Last Dragon Standing

by Rachel Aaron

  The pigeon hopped onto his shoulder with a reassuring coo, and he turned to kiss her feathered neck. “I suppose it had to be late, didn’t it? I promised you a grand adventure, and no grand adventure has ever ended with time left on the clock.”

  That was supposed to be a joke, but he couldn’t keep the tremble out of his voice as he raised his head to look at the shadow above them. The pigeon looked as well, her dark eyes ancient and calm.

  We are big from your perspective, aren’t we? She tilted her head. How interesting. I’ve never seen an End from this perspective before.

  “I told you I’d show you new things,” Bob said, craning his neck as he tried to spot the Leviathan’s end.

  There wasn’t one. The devil Algonquin had bargained with took up the entire sky, blocking out the sun behind an endless expanse of matte black shell and thousands of beady insect eyes. Below the giant body, thousands of whipping tentacles were hard at work, sucking up every bit of the remaining water from Algonquin’s lakes. One actually dropped down beside him as he watched, descending from the sky like a long, undulating pipe to suck up the small puddle of water his pigeon had just been drinking from. When it was done, the tentacle moved on, its bulbous tip digging through the riverbed like an anteater’s snout as it hunted for more water to absorb. Bob kicked the black flesh as it went past, earning himself a bruised toe for his efforts.

  “Time to go,” he said, taking one last look at his bloody clothes. The scarlet jacket had been one of his favorites, but it was getting a bit frayed at the edges, which was why he’d decided to wear it. A duel with Chelsie was a fine way for any garment to go out. Between his shoulder and the bloody finger holes his furious sister had put in the front, the jacket was definitely done, so Bob didn’t spare it another thought as he changed to his true shape, shredding the once beautiful clothing to ribbons as he flapped into the sky with his transformed Fang of the Heartstriker sitting across his claws like gauntlets, protecting him from the swirling, glowing magic below.

  “Hop on!” he called to his pigeon, who was struggling to keep up with his much bigger wings. “We’ve got to move fast. I’ve already seen every way this ends, and if we don’t stick millimeter-tight to the schedule, this whole thing could blow up in our—”

  He cut off with a pained grunt. Behind him, absolutely silent, the tentacle he’d kicked had suddenly whipped back around. Bob had calculated the chances of the monster noticing such a tiny blip as minuscule, but he clearly hadn’t given the Nameless End enough credit, because the black appendage curled up into the air like a coiled whip to smack him out of the sky.

  If he’d been human, the blow would have killed him instantly. As a dragon, it merely sent him rocketing toward the ground, crashing through the broken Skyways and into the roof of what had been one of the last intact buildings left in the DFZ.

  Chapter 3

  Julius grabbed Marci and dove, rolling them both out of the way just in time to avoid the hunks of splintered wood. The dragon came in like a meteor, shooting straight through the attic and the second floor right above their heads before landing with a crash in the gravel driveway out front. It was still rolling over and over when Julius felt the familiar burn of Marci’s magic snap like a broken rubber band. The ward, he realized numbly. The ward protecting the house had been broken, which meant…

  “Ghost!”

  Marci screamed the name beneath him, and suddenly, the spirit was there, but not as Julius remembered. This was no fluffy transparent ghost cat. It wasn’t even the shadowy figure of the faceless Roman legionnaire that seemed to be the Empty Wind’s preferred combat form. This was a giant. A mountain of a man eight feet tall who blew in on a wind even colder than Svena’s ice. His dusky flesh was still dark, but it was no longer shadowy or see-through. Quite the opposite, the spirit now looked even more solid than Julius himself. With so much magic crammed inside him, Ghost had a weight to him that no living thing could match. Julius could actually feel his own magic bending toward the spirit like metal shavings toward a magnet as Ghost held up his hand to stop the flood of iridescent power rising up to swallow them.

  He also stopped the collapse of the house, which, now that there was a dragon-sized hole blasted straight through the middle, was no longer structurally stable. The chimney fell over as Julius watched, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the living room. He was looking up to make sure the roof wasn’t about to follow suit when he saw Marci’s spirit looking down at them.

