by Rachel Aaron
The second she barked the order, Chelsie, Conrad, and Amelia turned on Julius and Marci as one. “Oh boy,” Marci said, sticking close to Julius as he backed them away. “Not good.”
“No,” he agreed, edging back as Chelsie and Conrad both leaned down to pick up the Fangs that, for some reason, they hadn’t been holding. “Any brilliant ideas?”
“Me?” Marci hissed. “You’re the one who just sold his future for a solution!”
That he had, but the solution he’d paid for was more of a big picture kind of thing, and he didn’t see how it was going to help them now with his three scariest siblings bearing down on them. “I think we should try to separate them,” he whispered. “Remember, we don’t need to win, just survive.”
“Staying alive is always a good plan,” Marci said, reaching up to put her hand on Ghost, who was still clinging to her shoulders. “I’ll take Amelia, you get the other two. Ready?”
“No,” he said, just as Marci yelled, “Break!”
She darted sideways, hands flaring as she yanked down her magic and circled to flank Amelia, who was the farthest away. This left Julius alone in the middle of the room with Conrad and Chelsie. He was wondering if he could survive a jump off the balcony when he saw Justin stirring out of the corner of his eye.
That gave him an idea, and he flicked his eyes up toward the massive skull hanging from the throne room’s ceiling. Specifically, he looked at the skull’s left fang, the one that had been Justin’s.
Under normal circumstances, this should have meant Julius wouldn’t have a chance of getting it out since Fangs could only be pulled by the hand they accepted, and any sword that preferred Justin would never take Julius. But these weren’t normal circumstances. This was the timeline leading up to the moment in the future Julius had purchased, the one where he was guaranteed to still be alive, and if Estella could leverage the chain’s absolute certainty to make the impossible happen, then so could Julius. He had to do something in any case, because while he’d been thinking, Chelsie and Conrad had gotten almost within sword’s reach. So, with nothing to lose but his life, Julius put his faith in the future and jumped as high as he could, hands reaching up to grab his grandfather’s deadly, curving fang.
He’d never actually touched a dragon bone before this moment. Not surprisingly, it was warm as stone in the desert. It was also stuck fast, and for a terrifying second, Julius was sure he’d just turned himself into a hanging target. But then, right before Chelsie swung to cut him down, an old, terrifying magic bit into his hand, and Julius looked up to see that he was no longer clinging to a tooth. He was holding a sword, the huge, familiar Fifth Blade of Bethesda.
He was also falling.
Big as Justin’s sword was, it was still much smaller than the tooth it had been. This size difference meant the sword was no longer connected to the skull, an unexpected consequence that turned up in his favor as Julius plummeted to the ground just in time for Chelsie’s attack to slice through the air where he’d been. He landed on his back, rolling when he hit to come up running. That still shouldn’t have made a difference given who was after him, but Estella’s control must have made Chelsie and Conrad sluggish, because Julius made it all the way across the room without getting snagged, jumping for his downed brother like he was sliding into home plate.
“Justin!”
Justin’s eyes popped open. He was lying on his back in a pile of rubble, his face and chest battered like he’d been beaten. “Julius?” he said softly, squinting like he wasn’t yet convinced this wasn’t a hallucination. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s not important,” Julius said, holding out his brother’s Fang. “I know you’re hurt, but do you think you can pull it together long enough to help me save our clan?”
The moment he saw his sword, Justin had eyes for nothing else. “With that, I can do anything,” he growled, reaching up to grab the Fang’s black-wrapped handle. The second he touched it, Julius felt a much stronger surge of the old magic from earlier, and his brother closed his eyes with a satisfied sigh. Then, like just touching the thing had filled him with new vigor, Justin rolled to his feet, shaking the dust off his body like a dog.
“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” he said, glaring at Chelsie and Conrad, who’d spread out to flank them. “But it can wait. I’ll take Conrad. You get Chelsie.”
