A Dragon of a Different Color
By Rachel Aaron
Chapter 1
Brohomir,
Great Seer of the Heartstrikers, (now) eldest child of Bethesda the
Heartstriker, consort to a Nameless End, and Tetris World Champion for
thirty-three years running sat at the end of a sunny box canyon deep in the New
Mexico Badlands, playing with his baby dragon.
“Good,
gooooood,” he said as he grabbed another terrified rat out of the burlap sack
beside him. “Watch closely. This one’s going to go high.”
The
little feathered dragon snapped her needle-sharp teeth at him, her golden eyes
locked on the rat as Bob reeled back like he was going to toss the animal high
into the clear blue sky. Then, right before he let fly, he turned and dropped
the rat on the ground beside him instead.
The
little dragon wasn’t fooled for a second. The rodent barely hit the sand before
she was on it, devouring it in a single, violent bite.
“Very good,” Bob said proudly, patting
her head.
The
hatchling licked her chops and darted back into position. Bob was reaching for
the next rat when a long black shadow fell over him.
“Dramatic
as ever, I see,” he said, tucking the wiggling rodent back into the bag as he
turned to squint up at the tall figure silhouetted against the bright desert
sun.
“You’re
one to talk about drama,” the Black Reach replied as he stepped into the
canyon.
Bob
smiled politely and opened his arms to the little dragoness, but she just
snorted and turned away, skittering down the canyon to hunt the lizards that
sheltered in its dirt walls instead.
“So,”
Bob said, turning back to the elder seer. “How did you get here so quickly?
Express boat from China? Or have you finally gotten over your irrational fear
of letting humans fly you?”
“Neither,”
the Black Reach said, watching the hatchling hunt. “I didn’t have to rush
because I never left in the first place. I knew I’d have to come right back
after the incident in your mother’s throne room, so I decided to stay and see a
bit of the country. I haven’t been to these lands since before the Europeans
invaded.”
“I
hope you didn’t cut your vacation short on my
account,” Bob said. “We need the tourism income. This coup of Julius’s is
costing our clan a fortune.”
The
Black Reach nodded, but he wasn’t looking at Bob. His eyes were still locked on
the young dragoness crouching at the end of the canyon, her tail twitching back
and forth like a cat’s as she waited for the lizard she was stalking to make
its move. “You know I can’t leave her with you.”
“I
know no such thing,” Bob said. “She’s a Heartstriker.”
“She’s
a seer,” the Black Reach said angrily. “And so are you. I cannot permit one
clan to control both of the forces that shape our race’s future.” He turned
back to Bob with a stern scowl. “Give her to me.”
Bob
smiled sweetly. “No.”
The
Black Reach’s old eyes narrowed in his too-young human face, but Bob just
turned and whistled. The little dragon’s head shot up at the sound, and she
whirled around, leaping into Bob’s arms with enough force to make him stumble
backward. “Good girl,” he said proudly, hugging her close as he grinned at the
Black Reach. “You see? She loves me. How could I possibly give her away?”
The
oldest seer looked disgusted. “She’s not a pet.”
“She’s
not,” Bob agreed. “But she’s so
clever. Watch this.” He grinned down at the dragon in his arms. “Go on,
darling. Show him what I taught you.”
The
little dragon growled deep in her throat, and then she was gone, her dark
feathered body vanishing like smoke. When the haze cleared, Bob was holding a
human child. A tiny, delicately boned toddler with fine, perfectly straight
black hair and predatory golden eyes that absolutely did not belong on a mortal face.
“You
see?” Bob said, delighted. “She’s gifted. Even Amelia couldn’t hold a human
shape straight out of the egg, but she picked it up on the first try.”
“All
the more reason not to leave her with you,” the Black Reach said angrily. “Be
reasonable, Brohomir. She has her whole life in front of her. If you truly
cared for her future, you would not risk it by dragging her into your doomed
plans.”
“But
that’s exactly why I need her,” Bob argued, clutching the girl closer. “She’s
my ace. My winning move.”
“Then
she is useless,” the seer said. “We both know how this game ends. The only
thing I can’t see is why you’re still playing it.”
“I’d
think that’d be obvious,” Bob said with a shrug. “We’ve both seen the future,
but unlike you, I don’t like mine. Hence: plots.”
“The
last thing you need is more plots,”
the Black Reach said angrily. “This isn’t my fault. I’m not forcing you to act.
You can always choose to turn back, abandon your plans, and be spared.”
“Oh,”
Bob said, grinning wide. “I get it now. This is my official warning, isn’t it?”
He laughed in delight. “I’m flattered you came in person! Estella only got a
phone call.”
“Estella
wasn’t being half so reckless.”
