by Rachel Aaron
“Hello again,” she said, flashing him a bloody grin as she looked him up and down. “Not quite the plan we discussed, I know, but how was that for backup?”
“Amazing,” he got out at last. “You saved us.”
“I told you I would repay you,” Katya said. “And now that we’re officially even, would you like me to ask my sister to look at your human? Ysolde’s cold even for us, but she’s a miracle worker when it comes to healing, and I know how much you value your mage.”
Julius’s stomach dropped. How could he have forgotten about Marci? He spun around, frantically scanning the room until he finally spotted her on the ground, lying on her back with Ghost pacing nervously next to her head. “Please,” he begged, not even caring how desperate he sounded. “I’ll pay anything if you help her.”
“No payment needed,” Katya replied with a warm smile. “We are friends, are we not?”
If Julius hadn’t been so worried about Marci, that would have made him feel warm all over. But it was hard to feel good when he couldn’t even see Marci breathing. As it was, he barely managed a thank you before he rushed to her side. “Marci!”
She twitched at his voice, and then her eyes fluttered open, staring up at him in wonder. “Hey,” she said softly, reaching up to touch his feathered nose. “You’re a dragon.”
“I think we’ve established this,” he replied, breathing deep. Now that he was unsealed, it was like a mask had been removed from his nose, giving him back his full range. But while he could definitely smell Marci’s pain, he didn’t smell her blood, which helped calm him down.
“So,” she said, tilting her head to look at Katya, who was still standing tall over her sister’s body. “I guess we won?”
“We did,” Julius said. “Katya came in with the cavalry and took out Estella. One of her sisters is on her way now to help take care of you.”
“You mean like dragon healing magic?” Marci asked excitedly. “Cool! How does that work?”
Julius couldn’t help but grin at that. Leave it to Marci to be more excited about the magical part of her magical first aid than the actual aid. “You’ll have to ask her,” he said, nodding at Ysolde, who’d gotten her orders from Katya and was now walking toward them at a stately pace.
It didn’t seem possible, but Marci looked even more excited than before. “Eeeee! Is that one of the Daughters of the Three Sisters?! She looks like a freaking Valkyrie! This was totally worth getting smacked into a wall for!”
She said this like it was the best thing ever, but Julius’s grin faded. “I’m sorry you got hit,” he said, lowering his head until the soft feathers of his nose pressed against her cheek. “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Hey, you run with dragons, you’ve got to be willing to take your lumps,” she said, reaching up to touch his feathers again. “I’m not upset at all. I’m mostly happy that I finally get to see what you really look like.”
Julius froze, instantly bashful. “Do I live up to the hype?” he asked at last.
“Way better,” she assured him. “Blue’s my favorite color, you know.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “I thought your favorite color was purple?”
Marci grinned. “Not anymore.”
If Julius had been human, that would have turned him red from his head to his toes. Fortunately for his dignity, feathers hid blushes. He was sure he still looked stupidly, goofily happy, but Julius couldn’t really bring himself to care. Marci was alive, he was a dragon again, and except for Estella, everyone had lived, which meant they’d won. Against all odds, they’d pulled it off, all of it. If he couldn’t be happy after that, when could he?
He was still smiling like an idiot when Ysolde finally reached them. Marci started bombarding her with questions immediately, completely immune to the dragon’s scornful looks. Julius was trying to find a spot where he wouldn’t be in the way when someone tapped him on the tail.
When he looked over his shoulder, Bob was standing behind him with an uncharacteristically serious look on his face. “If you’re not busy,” he said. “We need to borrow you for a moment.”
Julius glanced back at Marci, but she was still happily grilling Ysolde. Satisfied he wouldn’t be abandoning her, he turned back to his brother, keeping his head as low as possible so he wouldn’t have to look down on the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing much,” Bob replied with a shrug. “But now that all this Estella business is wrapped up, there’s one last piece of family drama we need to settle.”