  As always, the Empty Wind’s face matched his name—an empty helmet with two blue-white glowing eyes floating like fireflies inside—but here, too, something was different. It wasn’t just shadows in there anymore. This was a deeper darkness. Staring into it, Julius could almost feel himself being forgotten, as if his bones were already crumbling dust. It was horrifying, but he couldn’t force himself to look away. He was trapped in the sudden realization of his own mortality, the truth that even a dragon like him would eventually die and be forgotten. They would all be forgotten, and—

  Marci reached up and slapped her hands over his eyes, breaking the spell. Julius collapsed into her the moment the darkness let him go. He was still gasping when he heard her yell at Ghost. “I thought that only worked on the other side!”

  “So did I,” replied a thousand empty voices.

  “Well, can you tone it down or something?”

  There was a long pause, and then the freezing wind began to slack off. “Sorry,” Ghost said in a far more normal—but still incredibly creepy—voice. “It’s just… I’ve never had this much magic before. It’s incredible.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Marci said, dropping her hands from Julius’s eyes. “But as a wise man once said, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ I don’t mind you stuffing yourself full of magic, but please don’t send Julius into an existential crisis. I just got him back.”

  “Sorry,” the spirit said again, and then his voice brightened. “I stopped the magic.”

  “I saw,” she said proudly. “And caught the house! A-plus job on both, by the way. Just keep up the good work until Myron and I can reestablish the ward.”

  “I can hold it for as long as you need,” Ghost said, his empty voice a bit too joyful for Julius’s comfort. “It’s just like it was back in the Sea of Magic, but even greater. I can fly here, Marci. I can feel the dead all over the world. They call to me, and I can help them now. I can help them all.”

  “And we will,” Marci promised as she helped Julius back to his feet. “But right now, we have to focus on the immediate concerns, like what hit our roof.”

  She turned to look through the shattered front of the house, glaring at the giant dragon that was still lying in the long gouge he’d put in their gravel driveway. From the feathers, it was obvious the culprit was a Heartstriker, but Julius had never seen one so colorful, aside from Bethesda herself. Even covered in insulation and drywall dust from the house he’d just destroyed, the dragon looked like a giant bird of paradise. His feathers were a riot of tropical greens, reds, purples, golds, and rich blues. Heavy bone gauntlets encased the delicate scales above his clawed feet, the transformed evidence of a Fang of the Heartstriker. Despite all this, though, it wasn’t until the pigeon swooped down through the hole the dragon had left in the spiraling Skyways overhead that Julius finally realized exactly which Heartstriker he was looking at.

  “Bob?”

  The beautiful dragon shook the dust from his feathers and rolled over, pulling himself out of the crater to smile down at Julius. “In my defense,” he said, “that was not the entrance I’d planned.”

  “Not the entrance you…” Julius trailed off as his hands clenched into fists. “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to make a smooth recovery,” Bob replied, looking around until he spotted something in the dark. “Ah-ha!”

  He reached out and snagged a backpack hidden under the edge of the on-ramps. “I stashed this here months ago, in case of just such an emergency,” he sa
id, unzipping the bag delicately with his long claws to pull out a set of perfectly folded clean clothes. “I’d intended to fly in, of course, not crash, but I’m actually only a few feet from where I’d planned to—”

  “Brohomir!”

  The name came out in a roar, making even Bob jump as Chelsie stormed out of the broken house. She crossed the dirt in record time, stopping right in front of the bigger dragon’s enormous claws with a look of pure murder. “What game are you playing now?”

  “At the moment?” Bob held up the folded clothes. “Attempting to get dressed so we can have a proper conversation. I can’t have my grand entrance spoiled by distracting nudity, and trust me, my nudity is highly distracting.”

  “Distracting is all you do,” Chelsie snarled, but she turned her back just the same. Smiling down at her, Bob’s dragon disappeared in a puff of smoke and rainbow feathers. When he reappeared a few moments later, he was wearing a pair of ripped jeans and buttoning a Hawaiian shirt over his still-healing chest. “Is Amelia here?”