“Why do I have to get Chelsie?!” Julius cried, but it was too late. His brother was already swinging, his magic surging as sharp as his Fang as he sliced his enormous sword up, throwing a slash of razor sharp dragon magic across the throne room and into Conrad, who barely dodged in time.
Well, Julius thought, at least Justin was back in fighting form. Guaranteed future or no, he was far less optimistic about own his chances as Chelsie rapidly closed in. “Chelsie,” he said quickly, putting up his hands. “Stop. It’s me. I don’t want to fight—”
She cut him off with a stab at his head. She was so fast, Julius didn’t even see her move until the sword was right in front of his nose. But while that should have been the end of him with a sword through the eye, something odd happened. The moment before Chelsie’s attack hit, one of the bits of rubble under Julius’s feet rolled, making him tilt sideways in just the right way to avoid getting skewered. It was pure, blind luck, the sort of one in a million chance that only happened when you weren’t expecting it.
Or when you’d traded your future to buy another where it was guaranteed you didn’t die.
That thought gave Julius the oddest burst of confidence he’d ever had, and he turned back to his sister, who was already swinging for him again. This time, though, she was the one who stepped wrong, wobbling at precisely the right moment to send her sword, which had been aimed at Julius’s neck, slicing into his shoulder instead.
“Ow!” he cried, grabbing the wound as he jumped backwards. Apparently, not getting killed didn’t mean not getting hurt. But though the cut stung like crazy, he could still move, and he did, pumping both arms frantically as he sprinted away from Chelsie as fast as he could.
Think, he had to think. The incredible luck he’d had up until now had convinced him that the future he’d bought was indeed working. But while Julius was confident he’d arrive at the end result he’d asked Dragon Sees the Beginning to arrange, he wasn’t a seer, which meant he couldn’t look ahead and see how he got there. That left a lot more up to blind faith than he was comfortable with, but at least he wouldn’t have to hold out much longer. He could see the sun setting through his mother’s balcony, getting closer to the horizon by the second. All he had to do was keep it together a little—
A familiar scream shot through the air, turning his blood to ice. He skidded to a stop, whirling around just in time to see Marci fly through the air to crash into the throne room doors.
Julius had never run so fast in his life. He wasn’t sure his feet actually touched the ground until he was beside her. “Marci!” he shouted, dropping to his knees as he grabbed her cold hands. “Marci!”
Her eyes popped open with a gasp, and she sat up. “Whoa,” she whispered, reaching up touch the trickle of blood coming out of her nose. “That didn’t work.”
“What didn’t work?” he asked frantically, running his hands over her arms, legs, and torso to make sure nothing was broken. “What did you do?”
Marci nodded across the room at Amelia, who looked pissed even through Estella’s mind control. “Turns out it’s a lot harder to suck magic out of dragons when they’re not volunteering.”
The blood drained from Julius’s face. “You tried to suck out Amelia’s magic?”
“You know a quicker way of taking a dragon down?” she asked, pushing herself back up with a wince. “Time for Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
“You don’t want to know, and I don’t have time to tell you,” Marci growled, never taking her eyes off Amelia as she put out her hands just in time for Ghost to appear between them. “We got this. Go.”
/> “Wait!” he cried, but it was too late. Marci had already pushed him off the step.
Julius fell with a string of expletives, most of them surprised. He was the first to admit he wasn’t exactly the most hardy dragon, but there should have been no way a mortal like Marci could possibly have knocked him over like that. She must have pushed him just right to knock him off balance, he realized as he hit the ground. And as soon as he looked up again, he understood why.
Chelsie was now standing next to Marci with her Fang wedged in the wooden throne room door exactly where Julius’s head had been a second earlier. Marci, being smart, was already scrambling away, looking over her shoulder just long enough to mouth Sorry! at him before she turned all her attention back to Amelia. As much as Julius wanted to help her, though, he had his own problems. In the time between when he’d looked at Marci and now, Chelsie had already yanked her sword out of the door, which meant it was time to run again.
