by Rachel Aaron
“You see all our futures, right?” she whispered, looking up at him. “Tell me it gets better.”
The seer didn’t answer. He just sighed in that way of his, as though he’d already gone through this a thousand times before. To be fair, maybe he had, but Chelsie refused to give up.
“Please,” she begged, reaching out to grab his hand with both of hers. “You always tell us never to ask about the future, but I need to know it won’t be this way forever. I don’t care if it’s a one-in-a-million chance that won’t come for a century, just tell me a way out exists. Give me hope that I won’t actually be paying for this stupid, foolish mistake for the rest of my life. Please, Brohomir!”
She was crying by the end. Big, ugly, hopeless tears running down her cheeks as she clung to her brother’s hand. Again, though, the seer said nothing. He just leaned down and picked her up off the ground, carrying her out of the throne room to the palanquin waiting outside, where Bethesda was already writing out the details of the blood oath Chelsie now knew for certain she would never, ever escape.
Chapter 1
Heartstriker Mountain, New Mexico, USA, 2096
The desert was full of dragons.
It had been just over ten hours since Algonquin, Spirit of the Great Lakes, had broadcast her intention to wipe dragons off the face of the Earth, and the Heartstriker stronghold in the New Mexico badlands was seething like a kicked-over anthill. Dragons had been arriving all night, clogging the mountain’s tiny airstrip and two-lane highway with their limos, motorcades, private jets, and the requisite human entourages all of that luxury implied. A few even arrived under their own power, their giant feathered wings casting huge shadows in the bright desert moonlight as they flew in from all over the world. No matter how they arrived, though, all of them wore the same grim, cautious scowl, their green eyes constantly sizing up the competition as they crowded into their ancestral home.
Even for Julius, who’d grown up in the mountain, it was more dragons than he’d seen in his life. Bethesda liked to keep her true strength a mystery, so there was no official number for just how many Heartstrikers there were, but Julius had always assumed the true count was somewhere near one hundred for the simple reason that keeping more than a hundred dragons in line at any one time was impossible. But it seemed he’d underestimated his mother, because his dragon count had passed a hundred an hour ago, and the arrivals hadn’t slowed down a bit. At this point, he couldn’t even guess what the final tally would be, but staring out the window at the never-ending parade of monsters, Julius was certain of one thing: this was more dragons than anyone should ever have to deal with.
“I can’t do this.”
“Nonsense,” Marci said. “You’ll do fine. You just need to get away from the window and stop freaking yourself out.”
Julius didn’t think that was going to help. Looking out the window might not be good for his blood pressure, but if he turned around, the only other thing to look at was Marci lying propped up in her hospital bed, fixing the spellwork on her damaged bracelets while Ghost slept on her lap.
That was not a sight that made him feel better. Despite being patched up by one of Katya’s sisters (Julius had already forgotten which. Other than Svena and Katya, the terrifying blondes all looked the same to him), Marci had still had a whole chest full of broken ribs thanks to being thrown into a wall by Estella. Fortunately, Heartstriker Mountain was equipped with a state-of-the-art mortal infirmary to handle the inevitable injuries that cropped up when hordes of human groupies spent too much time around dragons, and they’d treated Marci very well. If it weren’t for the fact that everyone referred to the place as “the vet,” Julius would have had no complaints. Other than Marci being injured in the first place, of course.
“You’re doing it again,” she said, rolling her eyes. “For the last time, Julius, I’m fine. Ysolde the Frostcaller already handled all the actually dangerous stuff. The doctor just said I was pretty much healed. They’re releasing me today, for crying out loud.”
“I know, I know,” Julius said, plopping down on the foot of the bed. “It’s just…I hate that you got hurt. You shouldn’t have to suffer for my mistakes.”
“What mistake?” she cried. “Dude, we won! Things might have been a little hairy at the end, but who cares? We did it! Estella’s gone, the Three Sisters are dead, and you’re legit friends with the new head of their clan. And let’s not forget that you also took over your clan, which means Bethesda no longer has the authority to ruin your life. That’s a victory by any definition. You even got a fancy sword for your trouble.”
“But I didn’t,” he said frantically, placing a hand on the Fang that dangled awkwardly from his hip. Justin had dug up a sheath and belt for him to use, but having the blade covered did nothing to hide just how ridiculous he looked wearing a Fang of the Heartstriker. “The only reason I was able to pull it at all was because I had a seer super-weapon forcing the universe to keep me alive. I didn’t do any of it on my own!”
“Maybe not initially,” Marci said. “But the chain Dragon Sees the Beginning gave you is long gone, and you can still use the sword, right?”
“Yes,” Julius admitted. “But—”
“But nothing,” she said, grinning wide. “Justin won’t shut up about how Fangs choose their wielders. Assuming your brother’s not full of it—and I realize that’s a big assumption—but if he’s right, then the fact that that sword will even let you touch it means that it must at least tolerate you on your own merits.”
“That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Julius muttered, nervously eyeing the window where he could see yet another massive feathered Heartstriker coming in for a landing. “But even if you’re right and the Fang is legitimately mine, I still can’t do this. I couldn’t even handle one of my mother’s parties! How am I supposed to help run an entire clan?”
