by Rachel Aaron
***
Despite Marci’s warning, the neighborhood the address led them to caught Julius off guard. When she’d said it was a bad area, he’d imagined something like the housing blocks that surrounded the commuter deck Ross’s people lived under, only with more trash and drug dispensaries. This was like entering another world.
The first thing he noticed was the dark. Thanks to a quirk of skyways above, two enormous support pillars had been placed directly in the middle of the main road that ran through this part of the old city, cutting off all street traffic for eight blocks. Adding insult to injury, the two pillars had also been placed in the exact right position to block out the gaps in the Upper City that would have let sunlight down into this part of the Underground, leaving the eight-block span black as a cave even in the middle of the afternoon.
This combination of oppressive darkness and blocked streets had destroyed any chance the neighborhood had of rebuilding. Even though someone had carved out a driveable path around the north-most pillar, breaking through an abandoned garage in an effort to let in traffic, the alternate route clearly hadn’t caught on. There were no shops here, no flashing advertisements or vending machines or vibrant crowds, just a ghost town of boarded-up brick buildings that still bore the high water marks of Algonquin’s flood on their upper stories. The only building that bucked the trend was the one they were driving to.
Like everything else here, the one story diner was a relic of the days before the flood. Unlike the rest of the rotting city around it, though, this one was relatively kept up. It stood on the corner of what must once have been a busy intersection before the road had been cut off. But though its windows were clouded with dirt and the residue from decades of wax-based glass marker specials, the light that shone through them was yellow and cheerful, and more than enough for Julius to make out the slender blond woman sitting in the red vinyl booth in the corner, staring into her coffee mug like it held the mysteries of the universe.
After searching so long, finally spotting their target felt a little like seeing a ghost. Julius had gotten so nervous during the drive over, he’d half convinced himself that Katya would be long gone, yet there she was, sitting just as she’d been when the tracking program had yanked her picture off the diner’s security camera.
He held his breath as Marci parked the car on the curb right by the diner window, but Katya didn’t even look up. Tapping his pocket to make sure the silver chain was still there, Julius got out of the car and leaned down to speak through the shot-out passenger window. “Wait here. This shouldn’t take long.”
“I hope not,” Marci said, eying the empty, pitch-black street. “Call me if you need me, and good luck.”
He flashed her a tight smile and turned away, walking into the diner as casually as he could. An ancient string of bells on the door announced his arrival, and a voice from the kitchen yelled for him to sit wherever he wanted. Julius ignored them both, keeping his eyes locked on the diner’s only other customer.
From the moment he’d entered the building, the dragoness had given no sign she noticed his existence, but as he walked past the rows of empty booths, he could see the tension building in her shoulders. By the time he’d reached her table, she looked ready to bolt. She hadn’t done so yet, though, and Julius took his chance. “May I sit?”
She glanced up, looking at him head on for the first time, and Julius took an involuntary step back. In the pictures he’d seen, Katya’s kinship to Svena had been obvious—same white-blond hair, same snow-pale skin, same ice-blue eyes—but now that they were face to face, the differences were all he could see.
Where Svena had been perfect, poised, and deadly, everything he expected from a daughter of the Three Sisters, Katya looked awful. The pale skin beneath her eyes was marred by bruise-dark circles, and her long hair was a tangled, ratty mess pulled back in a sloppy pony tail. Sitting in the faded booth in a long sleeved t-shirt and sweat pants, clutching her coffee mug like a lifeline, she didn’t look dangerous or ancient or magical. She looked hunted and exhausted, and more than a little afraid. She was still a dragon, though, and she made him sweat through a long, weighing look before finally nodding at the booth across from her.
Julius didn’t wait to be asked twice. He slid into the seat, placing both hands on the table where she could see them. “I’m—”
“A Heartstriker,” she said, her softly Russian accented voice as weary as the rest of her. “The eyes always give it away.”
He nodded, waiting for her to go on, but Katya just turned back to her coffee, swirling the black liquid in slow, thoughtful circles.
“I must admit it hurts,” she said just when Julius thought the silence would go on forever. “I never was the pride of our clan, but I hadn’t thought Estella’s opinion of me had sunk so low that she would outsource my defeat to one of the feathered serpent’s baby lizards.”
“I’m not here to defeat you.”
Katya snorted. “I’m not worried about that.”
Considering his lowly, non-threatening status was the reason Ian had picked him for this job in the first place, Julius wasn’t insulted by her dismissal. He did, however, have a point to make, so he reached out his hand, resting it palm down on the table right next to where hers were cupped around her coffee. “You should have been,” he said, turning his hand over to reveal the enchanted chain hidden in his palm.
She’d been so certain of his inability to hurt her, she hadn’t even bothered to get out of the way. Now, she snatched her hands back with a gasp, knocking over her mug in the process. Julius caught it before the coffee could spill, setting the chipped mug safely back down beside the silver chain, which he’d left on the table. Katya watched him warily, her eyes flicking from him to the chain and back again, and then, in a tiny voice, she whispered, “Why?”
