by Rachel Aaron
Her eyes flicked to Estella as she said this, but the seer wasn’t the one who answered. Instead, Svena hauled back and breathed fire straight into Amelia’s face.
This time, the attack actually got through. Amelia jerked back, shaking her head as ice coated her red feathers. She raked her claws down Svena’s body at the same time, and the white dragon screamed, the first sound she’d made since she’d arrived. But though the wounds looked horrible, Svena was already pushing back on her feet, ignoring the blood that ran down her scales as she advanced on Amelia again.
“Stop this,” Amelia hissed, melting the ice from her face with a smoky huff as she retreated up the beach. “Stop, Svena. You’re killing yourself.”
But the bloody dragon didn’t stop. She just kept pushing forward, and Amelia, clearly unwilling to injure her any further, had no choice but to keep moving back. “Have you gone as insane as your sister?” she growled. “You’re not in your right mind. You always were a good enemy, Svena. That’s almost the same as being friends. Don’t make me do this. I refuse to slaughter you when you can’t fight back.”
Again, though, the dragon didn’t stop, and Amelia’s glare turned murderous. “Last warning,” she said, planting her enormous clawed feet in the blackened sand. “Back down.”
With every word she spoke, the air grew hotter. Even through the portal, it burned Marci’s skin. She had no idea how Svena could stand being in front of that, but just as she was bracing for what was clearly going to be the end, Estella said, “Now.”
The word rang like a bell across the battlefield, and Svena’s body jerked. That was the only warning they got before Amelia’s rising heat was buried under an avalanche of cold.
Marci had felt dragon magic plenty of times before, but this was another level entirely. Just standing near it made her feel like claws of ice were stabbing into her stomach. But though it felt horrible, Marci still didn’t understand what it was supposed to do. There was no blast of white fire, no attack. Amelia didn’t even seem to be in pain. But then, when Marci was wondering if Svena had just lost control for good, it happened.
All over the beach, all the chunks of unmelting ice Svena had thrown around during the fight began to hum. The eerie sound was enough to make even Amelia look alarmed, but it wasn’t until the enormous dragon actually turned around that Marci finally figured out what was going on. All of those times where Svena’s attacks had missed hadn’t been misses at all. The failed shots had fallen around the bay in a wide circle, and Amelia was now standing directly at its center.
Amelia must have noticed this just a hair faster than Marci, because she was already launching into the air, but still not fast enough. Her claws had barely left the sand before the humming ice exploded in a massive cloud of frozen crystals that caught her mid-flight. Amelia turned and breathed fire at once, but this time, even that wasn’t enough. Though the beach outside the circle was still smoldering, the inside was so cold, the air itself didn’t move. Only the ice kept spreading, and by the time Svena pushed herself back to her feet again, Amelia was frozen from her claws to her wings.
“You can’t keep this up forever!” she roared, breathing another wave of scorching fire over her icy prison. “You idiot, this is your life’s magic! You’re going to kill yourself trying to hold me down, and for what? You can’t even hurt me in the time it’ll take me to break free.” As she said this, the ice holding one of her wings shattered, and Amelia bared her teeth in triumph. “You feel that? I’ll be out in less than a minute!”
“But a minute is all we need.”
Marci jumped. She’d been so transfixed on the epic battle going down on the other side of the portal, she’d forgotten that Estella was still standing right beside her. Now, though, the seer stepped forward, raising her hand to point at the sky overhead.
Marci looked before she could think better of it, squinting into the glare of the setting sun. She was starting to wonder if the seer was bluffing them when she spotted it.
It was a plane. Not a passenger jet or an island jumper, either, but one of those massive, long haul cargo planes, and it was going down. Had been for a while if the smoke pouring from its four engines was any sign, but between all the fire and magic, no one had noticed. No one, that was, except Estella.
“Right on time.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Amelia roared, slamming the full weight of her body against the icy prison, but it was no use. Fast as her heat was melting it, it wasn’t fast enough. Marci was still watching her struggle in horror when Estella turned and pressed something flat and papery-feeling into her hands.
