Black Blood

I look from the man to the door one last time. I nod at the man and walk past him. That door is my way to headquarters. That door is hopefully my way to a solution. If the solution is not behind that door, all these months have been for nothing. Everyone who has helped us is useless, all the death and all the pain will have been for nothing. Nerves are racing through my body. I walk along the path to the door. Do not give a single glance back or at the millions of souls on the floor.

I look at the dozens of locks that keep the door closed. There is one lock that catches my eye. The black lock with a red stone in the middle stands out head and shoulders from the rest. The black is matt and dark. The stone is bright red and shining. I saw that lock years ago. The first time I entered the headquarters, Nora opened the lock. I take the lock in my right hand, bring my left to it. I put the middle part of my left middle finger against the stone. That is the place where the two semi-circles and the dash meet. The only place that marks me as Night Rider. The only mark visible only to me and the other Night Riders. The stone lights up and the lock jumps open. It’s not just the lock with the stone that opens, but the dozens of other locks as well.

‘Celeste.’ I turn and look at the man.

‘Until we meet again,’ is the last thing he says before I push the door open. A long stone staircase appears. The staircase is carved out of the mountain. The light is low and the cold is back. The space where the stairs are located is narrow, very narrow. That is not the only thing that stands out. The floor in front of the stairs and the beginning of the stairs themselves are black. The ground seems to be charred and full of ashes. Parts of the first few steps are gone. When I turn round to the back of the door, I see two enormous black burn marks in the iron. Scratches as big as the surface of the door run across the surface. We are not the first to visit.

I put my right foot on the first step and start making my way up. The staircase is steep, long, cold and bumpy. It is similar to the way it took us to get here. The light behind me fades more and more, the corridor becomes darker and darker. A loud noise echoes through the corridor and it gets even darker. The door has closed. Shivers of cold run down my spine. The stairs, like the first corridor we entered, seem endless. My legs start to sour and it smells like ash in here. It is too dark to see if there are any burn marks.

Out of nowhere, a new iron door appears. I have to make an effort to see the locks. Again, there is the same lock as at the beginning of the staircase and dozens of others. However, not all the locks are intact on this door. Some are broken and seem to have been broken open. At this door, too, the lock works in the same way. The locks open and the door falls open. I expect to walk into the headquarters, but to no avail. A long dark corridor appears again. I sigh and continue on my way. I have to turn several corners and after what seems like almost a kilometre, I see a new door. This door, unlike the rest, is open. The door is black, full of scratches and dents.

Afraid of what I might find, I push the door open. The headquarters we have been heading for for months appears in front of me. Unfortunately not in the condition I found it the last time. I put my hand in front of my mouth. Almost the entire headquarters is in ashes. The floor is strewn with them, the curtains are burnt, the cupboards that used to be there lie in pieces on the floor. The window is broken and the window frame seems to have been eaten out of the wall. It is windy in here. Dozens of papers lie strewn across the floor. Some are no longer legible, others only have a few words. The only thing that has remained somewhat intact is the desk in the middle of the room.

Novak has been following me all this time and is now standing behind me, shocked. Slowly, I walk into the room towards the desk. I wipe a layer of ash from the half-finished desk chair and sit on it. The thing creaks, feels unstable but holds my weight. The desk is full of papers. Some are unreadable, others are strewn with ashes and some are still almost entirely white. Novak has come to stand beside me. At first I don’t read what the papers say. I can only look at them in shock. Novak takes a piece of paper from the desk, wipes the ashes off and looks at it intently.

‘What does it say here?’ he asks and holds it out to me.

Bloodrider si hoc legis. Quaere in indice 100

‘Bloodrider if you are reading this. Look for the list of 100,’ I read. I put the paper down beside me and start searching through all the papers like mad. I throw all the unreadable papers off the desk until I reach a long list. I pick up the list from the desk and try to grasp what I am looking at. This is a list of 100 first and last names. Some of the names I recognise from stories of powerful magicians. I just don’t understand what to do with this list. Why would Nora, Viko and Tristan have a list of 100 names? I try to recognise a name and see a pattern.

