by Rachel Aaron
“Chelsie,” she said sweetly. “Shut him up.”
Julius barely had time to process the words before Chelsie vanished. A heartbeat later, she reappeared behind Justin, her sword already flying as she sliced through the back of both his knees in one smooth stroke.
“Justin!”
The warning was miles too late. Fast as his brother was, Justin never had a chance. Chelsie’s cut was brutal in its efficiency, taking him down before he even realized she was behind him. Not that that stopped him from fighting. He fell with a roar, forcing her to jump back as he grabbed for her. When he did it again, she sliced the inside of his arm, making him bellow in pain. She took out his other arm, too, just to be sure, and then stepped back, leaving him gasping in pain on the floor.
The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than five seconds, but it felt like forever before Julius recovered from his shock to race to his brother’s side. “What did you do?” he cried, dropping to his knees beside Justin, who swearing loudly in the middle of a terrifyingly large pool of blood.
Chelsie said nothing. Bethesda, however, was grinning wider than ever. “What she always does,” she crowed victoriously. “She enforced my will. I already told you, it doesn’t matter what you do. So long as Chelsie is mine, her sword is at all of your throats, which means I am and shall always be the Heartstriker. And as the Heartstriker, I said you would have no help, so no help is exactly what you got.”
“But he’s your son,” Julius said desperately, pressing his hands against Justin’s arm to try and stop the bleeding. “He was your favorite!”
“Yes, well, he should have remembered that before he disobeyed,” their mother said flippantly, waving her hand. “Gregory, finish him.”
The name had barely left her lips before a blinding flash of light blossomed at the edge of Julius’s vision. That was all the warning he got before a wave of white-hot dragon fire blindsided him, blasting him off his brother and through the treasury’s stone wall into the empty air beyond.
***
Julius had been human for far too long. Even hurtling through the air in free fall, it took nearly a thousand feet for his instincts to kick in. When they did, though, it was with a vengeance. The change roared over him like fire, burning away his human form in less than a second. His wings shot out like arrows, catching his fall just enough to let him flip over and grab the side of the mountain with his newly formed claws.
It was still a near thing. He slid down the stone, leaving deep grooves in the mountain’s weathered face before finally grinding to a halt barely five hundred feet from the ground. He clung there, panting, as he tried to tame the rush of vertigo that always accompanied the change from human sized to dragon. He was still adjusting when he heard the beat of dragon wings in the sky above him, and he raised his head just in time to see the shadow of a much larger, orange-and-blue feathered serpent right before it launched another fireball at his head.
This time, Julius managed to get out of the way. He’d never spent much time—or been very good at—actually being a dragon, but dodging was the one combat talent he’d never had trouble with. He didn’t even have to think before he scrambled up the rock face like a lizard, using his bright-blue wings and feathered tail for balance as he took shelter under one of the mountain’s many balconies. When he was safely clinging to the underside of the jutting stone, he extended his snaking neck and peeked over the balcony’s lip to check his opponent’s position.
If he’d been fighting Justin, his brother would already be attacking him from below. Fortunately for him, Gregory was not Justin, and the big dragon was still exactly where he’d left him: using the thermals that blew up the mountain to float in midair directly parallel to Julius’s position under the balcony. Now that he was no longer backlit by the sun, Julius was able to get his first good look at Gregory’s dragon. But while aggressive blue-and-orange coloration was classic G, Julius hadn’t counted on just how much bigger Gregory would be. He was literally twice Julius’s size, and while that wasn’t surprising given the age difference, the mismatch became a much bigger deal when the bigger dragon in question was the one hunting you.
“Come away from the mountain, whelp!” Gregory bellowed, his deep voice echoing off the cliff face. “It’s over. There’s no one coming to save you this time. Stop cowering in shadows and come face your death like a dragon should!”
“Since when is placidly facing death a draconic trait?” Julius yelled back, curling tighter under his cover. “Why are you even doing this? It’s not like killing me will change anything.”
“Of course it will!” Gregory roared. “You’re the reason everything went wrong! If you’d just kept your stupid head down, none of this would have happened!”
“If I’d kept my head down, Estella would have succeeded, and we’d all be dead,” Julius reminded him, crawling to the edge of the balcony so he’d be ready to jump if needed. “Why are you fighting this so hard? Do you really enjoy being Mother’s pawn that much?”
“Better hers than yours,” the bigger dragon growled, puffing black smoke from his nostrils. “The strong rule, the weak follow. That’s the natural order of things. That’s how it’s always been. A weakling like you has no right to be at the top of that mountain!”
“By that logic, Bethesda doesn’t either,” Julius said. “She lost. But you’re not listening. Just because something’s always been one way isn’t a good reason to keep doing it.”
“And you think your way is better?” Gregory sneered, swooping down to try and get a shot at him from below. “You think we should all be nice like you?”
“No,” Julius said, darting around to the topside of the balcony so the wall of stone between them. “But I do think not every dragon has to be the same. Have you ever imagined what our lives might be like if there was a route to power that didn’t involve murdering each other?”