“For Brohomir,” the seer said sweetly. “A parting gift.”
“Wha—” Marci began, but the dragon was already walking away, dispersing her shimmering barrier with a careless flick of her hand as she stepped through the portal and onto the blackened beach. Like she was just taking a stroll on the beach, Estella walked to her sister’s side, throwing up another, much thicker barrier just as Amelia cracked the ice holding her second wing. But though the huge dragon was now more than halfway free, it was far too late. The crashing cargo plane was nearly on top of her. She barely had time to put her newly-freed wings up as a shield before the jet slammed into her, crushing the dragon under six hundred thousand pounds of flaming steel.
“Amelia!” Marci screamed, or she started to. Before she could actually make a sound, though, the blast wave from the plane’s impact shot through the portal, slamming her off her feet and into the cement wall behind her.
***
When the rumbling finally stopped, Estella lowered her frozen barrier to reveal a smoking wasteland. Amelia’s famous beach was now a smoldering crater. Inland, a forest fire was beginning to rage, though whether it had been sparked by the jet fuel or Amelia’s own attacks, Estella didn’t know. Nor did she care. She had more important business to take care of, but just as she was about to set off into the smoke, something cold and sharp wrapped around her ankle.
She looked down, eyes narrowing as she saw Svena’s claw, the tip of which was hooked around her leg. “What?”
Her sister responded with a rattling gasp, her pain-dilated blue eyes pleading through the haze of smoke. Below her, the sand was now red with her blood. Her white scales were stained as well, and Estella sighed.
“It won’t be much longer,” she promised, reaching out to touch her sister’s scorched nose. “But we can’t rest yet. There is no room for weakness.”
The dragon’s blue eyes narrowed, but Estella was having none of it. “Start working on the spell to take us home,” she ordered, snatching her hand away. “This will only take a moment.”
A growl rumbled through the sand, and for a heartbeat, Estella thought her sister was going to balk. But she’d already made sure there was no more disobedience in Svena’s future, and in the end, the bloody white dragon bowed her head. Still, Estella waited until she actually felt the freezing wind of her sister’s teleportation spell before she turned back to the task at hand, unraveling the next to last black chain from her hand as she began picking her way through the plane’s smoking wreckage in search of the red dragon lying beneath it.
***
Marci woke to the feeling of a deathly cold paw gently patting her face.
Alive?
She groaned and turned her head, wincing when the motion jostled the newly formed lump on the back of her head.
The paw tapped again.
“I’m up,” she grumbled, opening her eyes to see Ghost standing on her chest. “What happened?”
The spirit flicked his ears. Not sure, was asleep. He looked over his shoulder. Explosion, then nothing.
Marci frowned, confused for a moment, and then it all came back. She sat up with a curse, ignoring the pain as she looked for Amelia, but the room was empty. Other than the door Estella and Svena had ruined, there was no sign the storage unit had ever housed a portal to paradise. Or a dragon. And that was a big problem.
What are yo
u doing? Ghost asked as Marci shoved herself to her feet.
“Don’t know yet,” she said, grabbing the wall for support as a wave of nausea swept over her. “Something.”
Tell someone, she added to herself, and fast. She didn’t want to believe a dragon as old and powerful as Amelia could be killed by a rogue aircraft, but she wasn’t willing to rule out anything when a seer was involved, especially since the whole thing had obviously been a trap. She wasn’t sure why Estella would go through all that trouble and not kill Amelia, but assuming the dragon mage was dead didn’t help anyone. There was no way Marci could do anything on her own in any case, which meant her first priority had to be getting word of the attack to someone important as soon as possible. Normally, that would be as simple as calling Julius and letting him relay it up the chain, but even that was complicated since Marci had crushed her phone last night to prevent traces, a scorched earth policy she was beginning to regret.