‘Those are the strong creatures and mages we know. Micus Laoon is an Alpha,’ Novak says and points to the name at number 36.

‘I don’t understand what to do with this list. Should I establish ties with them? Ask them for help? Do they have something I need?’ I think aloud. Novak, meanwhile, has grabbed a new paper from the desk and looks at it with a startled expression.

‘You have to kill them.’ I look at Novak as if he has gone mad. Why should I go and kill 100 people? If I was in mortal danger I would not do that. I am not like my father and I never will be. Novak puts the paper in front of me. I try to understand what I am reading but again my brain cannot process it. There are so many words on this paper that I don’t know.

‘They’ve come up with a plan and you’re not going to like it. Velion is the spell that Yin and Yang used to bind themselves to the life lines. If I’m reading this correctly, Tristan, Nora and Viko have taken that spell and adapted it. The spell here is in three parts, just like the Velion spell. You first need enough magic to be able to perform the rest. No one has that amount of magic and you can’t just get it. The only way to get that amount of magic is to steal it.’ Novak takes the list of names and puts it next to the other paper.

‘This list contains the most powerful creatures with the most power. To take over their magic, you need a spell and a gemstone. You curse the stone and connect it to your own life lines. As soon as you kill someone, their magic will be absorbed into the stone and passed on to your lifelines.’ I take the Onyx that Nelly gave me from under my dress. Was this coincidence, luck or a plan I didn’t know about? The more Novak tells me about this plan, the more I don’t like it. This is dark magic, very dark magic. We all know how it devoured Yin and Yang.

‘What Yin and Yang did after they had enough magic was to go to the intersection of the lifelines and connect themselves by almost destroying the lifelines. If I read what is written here correctly, they want you to slit your wrists at the junction during a spell, give your life to the lifelines in the hope that you will be brought back to life. When that happens, you will have the purest and most powerful magic in the world.’ I look at Novak in total shock. This plan is insane. Killing 100 people and taking away their magic and then committing suicide in the hope that you will wake up with the greatest magic known to man. They must have been drunk when they thought this up. No way am I going to do this.

‘This is crazy. I’m not going to kill 100 people and commit suicide,’ I say as I put my hands in my hair. Novak stares at the two papers in front of us.

‘You have no choice,’ Novak says firmly. I get up from the chair and walk to where the window used to be.

‘Of course I have a choice. I’m not a murderer, don’t want to be. I don’t want to be like my father. I can’t do that at all,’ I say in a raised voice. Novak sighs deeply.

‘Celeste think. If you don’t do this, if you don’t get that magic, you will die. You will weaken to the point where it will kill you. If you die the Night Riders line dies, your father has all access to the life lines. There will be no one left to stop him from killing the Underworld,’ he tries. I shake my head.

‘How am I, a weakened and the last Night Rider supposed to stop a tyrant like my father? That man has an army. He can’t. Can’t someone else do it?’ I try to talk myself out of this deranged plan, though the way out seems to be getting smaller and smaller.

‘With you alive, there is a chance that new Night Riders will come one day. You have to stay alive to be able to pass on the magic. Besides, you’re the only person who has a connection to all four life lines. You are the only one who can do this.’ As hard and terrible as I find it to admit, Novak is right. We have little time. Every day I feel myself growing more tired and my magic weakening. It’s this plan or no plan, we don’t have time for a new one.

I look across the vast mountains. The white peaks that rise here and there above the rest, the birds that fly along the rocks. Four months ago, I was Christiaan’s wife. I lived in a castle, I was raped, belittled and abused. I had strict rules to follow and there was no light in the darkness. Now I stand here. In the headquarters that was burned to ashes, the last Night Rider, without a dragon and with the boy I share a blood bond with. It has been a long, endless and bumpy journey. But now I realise that this journey is far from over.

The End of book 1