“Hey, the Council was your idea.”
“But I never thought I’d be on it!” he cried, running his hands through his already rumpled black hair. “I just wanted to make a system where we weren’t ruled by Bethesda’s whims. I didn’t think they’d put me on top of the stupid thing!”
Marci sighed. “Julius…”
“I’m completely unqualified to run a clan,” he went on, getting up from the bed so he could pace. “I’m supposed to have the first meeting with my mother in half an hour, and I have no idea what I’m going to say. Zip. Zero. I don’t even know—”
“Julius.”
He stopped short to see Marci glaring at him. “Quit panicking and listen,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. “I agree. You are completely unqualified to run a clan. But what you’re not understanding is that that doesn’t matter. You’ve been completely unqualified to do everything we’ve been through, and yet you’ve always pulled it off. Maybe it didn’t always go smoothly, but we made it in the end because you refused to accept anything except what was right. So if you just keep doing that and avoid becoming one of the selfish, power-hungry dragons that got us into this mess in the first place, I’m pretty sure everything’s going to work out just fine.”
Julius didn’t believe that for a second. He’d taken history classes. He knew that incompetent leaders could be far worse than the tyrants they replaced. But it was hard to keep arguing when Marci was holding his hand.
“I’m going to mess everything up,” he muttered, sinking back down on the bed beside her.
“Maybe,” she agreed. “But whatever happens, it’s not like you can do worse than Bethesda sacrificing her youngest son in a play to scam her way into a mating flight. The bar is already on the floor here. Nowhere to go but up.”
Julius was opening his mouth to explain the difference between minimal competence and not being an absolute disaster when Marci leaned forward, resting her head on his shoulder.
And just like that, everything else became unimportant.
Between her hair and his shirt, she wasn’t actually touching him, but she was far closer tha
n anyone normally got to a dragon. Close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin and smell the tang of her magic, which was more than enough to set his heart pounding.
Of all the ways his life had been turned upside down in the last twenty-four hours, this was the one change Julius had zero qualms about. He wasn’t sure what he and Marci were, exactly. They’d had no time to discuss it since he’d kissed her in the field before fighting Vann Jeger, and he wasn’t about to corner her with the defining-the-relationship talk now while she was stuck in a hospital bed. But the fact that she didn’t move away when he put his arm around her shoulder struck him as a very good sign.
If the whole thing hadn’t felt so new and delicate, he would have tried to kiss her again. But even with all the other seismic changes in his life, that felt like a bridge too far, so Julius told himself to just enjoy it. Thankfully, Marci didn’t seem particularly inclined to move, either. For several beautiful minutes, they sat there in silence, staring out the little window at the endless parade of planes and dragons, until Julius’s phone went off in his pocket.
“That’s my death knell,” he said bitterly, silencing the alarm. “I have to go meet with Mother about the Council.”
“Good luck,” Marci said, moving back to her nest of pillows and sleeping ghost cat. “Because given how mad your mom looked last night, you’re going to need it.”
He shuddered at the memory. “Do you know when they’re letting you out of here?”
“The doctor said noon,” she said, poking her bandaged ribs through the hospital gown. “But it might be sooner. Like I said, I’m pretty much healed up. They do need you to come sign me out, though. Apparently, I was listed as your human when I came in, and that means I can’t just walk off on my own.”
The implications of that sentence were enough to make Julius wince. But as much as he hated the draconic habit of treating people like pets, he couldn’t deny he was a little relieved. Even for someone like Marci, Heartstriker Mountain was no place for a lone mortal, and that was on a normal day. Now, with the mountain packed to the rafters with nervous dragons, Julius was hard pressed to think of anywhere more dangerous.
“I’ll come back down to get you,” he promised. “But until then…” He trailed off with a smile as he reached into his pocket to pull out a brand-new, top-of-the-line Augmented Reality phone. “I got you a present.”
Marci’s eyes lit up as she snatched the shiny new toy out of his hand. “When did you get this?”
“From the concierge desk,” he said, grinning. “Being part of a giant and wealthy dragon clan does occasionally have its advantages.” He reached down to press his fingers against the phone’s mana contacts, and the augmented interface appeared instantly in the air around them, the neon icons floating like well-designed fireflies in the Augmented Reality bubble only those touching the phone could see. “Everything should be set up to let you transfer over all your old bank accounts and mail and so forth. I’ve already put my number into your contacts. Just message me when you need a pick-up, and I’ll come running.”
“You really have to stop giving me phones,” she said, blushing. “But are you sure you don’t mind? I know you’re going to be crazy busy today, and—”
“I’m never too busy for you,” he said quickly. “You’re…”
She glanced up innocently. “I’m what?”
The most important thing in the mountain to me.
That was what he wanted to say, anyway. But even after their moment earlier, blurting out his feelings now felt premature. With all they’d been through, it was easy to forget that he and Marci had only known each other for a little over a month. Kissing her before Vann Jeger was one thing, but without the looming threat of imminent death, he couldn’t think of a way to tell her how much she meant to him that wouldn’t make him sound like an overly attached weirdo. Marci was still waiting for an answer, though, so Julius settled for the truth, albeit a toned-down version.