  “Where else would I be?” Amelia called, picking her way through the debris toward them. “It’s good to see you,” she said, pushing Chelsie aside so she could hug her brother. “But seriously, how long were you planning to make us wait? I was getting sick of—”

  Whatever she’d been about to say was lost in a squeal as Chelsie’s daughter—who’d been hiding with Fredrick in the kitchen the last Julius knew—burst out of the ruined house and charged full speed at Bob. She leaped on him a second later, knocking him back into the crater when she hit his chest like a rocket. He hugged her back with a laugh, keeping his fingers clear of her excitedly snapping teeth.

  “Yes, yes, I missed you too,” he said as he rolled them back to his feet. “But this isn’t the time for games, little ratter. Now run back to your mother.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “You’re making daddy jealous.”

  The Qilin did not look happy to see his youngest daughter, who’d only just begun to let him touch her, fawning all over the seer. His scowl deepened further when the whelp ignored the order, choosing instead to clamber onto Bob’s back like a monkey. He wasn’t the only one who looked upset, either. Svena and Katya had come out of the destroyed house as well now to see what the fuss was about, and the moment the White Witch saw the child clinging to Bob, her blue eyes widened in a look that made Julius’s blood run cold.

  “Bob,” he said quietly, taking a nervous step toward his oldest brother. “I don’t think this is a good time for—”

  “It’s the only time,” Bob said, the laughter leaving his voice. “This might not be the way I’d planned to kick things off, but everything I see says we’re still on course, which means this might be all the time I have left.”

  “There is no more might, Brohomir,” replied a deep voice.

  Julius whirled around just in time to see the Black Reach step to the edge of the now-roofless front porch. “I gave you more chances than you had any right to expect, but no more.” The oldest seer lifted his chin to look down his long nose at Bob. “This is the end.”

  The finality in his voice made Julius’s stomach clench. “It can’t be,” he said desperately, taking a step toward the construct. “How is this the end? Everyone’s still alive, and we’re all here together. We can beat Algonquin!”

  “I’m not here for what could be,” the Black Reach said dismissively. “I’m here for what will be.” He lifted his eyes, looking over Julius’s head at the taller dragon standing on the edge of the crater behind him. “This is your very last chance, Brohomir. Turn back now, and you may yet have a future.”

  “If I turn back, there’s no future for anyone,” Bob said, his voice shaking for the first time Julius had ever heard. “I’ve looked down every possible path millions of times. This is the only way.” His green eyes narrowed. “And you know it.”

  The Black Reach released a long breath, and Julius’s hand dropped to the Fang at his hip. He wasn’t even sure what he meant to do with it—if there was anything he could do against a power like the Black Reach—but he refused to stand by while his brother died. To his surprise, though, the Black Reach made no move to attack Bob. He just held out his arms.

  “If you’re intent on destroying yourself, at least give me the next seer,” he said. “It’s too early for her to see the end that awaits her.”

  It was a reasonable request, but Bob made no move to comply, and why would he? Even if he hadn’t adored the whelp clinging to his back—which he obviously did—it was clear he didn’t mean to give the Black Reach anything. The oldest seer had to know that, so why bother to ask? Julius was still wondering when a sheet of ice flew across the ground to bind Julius’s and Bob’s legs to the ground. That was when he understood. The Black Reach hadn’t made the request for the baby seer’s sake.

  He’d said it for Svena.

  The White Witch was standing in front of the porch with her infant daughter clutched in her hands. The white whelp was squirming, but her mother didn’t seem to notice. Svena’s eyes were fixed on the little girl clinging to Bob’s back. The human child who wasn’t actually human at all.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded, holding out her daughter. “This is the next seer.”

  “No,” the Black Reach said. “What you hold is merely a child. That”—he nodded at the golden-eyed dragoness clinging to Bob—“is Estella’s replacement. Brohomir hatched her from a dud egg using Amelia the Planeswalker’s fire thirty minutes before you laid your clutch.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Svena of the Three Sisters. I’m afraid you lost before you began.”

