cruelty together too often...until my eyes met yours, and I felt that feeling.”
“The first spark of infection.” Her eyes met his, surprised by the clarity of it all. “The same thing I feel now.”
He nodded in agreement. Their eyes returned to the battle and her former dragon’s antics. Big Red was a bloody mess, having certainly become the dragon he was now. And Tess? She made her move. She shifted close to Skáld, brushing him here and there with her tail, or neck, or whatever else her dragon deemed effective.
“Why, though?” Tess murmured, still trying to figure out the plan before at least a portion of it suddenly became crystal clear. “Oh, shit, she intends to injure him and slow him down, doesn’t she?”
“I think so,” Rokar said when something began to stir in the murky dark sky overhead. “Do you feel that?”
“Yeah,” she whispered, glad she was tucked against his side. Emotions bubbled up, fear, and love the strongest of them. “Something awesome but really, really bad is about to happen.”
The moment she said it a bright light appeared in the sky.
Seconds later, they finally discovered the cold, hard truth.
Chapter Thirty
ROKAR KEPT TESS against him and Sven’s sword at the ready when their surroundings broke into complete mayhem. Fire demons came out of nowhere, attacking the dragons with a fury that made everything explode. The dragons roared flames at the demons and in turn, the demons unleashed their crippling fire on the dragons.
“Do you feel that?” Tess shifted uncomfortably. “It feels like the heat we were experiencing on our journey only sharper by the moment.”
“I feel it.” He wasn’t about to tell her the blade on his back grew warmer and warmer. That’s when he figured things out, shocked, really, that no one had put the pieces together sooner. “Demon fire can be lethal to dragons.”
“Demon fire.” Her eyes shot to his as she realized the same thing. “That’s part of the uncomfortable heat we’re feeling, isn’t it?” Her eyes widened. “The Burn of Transition.”
“I believe so.” His gaze returned to the horror show happening all around them. More specifically to a demon that stood out from the rest.
“That’s the one from the cave,” Tess exclaimed. “The one who was kibitzing with our dragons.”
“Yes.” He looked to the light overhead growing brighter and brighter, causing many dragons to lose their bearings. “And my guess is that’s the elf you spoke with.”
“Retreat,” Skáld roared, aware he and his tribe were in big trouble if they didn’t flee soon. Yet instead of following his own orders, his eyes narrowed on the horizon.
On the all-too-familiar dragon stomping their way.
“Níðhöggr,” Tess whispered before the light expanded overhead and the fire demon started chanting. All the while, warmth turned to pain on Rokar’s back. “But...” She narrowed her eyes at the dragons running ahead of Níðhöggr. “Is he coming to fight Skáld, or is he chasing after those dragons?”
Rokar shook his head. “I think the double-headed serpent is trying to figure out the same thing.” He kept considering them. “Some of those are Sigdir dragons...our distant ancestors.”
“They must’ve been part of all this,” she said. “That’s probably why Leviathan knew they’d help us in the war when the First Blade initially appeared on your back.”
He nodded in agreement.
“Oh my God,” Tess exclaimed. The elf’s light and the fire demon’s chant created a vortex of sorts that encompassed Rokar’s dragon. A flash later, everyone stood in the midst of the very storm that had haunted Rokar and Tess.
That's when everything came flooding back.
“Created using the combined magic of newborn dragon love, demon and elven magic, they found a way t
o transport infected dragons to Midgard,” Rokar murmured. “The storm is the entranceway to the Burn of Transition.” He shook his head. “But where’s the First Blade...the key?”
“I think you’re holding it.” Tess's eyes fell to Sven’s blade, and the lightning zigzagging all over it. “It’s responding to what’s happening...More so by the second.”
“A blade sharpened by Thor,” he murmured. “Whose father is Odin.”
“Who would have had to approve this,” she echoed.
He shook his head, awed by what they witnessed. “Those dragons are fleeing toward the light...toward a new life.”
“So more than just us were infected,” she said.
Skáld reared up, evidently deciding he would battle his nemesis rather than flee.
