by Rachel Aaron
Contents
Title
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Extras
Sneak Peek!
Chapter 1
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About the Author
A Dragon of a Different Color
(Heartstrikers 4)
Rachel Aaron
To save his family from his tyrannical mother, Julius had to step on a lot of tails. That doesn’t win a Nice Dragon many friends, but just when he thinks he’s starting to make progress, a new threat arrives. Turns out, things can get worse. Heartstriker hasn’t begun to pay for its secrets, and the dragons of China are here to collect. When the Golden Emperor demands his surrender, Julius will have to choose between loyalty to the sister who's always watched over him and preserving the clan he gave everything to protect.
Prologue
One thousand years ago.
The immortals were dying.
Algonquin lay at the very bottom of her lakes, tendrils of water frantically probing the silt for the source of the terrible emptiness creeping through her. It was a desperate search, and a futile one, because Algonquin knew the problem couldn’t be here. This was the realm of the physical. Problems on this side were simple, mechanical, but the death growing inside her wasn’t linked to her fish or her water or the land that had been her shore for millennia. It came from the other side, from the swells of power that rolled through the world only spirits knew like waves through the sea. So much magic, it had no end. And yet, somehow, it was ending.
With a frustrated cry, Algonquin left her shores and sank, flowing down the chasm that was her vessel in the deep magic, the place where spirits were born. It was not a journey she made often, or happily. As a Spirit of the Land, she belonged to the land, to the physical forces of sun and wind and rain. This dark hole below the magic was nothing but her shadow, the vessel that shaped the magic that rose to become the Spirit of the Great Lakes. But she’d loved this place too, once, before the Mortal Spirits had come. Before they’d grown so strong. But the magical side of the world was theirs now. Even Algonquin, who fought them every chance she got, never came here without fear. Whatever was happening now, though, it couldn’t be solved from the sunlit side, so she steeled herself and went deep, plunging through the dark recess of the vessel that gave her shape and life into the realm beyond it. The terrifying chaos mortals called the Sea of Magic.
Or what was left of it.
For the first time ever, Algonquin rose from the gouge her lakes had dug into the magical landscape eons ago to find nothing. No pounding magic, no swells, no waves. Even the Mortal Spirits were gone without a trace, leaving the floor of the Sea of Magic empty as a desert.
Considering how long she’d fought them, that might have been a blessing, but as much as she hated the human monsters, nothing could still the terror of finding a barren plane where a sea should have been. She was pulling herself out of her vessel to try and discover what had happened, where all the magic had gone, when she saw it.
Across the empty plane that had been the Sea of Magic, a mountain now rose from the ground where no mountain had been before. It was straight and round like a post, but unlike every spirit vessel Algonquin had ever seen, it went up, not down, soaring so high, she couldn’t see its peak. She could feel it, though. Somewhere up there, beyond her reach from the floor of the now bone-dry desert, mortals were working magic. Not normal mortals, and not normal magic. These were the most dangerous of their kind, the traitors who called themselves Merlins. Together with their horrible gods, they were working what little magic remained, gathering and bending it into something it should never be. Something hard and dry.
Something she couldn’t touch.
“No!” she yelled. “Stop!”
But her voice made no sound. There was no magic left here to carry it. No life, no power. Just the horrible emptiness beating down on her like the summer sun in a drought, and as it scorched her, Algonquin’s own magic began to evaporate.
“No,” she said again, grabbing at her water as it vanished. “No! I don’t want to die!”
But there was no stopping it. Somehow, the humans had stopped the flow of magic. Stopped the sea itself. With no more power flowing in, what was left was rapidly shrinking, leaving her floundering in a smaller and smaller puddle.
Leaving her to die.
“No,” she sobbed, but her voice was tiny now. Time passed differently on this side. In the real world, the growing emptiness had been alarming but measured, a problem to be dealt with. On this side, it was panic. Her magic vanished out from under her, leaving her tiny and weak at the bottom of her vessel. By the time she realized just how things were, she couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t yell, couldn’t stand. Couldn’t do anything except watch herself vanish.
Watch herself die.
No! She was the land, part of the Earth itself. She could not die! If she vanished, who would protect her fish? Who would push back the dragons and hold the human tide at bay? She couldn’t die. Wouldn’t. She’d do anything to stop this, anything.
“Please!” the last of her cried in the dark. “Someone, anyone, help me!”
I don’t want to vanish!
Her last plea was nothing but a thought. The disappearing magic had taken everything else with it, even her voice. She was an empty cavern now. A ghost, and even that was fading fast. Desperate, she prayed for help. Prayed to the dark, promised it anything if it would only keep her from vanishing. Keep the deathless from death. Then, just as the last of her was collapsing into dreamless sleep, something whispered back.
Anything?
The voice was one she’d never heard before. It wasn’t even properly a voice. It was more like a shift in the dark, and it came from far, far away. But it was an answer, the only one she had, and so Algonquin reached out to it with the last of her magic, promising it anything if only it would save them. Save her.
Her cry was a single drop of water. A plea so weak, even she barely heard it. The answer, though, was crystal clear.
I come.
The promise slipped like smoke through the emptiness, but Algonquin was no longer there to hear it. She was gone, an empty vessel forced into a deathlike nothingness that mortals ten centuries later would arrogantly call sleep. But though she couldn’t answer, the promise was made, and far away, beyond the walls of the planes, something turned in the emptiness between worlds and began to move.
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. “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 snapped. “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 growled. “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 demanded, 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.”