He looked back over his shoulder as he finished, drawing Julius’s attention back to the cracked throne in the center of the room where all the other Heartstrikers were now gathered in a circle around their mother, who was still frozen on her knees.
At the sight of Bethesda, Julius began to shake. It didn’t matter that he was currently five times her size, or that she was still bound by magic he didn’t understand. The fear of his mother was too deeply ingrained to be pushed away by minor details. “Do I have to?”
“Yes,” Bob said with a sharp look. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Julius, which is saying something for a dragon. It took a great deal of effort to arrange this situation. If we don’t take it now, we might never get another chance.”
Julius’s eyes went wide. “Arrange?” he said. “You mean, you—”
Bob pressed a finger to his lips, and Julius snapped his mouth shut. When it was clear he wasn’t going to interrupt again, Bob continued.
“Sometimes you have to smash things to rebuild them,” he said, his eyes getting that faraway look they always had when he was peering into the future. “When I was your age, our grandfather told me that just as there are opportunities that only reveal themselves in defeat, there are victories that can’t be won through force. Being a properly ruthless dragon, I never really understood what that meant. Now, though, I’m beginning to understand.”
“I don’t,” Julius said.
“You will,” Bob promised. “Or, at least, you’d better, because if you don’t, I’ve just lost us the farm.”
He started walking away after that. When Julius hesitated to follow, Bob looked over his shoulder. “Come on, Julius,” he said with a cryptic smile. “Don’t you have anything you want to say to our mother?”
Julius had plenty he wanted to say to Bethesda, and his brother was right about at least one thing. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, because, for the time being at least, Bethesda was still frozen on her knees. That made now the perfect time to talk since the only way his mother would ever actually listen to him was if she was physically unable to do anything else.
“Okay,” he said, starting after his brother. “Let’s go.”
“Fantastic,” Bob said. “Go change first.”
Julius looked down at his feathered body in alarm. “But I just got this back!”
“If you’re a dragon, everyone’s going to want to be a dragon,” his brother pointed out. “And I’d rather not have Justin easily able to breathe fire for this conversation. Now.” He turned and pointed at the door behind the throne that led to Bethesda’s private apartments. “I had someone stash your clothes in there yesterday. Go change and join us as soon as you’re done.”
Julius still didn’t want to go back to being human yet, and he definitely didn’t want to set foot in his mother’s private lair alone, but there was no point in arguing. Bob was already walking away, spinning his sword like a baton as he climbed up the dais steps to rejoin the others. So, with a final stretch of his wings, he turned and started toward the door to go change back into his usual self.
Chapter 21
Julius had never been in his mother’s personal lair before. Not surprisingly, it looked exactly like what you’d expect from Bethesda’s apartments: a dragon-sized maze of gilded rooms packed to the rafters with gold, jewels, designer clothes, and mounds of exceedingly expensive, over-designed furniture that somehow managed to be both ug
ly as sin and uncomfortable.
As Bob had promised, Julius found clothes waiting on the gold and glass coffee table in the front room. How the seer had managed that, Julius was past trying to guess. He just focused on changing as quickly as possible and trying not to get crushed by his new Fang in the process.
Five minutes later, he reemerged dressed in a plain black turtleneck, jeans, and a pair of flip flops. The Fang, which had thankfully returned to the usual sword-shape as soon as he’d finished shifting back, he carried in his hands, mostly because he had no idea what else to do with it. It hadn’t come with a sheath, and Bob hadn’t given him a belt in any case. But while walking around with a naked blade felt wrong, just leaving the thing in Bethesda’s apartment felt worse. In the end, Julius made the best of it, carrying the sword tight against his side in an attempt to look like he knew what he was doing as he climbed up the dais steps to join the rest of his family gathered in a tight knot on top around his mother’s cracked throne.