Well, it was too late to cry over crushed phones now. Fortunately, she still had Ghost, and he was actually awake. Convincing him to play messenger cat again would take some doing, but this was an emergency. When Marci glanced down to ask, though, her eyes were drawn instead to a paper envelope lying on the floor where she’d fallen.
What’s that? Ghost asked, nosing curiously at her hand when she bent over to pick it up.
“I think it’s the thing Estella gave me for Bob,” she replied, turning the envelope over in her hands. Given the disasters going on at the time, she hadn’t actually looked at the thing when Estella had handed it to her, but the envelope felt right. But while there was clearly something inside it other than paper, it didn’t feel magical or dangerous. She was about to open it up and see for herself when she felt Ghost tense in her mind.
“What?”
Someone’s coming, he said, ears swiveling. Quickly.
Probably security, Marci thought grimly, glancing at the storage unit’s busted door. They’d certainly made enough noise to attract even the laziest rent-a-cop. But as she was leaning through the broken door to peer down the hallway for a glimpse of what was coming, her spirit tensed again. That was all the warning Marci got before a leather-gloved hand closed over her mouth.
“You have five seconds to tell me where Amelia is.”
She couldn’t help it. She screamed, jumping off the ground. Or, she would have if the person behind her hadn’t instantly wrenched her back down.
“Try that again and you’ll lose an arm,” the deadly voice growled. “And you now have four seconds left.”
Marci froze, eyes wide. Beside her, Ghost was hissing silently, his glowing fur standing up on his back. He wasn’t attacking, though, and since Ghost was more than capable of taking out a human, that told Marci that whatever was behind her was not. Not that that was a surprise considering the question about Amelia, but the realization was enough to make her stop panicking and start thinking.
She went limp immediately, lowering her head in obvious surrender. Even so, the hand over her mouth stayed firm for another few heartbeats before letting her go.
“Thank you,” Marci said, rubbing her bruised lips in exasperation as she turned around. “There was no need for—”
She stopped, eyes wide. The female standing directly behind her was only a little bit taller than Julius, but a thousand times more terrifying. Her black hair was cut military short, and her wiry body was clothed from neck to boots in the same sleek, urban combat armor SWAT teams wore when they were going on a night raid. A sword that looked like a smaller version of Justin’s was belted onto her hip, and her eyes, though clearly Heartstriker green, looked more like gemstones than anything soft enough to be alive. Likewise, her face—which, like all dragons, should have been inhumanly beautiful—was the cold, efficient mask of a career killer. It was probably the most intimidating sight Marci had ever seen, and she was still trying to get up the courage to speak when the dragon growled, “Three seconds.”
“Who are you?” Marci said, trying not to let her voice shake. Interrogating angry magical predators was usually the sort of suicidally stupid antic Marci tried her best to avoid, but as she’d just told Amelia, she had some experience with dragons now, and withholding useful information was a pretty good tactic if you wanted to stay alive. Besides, even though it was obvious that the dragon in front of her was a Heartstriker, she didn’t know which Heartstriker, and she wasn’t about to give up information on Amelia to just anyone.
The dragon had clearly picked up on this as well, because she released her death grip on Marci’s shoulder. “You’re Julius’s human.”
It wasn’t a question, but Marci nodded anyway. “And you are?”
Rather than answer, the dragon began to inspect the storage unit’s destroyed door. “Svena’s work?”
“That depends,” Marci said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Name?”
The dragon gave her a cutting look, but she answered. “Chelsie.”
Marci’s eyebrows shot up. Chelsie was the dragon Justin was always going on about, the one who’d taken his sword. That immediately put her up several notches in Marci’s estimation. Anyone who saw Justin as a menace rather than a champion was clearly a sensible creature.
“Svena and Estella attacked us,” she reported now that she was satisfied Chelsie could be trusted. “Amelia had a portal open to her island. We were talking through it when they came, and then she and Svena fought. Amelia was winning until Estella hit her with a plane. I got knocked out after that.”
Chelsie looked like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe that or not. “A plane?”