“You’re my partner,” he said quickly. “I’m not going to leave you at the mercy of Mortal Services. I’ll be here whenever you need me, and”—here went nothing—“I was also hoping we could have dinner tonight. Just the two of us.”
The words came out in a rush, but considering how long he’d been prepping to ask Marci out, Julius was pleased with his delivery. Marci, however, looked inexplicably disappointed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly panicked. “Is dinner bad for you?”
“No, no, dinner’s great,” Marci said. “It’s just…” Her cheeks turned pink as her eyes went back to the feathered dragons hovering in the sky outside. “I was kind of hoping you could take me flying.”
Julius’s heart skipped multiple beats. “Flying?”
“Only if you can,” she said quickly, face getting redder by the second. “I don’t know anything about the physics of it, but I’ve always dreamed of flying on a dragon. If you don’t want to, though, that’s totally cool.”
Not want to have Marci clinging to his back, shrieking in delight as he flew her over the desert at sunset? Julius couldn’t even imagine it. “I will absolutely take you flying.”
His reward was instantaneous. “Really?” Marci cried, her whole face lighting up before she sprang out of bed, nearly tackling him in a full-body hug. “You are the best dragon ever!”
When she said it like that, Julius could almost believe it. He was about to wrap his arms around her as well when someone knocked on the door. When Julius looked over his shoulder, Bob was standing in the hallway on the other side of the infirmary room’s observation window, making exaggerated hand motions at the spot on his wrist where his watch would be if he’d been wearing one.
Julius’s stomach sank. “I think that’s my cue,” he muttered, turning back to Marci. “You’ll call me?”
“I will,” she promised, looking him in the eyes. “And remember, Julius. You fought a dragon-slaying fjord spirit, went to another plane of existence, foiled an ancient seer, and saved your clan from utter destruction, and that was just what happened yesterday. You can totally handle a meeting with your mother. Don’t let her tell you otherwise.”
Julius dropped his eyes, face burning. He couldn’t tell her how much it meant to hear someone say that, but he was determined to try. “Thank you,” he said. “Really, Marci. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, giving him a shove. “Now get out of here. Your brother’s scaring the nurses, and I’m worried it’ll delay my discharge.”
She wasn’t kidding. Bob’s gestures had been getting more and more extreme as they’d talked, eventually reaching the point where the human nurses in the hall had started actively backing away. Clearly, Bob’s presence was not good for the efficient running of the clinic, so Julius gave Marci a final smile and stepped outside to greet his brother.
***
“Well,” Bob said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as Julius closed the door. “That looked promising.”
“What are you doing here?” Julius asked, ignoring the heat that remark brought to his face. “And why are you dressed like that?”
Every time Julius saw Bob, the seer looked as if he’d gotten dressed by falling backwards into his closet and wearing whatever he landed on. That was still the case this morning, only Bob seemed to have stumbled into a much fancier closet. Rather than his usual odd shirts and paint-stained jeans, he was wearing a dizzying combination of black tuxedo pants, a peacock-blue silk trench coat, a snake-skin vest, and a burgundy velvet top hat complete with multiple white ostrich plumes. Even his pigeon had a pink lace rosette tied to the top of her head like a little hat, and the combined effect was enough to make Julius—who was still wearing the long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans Bob had left for him after he’d changed back from his dragon last night—feel like the odd one out.
“Should I be dressed up, too?”
“Probably,” Bob said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and steering him down the hall. “But there’s no t
ime for that now. This is your big morning, Julius the Nice Dragon! You don’t want to be late to the inaugural meeting of the brand-new first-ever Heartstriker Council.”
Julius grimaced. “About that. I—”
“This is the chance we’ve been waiting for,” Bob said over him, his green eyes sparkling. “At long last, the future is wide open. Estella, my greatest obstacle, is dead, and even if her replacement were born tomorrow, it would be fifty years before she mastered the World of Seercraft enough to comprehend my plans.” He grinned in delight. “For the first time in my life, the entire board is mine. Do you know what that’s like?!”
“No,” Julius admitted. “But aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? There’s still the Black Reach to worry about.”
Bob clicked his tongue. “Firstly, if you can’t see the irony inherent in telling a seer he’s ‘getting ahead of himself,’ I’m officially disowning you as my brother. Secondly, I don’t bother worrying about the Black Reach because I can’t do anything about him. His plots function on a completely different level than mine. Now that you know what he is, I shouldn’t have to explain why.”
Julius nodded. He’d already figured out the Black Reach was really Dragon Sees Eternity, twin brother to Dragon Sees the Beginning and an immortal construct dedicated to preserving the future of all dragonkind. He was also, at least according to Bob, the one who was ultimately responsible for the death of all seers. That struck Julius as the sort of thing you should keep track of, but Bob had already moved on.
“I’ll deal with the Black Reach in time,” he said, hurrying them both out of the infirmary and into the crowded hallway that connected the side building where the mortals were housed to the main spire of Heartstriker Mountain. “Right now, we have a wide-open playing field, which means it’s time to think BIG.”