“Yes,
well, she always did lack vision,” Bob agreed. “But tell me honestly, Mr. Death
of Seers. In the ten centuries you’ve been working this gig, has that line ever
worked? Did any seer ever hear your warning, say ‘you know, he’s right,’ and
abandon their plans?”
“No,”
the Black Reach said bitterly. “But that doesn’t mean I get to stop. This is
not my ‘gig.’ It’s my reason for being. I am Dragon Sees Eternity. Like my
brother, Dragon Sees the Beginning, I was created by your ancestors for a
single purpose: to ensure that the mistakes of the past that destroyed our home
and doomed all dragons to be refugees on this plane are never repeated. That is my sacred duty, the task for which I exist.
But though I can never be lenient in my responsibilities, I can be merciful. I reach out to every
seer the moment I see them starting down a forbidden path and offer them my
knowledge. I gave each of them the opportunity the dragons who created me never
had: a chance to turn back, to choose another way and avoid destruction. That
is the gift I give to every seer, and now, I’m giving it to you.”
“Again,
I’m flattered,” Bob said. “But—”
“No,”
he snapped. “No buts. Stop trying to be clever for a moment, Brohomir, and listen. You are embarking down a future
that has only one outcome, and it is the one I cannot allow. We’ve had many
good conversations over your short life. I would even go so far as to call you
my friend. So as your friend, I’m
begging you, don’t do this. Don’t make me kill you.”
Bob
sighed, looking down at the rocky, reddish dirt between them. “It’s not every
day one receives a heartfelt plea from one of the two great dragon constructs,”
he said at last. “I’m touched, I really am, but I’m afraid my plans remain
unchanged.”
“Why?”
the Black Reach growled, his deep voice shaking with frustration. “You know you
are doomed. We’ve both seen it, so why do you persist?”
“Because
seeing the future isn’t the same as understanding it,” Bob said, raising his
head to smile at the pigeon who fluttered down from the clear blue sky to perch
on his fingers. “You’re the one who taught me that a seer’s greatest weakness
is his own expectations. We grow so used to seeing everything before it
happens, we forget that we can still be surprised. That events which appear
unquestionable from one angle can look entirely different from another.”
“Is
that your strategy?” The Black Reach sneered. “Hide in my blind spot? Even
though I’ve known every possible turn of your life since before you were born?”
Bob
shrugged. “What other hope do I have? As you just said, you’ve been plotting
all of this since before I was born. I can’t compete with that level of
knowledge and planning. But the fact that we’re having this conversation proves
there’s at least one angle you haven’t seen yet, and so long as that’s true, I
have hope.”
He
leaned down to press a kiss to his pigeon’s feathered head, and the Black Reach
turned away in disgust. “Sometimes I wonder if you really have gone mad,” he
muttered. “But I’ve said my piece. You can see the death that’s coming as well
as I. If that’s not enough to scare you into changing course, there’s nothing
more I can do.”
“But
you’ll still try.”
“Of
course I’ll try,” the construct said. “Until it becomes past, the future is
never set.” He gave Bob a sad smile. “You’re not the only one who can hope.”
Bob
smiled back. “Does this mean you’ve given up on taking my darling away?” he
asked, hugging the little dragon-turned-human in the crook of his arm. “Since
time is so short and all?”
“I
shouldn’t,” the Black Reach said. “It’s not good practice, but…” He trailed
off, studying the little dragon, who watched him curiously in return. “I don’t
foresee any lasting harm to her under your care,” he said with a shrug. “You
may keep her until the end. We both know it won’t be very long.”
“Your
kindness is appreciated,” Bob said warmly. “Thank you.”
“If
you want to thank me, then listen,” the Black Reach said angrily, glaring at
Bob one last time before he turned and walked away. “I will see you two more
times before the end. Let us hope you make better use of those chances than you
did this one.”
“I
always strive to improve!” Bob called after him, but the cheerfulness rang
hollow even in his own ears.
The
ancient construct was already gone in any case, his tall body vanishing into
the glaring light of the desert beyond the mouth of the sheltered canyon. Bob
was still squinting at the place where he’d been when something shot through
the blue sky above him. Something very large, moving very fast.
Bob
dove for cover, clutching the golden-eyed child to his chest as he rolled them
into the shelter of the canyon seconds before the shadow of the hunting
dragoness passed over them.
“That’s
our cue,” he whispered when the danger had passed, staring warily through the
canyon at the sliver of blue sky above. “Come along, love. This desert’s about
to get very crowded, which means it’s
time for us to go.”
The
little girl snapped her teeth and pointed angrily at the bag of rats lying
abandoned on the ground.
“Later,”
he promised, climbing out of the canyon’s lee. “Or Bob’s not your uncle.”