  His lips curled as he finished. It was a tiny motion, barely more than a twitch, but Julius had been watching powerful dragons all his life. He knew a pulled trigger when he saw one, and from the way Bob was struggling to free his legs from the ice, so did he.

  “No,” Svena whispered as frost began to form in the damp air around her. “No.”

  By the second no, a strange expression spread over Bob’s face. On any other dragon, Julius would have called it panic, but seers never panicked. He was still trying to figure out what it meant when Bob snatched Chelsie’s daughter off his back and tossed her at the Qilin a split-second before a wall of ice took him off his feet.

  Standing right beside his brother, Julius felt the cold of the ice as it flew by, but he was miles too slow to do anything about it. The blow had already slammed Bob into the spiral of Skyway on-ramps that sheltered the house, sending his sword—the Magician’s Fang—flying off into the darkness. Julius held his breath as the cement guardrails cracked, waiting for Bob to pop back up to his feet as he always did…

  But not this time.

  When the ice released him, Bob fell hard, landing facedown in the gravel at the start of Julius’s driveway. When he finally pushed himself up, blood was running from his mouth. He was still wiping it away when Svena lunged at him, her hand already raised as the icy bite of her magic filled the air.

  “Svena, stop!”

  The white dragon froze, her blue eyes flicking to Amelia, who was running to Bob’s side faster than Julius had ever seen her move. “Back off,” she snarled, smoke curling from her lips as she put herself between the white dragon and her brother. “Brohomir is under my protection.”

  “He stole my seer!” Svena roared at her. “My clan’s legacy! He played me for a fool!”

  The killing rage in her voice was enough to make Julius cower. Even Amelia looked nervous, glancing warily down at the thick carpet of frost that now coated the driveway and everything around it. “I know it hurts,” she said, melting the ice from her own feet with a flick of her fingers. “But he had his reasons.”

  “Reasons?” Svena cried. “He stole from us!”

  “He did,” Amelia agreed. “But you’re just going to have to let it go, because the only way you’re getting to my little brother is by going through me, and we both know you can’t.”

  That wasn’t bravado. Amelia was simply
stating fact. Now that they were standing face-to-face, even Julius, who was terrible at judging dragon magic, could feel the power gap between them. But despite being hideously outclassed, Svena showed no fear.

  “You see, this is why we’re not actually friends,” the white dragon said bitterly, glaring at Amelia with hard, hurt eyes. “A friend would not allow this crime to go unpunished. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to beat you to win.”

  The Spirit of Dragons snorted. “How do you figure that?”

  Svena’s lips curled in a vicious snarl. “I invoke life debt. You will not interfere with my fight until the Seer of the Heartstrikers is dead.”

  Amelia’s eyes went wide, but it was too late. The moment the words left Svena’s mouth, the Planeswalker’s own blazing magic closed on her like a bear trap, binding her in place. After that, all Svena had to do was step around her to stand triumphantly over Bob, who was still pushing himself up off the ground.

  “I suppose it’s too late to say it wasn’t personal?” he asked, giving her a weak smile.

  Svena’s answer was to kick him as hard as she could, aiming her delicate pointed shoe right at the spot in his chest where Chelsie had clawed him. He shifted at the last second to avoid the worst of the damage, but the blow still sent him slamming back into the on-ramps. It wasn’t until the cement barriers cracked completely, though, that Julius finally realized Bob wasn’t faking. He was so used to the seer’s tricks, it hadn’t even occurred to him that this might not be part of his brother’s plan until he heard Bob’s ribs snap. When he moved to help him, though, an iron hand landed on his shoulder.

  “Don’t get involved,” Chelsie growled, her green eyes hard as stones as she watched Svena advance.

  “But he’ll die!” Julius cried.

  “Better him than you,” the Qilin said quietly, stepping up beside them with his arms wrapped firmly around his youngest daughter, who was still desperately trying to get to Bob. “The White Witch is one of the most dangerous dragons in the world. Even I would not wish to tangle with her when she’s this angry.”