“It’s called culling the weak,” his brother snapped, swiping at him. But Julius was used to Justin’s speed, which was far faster, and he easily hopped away, skittering up the wall to look down at his fuming brother with something dangerously close to pity.
“It’s called waste,” he said, shaking his head. “By your logic, anyone who loses is worthless, but losing is part of life. No one wins every single fight. Losing is the price for trying, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It definitely shouldn’t be punished with death.”
“So we should embrace the losers, then?” Gregory growled. “Exalt the weak?”
“Why does it have to be so black-and-white with you?” Julius huffed, frustrated beyond belief. “I’m not saying we should exalt the weak any more than I’m saying we should cull them. I’m saying that we’re all weak and strong in different ways, and that our clan as a whole is stronger when we work together to match those strengths and weaknesses in useful ways rather than throwing away any dragon who doesn’t fit our narrow definition of ‘strong’ at the time. It’s not that complicated.”
Gregory bared his teeth, but Julius just dug in deeper, sinking his claws into the stone as he leaned out to glare at his murderous brother head on. “We’re all on the same team!” he yelled. “Every dragon is a long-term investment, but Bethesda’s been throwing us away for short-term gain. Any investor will tell you that’s a stupid strategy. Just think how much stronger our clan would be if Mother hadn’t lost all of her first two clutches except for Bob and Amelia when she overthrew her father. Or for that matter, how much better positioned we would be if Amelia had stayed here and worked her magic for us instead of having to constantly flee to other planes to avoid being murdered by her paranoid mother.” He shook his head. “We’ve wasted so much following your kind of strength, and for what? A giant clan that needs the constant threat of violence just to keep functioning. How is that strong?”
Gregory’s answer to that was to shoot another fireball at Julius’s face. This close, it was much harder to dodge. He still managed to scramble out of the way, but he lost his grip on the sto
ne in the process, falling off the wall before he caught himself with his wings.
That must have been what Gregory was waiting for. The moment Julius was clear of the mountain, he filled the air with his fire, forcing Julius to flee farther and farther from the mountain’s shelter. But while Julius had never been the strongest or most graceful flier, he was still the second fastest in his clutch after Justin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep him ahead of Gregory’s attacks. A fact that seemed to be driving his brother into a frenzy.
“Hold still!” he roared, clawing the air in a vain effort to grab Julius’s tail. “Don’t you get it? You’re already dead. A puny whelp from the bottom of a clutch of puny whelps. You have no chance of beating me, and no one is coming to save you. Look.” He jerked his head back at the mountain, which was now terrifyingly far behind them. “The whole clan has turned out to watch you die, and not a one of them is going to lift a claw to help. You’ve lost, Julius. Give up.”
Julius couldn’t actually see into the mountain’s dark windows with the sun glaring in his face, but he knew Gregory was telling the truth. As always, he could feel the dragon eyes on him, watching his every move with that cold calculation every dragon except him seemed to master instinctively. But the realization that he was being watched didn’t have the effect Gregory intended.
Up until this point, Julius’s main concern had been not dying. Now that he had an audience, though, mere survival was no longer enough. This was the exact scenario he’d been desperately trying to convince all those watching dragons was wrong. If Gregory beat him, they would all see that might did make right. If he lost now, the push for the Council would crumble, and all his work, all the pain and suffering he’d put everyone through, especially Marci, would be lost with him.
With that realization, Julius’s survival panic faded. The fight-or-flight urge was still there, still pounding in his chest, but it was no longer the dominant instinct, because for the first time in his life, Julius wanted to win. He wanted to show the world that he was right, that everything he’d been saying wasn’t just platitudes and hot air. If he was going to prove that compromise and working together actually was superior to the usual dragon violence, then he had to step up and do it. Right here. Right now. And that couldn’t happen if he was fleeing for his life.
That truth hit him like a punch, and as it landed, Julius stopped running. He whirled in mid-air, checking his mad dash with a beat of his wings before turning around to calmly face his brother, who’d stopped as well.
“What are you doing?” Gregory growled suspiciously.
“What you asked,” Julius replied. “I’m holding still.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m done running,” Julius said, lifting his head proudly.
“So you’ll fight?” he asked, his green eyes lighting up eagerly.
Julius shook his head. “I’m not going to fight you.”
Gregory looked more suspicious than ever, not that Julius could blame him. If he’d been in Gregory’s position, he wouldn’t have believed him, either. But he was telling the truth, and if this was going to work, he had to make his angry brother believe it.
“I’m not trying to trick you,” he said solemnly, lifting his forefeet and retracting his front claws in a clear display of non-aggression. “But I won’t fight you, either. You’re my brother, and family shouldn’t have to kill each other. That’s the whole reason I set up the Council. Because situations like this are stupid, wasteful, and wrong, and we shouldn’t be forced into them.”
“I think you’re missing the point,” Gregory growled. “No one’s forcing me to kill you. I want to kill you.”
“Why?” Julius asked, looking at him green eye to green eye. “You didn’t even know my name two days ago. Now you’ve quit the clan just for a chance to murder me, and you honestly believe you did it because that’s what you want? That all of this”—he gestured down at the watching dragons, who were now clearly visible on the crowded balconies— “is a personal vendetta?”