He’d
been waiting ages to make that joke. Unfortunately, it went right over the
little dragon’s head, leaving her staring in confusion as he carried her down
the hidden path out the back of the canyon and up the slope into the copse of
dry sagebrush behind it.
“Here,
right?” he asked his pigeon, who’d flown ahead.
The
bird cooed, fluttering up to perch in the thorny, twisted branches where
another bird was already waiting. A huge black one with sharp, intelligent eyes
that watched the pigeon as though she were the end of the world.
“I
can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Raven croaked, taking a large step
down the branch away from the pigeon. “I know playing with fire is a dragon’s
first instinct, but this is pushing it. Even for you.”
“Ah,”
Bob said, setting the little girl back down on her feet. “But if you didn’t
also think it was worth the risk, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Raven snapped.
“Algonquin’s got us all by the tail feathers. Next to that, even your madness
seems sane.”
He
paused, looking at Bob like he expected the dragon to argue, but the seer just
smiled. “Is everything ready, then?”
“Ready
as can be, given the circumstances.” The bird tilted his head at Bob. “You?”
The
seer pulled out his ancient brick of a phone with a flourish, angling the
green-tinted screen down so Raven could see the flashing message icon through
the sun’s glare. He had over a hundred texts pending, mostly from Chelsie, but
the newest was the one that mattered.
Unfortunately—and
probably spitefully, given the source—the text was in Mandarin Chinese. Not
Bob’s strongest language considering he hadn’t used it in over six centuries.
He studied the pixelated characters for several seconds before giving up and
turning the phone to Raven.
The
bird gave him a horrified look. “Really?”
“You’re
famous for speaking every language,” Bob said with a shrug. “Make yourself
useful.”
He
thrust the phone at the spirit again, and Raven shook his head wearily, hopping
down from the branch to perch on the dragon’s shoulder where he had a better
view.
“‘We’re
coming.’”
Bob
blinked. “Is that all?”
“There’s
another bit promising death to you and all your clan, but that’s the general
gist,” Raven reported.
“Marvelous,”
Bob said, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “Then yes. I’m ready. ”
Raven
looked more worried than ever. “You’re playing with a lot of lives,
Heartstriker. Are you certain this is going to work?”
“The
future is never certain,” Brohomir said honestly. “But I’ve been setting up
this domino chain for nearly my entire life, so I’m pretty sure. On the upside, though, if I’m not right, we’ll all be dead, and I won’t have to listen
to you say ‘I told you so.’”
The
bird tilted his head, and for a brief moment, Bob felt what it was like to have
every raven in the world staring at you at once. “This is no time for jokes,
seer,” the Spirit of Ravens rumbled. “I’m taking a big gamble trusting you.”
“We’re
all gambling,” Bob assured him. “But that’s all we can do. The future is a
moving target. You can make all the careful plans you want, but nothing is ever
certain until the moment actually comes. Even then, the whole world can turn on
a heartbeat. That said, if you follow my instructions to the letter—to the letter, mind—we stand a very decent
chance of achieving the age-old dream of having our cake and eating it, too.”
Raven
blinked his beady black eyes. “You are a very strange sort of dragon.”
“Nonsense,”
Bob said. “I’m just a dragon, as greedy and ruthless and results oriented as
any other. But that’s why you can trust me. All of this is to my benefit even
more than it is to yours, which is as close to scout’s honor as my kind gets.
And speaking of results, you’ve got your marching orders, which means it’s time
to fly away home. I know you true immortals have a flexible relationship with
time, but the rest of us are on a schedule.”
Raven
shot another dark look at Bob’s pigeon. “None of us has much time if you mess
this up.”
“Then
let’s make sure I don’t by keeping
our timetable,” the seer said, tapping the bare spot on his wrist where his
watch would be if he’d been wearing one. “Hop hop, blackbird.”
With
a final roll of his black eyes, Raven spread his wings and flew away, vanishing
between one flap and the next. When he was gone, Bob looked back down at the
little dragon, who’d spent the entire conversation rolling in the dirt at his
feet. “Shall we be off, too?”
As
usual, the girl didn’t even seem to hear the question, but her head shot right
up a second later when the sound of a car engine broke the desert quiet. She
scrambled up into the tree as the noise got louder, changing back into a dragon
so she could snake through the tangled branches to get a better look at the SUV
full of mortal tourists that had just pulled over at the trailhead down the
hill.
“Right
on time,” Bob said cheerfully, holding out his hand to his pigeon. When he had
her comfortably nestled on his shoulder again, Bob started down the hill.
“Come, love,” he called. “It’s time for you to learn the joys of grand theft
auto.”
The
dragoness scurried down the tree, kicking her feet in the loose dirt as she ran
after him down the desert hill toward the unsuspecting humans and the car that
would soon be theirs.
