by Rachel Aaron
“Hello,” Julius said, trying to look as friendly and unintimidating as possible. Not that he could have intimidated dragons like this. “You probably remember me from this morning, but I’m Julius Heartstriker, one of the heads of the Heartstriker Council. I’ve come to request an audience with the Qilin.”
“The Golden Emperor does not wish to see you,” the guard on the left said, in perfect English. “Come back tomorrow at the appointed time of surrender.”
“How do you know he doesn’t wish to see me if you didn’t ask?” Julius countered, smiling politely. “I promise not to take too much of his time. I just have a few questions about the surrender agreement. The sooner I get them answered, the faster we can end this awkward waiting period and come to an agreement.”
Considering Heartstriker’s surrender was a when rather than an if, that shouldn’t have worked, but as Julius had noticed downstairs, the emperor wasn’t treating it like a done deal. No dragon confident in his success would sweeten a deal that much right off the bat, and sure enough, the moment he hinted there was a chance of wrapping things up faster, the Qilin’s dragons jumped on it.
While the left one kept an eye on them, the red dragon on the right pulled out his phone. Whatever message he sent, the answer must have been immediate, because a few seconds later, the twins nodded at each other, and the left dragon opened the throne room door, motioning for Julius and Fredrick to follow him inside. With a deep breath, Julius did, slipping nervously between the double doors into a throne room that, once again, looked nothing like he remembered.
Like the Hall of Heads leading up to it, the Heartstriker throne room had been stripped clean. Everything was gone: the three-sided council table, the Quetzalcoatl’s skull, the art displays from the adjacent hallways, everything. Even the mosaics depicting the Heartstriker in all her feathered glory had been picked out of the walls tile by tile. The only thing that hadn’t been moved was Chelsie’s Fang, which was still lying on the balcony where she’d dropped it yesterday, probably because no one else could pick it up. Other than that one detail, though, Julius felt as though he were standing in a completely different mountain, but the strangest change of all was the throne.
He didn’t know how they’d gotten it in here, but standing in the place where their Council table had been this morning was a massive and incredibly lifelike statue of a twisting golden dragon that served as the base for two thrones. A large one made of white jade positioned inside the dragon’s open mouth, and a smaller, black jade one cradled in the crook of its tail. The whole thing was incredibly beautiful, a true work of art that absolutely did not belong here. He was still staring at it in horrified wonder when the door to what had been Bethesda’s apartments flew open, and the Empress Mother hobbled into the room.
“I understand you wish to discuss your surrender,” she said, cane clacking against the cracked stone of the throne room’s polished floor as she made her way toward the golden dragon. By the time she reached it, the red dragon who’d let them in was already there, ready to lift the old crone off the ground and into the smaller of the two thrones. Once seated, the Empress Mother took her time getting settled, placing her cane into a crook in the golden dragon’s claws that seemed tailor-made for the purpose before folding her hands in her lap. Only then, when she was comfortable and elevated above the Heartstrikers in every way, did she finally turn her red eyes on Julius.
“Speak,” she commanded. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”
Julius would have pointed out she was the one wasting time, but he couldn’t say a word. He was still trying to make sense of how his world had changed so quickly.
If someone had asked him a week ago about redecorating the throne room, he’d have been all for it. He’d always hated and feared this place, which existed only to be a gaudy showcase for Bethesda’s power. Now, though, standing in the emptiness left by the removed mosaics and the headless hall and the missing skull with a foreign throne sitting at the heart of Heartstriker power, it suddenly didn’t matter that they were all just symbols, and his mother’s symbols at that. They were still part of Heartstriker. Gaudy or not, seeing them erased like this made Julius feel more under attack than the army of dragons flying into their territory had. For the first time in his life, he wanted to lash out for his clan, to make these dragons pay for what they had done to the Heartstrikers. He was still struggling to get the unfamiliar violent urge in check when the Empress Mother rapped her knuckles against the stone of her black throne.