“Because your sister wants you to come home.”
“I know that,” she snapped, her soft accent sharpening to something much closer to Svena’s. “You think I can’t recognize Svena’s magic? I meant, why didn’t you do it? You had it right there next to my fingers. All you had to do was twist your wrist and I would have been chained. So why didn’t you? Why not put me to sleep and be done with it?”
“Because I don’t work that way,” Julius said with far more confidence than he felt.
Her eyes narrowed. “What is your name, Heartstriker? How did you find me?”
“I’m Julius,” he said. “And I found you by tracing the number Ross Vedder gave me.”
Her expression turned equal parts betrayed and furious when he mentioned her human lover’s name, and Julius raised his hands at once.
“He didn’t sell you out or give in to threats,” he assured her. “I didn’t do anything to him, actually, and it wouldn’t have worked if I’d tried. That man would have fought me to the last breath rather than give up any information about you. He didn’t even tell me you two were together until I’d convinced him I meant you no harm, and the only reason he gave me your number then was because he was out of his mind with worry.”
“Well, I wasn’t worried about him,” Katya said, though the lie was so bad even she winced. “I appreciate you not putting that chain on me,” she said quietly. “And I’m happy you didn’t hurt Ross. He’s a very good human. But I can’t go back. You don’t know what it’s like for me at home.”
“You might be surprised,” Julius said, resting his elbows on the cheap Formica table.
Katya shook her head. “You can’t understand. You’re a Heartstriker. You have, what, a thousand siblings?”
He chuckled. “Not a thousand.”
“There are twelve of us,” she went on, ignoring him. “Twelve daughters, all born of magic one at a time.”
Julius stared at her, uncomprehending. He’d heard that none of Three Sisters had ever engaged in a mating flight, but he’d always assumed it was a myth. Even the most powerful dragons had to obey the basic rules of biology, but Katya was shaking her head.
&nbs
p; “My mothers are the most powerful dragons to ever inhabit this plane,” she explained, her voice more bitter than proud. “No one was considered worthy to father their children, and so they scorned all suitors, creating eggs between themselves one at a time using their power alone. Each daughter took centuries to create. I was the last, hatched just before the Earth’s native magic dropped too low to support such an enormous ritual. Our mothers went to sleep immediately after. I’ve never met them, actually. Svena raised me.”
She finished with a shrug, but Julius could only stare. No wonder the Three Sisters considered Bethesda an upstart. If Katya had hatched back before Earth’s magic dried up, she had to be at least a thousand years old, which meant their youngest daughter was almost as old as his mother.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “That explains why Svena asked me to find you. She must be very worried.”
Katya rolled her eyes. “If she’s worried about anything, it’s that I’ll embarrass her. I’m a failure, you see. All of my sisters are great mages, Svena especially, but I could never manage more than the simplest magic. It was so bad that my eldest sister, Estella, deemed me an incurable disgrace before the end of my first century. I’ve been locked away in our glacier in Siberia ever since so no one would find out that the daughters of the Three Sisters aren’t uniformly perfect.”
He winced. “I can see why you ran away.”
“This is my twenty-third escape, actually,” Katya said bitterly. “You can’t imagine what it’s like up there. Nothing but ice and snow and the constant echoes of my mothers’ troubled dreams. None of my other sisters will stay for more than a few days at a time, but I’m expected to live there forever simply because Estella decided I didn’t fit our family image.” She tilted her head toward the dark window beside her. “I came to the DFZ because I thought if I went to a place where dragons couldn’t move freely, I could buy some extra time. But it’s barely been a month, and here you are.”
“Well,” Julius began. “I—”
“I’m not going back,” Katya snarled, bearing her sharp, too-white teeth. “I refuse! And if you try to make me, I will kill you!”
She said this as viciously at any dragon, but Julius had a lot of experience with death threats, and there was a lack of surety in her tone that made him suspect that Katya of the Three Sisters had never actually killed anyone in her life. Voicing his suspicions would be an unforgivable insult, however, so he made a show of looking properly cowed, lifting his hands and exposing his neck in a display of surrender.
“I wasn’t planning on making you do anything,” he said meekly. “Believe it or not, I understand you completely, and I’m on your side. I’m not a thousand yet, but I know what it’s like to be trapped by your family’s expectations. My mother actually threatened to eat me just this morning if I failed to bring you back to your sister.”
“So why don’t you?” Katya demanded. “What game are you playing with me?”
“I’m not playing at all,” he said. “You’re right. My life would undoubtedly be a lot simpler if I’d taken my chance and chained you a few minutes ago. But if I had it to do over, I’d make the same decision, because putting you to sleep and returning you to your family against your will isn’t something I feel right doing.”
Now she just looked confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve recently had cause to reevaluate my life,” he explained. “You see, my family thinks I’m a failure, too.”
“I guessed that much from the seal,” she said, giving him another appraising look, though a curious one this time. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Everything, according to my mother,” he said with a laugh. “Let’s just say I don’t fit her vision of what a dragon should be.”