***
At
that same moment, Julius Heartstriker, youngest son of Bethesda the
Heartstriker and founder of the newly formed Heartstriker Council, was still
trapped in the most frustrating meeting of his life.
“For
the last time,” he growled, glaring
at his mother across their new three-sided Council table. “We will not vote to
unseal your dragon until you vow—vow,
in blood—that you will never try to
undermine this Council again.”
“And
for the last time, I’ll vow to do no
such thing,” Bethesda said with a toss of her glossy black hair. “Future
rebellion is my right as a dragon. What sort of deposed clan head doesn’t try
to take back her power?”
“None,”
Ian said quietly, his newly brown eyes gleaming with barely restrained
violence. “Which is why deposed clan heads are usually rendered headless. But Julius showed you mercy, and
you took it. Don’t cry now because it’s time to pay.” He stabbed his finger
down on the pledge sitting on the table in front of her. “Sign it. Or you’ll
never fly again.”
That
was harsher than Julius would have gone, but he didn’t say a word. It’d been
two hours since they’d freed Chelsie and the Fs and moved on to the unsealing
of Bethesda, and his willingness to tolerate his mother’s antics was long gone.
He’d never expected her to meekly accept her fate—he wasn’t sure Bethesda the
Heartstriker knew what ‘meek’ meant—but he hadn’t thought it would take fifteen drafts to find a version of
“promise you won’t try to undermine the new system again and you can have your
dragon back” that she would sign.
“We’ve
been more than fair,” he reminded her. “But it’s over. The Heartstriker Council
is here to stay, and if you want to stay on it as anything more than this”—he pointed at her sealed human
body—“you’ll stop being stubborn.”
The
Heartstriker gave him an ugly look. “This is extortion.”
“Then
you should be used to it,” Ian said, growling deep in his throat. “Sign it,
Mother.”
Bethesda’s
face grew sullen, and then she reached out to grab the paper off the table. “Fine,” she snarled, stabbing her
razor-sharp nail into the pad of her thumb. “You want to cement the doom of
this clan? On your heads be it.”
She
stabbed the bleeding wound down on the paper, sealing the deal with her blood.
When it was done, magic bit down sharp as her teeth, making them all gasp.
Still, it was over, and Julius couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief as he
took the signed vow back from her. “Thank you.”
“Enjoy
it while it lasts,” she snarled, licking the blood off her finger. “It doesn’t
matter what you make me sign—this enterprise is doomed. Dragon clans are ruled
by fear and fire, not councils. If I can’t rebel, someone else will, and when
the inevitable finally comes, the last thing you’ll hear is me saying ‘I told
you so.’ Right before I bite off your heads.”
Technically,
that was exactly the sort of threat she was no longer supposed to be making,
but Julius was too sick of arguing to care. He just signed his name at the
bottom of the bloody contract with a normal ink pen as fast as he could before
passing it to Ian, who did the same. When all three of their names were signed,
magic bit down again. The Council’s this time, not Bethesda’s. As powerful as
clan magic was, it couldn’t force a dragon to act against her own self-interest.
Only blood oaths could enforce behavior, which was why they’d had to go through
all of this. Now that her blood and their names were on the same contract,
though, they were bound together. Bethesda was now forbidden from undermining
the Council’s authority by her own fire, which meant they could finally move on.
“Now
that’s finished,” Ian said, waving the bloody contract to dry it before placing
it in his leather dossier, “I motion to unseal Bethesda the Heartstriker. All
in favor?”
They
all raised their hands.
“Motion
passes,” Ian said, glaring at their mother as she shot out of her chair. “I
trust future Council decisions won’t be this obnoxious.”
“That
depends on you,” Bethesda said flippantly. “All of this voting and talking was
your idea, not mine. Now, if we’re quite finished,
get this cursed thing off me. You wouldn’t believe the ache this seal is
putting on my poor wings.”
Seeing
how she’d happily left him like that for a month and a half, Julius had little
sympathy. But as fitting as it would have been to let her suffer, a promise was
a promise. “Let’s go get Amelia.”
Bethesda
cringed at the mention of her eldest daughter’s name. “Isn’t there someone
else?”
Julius
shrugged. “Not unless you want to owe Svena another favor. The seal Amelia put
on you is too complicated for anyone else.”
“Assuming
Amelia’s sober enough to manage it,” Ian added, glancing at his watch. “It is nearly five o’clock.”
“It’s
always five o’clock for the Planeswalker,” Bethesda said bitterly. “But if
there’s one thing Amelia’s always been good at, it’s magic under the influence.
So long as she’s not passed out, we should be fine.”