“Are you deaf, child?” she asked sharply. “I am doing you a great honor coming to answer your questions in person. You would be wise not to waste my generosity. Now tell me, what new groveling do you bring from your worm of a mother?”
With every arrogant word, Julius’s anger flared hotter and hotter. “I’m not my mother’s mouthpiece,” he growled. “I’m also not a child. I’m a head of Heartstriker, an elected member of our Council, and you are sitting where our table should be.”
“That thing?” The Empress Mother smiled. “I had it removed, along with everything else. This entire peak was a shrine to the violent, backward, barbaric culture that elevated a creature like Bethesda. Such an environment is no place for the golden Qilin, even temporarily, so I did what needed to be done.” She arched an eyebrow at Julius. “Surely you’re not here to defend your mother’s taste.”
“Taste has nothing to do with it,” Julius said angrily. “You changed our mountain without permission!”
“We do not need your permission,” she said haughtily. “Your conquest is final in all but formality. That you are free to complain about such obvious improvements is a sign of the enormous and frankly undeserved favor the emperor shows to your clan. Did you enjoy walking down a hall of corpses?”
Julius hadn’t. If she’d asked first, Julius would have personally helped them take down the Hall of Heads. But they hadn’t asked. No one had. They’d just done it, and the more he thought about that, the more determined Julius became to never surrender to the Golden Emperor. It didn’t matter how awful Bethesda’s taste had been. Changing another clan’s seat of power without bothering to seek input from the dragons whose traditions you were “improving” wasn’t the action of a ruler Julius could ever call his emperor.
“Enough of this,” the empress said, narrowing her eyes at what Julius realized must have been a murderously defiant expression. “I did not disrupt my rest to listen to a spoiled whelp complain. You said you had questions. Speak them or go.”
“I will,” Julius said, glaring back at her. “But only to the Qilin himself.”
“Insects do not demand to speak to emperors.”
“I’m not an insect,” he said angrily. “I’m a clan head, just like your son. Until he actually conquers Heartstriker, that makes us equals, and equals speak face to face, not through a third party.”
That was enough to make the empress rise from her throne, but Julius wasn’t finished. “You can threaten me all you like,” he snapped. “But I fought for the right to stand at the head of Heartstriker, and I will not be bullied into backing down by a toothless old dragon who thinks she has power because her son is emperor.”
By the time he finished, his heart was pounding like he was in the middle of a fight. But while the anger on the empress’s face was terrifying, Julius would go down fighting before he took a word of it back. Heartstriker might be on the verge of getting crushed, but until it crumbled, this was his clan, the family he’d fought his mother for and won. He refused to surrender that to anyone, but especially not to a dragon as haughty, insulting, and undeserving as this one.
“You certainly are your mother’s son,” the empress said at last, looking down her nose as though she was seriously considering roasting him on the spot. “So much pride, and so little done to deserve it. But it matters not. Demands without the power to back them up are nothing but empty words, and that’s all a worm like you has left.”
Julius was opening his mouth to say
she was wrong. That Heartstriker was still the largest dragon clan in the world, and they would never bow to an emperor who demanded their obedience but did nothing to deserve their respect. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance. Before a word could leave his lips, the Empress Mother lifted her chin, looking over Julius and Fredrick’s heads at the pair of red dragons guarding the door behind them.
“The audience is over,” she announced. “Take the young Heartstriker out to the edge of the desert and kill him.”
Julius froze, eyes going wide. “What?”
“Did you not hear me?” the empress asked innocently. “I’ve decided you’re going to die.”
“But you—” He began to sputter. “You can’t do that!”
“Of course I can,” she said. “Because unlike you, I have actual power. I’m an empress, whereas you’re barely one-third of a clan head. An elected third. If you die, you don’t even have an heir to take up your cause. Your family will simply choose another of the Broodmare’s infinite children to replace you, and while I’m sure he’ll be every bit as arrogant and ridiculous, at least he’ll have your death to help correct his behavior.”