“What do you know?” Gregory roared. “You ruined everything! We were strong until—”
“We weren’t strong,” Julius said. “We were afraid. Of each other and Bethesda. But we don’t have to be that way anymore.”
“What do you know? You’re still a child,” Gregory snarled, snapping at Julius, who dodged out of the way. “I thought you weren’t fighting.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to stay still and let you bite me,” Julius said, righting himself.
“So what are you going to do?” Gregory sneered. “Dodge?”
“That’s one part,” Julius said. “But I’m also going to talk to you, because even though you’re not acting like it right now, I know you’re an intelligent dragon, and intelligent dragons don’t allow themselves to be used and manipulated for others’ power.”
That must have hit closer to home than Julius had intended, because the moment the words were out of his mouth, Gregory exploded. He opened his fanged mouth with a roar, blasting the sky in a wall of fire that blackened the tips of Julius’s feathers before he could dart away.
“You can’t dodge forever!” Gregory bellowed, diving after him with another ball of flame. When Julius avoided that one as well, his brother seemed to lose all patience. “This is disgraceful! Damn you, fight back!”
“No,” Julius said again. “I told you, I won’t—”
Gregory attacked before he could finish, breathing a cone of fire in a huge spray across the entire section of sky where Julius was flying. For all its size, though, the flames weren’t actually that hot, a feint Julius realized much too late as he dove for safety only to find Gregory already waiting.
This time, not even Julius’s speed could save him. He barely had time to realize he’d been tricked before Gregory bit down on his left wing, crushing the delicate bones beneath the tough blue feathers. The attack was fast as a cobra strike, and just as deadly, because Julius was now hundreds of feet in the air with a broken wing. When his brother let him go, he fell like a stone, crashing into the sand below.
Julius had fallen plenty of times, but never when he was this large, and never from so high. He still remembered to tuck at the last moment to protect his head, but that didn’t stop him from slamming into the ground like a bug hitting a windshield. If he’d been a smaller dragon, that would have been the end, but Julius wasn’t quite as runty as he’d once been, and somehow, he held together. The crash still knocked the wind out of him, though, leaving him gasping and confused. Even his broken wing didn’t hurt in the confusion of everything else, though that changed very quickly when Gregory landed beside him and grabbed it, using the broken limb like a handle to flip Julius onto his back.
“So much for dodging,” he growled as he pressed his claws against Julius’s exposed throat. “I win.”
His lungs were too busy getting air to form words, so Julius shook his head.
Gregory didn’t seem to know what to make of that. “You’re on your back,” he snarled. “You’re defeated. I’ve won!”
“How could you win?” Julius choked out at last. “I didn’t fight.”
“I gave you a chance,” Gregory snapped. “You could have fought.”
“But not won,” Julius said. “There are no winners when brothers fight, Gregory, and you know it. But it’s not too late.”
“It is far too late,” his brother sneered. “Your human and Justin humiliated me! Everything I worked for centuries to build in Heartstriker is crumbling, and I’ve already left the clan. The only salvation for me now is through you. Once you’re dead, Mother will welcome me back, and I’ll finally get my place of power and respect.”
“Do you really believe that?” Julius asked, staring up at his brother. “You’ve seen how Bethesda treats those beneath her. Is that really how you want to live? Toeing her line for the rest of eternity? We have a chance right now to make something better. A clan where we attack our enemies, not each other. You want resp
ect, I get that, but how does this”—he twitched his broken wing—“earn you anything? All you’ve done is beat up a weaker, younger, smaller dragon who didn’t fight back.”
“Shut up!” Gregory roared, slashing his claws across Julius’s belly, leaving four long wounds from his legs to the joint where his wings met his shoulder. “You think you’re so much better than the rest of us!” He slashed again, opening another, even bloodier set of gashes across Julius’s ribs, turning his bright-blue feathers an ugly purple black as they saturated with blood. “If you’re really so secretly powerful, make me stop.”
By this point, spots were dancing across Julius’s vision. Between the pain and the overwhelming scent of his own blood, he couldn’t think straight, which made it that much harder to fight the lizard brain yelling at him to bite Gregory’s exposed neck and escape. But powerful as the survival instinct was, Julius was chasing something even bigger.
From the moment he’d refused to kill his mother, he’d set himself on this path. For a dragon who refused to fight and refused to bow, there was only one logical ending, and Julius was smack dab in the middle of it. There was no way he could beat Gregory, and that was precisely why Bethesda had arranged this. Because Julius wasn’t a warrior, and never had been. But just because he couldn’t win didn’t mean he could be defeated. Even when Gregory lashed out, crushing Julius’s remaining good wing until it was even more mangled than the one he’d bitten through, Julius didn’t bite back. He just lay there and took it, letting Gregory break him piece by piece in front of the entire mountain.
It didn’t take long. Julius wasn’t a very big dragon, and Gregory was very good at what he did. In a matter of minutes, he’d crushed every bone in Julius’s body, leaving him a burned and broken pile of feathers in the bloody sand. But no matter how much it hurt, Julius refused to move. He didn’t run, he didn’t make a sound, and the longer he held out, the harder Gregory hit.
