by Rachel Aaron
“Sounds good to me,” Justin snarled, lifting his sword. “Prepare to bow.”
“No!” Julius said, grabbing his own blade. The moment he touched the handle, both of the lumbering dragons froze, along with several others in the crowd he hadn’t even noticed pulling weapons. The force of keeping so many dragons in check made the sharp magic of the Fang stab painfully into his hand, but Julius refused to let go. He hadn’t spared his mother’s life to resort to violence now.
“This is exactly what we’re trying to change,” he said slowly, looking out at the crowd, who seemed uniformly shocked. “All our lives, we’ve been taught that might makes right. That dragons are conquerors and power is something you have grab with your talons like we’re still hunting prey, and it’s such a waste. How can we conquer anything when we’re spending all our time and resources fighting among ourselves like a bunch of hot-headed animals?” He shook his head. “We can’t. It’s a stupid idea. It’s also completely wrong. There’s more to being a dragon than just taking, and this is proof.”
He drew his Fang, holding the curved, bone-white blade up for everyone to see. “This is the Diplomat’s Fang, the sixth and final Fang of the Quetzalcoatl. For years it lay useless in his skull because no one could pull it. Now that I have, I understand why it took so long. No Heartstriker could pull this Fang because you were all thinking like him.” He pointed at Gregory. “Or like her.” He pointed at Bethesda. “But that’s not the only road to power. This sword has the ability to freeze violent dragons who think with their fangs instead of their heads. It doesn’t do this so I can then walk up and defeat them at my leisure, even though I could, but so that I have a chance to make them listen. That’s why I was able to pull it when no one else could, because I was the only one who’d rejected the same old broken record of might makes right, and thus the only one who could use this weapon as it was intended.”
He turned to Gregory, who was still staring at him with a look of pure hatred on his frozen face. “If what you say is true, then the fact that I can freeze you like this any time I want means I’m stronger and should therefore rule. But you can’t accept that, can you? So you have a choice: you can either stick to your guns and bow, or you can open your mind and accept that maybe there are other ways of being strong. Other ways to win, ones that don’t require cutting off our own feet in the process. The humans figured this out ages ago. Why can’t we?”
By the time he finished, Gregory was looking more murderous than ever. But Julius had a point to make, and so he let him go anyway, turning to face the crowd, which was far more important than the chest thumping of one dragon.
“This is our chance to stop repeating the past,” he said, raising his voice so everyone could hear. “We’re already the biggest clan in the world. Now we have the opportunity to be the best as well. We’ve spent so long treating each other like enemies, and it’s left us too vulnerable and fractured to face our real enemies. That’s how Estella was almost able to destroy our clan, and it’s how Algonquin’s going to finish the job unless we find a better way. An elected Council is just the first step down that road. It gives us all a chance to stop wasting our time fighting each other and start fighting together. For the first time in our lives, we have a choice to do something other than what Bethesda wants. I say we use it to try something new, something different from the same old violence that’s held us back for so many centuries, and I’d very much like it if you joined me.” He looked back down at Gregory. “All of you.”
He hadn’t even finished when his brother looked away. “What you describe doesn’t even sound like a dragon,” he growled. “I see now how you beat Bethesda. That little Fang of yours is quite the parlor trick. But you can’t keep it up. Forcing dragons to stop and listen doesn’t mean we have to agree with your tripe.”
He turned as he finished, walking toward the door as the crowd parted before him.
“Where are you going?” Bethesda snarled. “I don’t care if you attack Julius, but I did not give you permission to leave.”
“Too bad,” Gregory said as he kept walking. “You lost your power, which means you don’t get to give permission anymore.” He looked around at the crowd of Heartstrikers. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I remember what it means to be a dragon. I have no problem with Bethesda being overthrown by someone who actually earned it, but I’d rather get drowned by Algonquin than sit around taking orders from some beta whelp who lucked his way into an unbeatable sword and is using it to share power instead of taking it for himself. Assuming such a creature could even be called a dragon.”
A handful of dragons laughed at that, and Julius clenched his fists. “What gives you the right to say who’s a dragon and who isn’t?”
“I do,” Gregory growled back, stopping at the doors. “Make whatever claims you want, it won’t hide the truth. You’re a weakling and a failure coasting by on the power of a dragon who died centuries ago. You didn’t earn any of this, you don’t deserve it, and you can’t keep it.” His lips curled in a sneer. “You’ll be dead before sunset tomorrow.” He turned around, waving over his shoulder as he walked out of the throne room. “Go ahead and hold your vote if you want, but I’m out. This is all a waste of time.”
“Stop!” Julius called, but it was too late. Gregory was already walking toward the elevator, and he wasn’t alone. Several other dragons were following him, sneering at Julius on the stage as they strolled out, which, for some reason, was making Bethesda steam. “How dare they ignore our authority!” she snarled. “Conrad! Teach them some manners!”
The big dragon sighed and stepped forward, but Julius stepped in front of him. “No.”
Bethesda’s eyes widened. “You don’t get to tell me no!”
