A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  Sir Myron Rollins had always prided himself on being a man who got things done. He’d built his career doing what other, lesser mages claimed to be impossible. But while many did not agree with his methods, Myron had always found that no one complained after the battle was won. Today would be no different. Emily could call him a traitor all she liked, but when this was over, the world would know him as the Merlin who saved humanity from the spirits.

  Starting with Algonquin herself.

  Clutching Emily’s head under his arm, Myron smiled one last time at the Lady of the Lakes and stepped into the circle. The moment he crossed the silver line, the loops of carefully arranged metal ribbon that had once been Emily Jackson’s body lit up like phosphorus, filling even the inky dark of the Pit with blinding light. There was so much power, simply stepping into the circle should have burned out every mage in a ten-mile radius—including him—for months, possibly forever.

  As always, though, Emily protected him. So long as he held on to the general’s head, the spellwork Raven had carved inside it all those years ago shielded him as it had once shielded Emily’s humanity from the relentless onslaught of spirit-level magic. But unlike his former partner, Myron was no mere pilot. He was a mage, the best alive, and his name now replaced Raven’s at the spellwork’s crux. With it, the blinding magic was his to control, to press and beat and mold like clay into the form he’d caught a glimpse of in the blood pool back in Reclamation land. The shape that, as he formed it, he realized he could now see mirrored beneath him.

  It was a marvelous thing to witness a new spirit’s birth. Normally, human eyes couldn’t see magic the way spirits, dragons, or even magical animals could. With so much power in his hands, though, Myron didn’t need to see. He could feel the DFZ spreading out below him like a bottomless pit.

  Like most modern mages, Myron had spent years studying the Spirits of the Land. He’d even bound a few in an attempt to learn how their magic functioned. But while every spirit’s structure was famously and frustratingly unique, the one characteristic they all shared was that they were measurable. The magic contained in the spirit of a lake or a mountain always mirrored their physical forms. Animal spirits were trickier since you were working with the combined volume of an animal population’s magical potential rather than landmasses, but the general idea was the same. When it came to the magic of land and animal spirits, what you saw was what you got.

  The spirit he stood on now was something else entirely.

  It was unfathomably massive. How massive, he couldn’t yet say, but the record-breaking mass of magic he’d crammed into Emily’s circle barely registered beside it. Whatever was below him, it was far, far bigger than the city that had spawned it. Bigger than the Lady of the Great Lakes. Bigger than any spirit he’d encountered before. It was almost too big to comprehend, and to his amazement, it was already nearly full.

  As he stood in the backwash of so much power, all Myron could think was that at least this solved the riddle of why the DFZ’s ambient magic was always so much higher than the rest of the world’s. It was sitting on this, a magical vein deeper and richer than all the spirits around it combined. He wasn’t sure yet how much of that was the product of the Algonquin’s magic-siphoning efforts in Reclamation Land and how much was the natural result of humans attaching their hopes to the city, but wherever its power had come from, the nascent spirit was on the cusp. It stirred as he watched, throwing off a mess of emotions every bit as wild, violent, and desperate as the city that had created it. One more drop, and it would wake completely.

  Fortunately, a drop was what he had. Next to the thing below, the magic contained in Raven’s Construct—the combined power of dozens of spirits, more magic than any human had ever gathered in one circle—was nothing, not even a percent, but it was enough. When Myron let the power go, it hit the sleeping spirit like a catalyst, spidering down through the seemingly bottomless magic like lightning. It was still going when an alarm began to sound from the phone in Myron’s pocket.

  A smile spread over his face. He didn’t even have to bring up his AR to know what the alarm was for. It was the sensors at his New York lab, the ones he’d rigged to monitor the deep magic. Two weeks ago, that same alarm had tipped him off to Marci Novalli. This time, Myron knew it was ringing for him. Down below, the enormous magic was coalescing into a form. It was still chaotic, but within that chaos, structure was emerging, and structure meant rules. Rules Myron now set out to enforce as he took hold of Emily’s spellwork and pushed his magic through it, closing the silver circle like a noose at the exact moment the newborn spirit breached the physical world for the first time.

  Even though he’d worked out all the theory himself, seeing it in action was still miraculous. In the middle of his circle, magic was being forced into solid form before his eyes. It rippled and shifted several times before finally stabilizing into the shape of a person. An emaciated young woman wearing a long-sleeved black hoodie, black leggings, and sneakers.

  Aside from her thinness, she looked shockingly normal. Even her clothes were remarkably nondescript, super generic, one-size-fits-all throwaways they sold in vending machines. She was the sort of person you saw everywhere in the DFZ, one of the millions of hungry, possibly homeless, definitely impoverished hopefuls who filled the Underground in droves. If he didn’t know what she was, Myron could have walked past her on the street without so much as noticing, which he supposed was the point. In a city this big, anyone could disappear into the crowd. Looking unremarkable was a good defense in the DFZ, and defense was clearly what the spirit wanted given the fear rolling off her in waves as she looked around at the silver prison Myron had made.

  What is this? Her voice was a panicked gasp in his mind. She pressed against the glowing wall cast by the spellwork next, beating on the barrier when it wouldn’t let her through. Let me go!