Her smile turned into a sharp-toothed leer as the red dragons stalked toward them. Julius swore under his breath and turned to face them, dropping a hand to his Fang. Fredrick had already moved to guard his flank, staring at the approaching red dragons with grim determination. “Sir,” he said quietly. “We can’t—”
“I know,” Julius said, drawing his sword, not that it would do much good. His Fang only froze Heartstrikers, and while it was still a perfectly serviceable blade, Julius had never been much good with those. The Mongolian dragons certainly didn’t look worried. They didn’t even have weapons, and they were still advancing fearlessly, grinning at Julius and Fredrick as if taking the two of them down would be no problem at all. Which, considering their size, it probably wouldn’t be.
“If you kill me, you’ll have to wait even longer for your surrender,” Julius warned. “Weeks, maybe months.”
“A trial to be sure,” the empress replied. “But one I’m willing to endure to be rid of a recalcitrant whelp bent on impeding the best stroke of luck your backward clan’s ever had for the sake of his pride. I’m sure your replacement will not make the same mistake.”
Julius cursed under his breath. So much for that. The red dragons were now less than ten feet away, spreading out to attack Julius and Fredrick from both sides at once. Because he was a real dragon, Fredrick instantly adjusted his position to match the new arrangement, but all Julius could focus on was how he’d just gotten them both killed. He was about to suggest they make a break for the balcony when the door in the wall behind the new throne—the one that led to what had been to Bethesda’s apartments—clicked open.
The Empress Mother went still at the sound. So did the twins. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the empress flicked her fingers, and the twins bolted back to their guard positions by the door, leaving Julius and Fredrick standing back to back in the middle of the room as a dragon wearing blue robes came around the corner of the massive throne.
Locked in fight-or-flight, Julius’s instincts focused instantly on the newcomer. But while he was obviously a member of the emperor’s court, the new dragon looked legitimately baffled by the scene in front of him. By contrast, the Empress Mother had suddenly become the picture of serenity, her bloodthirsty smile evaporating as she turned to acknowledge their visitor.
“What is it, Lao?” she asked placidly. “Does my son require my attention?”
The new dragon, Lao, shook his head. “No, Empress. I was just passing through on my way to find the youngest Heartstriker.”
The Empress Mother blinked in surprise, but Julius had already jumped. “That’s me!” he said loudly, shoving his Fang back into its sheath. “I’m Julius Heartstriker.”
“So I see,” Lao said, looking him over before turning back to the empress. “Were you busy with him, Empress Mother? The Qilin wanted to ask him a question, but I’d be happy to wait if you’re—”
“No!” Julius said. “We actually came up to ask for an audience with the emperor. The Empress Mother was just about to grant it when you arrived.”
The old dragoness’s red eyes narrowed dangerously, but when she didn’t call him on the lie, Julius knew he’d just found the limit of her vaunted power.
“I’d like nothing better than to speak with the Golden Emperor,” he said brightly, turning all of his attention to Lao, whom Julius’s nose had just identified as the blue dragon who’d thrown the robe over the Qilin when he’d landed and handed Julius the surrender scroll. “You work for him, right?”
“I am his cousin and sorcerer,” Lao said, looking nervously at the Empress Mother. But while it was clear he knew he’d interrupted something, his loyalty must have been to the emperor alone, because he didn’t ask her if he should wait again. He just turned and walked back to the door that led to Bethesda’s apartments in the rear half of the mountain’s peak, beckoning for the Heartstrikers to follow.
Julius didn’t wait to be told twice. He bolted for the exit, dragging Fredrick behind him as they fled the throne room under the Empress Mother’s murderous glare.
***
“That was lucky,” Fredrick whispered when they were safely on the other side.
“I think ‘lucky’ is the operative word,” Julius whispered back, looking around at what had been his mother’s front parlor.