“Actually, on this he does,” Bob said, speaking up for the first time since this had started. “In matters of the clan, you and Julius are technically even, and until you get the tie-breaking vote, I’m afraid it’s going to stay that way.”
“Then call the stupid vote,” Bethesda snapped. “If they want to walk, fine. We don’t need them.”
“No,” Julius said again, making his mother throw up her hands.
“Is that your answer to everything?”
The word no was on the tip of his tongue before he decided not to push it. “We do need them,” he said instead. “The whole point of this Council was to represent the will of the entire clan. If the only ones who get to vote are the ones who agree with us, that doesn’t count.”
“Then we’ll make them come back,” she said.
“Coercion doesn’t work either,” Julius said, dropping his voice to a whisper as he did a quick estimated head count of the remaining crowd. “This is a delicate situation. It looks like Gregory just walked out with almost a quarter of our clan. If they decide to fight, we could have a civil war on our hands.”
“And whose fault would that be?” his mother growled. “You’re the one letting them walk.”
“Yes,” Julius said firmly. “But we’re trying to sell a Council based on fairness and rule of law here, and we can’t do that if we’re forcing people to participate in the electoral process at gunpoint. This is just a hiccup. All we have to do is wait a few days, just until they see we’re here to stay and—”
“A few days?” Bethesda hissed. “I’m not waiting days to be unsealed!”
“Better than plunging the whole clan into civil war!” Julius hissed back. “This could all go south in a moment, and you know it, so stop being selfish and look at the bigger picture. Strategic magic like Algonquin used to take down the Three Sisters isn’t the sort of thing you can rapid-fire. Whatever she did, it’s probably going to be a while before she can do it again. Plus, we’ve already got Svena’s promise to protect us. We have no excuse not to do this right. All we have to do is be patient. Gregory’s whole argument is that I won’t live long enough to make this work, so when I don’t die, everyone will see that he’s wrong and the Council’s here to stay. Once that h
appens, his followers will leave him, we’ll have our vote, and this whole mess will wrap up peaceably.”
“Your not dying is a pretty big assumption,” Bethesda said. “Personally, I thought Gregory was giving you too much credit when he said you’d make it to sundown tomorrow. My money’s on you getting knifed tonight.”
Julius had thought he was past the point of being shocked by anything his mother said, but the casual malice in that statement was more than he’d been prepared for. “I’m not going to die,” he bit out at last. “And if you want to be unsealed sometime this decade, you might as well accept that and work with me. Because I’m not going away.”
His mother’s gold-dusted lips compressed into a thin, angry line, and it was all Julius could do not to grin. Turning that threat back around on her had felt way better than he liked to admit, but he didn’t have time to enjoy it. Now that Gregory and his sympathizers had walked out without repercussions, the remaining Heartstrikers were starting to get antsy.
“Julius,” Chelsie whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back. This was a critical moment. If he didn’t want this whole thing to fall apart, he had to say something. Before he could open his mouth, though, Bethesda beat him to it.
“Two days,” she growled softly. “I’ll give you two days, counting this one. After that, we’re voting. I don’t care if only three dragons show up, I am getting my wings back.”
She glared at him until Julius nodded, and then Bethesda turned back to the crowd. “It seems that someone’s a sore loser,” she said flippantly, rolling her eyes to show just how little she cared about Gregory’s antics. “But while I believe idiots who turn their backs on their clan shouldn’t get a say in how it’s run, Julius has decreed that we can’t hold the vote without all of you present. Unfortunately, since there are only two of us, that puts our nascent Council at a standstill. Until you lot vote in our third member, we can’t complete the Council, which means we can’t make the sort of sweeping, clan-wide decision I used to make every day to keep us safe. So”—her eyes flicked between Ian and David, who were standing on opposite sides of the throne room at the center of their respective factions—“if you don’t all want to die to Algonquin, I suggest you talk some sense into those foolish enough to follow Gregory’s example. This meeting will reconvene on the morning of the day after tomorrow, when we should have enough dragons to actually do something. Until then, I’m extremely disappointed in you all.”
She turned away with a flounce, stepping off the makeshift stage and striding back to her rooms before Julius could recover enough to interject. Not that he would have had anything to say. By his own argument, there was nothing to do but wait, and while he didn’t care for the way she’d phrased it, Bethesda’s maneuver to get the rest of the clan to put pressure on Gregory to come back to the fold was actually pretty brilliant. David and Ian especially had huge personal stakes in making sure this vote went ahead as planned. The only challenge now was to keep that pressure from turning into violence, but Julius wasn’t too worried. Ian and David were both smooth operators. They could handle a thug like Gregory. In the meanwhile, Julius would work on his own issues, starting with a certain seer.
“You know,” he said, turning to Bob, who’d flopped down to sit on the edge of the makeshift stage. “I really could have used your help up there.”
“Really?” Bob said. “Because I thought you did perfectly well. It’s not as though my endorsement would have done you any favors, anyway. Most Heartstrikers think I’m crazy.”
That was true. Julius had certainly had his doubts about the seer in the beginning. Even so. “You still could have backed me up.”