The
truth of that made Julius wince. It was on his list to stage an intervention
for his oldest sister soon. Right now, though, Amelia’s high-functioning
alcoholism was the least of his worries. “I just hope she’s feeling well enough
to manage it. Last time I saw her, she didn’t look so good.”
Not
since Marci had died and taken half of Amelia’s fire with her.
“That’s
nothing,” Bethesda said flippantly. “I cut Amelia in half when she was just a
little older than you. It was supposed to serve as an example to the rest of
her clutch, but she ruined it by surviving. Anyway, if she could live through
that, she can live through anything. I’m more worried about her ‘accidentally’
sealing something else, the spiteful little snake.”
At
this point, Julius wouldn’t mind if Amelia “accidentally” turned their mother
into a toad. Again, though, done was done, so he stood up and grudgingly
motioned for Bethesda to lead the way.
“I
can’t believe we have to go and find her ourselves,” she complained as they
walked out of the throne room. “How dare Frieda and the others abandon their
positions! Now nothing works.”
“I’m
sure we’ll survive without the Fs,” Julius said. “We need to learn to run
things for ourselves, and they deserve to fly free. All of them.”
He
glanced pointedly at Chelsie’s Fang, which was still lying untouched on the
balcony where she’d dropped it when she’d gone for their mother’s throat, but
Bethesda was too busy rolling her eyes to notice.
“You
say that now,” she growled as she
yanked open the plain wooden doors that had been quickly installed to
temporarily replace the ornate ones Bob had broken when he’d smashed his way
into the throne room. “But when there’s no breakfast tomorrow, you’ll be
singing a different—”
She
stopped short. The throne room doors opened into the Hall of Heads, the long
tunnel that served as both a display gallery for the taxidermy heads of
Bethesda’s enemies and a lobby for the golden elevator that connected the
Heartstriker’s peak to the rest of the mountain, including Amelia’s rooms one
floor down. But though they were still a good fifty feet away, the elevator
doors at the hallway’s opposite end were already rolling open to reveal an
extremely nervouslooking Katya.
They
must have spotted each other at the same moment, because the moment the white
dragoness’s eyes met his, her expression changed to one of relief. “There you
are!” she cried, running toward them. “I’ve been looking everywhere! I tried
asking, but there was no one working the concierge desk. No one working
anywhere, actually.”
Bethesda
shot her youngest son an “I told you so” look, which he pointedly ignored. “I’m
sorry you had trouble,” he said, stepping forward to greet his friend. “What
can we do for—”
“Is
it Svena?” Ian interrupted, pushing his way forward. “Is she ready to clutch?”
Katya’s
nervous look returned. “Actually, she finished clutching just a few minutes
ago.”
Which
meant Ian was now a father. “Congratulat—”
“So
why am I finding out now?” Ian said
angrily. “She promised she wouldn’t lay without me there.”
“She
did,” Katya admitted, dropping her eyes. “But that was before.”
“Before
what?”
The
youngest daughter of the Three Sisters sighed. Then, like a soldier facing a
firing line, she drew herself to her full height. “Council of the
Heartstrikers,” she said formally, her blue eyes looking at them each in turn.
“Svena the White Witch, Queen of the Frozen Sea, has commanded me to inform you
that all treaties, agreements, and other friendly relations between our two
clans are hereby dissolved. Furthermore, effective immediately, Ian
Heartstriker is removed from his position as consort and banished from our
clan. He is also banned from contact with Svena’s offspring, all of whom shall
now be raised as members of our clan regardless of gender.”
The
room was silent when she finished. Finally, in the scariest voice Julius had
ever heard, Ian said, “What?”
“She
doesn’t want to see you anymore,” Katya explained.
“I
understood that much,” Ian snarled. “But that’s not her decision to make. Those
are my children. She can’t keep them
from me!”
“Forget
the whelps!” Bethesda cried, shoving past him. “What about the defense of my
mountain? Svena’s supposed to be protecting us from Algonquin. That’s the only
reason I let you ice snakes in here in the first place!”
“Then
maybe you should have considered that before you let your seer betray her,”
Katya snapped.
That
statement left Bethesda looking absolutely bewildered, and for once, Julius was
right there with her. “What are you talking about?” he asked, squeezing between
Ian and his mother so he could speak to Katya directly rather than through the
taller dragons. “How did Bob betray
Svena?”
“You
mean you don’t know?”
“Obviously
not,” Ian growled. “We’ve been trapped in a meeting all afternoon.” He grabbed
her shoulders. “What happened, Katya?”
Julius
fully expected Katya to bite his hands off for grabbing her like that, but
whatever had happened between Bob and Svena must have been a special kind of
bad, because Katya just looked sad. “I was hoping you could tell me,” she said.