Like everything else up here, the Heartstriker’s private rooms had been swept absolutely clean. Unlike the empty Hall of Heads and throne room, though, these had been redecorated with potted plants, vases in a variety of styles from traditional Ming to modern art pieces, and paintings. Absolutely lovely paintings, actually.
Like the vases, the art on the walls came in a wide variety of styles with modern abstract pieces hanging next to traditional watercolor landscapes depicting gorgeously rendered dragons floating over mountains and rice paddies. The wide difference should have been jarring, but the colors, lines, and textures had been deftly arranged so that each painting balanced its neighbors. The result was perfect harmony, an effortless greater beauty that was the polar opposite of Bethesda’s gaudy gold furniture and left no question as to whose rooms these were now.
“This way,” Lao said. “The immaculate Qilin desires to see you immediately.”
Julius followed obediently, doing his best not to trip over his feet as he gawked at the beautiful changes, which continued down the hallway that ran through the middle of his mother’s suite. He was taking a mental inventory of everything that had been replaced when Lao stopped at the doorway to what had been Bethesda’s sitting room, the one where she and David had been waiting for Julius the morning of their first Council meeting. When he tried to walk inside, though, the blue dragon stopped him.
“Your sword.”
Julius blinked at him. “Sword?”
Lao’s jaw tightened in annoyance. “However insignificant the threat may be, we cannot allow armed outsiders to enter the Golden Emperor’s presence. You must hand over your weapon before I can permit you to go inside.”
Julius found it odd that the Living Embodiment of Good Fortune would worry about something as mundane as a sword. But the request wasn’t unreasonable, so he obediently removed his Fang, though he didn’t offer it to Lao. When the blue dragon scowled, he explained, “Fangs of the Heartstriker are particular about who touches them.”
He’d expected to have to say a lot more than that, but to his surprise, Lao nodded. “We’ve already had a run-in with the sword on the balcony,” he said, leaning away from the sheathed blade in Julius’s hands. “You may leave it here, along with your servant.”
“Fredrick’s not my servant,” Julius said quickly. “He’s my brother, and I’d like him to come with me if that’s okay.”
The Chinese dragon’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s your brother?”
Julius couldn’t blame him for being surprised. Th
e tall, stoic, elegantly scowling Fredrick looked nothing like Julius—who was short for a dragon with Bethesda’s trademark sky-high cheekbones and a very undraconic habit of smiling. It also didn’t help that the green of Fredrick’s eyes still looked weirdly off. It hadn’t been so noticeable down in the basement, but up here in the bright afternoon sunshine streaming down from the skylights that kept Bethesda’s apartment hallway from feeling like a bomb shelter, they didn’t even look properly green, much less Heartstriker green. They were more like the color of yellowed grass in the fall, which definitely wasn’t the color they’d been when Julius had met him. He had no idea what could have caused the change, but it wasn’t helping Fredrick look like a Heartstriker. Thankfully, Lao didn’t know enough to realize just how strange that was.
“I suppose anything is possible in your family,” he said with an elegant shrug. “The Broodmare is famous for her lack of standards, so it makes sense that her children would show a great deal of variance.”
He stopped there, smiling, but Julius was too used to comments at his mother’s expense to even be fazed at this point. When it was clear he wasn’t going to get the rise he wanted, Lao moved on.
“You may bring your brother if you wish, but he’ll have to hold his tongue. The emperor is tired from the long journey, and the burden of this invasion weighs heavily upon his mind. One Heartstriker is bad enough after the trouble you’ve caused. I will not allow you to aggravate things further by teaming up on him.”
“Hold up,” Julius said angrily. “You’re upset at us that your emperor is stressed out from taking over our territory?”
“Yes,” Lao said without missing a beat. “If your clan hadn’t been such a failure on all fronts, he wouldn’t have been forced to take such drastic measures.”
“Or he could have stayed home,” Julius said, exasperated. “I’m not trying to start a fight, but if you hate being here so much, you can always just leave.”