“A cargo jet,” Marci explained. “It was seer work. Svena played like she was losing for the first part of the fight, and then she trapped Amelia in the exact right spot where the plane would crash. By the time Amelia noticed, it was way too late.”
“You know a lot about seers for a mortal,” Chelsie said, arching an eyebrow. “But that’s useful at the moment.” She lowered her gloved hand to the hilt of her sword. “Do you think she’s still on her island?”
Marci nodded. “That’s where they all were when the portal closed. I suppose she could have left after the crash, but—”
“No,” Chelsie said firmly. “Even Amelia can’t make portals when she’s seriously injured, and if she was trapped by Estella, injured is the best we can hope for.” She drew her sword with a ringing sound. “Looks like we’re going to the Philippines."
“W-we?” Marci sputtered, backing away from the long, naked blade that was much too close to her. “Why me?”
“Because you’re my only witness,” the dragon explained. “I can’t leave you here, but I can’t leave my sister either, so we’re going to do both at once.” She raised her sword. “You might want to stand back.”
Marci jumped back to the wall. “But I can’t leave the DFZ! And Amelia’s on the other side of the world. How are you—”
Before she could finish that question, Chelsie answered it. The dragon swung her sword down in a beautiful arc. Where the blade passed, the air split open like paper, opening a rift into what looked like a warzone. Smoke and wreckage were everywhere. If the shape of the island itself hadn’t been identical, Marci wouldn’t have believed it was the same beach. More importantly, though, she didn’t see Amelia anywhere.
For a horrifying second, Marci was convinced the giant dragon had been blasted to pieces. Then Chelsie jumped through the portal, skidding down the edge of the massive crater of wet sand to what looked like a heap of dirty, water-logged trash at the bottom. It wasn’t until the dragon fell to her knees beside it, though, that Marci realized the pile wasn’t trash at all. It was Amelia. A human, naked, very bloody Amelia lying face down in the water at the bottom.
“Is she—”
“She’s breathing,” Chelsie said, hauling her bloody sister into her arms. “Barely. Do you know any healing magic?”
Amelia looked way beyond any of the spells Marci knew. Considering the trail of blood she
was leaving in the sand as Chelsie sprinted back up the crater, Marci wasn’t sure how the dragon was still alive. “I can do basic first aid,” she said. “But I can’t move from this spot. I told you, I’m trapped—”
“Trapped in the DFZ, I heard,” Chelsie snapped, giving her a hard look.
Marci bit her lip, terrified she’d just identified herself as more trouble than she was worth. But to her enormous shock, Chelsie didn’t say a word more about it. She just ducked back through the hole she’d cut in the air, cradling Amelia in her arms as she moved back to Marci’s side. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way, then,” she said, offering Marci her shoulder. “Grab on.”
Marci blinked. “Grab on to what?”
“Me,” Chelsie growled, shifting Amelia’s body to one side to free her sword arm. “And hold on tight. This is going to be a rough ride.”
Her tone didn’t allow any backtalk, and Marci really didn’t want to stay here alone, so she shoved her bag back onto her shoulder and latched on, wrapping her arms around the dragon’s armored waist as tight as she could. “Where are we going?”
“Don’t know,” the dragon said grimly, lifting her sword again. “I just hope my brother does.”
Before Marci could remind her again that she really, really had to stay in the DFZ, Chelsie brought her sword down. Like before, the air split beneath them, peeling away from the blade’s razor edge to drop them into the unknown.
Chapter 11
Julius woke to someone pounding on his door.
He sat up groggily, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as he checked his phone. What he saw made him wince. According to the clock, he’d barely been asleep an hour. He needed another seven at least, but whoever it was at the door wasn’t going away. By this point, the knocking was starting to rattle the windows, so Julius hauled himself up. He’d already grabbed the doorknob before it occurred to him he probably should have checked the peephole first. When he yanked the door open, though, it wasn’t one of Algonquin’s anti-dragon units or even a pizza delivery guy. It was Bob, and he did not look happy.