Given that they were in Heartstriker Mountain, Julius had expected a lot more dragons by this point. Bob must have given an order of some sort, though, because the only Heartstrikers in the throne room were the ones who’d been there the whole time: Chelsie, Conrad, Amelia, Justin, himself, and Bob. With the exception of Amelia, everyone had a Fang of the Heartstriker, including, Julius realized with a start, his mother.
“Now this is a momentous occasion,” Bob said brightly as Julius joined them. “All six Fangs of the Heartstriker, together again for the first time since they were in our grandfather’s mouth! Quite fitting, too, since we’re here to discuss Heartstriker’s future.”
“There will be no discussion,” Bethesda hissed through her locked jaw, her green eyes dropping to her own sword, which someone had placed on the floor in front of her. “The moment that blade is back in my hands, all of your swords will be mine again, and then we’ll see how you like being on your knees.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Bob said. “You see, so long as Julius has his sword out, none of us can so much as contemplate violence against the others without ending up like you.”
Bethesda growled deep in her throat, but Julius looked up in surprise. “What?”
Bob flashed him a grin. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? That’s what the sixth Fang does. Just like the others, it has its own special trick, but where Chelsie’s can cut to any of us, and Mother’s controls all the others, your Fang freezes any Heartstriker with killing intent the moment you draw it. Think of it as a localized family ‘Time Out’ button.”
“You’re kidding,” Julius said. When Bob shook his head, he looked down at his sword in astonishment. “I thought these things were supposed to be the ultimate dragon weapons! How is peace a power of a Fang of the Heartstriker? ”
“Because before they became Fangs of the Heartstriker, they were the actual fangs of the Quetzalcoatl,” Bob explained. “And despite being long dead, some of his magic lives in them still. That’s why they have to choose their wielders instead of simply going to whomever Bethesda chooses, because, ultimately they’re not hers to give. Each Fang follows its own judgment according to our grandfather’s values: strength, wisdom, control, all that Elements of Harmony stuff.” He leaned in closer. “Coincidentally, that’s also why it took over a thousand years to find someone who could pull the blade in your hands. Your Fang contains our grandfather’s diplomatic, compassionate side, and a compassionate dragon is a rare bird, indeed.”
That made sense, Julius supposed. A sword that radiated an anti-violence aura definitely wasn’t the kind of tool you normally found in a dragon arsenal. That said, it still didn’t sound like the sort of thing that should belong to him, especially since he had no idea how it actually worked. “Is there any way to turn it off?”
“Who knows?” Bob said with a shrug. “But so long as it’s on, you are the only one here who can raise a weapon, which means you, Julius, are currently the most powerful Heartstriker.”
The implication of those words hit Julius like a freight train. From the sudden horror in his mother’s eyes, Bethesda grasped it, too. “Julius, baby,” she said in a voice so sweet and innocent, he barely recognized it as hers. “I know things have been a little tense between us recently, but—”
“Tense?” he growled. “You sealed me and then used that to make me do whatever you wanted! You’ve done nothing but abuse and bully me since I hatched!”
“It was for your own good,” Bethesda said defensively. “I’m your mother. It’s my job to be hard on you so you’ll grow into a strong dragon, and it was more painful for me than it was for—”
“Stop.”
Bethesda’s green eyes flashed. If she’d been able to move, she probably would have slapped him across the room for interrupting, but she couldn’t. So long as his Fang was doing its thing, she couldn’t move a muscle. That meant Julius was the one with the power, and for once in his life, his mother was going to listen to him.
“You always do this,” he said, moving forward until he was standing right in front of her. “You always say you’re hurting us for our own good, but you’re not. It’s for your own good. All my life, I thought that if I could just live up to your expectations and be a good dragon, I’d be happy, but that’s a lie. No one in this family is happy, because even the dragons you value, you abuse and manipulate!”
“Of course,” his mother growled. “Because I’m running a dragon clan, not a happy home. The soft don’t survive in this world, Julius. You stand there whining that I hurt your feelings and made your childhood hard, but you don’t even stop to consider I’m the reason you got to grow up inside the shelter of the greatest dragon clan in the world. Heartstriker rose to the top because I was willing to do what other clans wouldn’t, and if you’re too soft to appreciate that, then you don’t understand what it means to be a dragon.”