“Two hours ago, Brohomir killed Amelia the Planeswalker.”
Her
words hit Julius like a punch. “Bob…killed Amelia?” When she nodded, his fists
clenched. “Impossible.”
“That’s
what I thought, too,” Katya said. “But Svena saw it with her own eyes. She
teleported into Amelia’s room just as Brohomir finished turning her to ash.”
“But
that can’t be true,” Julius argued. “Bob would never hurt Amelia. She’s his favorite sister. There’s no way he’d—”
“Well,
he did,” Katya said angrily. “And now my
sister is furious. Svena’s always considered the Planeswalker her only true
rival. By murdering her, Brohomir has stolen her victory. That’s more than an
insult between clans. It’s personal, and Svena’s taking it very badly.”
Obviously.
“Can’t you talk her down?”
“You
think I didn’t try?” Katya said with an angry puff of smoke. “Our clan’s barely
recovered from losing Estella and our mothers. The last thing we need is to
break faith and make enemies with the biggest clan in the world. Svena knows this, but she won’t listen. I’ve
never seen her this angry.” She shook her head. “You’re lucky she didn’t bring
your mountain down on top of you the moment she saw Brohomir do it.”
“Did she actually see him do it?”
Katya
shot him a furious look, and Julius hurried to explain. “I’m not saying Svena’s
lying, but Bob’s a seer. He often does things that look terrible on the surface
but turn out to be fine once you realize what’s actually going on. Maybe he was
just—”
“This
isn’t the sort of thing you can mistake,” Katya snapped. “If you want proof, go
to Amelia’s room and see for yourself.”
She
said that like a challenge, and Julius was upset enough to take it, marching
around Katya and into the elevator behind her. The rest of the dragons followed
right on his heels, cramming into the gold-plated box as Julius repeatedly
mashed the button for the floor Amelia shared with Bob.
***
“I
take no joy in saying this,” Katya whispered. “But I told you so.”
Julius
didn’t say a word. He was too busy staring at the pile of gray-white ash that
had once been Amelia the Planeswalker.
“Must’ve
been some fight,” Bethesda said, poking at the puddles of water that covered
the stone floor with the toe of her stiletto. “Svena launched enough ice to
sink a battleship.” She eyed Katya suspiciously. “Are you certain your sister
didn’t kill Amelia herself?”
“If
she had, she wouldn’t blame a seer,” Katya replied angrily. “She’d come and
tell you herself.”
“And
she’d probably be throwing a party instead of a fit,” Julius added.
“I
don’t think Svena would ever take Amelia’s death well,” Ian said. “Not even if
she was the one who caused it. That stated…” He knelt beside the divan where
Amelia’s pile of ash was sinking into the cushions. “Svena didn’t do this.”
“How
can you be sure?” Julius asked.
Ian
shot him a scathing look. “Use your nose. Amelia’s magic is everywhere in this
room, but it’s all old. The newest I can smell is twelve hours stale at least,
certainly nothing from this afternoon. Whoever killed her, Amelia didn’t fight
back, and Svena has invested far too much in this rivalry to accept such a
cheap victory.”
Julius
didn’t need Katya’s nod to know his brother was right. Svena was a cruel,
ruthless dragon, and proud of it, but she had her own kind of honor. She would
never stoop to killing her rival while Amelia was lying helpless. Even her
wintry scent was concentrated in the middle of the room, a dozen feet away from
the divan that had been the Planeswalker’s deathbed. Bob’s scent, on the other
hand, was everywhere. Including all over Amelia’s ashes.
That
was the most damning evidence of all. Even Julius couldn’t deny that the only
way Bob’s scent could have gotten on those ashes was if he’d had his hands in
them. Even if he’d discovered Amelia’s remains after the fact, Bob had
undeniably been here, and since nothing surprised a seer, that meant he’d
known. He might not have done it, but he’d known Amelia was going to die today,
and he’d let Svena see him. Whatever
the truth actually was, he’d deliberately let the Daughters of the Three
Sisters assume he was guilty, and now they were all in deep trouble.
“Why?”
Julius asked the ashes. “Why would he do this?”
“Who
knows?” Katya said bitterly. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry this happened.
For both our clans.” She put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I know what
it’s like to have your seer turn on you.”
Julius
appreciated the sentiment, but he didn’t think that was it. Estella had been
psychotic, but Bob was…well, Bob. He
was flighty and ridiculous and impossible to understand, but no matter how bad
things looked, he always came through in the end.
Except
when he was telling Julius not to free Chelsie.