But then, as they knew it would, everything took a heartbreaking turn before the infected dragons made it to freedom. Evidently, if the Sigdir dragons were involved, it wasn’t at this juncture. No, as they soon learned nothing went as planned. As it were, Tess's dragon should have already attacked Skáld and been racing toward Rokar.
But she wasn’t, and it would cost them dearly.
“Come, Mate,” Rokar’s dragon roared as Tess’s dragon raked her claws down the fleshy bits of Skáld’s belly visible beneath his scales.
Unfortunately, it was too little too late. The double-headed serpent slammed his tail into her head, and she went flying. Meanwhile, Skáld’s dragons gained the upper hand and converged on the demons who in turn fled, leaving the demon who had created the storm vulnerable.
“It’s all falling apart,” Tess said softly, tears in her eyes as Rokar’s dragon tried to get to Tess only for Skáld’s mighty wrath to divide itself between the two of them.
Likely seeing Rokar and Tess’s time coming to an end and protecting her ‘cover,’ Ava’s dragon leapt into a defensive position in front of Skáld alongside Soren’s dragon. They would protect him while he took care of business.
“I feel their sadness,” she whispered. “Ava and Soren know they’re about to lose us.” She squeezed his hand, remembering one of their encounters with the Årud in Níðhöggr’s Realm. Soren’s incredible sadness when she intercepted the axe that nearly killed him. “His dragon must’ve been remembering this moment.” Her eyes met Rokar’s. “The moment you and I sacrificed so he could go on...because that’s essentially what happened. We got things rolling, now he and Ava have to continue what we started.”
While defending Skáld seemed like an awful thing for Soren and Ava to do, it was their best chance to see through the bigger objective.
To eventually get infected dragons off this world.
As for right now, Rokar and Tess's former lives were coming to an end.
In those final moments when they were killed, they discovered just what Skáld and Níðhöggr were capable of. The power at their disposal. Skáld roared so loudly the ground shook, and lava shot into the air. One head focused on Tess’s dragon and the other on Rokar’s.
“He’s after my soul,” Tess murmured. “He has the power to snuff it out just like Dagr said.”
And he did.
Or so it appeared as Tess's dragon struggled toward Rokar. Her eyes never left his while Skáld rained down an all-consuming trail of blazing fire on her. One so lethal she was destroyed almost instantaneously, leaving behind nothing but a pile of ashes.
“No,” Rokar’s dragon roared, caving in the portal altogether as his heart broke.
“Oh, yes,” Skáld seethed, doing the unthinkable as the gateway dwindled down into a storm within Rokar’s eyes. One the double-headed serpent lay a curse upon before he ended his son as swiftly as he had Tess.
“He cursed my soul,” Rokar said, baffled. “He cursed me so that if I returned in another life infected, then those I loved would be taken from me.” He met Tess’s eyes, beyond sad for all he had caused, all the grief and heartache. “Because you’re my mate, the same happened to you.”
“No.” She shook her head, clearly feeling his angst, knowing how much this could set him back. “All you did was try to give us a chance at love.” Her pained gaze went to the fleeing dragons, then to Soren and Ava’s dragons who had kept their cover intact for now. “You tried to give others a chance.” Her damp eyes returned to his. “You are not responsible for the actions of an evil dragon like Skáld or the curse he laid upon you.”
While he knew on some level she was right, it was still hard to come to terms with. His eyes drifted to the pile of ash that had been her former dragon. “We failed.” He shook his head. “And we are still paying for it.”
“Did we fail, though?” she said softly. “Because my soul wasn't snuffed out, was it?”
“No,” he replied, confused until he saw what happened next. What took place after Skáld stomped away with his dragons, confident in his victory.
Níðhöggr, who had retreated when faced with too many enemy dragons, returned.
“He looks so sad,” Tess whispered, her eyes misty. She clearly felt a connection with her former father. “He cared, Rokar...” She frowned. “How is that possible when dragons aren’t supposed to feel love of any sort?”
He shook his head, as Níðhöggr went to the pile of ashes, hung his head and released a low, heartbreaking keen. There could be no doubt he had felt a great deal for his daughter.