Wounded shoulder burning, Julius shoved himself back to his feet, looking around frantically for somewhere he could either hide or that would force his sister into a position where she couldn’t attack. Surely in a place as huge as his mother’s throne room there’d be somewhere he could use, but with so many different fights going on, all he saw was conflict. The left half of the room was completely taken up by Justin and Conrad’s epic duel. A fight that, to his amazement, seemed to be stalemated. He wasn’t sure if Conrad was being handicapped by Estella’s control or if Justin was getting a boost from finally reuniting with his sword after a full month of rage, but his brother was doing better than Julius had ever seen, taking Conrad on blow for blow.
Unfortunately, since they were both using Fangs, this also meant their half of the throne room was instant death for anyone without one. When Julius turned to check the balcony side of the room, though, Marci and Amelia had taken that over as well. They didn’t actually seem to be doing anything, but the smell of both their magic was thick enough that Julius wasn’t about to risk stepping between them. That left the middle of the room, but that was also where Estella was, sitting on the Heartstriker’s broken throne and watching the fights below like a Roman empress at the Coliseum while she held Bethesda hostage.
No guarantee of survival was good enough to make Julius go near that, but he had to go somewhere. Already, Chelsie was right on his heels, and from the glare on her face, she was done playing around. So, with every other path blocked, Julius fled to the only place he had left. He jumped, launching himself straight up into the air and onto the Quetzalcoatl’s bus-sized skull.
It swung alarmingly when he landed, the chains creaking where they’d been anchored in the stone ceiling. Both of these only got worse when Chelsie jumped up after him, landing on the hard bone ridge that had once supported their grandfather’s crowning mane of feathers.
“Chelsie, stop,” Julius said firmly, grabbing hold of a chain to keep from falling off. “Estella’s controlling you. You don’t want to do this. You’ve been bending over backwards trying not to kill me, remember?”
Her answer to that was to attack, but her lunge sent the skull swaying wildly, and she missed again, cutting through the chain Julius was holding instead of through her brother. But while this miraculous twist of fate spared his life yet again, it also sent Julius into free fall.
He toppled sideways, hands scrambling desperately over the age-smoothed bone for a handhold. His luck must have suddenly reversed, though, because his desperate fingers didn’t find a thing. He just slid right off, plummeting straight down the side of the giant skull toward the ground directly in front of Bethesda’s throne where Estella was already waiting, her icy sword ready to chop him out of the air.
The fall had gotten his blood moving, but the sight of Estella waiting for him was what sent Julius into real survival mode. The chain he’d bought might protect him from everyone else, but he had no idea how it would stand against a seer with nothing left to lose. He could not, could not get anywhere near Estella, and that knowledge let him reach farther than he’d ever thought possible, nearly popping his shoulder out of joint as his hand shot up to grab the tip of the Quetzalcoatl’s last remaining fang.
But even though he’d made it, even though he’d grabbed on, his fall didn’t stop. He was still plummeting straight toward Estella, because when he’d closed his fingers around the tooth, it had ceased to be a tooth and turned into a sword. A naked, bone-white Fang of the Heartstriker even sharper than Chelsie’s.
That was all Julius had time to take in before the magic bit down.
Chapter 20
Dragon magic surged down his arm and into his body. It was a bit like what he’d felt when he’d pulled out Justin’s sword, only multiplied by millions. But while the sensation was overwhelming and uncomfortable, it didn’t actually hurt until the magic hit his seal.
Now Julius doubled over, crying out in pain. It was similar to when the giant lamprey had spit a blue fireball at him a month ago, but while that magic had simply hammered his mother’s magic, this cut straight through it like teeth through fresh meat. He could actually feel the sword’s edge slicing Bethesda’s magic to ribbons until, at last, there was nothing left to cut. In a matter of seconds, the seal his mother had placed at the root of his magic had been sundered completely, and as the shredded remains fell away, everything Julius had lost came rushing back in.