“There
has to be something else going on here,” Julius said, scrubbing his hands
through his hair. “Something we’re not seeing. Some plot or scheme or—”
“Of
course it’s a plot,” Bethesda said. “That’s all Brohomir does. But whatever
he’s working on this time, we’ve got a real problem. I signed your little
extortion note, but Amelia and Svena are the only dragon mages in the world
good enough to remove my seal. Now one’s dead and the other’s on the warpath, how
am I getting my dragon back?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
Julius yelled at her. “The seal? Your
daughter is…”
He
couldn’t even say it. He’d thought he’d hit rock bottom after Marci’s death,
but in a horrible way, that had been comforting. Terrible as he’d felt, at
least he’d known things couldn’t get worse, but he was wrong. Not only had he
lost Marci, he’d lost Amelia, too, the only dragon he could have remembered her
with. He’d lost his sister. He’d lost his friend,
and unless he was willing to call his own nose a liar, Bob was the cause.
Whether he’d killed her himself or just let it happen, his brother had clearly
had a hand in this, which meant Julius had lost him, too.
“Why?”
he whispered again. “Why would Bob betray us?”
Bethesda
snorted. “Welcome to my life.”
Julius
couldn’t remember ever hating his mother as much as he did right now. But when
he turned to tell her that her commentary was not appreciated, he found
Bethesda standing right beside him.
“As
delighted as I am to see you getting a taste of your own medicine, there’s more
at stake here than your hurt feelings,” she said. “I don’t know what spurred
Bob to throw us under the bus today, but he did a very good job. With Amelia
dead and Svena hating us because of it, we’ve lost both of our defenses against
Algonquin’s magic. If she attacks the mountain now, we’re sitting ducks.”
Julius
hadn’t even considered that angle. “Do you think she will?”
His
mother shrugged. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already. We might have dropped a bit
on her priority list since your ill-timed coup has left us too weak to pose a
real threat to whatever she’s doing in the DFZ, but we’re still the world’s
biggest dragon clan, and the one on her doorstep. Trust me, that hammer is
going to fall, and it’s not the only one. Heartstriker has many enemies. No
one’s made a serious try for us in centuries thanks to our size and the fact
that we’re relatively isolated here in the Americas, but recent events have
changed that calculus. Mark my words, when news spreads that Chelsie’s quit,
Amelia’s dead, Bob’s gone rogue, and
I’m sealed, there will be no safety anywhere. We’ll be up to our necks in
dragons hungry to take a bite out of our territory. Algonquin won’t need to
lift a watery finger. All she has to do is bide her time, and the other clans
will do us in for her.”
“It
can’t be that bad,” Julius argued. “We’re down, sure, but we still have Conrad,
Justin, and a hundred other Heartstrikers. If we call everyone back to the
mountain—”
“We’d
just be giving Algonquin a bigger target,” Ian cut in. “And that’s assuming our
family would answer the call.”
“They
did before.”
“Yes,
when Bethesda called,” Ian said,
glancing pointedly at their mother, who looked sickeningly smug. “I’m confident
the Council is the right path for Heartstriker’s long-term stability, but we’re
not there yet. Anyway, even Mother would have a hard time getting Heartstrikers
to return to the mountain again under these conditions. In case you haven’t
noticed, everyone’s run home to secure their own territories.”
Julius
had noticed. It was hard not to
notice when a mountain built for hundreds of dragons was suddenly empty. “So
we’ll explain the situation and ask them to come back.”
“No
dragon with an ounce of self-interest is going to leave their home territory
undefended while things are this uncertain,” Ian argued. “And since you freed
Chelsie, we have no way to make them.”
“That’s
a good thing,” Julius said. “We
shouldn’t rely on fear to get our way.”
“A
lovely sentiment that doesn’t help us now.”
“Why
is this even a thing?” Julius demanded, frustrated. “Algonquin declared war on all the clans. We should be banding
together against her, not fighting amongst ourselves.”
“Don’t
be stupid,” Bethesda snapped. “This is the best
time to fight. Algonquin’s a force to be reckoned with, but we’re the dragons
of the Americas! The only clan that comes close to Heartstriker in numbers or
territory is the Golden Empire, and no one’s crazy enough to go after China.
Two weeks ago, I’d have said the same about us, but between your backstabbing
and Algonquin’s wave hanging over our heads, we’re bleeding inside and out.
We’ve always been a tasty target, but now we’re a badly wounded one as well,
and no dragon anywhere can pass up wounded prey.”
The
way she said that made Julius wince. He’d never heard his mother sound so grim
before. But tempting as it was to dismiss all the doom and gloom as typical
Bethesda hyperbole, he didn’t think she was exaggerating this time. “What
should we do?”
“What
can we do?” she said, sinking down on
the end of the velvet divan beside her eldest daughter’s ashes. “It’s over. I’d
already accepted that Brohomir had betrayed me,
but with this blow, he’s cut the rest of the clan off at the knees as well. We
can’t rally, can’t fight, can’t defend ourselves. At this point, the only
option we have left is to cut our losses and go somewhere safe to rebuild.”