“And risked showing my hand?” Bob scoffed. “Julius, Julius, Julius. You might be setting up a new game with this Council, but that doesn’t mean the old rules don’t apply. If I support you, then everyone will know I’m backing you. At best, they’ll think you’re as crazy as I am. At worst, they’ll assume you’re my puppet. Neither of those outcomes works in our favor. In fact, we should stop talking immediately. You never know who might be watching.”
Glancing at the crowd, the answer seemed to be several dragons, but when Julius turned back to his brother to say he didn’t care, the seer was already gone. He was looking all around to see where he’d vanished to when Justin grabbed his arm.
“Justin,” Julius said, wincing at his brother’s angry look. “What—”
“You froze me,” the dragon said, his voice murderous.
“I know,” Julius said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. It was the only way to keep the situation from coming to blows.”
“You say that like it’s bad,” Justin snapped. “But blows are the only way to get through to dragons like him. What do you think he’s going to do when I have to stop him from killing you next time, huh? Apologize and see the error of his ways?”
“It’s always a possibility,” Julius said, but the words rang hollow even to him. “Look, this isn’t about beating Gregory. I don’t care if he hates me, I just want to show everyone he’s wrong. You can’t change a mind that doesn’t want to change, but you can shift groups by showing them the truth, and the truth is dragons aren’t born to be violent, selfish, arrogant manipulators. That’s what we were raised to be, but we can change. We don’t have to be self-destructive monsters. I’m walking proof of that, as are Katya and Amelia and you.”
Justin looked terminally insulted. “Are you calling me nice?”
“I would never,” Julius assured him, putting up his hands. “But if you really were a cold, ruthless, calculating dragon, you never would have gone through so much trouble for me all those times.”
His brother hunched his shoulders defensively. “Don’t get any weird ideas. I only saved you all those times to get you in my debt.”
A debt from a dragon as lowly as Julius didn’t account for a tenth of the effort Justin had put in to help him when they were kids or more recently in the DFZ. But Justin’s ego was a fragile snowflake, so Julius let it slide. “It’s still true for the others I named,” he said. “And if those inarguably powerful dragons aren’t what Gregory says, that proves he’s not just wrong. He’s utterly wrong. All we have to do is stay alive, and reality will make our point for us.”
Justin arched an eyebrow. “You seem pretty confident.”
“What, that dragons aren’t all monsters?” Julius smiled tiredly. “Of course I’m confident. I’ve bet my life on it multiple times now, and I’ve always come through. Not to mention I just had the whole thing independently confirmed by an ancient dragon construct from another plane. Hard to get more proof than that.”
Now Justin just looked confused. “You’re going to have to tell me what happened inside that portal,” he said, shaking his head. “How about during dinner? I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry enough to eat a football team.”
“You go ahead and eat without me,” Julius said quickly. “I don’t have time. I’m seven hours late to pick up Marci.”
“I can’t go without you,” Justin said, appalled. “What part of bodyguard don’t you understand? You don’t leave my sight. Besides, if she’s waited this long, what’s another hour?” He grabbed Julius’s arm. “We’ll eat first then grab your mortal.”
“Justin, no!” Julius cried, yanking his arm back. “I’ve abandoned her all day!”
“So?” Justin said. “She’s a human, not a dog.”
“I know, but…” He trailed off, defeated. There was simply no way to explain this to Justin without also explaining how he felt about Marci, which Julius absolutely wasn’t about to do. Especially since he hadn’t even explained it to her yet. “I just have to get her first, okay?”
Justin stared at him for a moment, and then he rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he growled. “Mortal first, then food. But I get to—”
He stopped short, whirling around. For a moment, Julius couldn’t understand why, and then he felt the prickle on the back of his neck a split
second before Chelsie stepped out of the evening shadows beside him, and directly behind Justin.
The knight swore loudly, whirling around to face their sister, who was standing exactly opposite of where he’d turned to find her. “Really?”
“Didn’t mean to bruise your ego,” Chelsie said, holding out a folded piece of paper. “I actually just came to give you this.”
Justin snatched the paper out of her hand with a sour look that faded quickly as he read. “This is a challenge!”
“One of several,” Chelsie said, looking annoyed. “It seems that everyone’s taking today’s chaos as an opportunity to move up in the world, and since your Fang is the only one that can be won through combat, there’s a waiting list of dragons as long as my arm who want to duel you for it. I told them you were busy guarding Julius, but—”
“Oh, Julius doesn’t mind if I go fight,” Justin said instantly. “Do you, Julius?”
“No,” Julius said, glancing at Chelsie in confusion. “But what about bodyguarding?”
Justin’s face fell instantly, making him look like a kicked puppy. It was painful to see, but before Julius could tell his brother that it was fine and he’d just keep a hold on his Fang, Chelsie beat him to the punch.
“I’ll keep Julius safe tonight.”
Justin’s face split into a huge smile. “I take back everything I said about you,” he said as he jogged out of the throne room. “I owe you one, Chelsie!”
“You owe me hundreds,” Chelsie muttered, turning to Julius, who couldn’t believe that had just happened.
“Are you really okay with this?” he asked. “Not that I mind your company, but don’t you have other things to do?”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Do you not want me to stick around and keep you alive?”