Katya chuckled. “I can see that. Any dragon who didn’t take the chance and chain me when he could is clearly a few scales shy of a full coat.” Her eyes dipped to his chest. “Or is it feathers with you?”
“A mix,” he admitted.
He hadn’t meant it as a joke, but she began to smile all the same. “I think I see Bethesda’s problem. You’re much too nice to be a dragon.”
Julius smiled back. “Thank you.”
“I don’t understand why you’re letting that hold you back, though,” Katya went on. “I’m a failure because I can’t use my magic, but your problem sounds more like an attitude issue than a true handicap. Have you tried just gritting your teeth and pushing through?”
He sighed. “Several times. Most recently last night when I let my brother convince me to try and break into your old sewer compound through the side and ended up stuck in a lamprey pool. That’s how we met Ross, actually.”
Her eyes went wide. “You went into that horrid place and lived?” and then, “Wait, two Heartstrikers attacked Ross?”
If Julius had any remaining doubts that Katya really did care about her human shaman, her violent hiss at the end of that last question would have put them to rest. “No one attacked Ross,” he assured her. “My brother was going to, but I stopped him.”
She lifted her chin. “And you tell me this to curry my favor, I suppose?”
Julius’s eyes went wide. “No! That’s not it at all! Really, I didn’t even think about that angle until you pointed it out just now. That’s how bad I am at the ‘conniving dragon’ stuff, and honestly, I’m fine with that. I don’t want to be someone who saves people just to get leverage on their lovers.”
“But that’s life,” Katya said flippantly. “Use or be used. You can frown on it all you like, but if you want to survive, you’ll do what you have to just like the rest of us.”
Julius shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
She gave him a sharp look, but she didn’t cut him off, so Julius hurried to explain. “When you treat everyone you meet as either an enemy or a pawn, you give others no choice but to hate and fear you.”
“So?” Katya said. “It’s better to be feared than loved.”
“Maybe in the short term,” he admitted. “If you’re strong enough to take it, but no one’s strong forever. No matter how good a user you are, when you treat others like tools, you’re setting yourself up for an endgame that inevitably leaves you outnumbered and alone with no one but resentful pawns for backup. That doesn’t sound like victory to me.”
“What would you do instead?” she scoffed. “Be so nice that all the dragons have a change of heart? Teach us the power of friendship like some sickening moral tale?”
“No,” Julius said. “But I am going to try being your friend. Because I think if you stop dismissing this out of hand and actually consider what I’m saying, you’ll find we make much better allies than enemies.”
That stopped her cold. “You would ally with me against your own clan?”
“That’s just it,” he said, leaning over the table. “We’re not against anyone. This doesn’t have to be a fight or a war or a game or any of those terrible dragon metaphors for life. Just because everyone is expecting us to be at each other’s throats since you don’t want to go back and I’ll die if I don’t make you doesn’t mean that’s our only option. Because we’re not thoughtless pawns with artificially limited moves, we’re dragons, and if we combine our efforts, there’s a good chance we can turn a lose-lose situation into a victory for everyone.”
He finished with a hopeful grin, but Katya was still scowling, her white teeth chewing on her pale lip. The longer she stayed silent, the more Julius worried. Maybe he’d come on too strong? He’d tried to be as honest as possible, but if Katya didn’t believe him, if she still thought his vulnerability and confessions were just a show to gain her trust, there was nothing he could do. He’d gambled everything on this. If she bolted now, he had no way to stop her.
Seconds ticked by like hours, making Julius sweat. But then, just when he was sure he’d lost, Katya sighed. “I’m not agreeing to anything,” she warned. “But I am very tired of being cloistered by my sisters, and e
ven more tired of running. So tell me, Julius the Nice Dragon, what would this proposed alliance entail?”
Julius very nearly fell over in relief. The only reason he didn’t was because there was no time. He was already explaining the plan he’d come up with, laying it out for her just as it had formed in his mind while he was talking to Marci. Within minutes, Katya was nodding, and though she didn’t look convinced, she wasn’t rejecting him either, and that was enough.
Chapter 13
Marci sat in her car, watching through the cloudy diner window as a smiling Julius leaned closer to woman sitting across the booth from him. The amazingly, spectacularly, inhumanly beautiful woman he’d been searching for. The woman who was obviously another dragon, and not one from his family.
No wonder he didn’t want to kiss you.
She scowled and pushed the unwelcome thought out of her head. She’d already made up her mind that she wasn’t going to dwell on that. She should be happy she hadn’t blown their friendship with that stupid slip-up, not mopey because she’d been rejected by a man she’d known was out of her league from the moment she’d spotted him sitting at the bar, especially now that she knew he was actually a dragon. They were an entirely different species, probably with an completely different standard of beauty. Being upset a dragon didn’t want to kiss you was like being upset a horse didn’t want to kiss you, and Marci definitely didn’t want to kiss a horse. Though, of course, if the horse was as good-looking as Julius, maybe she’d have a different opinion.