That he was, in fact, infected with love himself.
Moments later, the Great Serpent raised his head, determination in his eyes as he chanted. The last part of the puzzle was answered when Tess's ashes swirled into a single fiery leaf. It twirled by on the wind, drifting here and there before it returned, sparked brightly and a beautiful fiery ash sprung up in the very spot her ashes had just been.
“He resurrected your soul,” Rokar murmured, sure of it. “Tethering it to that tree until you were reborn.”
Within moments of the tree appearing the same piercing pain he had felt when first marked with the First Blade seared his back.
“Rokar,” Tess exclaimed, fear in her voice when he fell to his knees, and Múspellsheimr faded away.
As their cozy cave reappeared, pain turned to warmth then raced up his arm until the hilt of Sven’s blade returned to the blazing red that initially filled Rokar’s First Blade tattoo. Flaming lightning sizzled over the metal before fading away.
Almost immediately, he felt lighter. As though a great weight had been lifted off of him. He soon learned why when Magnus and Leviathan appeared at the entranceway.
“It is the First Blade itself,” Leviathan said softly, his voice reverent. His gaze fell to Sven’s sword then went between Rokar and Tess. “The tale of the First Blade and Burn of Transition is no longer lost. You were at the heart of its creation, and it has returned. You did more for dragon kind than you will ever know. You created the means for dragon love to flourish.” Respect lit his eyes. “You created the portal that began a new era.”
Chapter Thirty-One
AFTER ROKAR SHEATHED the First Blade, a sword that had been created via boundless heartache and sacrifice, she did her best to remain level as his eyes met hers. Gorgeous eyes no longer the color of the storm but a pale smoky gray that soothed her spirit.
Good thing, because she needed a soothed spirit. Tess lifted the back of his shirt with a trembling hand, fearful of what she would find there. She didn’t want Skáld’s touch anywhere near him or even the Transition for that matter. She wanted him free of it all. Free of all the horrific things that had happened.
“They’re gone,” she breathed, never so relieved to see both tattoos had vanished. She couldn’t stop the blasted tears as her eyes met his. “They’re really gone.”
Understanding they needed time alone to process everything, Magnus and Leviathan left. Rokar wrapped his arms around her and held her for yet another good cry. Outside of losing her daughter, she had barely shed a tear her whole life but had already suffered the waterworks twice since they met.
Or should she say since they found eac
h other again?
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, finally getting a hold of herself. She rested her cheek against his chest. “It’s just all been a lot.”
Not only the horror show they’d just witnessed, but everything else had left her emotionally raw. Losing Leah. Rokar losing his family. Realizing Axle hadn’t been the monster she thought he was in the end but under the influence of a curse. Even feeling such a strong connection with Níðhöggr then losing it left her sad.
“Never be sorry, mate,” Rokar responded, clearly claiming her as his own as he stroked her hair and soothed her. “It’s all part of what had to happen so that dragon love could flourish and find its way to Midgard.” He tilted her chin until their eyes met. “Imagine if it hadn’t. None of us would be here...we would not have evolved.”
She managed a small nod, finding not just comfort in his eyes but the strength he possessed despite how much havoc Skáld’s curse wreaked.
“The First Blade helped me find strength,” he said in answer to her thoughts. “And you. Because as you said, we cannot be blamed for Skáld’s actions. We had to do what we did...we had to try.”
“I know,” she whispered, glad she had remembered everything at the end. Glad she knew their dragons weren’t just doing it for their own love but everyone else’s. “It wasn’t a selfish act.”
“No,” he said softly. “It was the furthest thing from it.”
“How did we know such a thing was possible though?” she said. “I remember a lot, but not that. Not how combining all that power would open a gateway for infected dragons.” She shook her head. “I mean dragons with the ability to love.”
“I don’t know how we knew.” He led her to the fire where he laid out a fur for them to rest on. “We have more pressing things to figure out right now, though.”
She arched her brows and smirked at the makeshift bed. “Oh, I think we've figured out that end of things just fine.”
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