It was like gaining an entirely new body. He felt stronger, faster, more in touch with the magic around him. He could see better, smell better, hear better. He hadn’t even realized how much he’d lost until it all slammed back into place. He could actually feel his wings again, itching under the skin of his back, but what Julius felt most of all was the fire in his throat.
He’d never liked his fire. He’d never been particularly good at controlling it, and even when he did manage a decent blast, the inherent risks of having something so dangerous that near to his body kept him from enjoying it. Now, though, the heat in his belly felt good. Natural. Powerful. Most important of all, though, it felt under his control, and he blew out a line of smoke just for the joy of feeling it curl through his teeth.
His no longer human teeth.
Julius blinked in alarm. He didn’t remember making the decision to change, he couldn’t even remember hitting the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he was standing on the floor looking down on his mother’s throne room for the first time in…ever, actually. He was still small compared to the huge space, but apparently being sealed had actually been good for him, because he was definitely bigger than he’d been when his mother had kicked him out. His claws, tail, and wings were all larger than he remembered, though that might have just been because Julius was stretching them to their limit in an effort to work out all the kinks after being transformed for so long. Even his feathers looked bigger and brighter, shifting from their usual dark blue across the tips of his wings to an electric bright cobalt across his chest and torso. The real kicker, though, was the weight on his head.
When his brother Justin transformed, his Fang went to the front of his mouth, covering his teeth with a second, larger set of jaws. Up until now, Julius had thought that’s how all the Fangs worked, but the sword he’d pulled must have been even more different than he’d thought, because this Fang—his Fang, he realized with a start—didn’t do that at all. It didn’t lock into his mouth or his claws or anything that you’d expect from a weapon meant for dragons. Instead, it sat on Julius’s head like a crown, pushing back the mane of longer feathers that grew from the top of his head until they felt more like a headdress than things that were actually attached to him. It was a singularly odd feeling, and Julius was trying to get used to it when he realized just how still the room had gotten.
In the confusion of falling and apparently pulling out the one Fang no one else in his family had ever managed to work free, Julius had completely forgotten about the fights. When he looked up now, though, every Heartstriker in the room was frozen in place like someone had hit a universa
l pause button. Justin and Conrad were actually stopped with their swords locked together mid-clash, and Chelsie looked like she’d been paused mid-leap, clinging to the skull only by her fingertips. Even Bethesda was still, frozen on her knees beneath her throne. The only ones who didn’t seem affected by the strange stillness were Marci, who was gawking like a young dragon seeing her first pile of gold, and Estella, who was staring at him with a hate deeper and older than anything Julius had ever known.
“It’s not possible,” she growled, her pale face going even paler in her fury as she dropped her sword and shoved the immobile Bethesda out of her way. “It doesn’t happen this way!” She stomped down the stairs from the throne dais, freezing smoke pouring from her lips. “I knew it could happen. The moment you vanished through that portal, I knew there was a chance you’d find the chains, but it shouldn’t have mattered. It is not possible that you—you, the failure of Heartstriker, the slacker with no potential at all—could buy a future stronger than mine!”
She was screaming by the time she finished, reaching out to grab a handful of the cobalt blue feathers that covered Julius’s chest. “How much did you pay, whelp? What did it cost you to buy a future that would trump mine?!”
“Not as much as it cost you,” Julius said calmly, looking down at her without blinking until she finally released his feathers. “I know what you did, Estella. I even think I can understand why, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”
“Doesn’t have to—” The seer’s face transformed into a mask pure, murderous rage. “I paid for your deaths with mine! This is my victory, bought and paid for! You will not take it from me!”
She was still screaming when her human body burst into freezing white flames. The change was over in a heartbeat, but Julius couldn’t catch more than a fleeting glimpse of massive size and snow-white scales before Estella attacked.
“You will not steal what I have worked for!” she roared, slamming him to the ground with a single beat of her much larger wings. Another swipe had him on his back, and then she leaped on him like a tiger with her curving claws at his throat and her blue eyes staring down at him with blind hatred.