He
stared at her in horror. “You mean leave Heartstriker Mountain?”
“We
can’t stay,” she said, waving her hand around at the empty room. “Amelia’s magic
was our primary defense, but every ward she set vanished with her death. I’m in her room, for fire’s sake. That
alone is proof that security has been utterly compromised.”
Julius
couldn’t argue there, but… “This is our home!”
he cried. “We can’t abandon it.”
Bethesda
shot him her dirtiest look yet. “Yes, well, maybe you should have thought of
that before you ruined everything.”
He’d
thought he was immune to his mother’s insults by this point, but that one hit
too close. He might not have personally sealed his mother’s dragon or killed
Amelia, but Heartstriker’s weakness was undeniably Julius’s fault. Even if it
hadn’t been, he was one of the clan heads now. It was his responsibility to
keep them all safe, and he was racking his brain for how to do that when Ian
suddenly spoke up.
“We
are not abandoning anything,” the tall dragon growled. “I don’t care how many
enemies are against us, I did not
claw my way to the top of two clans to lose both in one day.” He glared at
Julius and Bethesda. “You two do whatever it takes to protect us in the short
term. I’m going to bring back Svena.” He turned his glare on Katya. “Take me to
your sister.”
The
white dragoness bared her teeth at him. “First of all, you’re not at the top of
our clan anymore, so you don’t get to give me orders. Second, you do not want to be around Svena right now.
She’s fresh off the loss of Amelia and the trauma of laying eggs. She’ll eat
you alive.”
Ian
bared his teeth as well. “Take me to her, Last Born.”
For
a terrifying moment, Julius was certain there was going to be blood, but then
Katya sighed. “Your funeral.”
Ian
turned on his heel, marching down the empty hallway that had once been packed
with Amelia’s magical traps. With a shake of her head, Katya followed, reaching
out to Julius as she walked past. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”
“Me,
too,” he said. “More than I can say.”
That
last part was painfully true. There were no words to describe the pointless
tragedy playing out around him. Looking down at the pile of ash that had once
been his laughing, audacious, brilliant sister,
Julius felt like there was nothing left. Death had taken it all—Marci, Amelia,
Ian and Svena, even Bob—leaving him with nothing but his selfish mother, a
broken clan, and a mountain he couldn’t defend.
His
only comfort was the knowledge that there had to be something he wasn’t seeing.
Some greater end Bob was working toward that would make everything turn out
okay. There was just no other reason why his brother would throw away
everything he’d been working toward. So long as he believed Bob wasn’t actually
insane, there had to be a method to
this madness, and Julius was going to make the seer tell him what that was if
it was the last thing he did.
First,
though, he had to take care of his sister.
Since
they tended to die in spectacular violence, dragons didn’t usually have
funerals. Most blew away in the winds of their defeat, but if their ashes could
be collected, the task was traditionally entrusted to someone close to the
deceased: a mate, an heir, even a favored mortal. But other than Marci, who was
also dead, Amelia didn’t have a favored mortal, and the only mate she’d ever
mentioned was the Concept of Mountains, whom Julius had no idea how to contact.
Any other time, he would have saved the honor for Bob, but that was out of the
question now for obvious reasons, and since he’d never trust Bethesda with his
sister dead or alive, Julius had no choice but to do the job himself.
At
least there was no shortage of appropriate vessels. In true Amelia fashion,
there were liquor bottles scattered all over her room, including a very
expensive-looking whiskey cask lying on the floor right next to the divan where
she’d died. There were even a few drops left at the bottom, but Julius didn’t
dare pour them out. He actually felt spirits were quite appropriate, and the
scent of alcohol was a welcome break from the constant smell of death as he
carefully tapped Amelia’s ashes into the bottle.
When
he’d collected her as best he could, he replaced the stopper and straightened
up, cradling the bottle in his arms like a sacred object while his mother
watched in disgust.
“What
was the point of that?” she asked, brushing the last of the ash off the couch
with her hand so she could sit. “Her soul’s already burned out. All you’ve got
there is her physical dust.”
“It
was still her,” Julius said stubbornly. “Amelia deserves better than to be left
here.”
Bethesda
clearly thought that logic was beyond stupid. For once, though, she held her
tongue. Good thing, too, because Julius was done with this conversation. He’d
had enough of his mother to last five lifetimes, so he left her to her disgust,
clutching Amelia’s ashes to his chest as he walked out of Amelia’s lair and
down the hall toward the cavern that took up the other half of this floor of
the hollowed-out mountain.
Bob’s
room.