“No!” Julius yelled. “It’s you who doesn’t understand! You think I don’t know what dragons do? I’ve been to our old home, the original plane where all dragons came from, and do you know what’s there? Nothing. The whole place is a motionless, timeless desert of ash because dragons made it that way!”
He could see it again as he spoke, the endless black desert under the frozen sky. That waste—not even a real place, but a construct taken from a racial memory—was all that was left of their only real home. And the more he thought about that, the angrier Julius got.
“Vann Jeger was right,” he said bitterly. “Dragons do destroy everything they touch. We didn’t come to this plane as conquerors. We came here because we had nowhere else to go. We’d already ruined everything we were given, literally sold our own future out from under us, and do you know why? Because dragons like you were willing to do anything for power. It was that sort of selfish, victory-at-any-cost thinking that destroyed our old home and nearly took out our entire species, and you want me to respect you for it? To try and be like you?”
“Big words from a timid little whelp,” Bethesda snarled. “But you’re the one with the sword now. If I’m so terrible, use it. Kill me, if you’ve got the guts.”
She was obviously taunting him, and Julius was about to tell her to knock it off when Chelsie said, “Do it.”
Justin began to growl, but Conrad grabbed the knight’s shoulder, pinning him in place. For her part, Chelsie didn’t even glance in Justin’s direction. She was fixated on their mother, staring at the beautiful old dragon with so much hate, it made Julius’s blood run cold.
“Do you know what she’s done to us?” his sister said softly. “What she’s made us do? You were just a failure to be used and thrown away, but we were the ones who did her dirty work.” She glanced at Julius. “If you’re really the compassionate dragon, then end this. Kill her now, and set us all free.”
By the time she finished, Bethesda’s eyes were as wide as they could go, but Julius shook his head. “No.”
“Are you stupid?” Chelsie snarled, stabbing her finger at their mother. “
She’s ordered your death twice, used you countless times, demanded you sell out Amelia to save Justin, and that’s just this month. We’re not even counting the last eleven hundred years. Every one of us would be better off without her, and you know it. Kill her.”
“No,” Julius said again.
“Why not?” Chelsie demanded.
“Because I’m not like her!” he yelled, clutching his sword tight. “I don’t care how awful they are, I don’t kill my family! I don’t kill anyone, period, and I will never throw someone away just to make my life easier!”
“So you’re just going to let her stay in charge?” Chelsie yelled back. “You can’t keep her frozen forever!” She turned to glare at Bethesda. “If you don’t do something, she’ll just get her power back, and then she’ll grind us all into the dirt.”
“I’ll do much worse than that,” their mother said. “When I get free—”
“Shut up!” Chelsie snarled, turning back to Julius. “If you won’t kill her, I will.”
“You can’t,” Conrad said calmly. “You are bound.”
Chelsie clutched her sword. “I can still try.”
“No,” Julius said, grabbing his sister’s arm. “No one is killing her, because no matter how horrible she’s been or what she’s done, she’s still our mother, and if you keep going, you’re acting just like her.”
That got Chelsie’s attention. She stopped cold, and Julius saw his chance. “Don’t you see what’s happening here?” he said, letting her go. “We’re just repeating the same mistakes over and over again. We act like violence and ruthlessness are the only tools we have, but that’s just not true.”
He pointed down the stairs where the white dragons were waiting silently, not even pretending like they weren’t listening. “Look at me and Katya. She, a daughter of our oldest enemies, came to help us tonight because she loved her sister and because she was my friend. If you listen to her,” he pointed back at Bethesda, “she’d call that weakness, but anyone with eyes can see it’s not weakness at all. All you need are muscles to swing a sword, but it takes actual courage to lower your weapon and hold out your hand in friendship.”