  “No,” Myron said, gripping Emily’s head, and the mastery it granted, firmly in his hands. “Allow me to explain what is happening. You are the spirit of the DFZ.”

  She spun around, looking at him in wonder through round eyes that glowed the same orange as the city streetlights. That’s my name!

  “It is,” he said smugly. “And I know it. I am Sir Myron Rollins, and now, by your name and this circle, you are bound to me.”

  The spirit recoiled. No, she said, shaking her head. I am free. I—

  “You are a dangerous spirit born of humanity’s chaos, ambition, and greed,” he said over her. “It is my duty as a mage to chain you for all of our protection. I will not be a cruel master, but I will not tolerate disobedience. Is this understood?”

  No! she cried again, her thin lips curling in hate. I have no master. I am the DFZ. I am freedom! I—

  Myron yanked on the magic running through the spellwork that bore his name, and a collar appeared around the spirit’s throat. It was made from the same silver metal ribbon as the rest of the circle, but unlike the spellwork on the ground, these ribbons followed the movements of Myron’s hand as he gripped down, squeezing the spirit in a binding as hard and unforgiving as steel.

  “Is this understood?” he repeated as she fell to her knees.

  The DFZ fought him frantically. She hissed and bared her teeth, scraping her bony fingers frantically at the noose around her neck. Powerful as she was, though, she was also new. A baby, uncertain of her strength and terrified of the pain Myron was inflicting. It was terribly unfair, but ruthlessness was the only edge he had over a power so much greater than himself. If he was going to make this work, he had to be in control, so he ignored her pain and dug in deeper, binding the spirit until she was gasping at his feet. He’d almost cut her magic in half before she finally gave in, her head dropping in a limp nod as she finally acknowledged his control.

  “Excellent,” Myron said, easing up just a fraction. “Now, take me where I need to go.”

  The DFZ looked up from the ground in confusion. Where you need to go?

  “The Merlin Gate.”

/>   When that failed to elicit an immediate reaction, he yanked the spirit to her knees. “I know you know where it is. Unlike Marci Novalli’s premature horror, you were born of fully formed magic. You should know instinctively how to find the Heart of the World. Take me there now, or suffer again.”

  The ultimatum was a gamble. Myron knew better than to let his doubt show, but the truth was he’d only read mentions of the Heart of the World in stories. From what he could gather, it seemed to be some kind of Merlin headquarters, a safe haven built into the deep magic of the world. He knew it was real thanks to Algonquin, but the actual mechanics of getting there and entering the gate were complete guesswork. Marci Novalli’s cat hadn’t known anything, but he was hardly representative. His entire existence was a mistake, a premature Mortal Spirit born of death and the spillover from Algonquin’s attempts to raise this one, but the DFZ was different. She’d been born properly, and since the Heart of the World was located in the spirit’s side of things, and every Merlin had a Mortal Spirit by definition, it only made sense that she would be the key.

  At least, that was Myron’s hope. A hope that paid off when, after several seconds of confused staring followed by defiant glaring, the DFZ turned around and began to dig.

  It was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. Hunched on the ground like a gremlin, the spirit attacked the silt-covered road with her bony fingers, flinging the dirt over her head and onto her back. But though she was moving an impressive amount of material, the hole beneath her never seemed to get any deeper. Instead, the DFZ herself began to change, her shape twisting beneath the piled, sludgy dirt of the Pit until she didn’t even look human anymore. She looked like a rat. Not a normal rat, either, but one of the giant, magically awakened sewer rats that infested the pipes of old Detroit. The ones that ate large dogs and small children.

  A few minutes later, it was no longer just a matter of looks. She was a rat. A huge, black, obviously unearthly one with beady eyes that flashed orange like water under a streetlight. It was absolutely terrifying, which, from the evil looks she kept shooting him, was undoubtedly the point. But no matter how much the DFZ changed shape, the collar around her throat never budged. So long as that was true, Myron was still in control, a fact he was tempted to remind her of when the spirit suddenly found whatever she’d been digging for.

  She stopped at once, lifting up her paws to show Myron a wide, filthy disk. Between the dirt and the dark, it took him several seconds to realize it was a manhole cover. But while it made sense that there would still be sewers here—Grosse Point had been an affluent suburb before its destruction—the tunnel she’d unveiled didn’t look like any sewer maintenance shaft Myron had ever seen. It didn’t even have a ladder, just a round hole going straight down into blackness.

  “Are you sure that’s it?”

  You told me to show you the way, the rat reminded him. This is mine. If you’re too chicken to jump, that’s your problem.

  Myron glowered. Another time, he would have stopped everything and dealt with her rudeness right there. If things went the way he hoped, though, theirs would not be a long relationship, so he didn’t bother. He just held out his hand and said, “After you.”

  With a final dirty look, the spirit scurried down the hole, her massive body sliding through the much smaller opening like a garden slug going down a straw. With a deep breath and a final look over his shoulder at the blinding wall of magic that hid Algonquin, Myron jumped after her. It wasn’t until he started falling, though, that he realized he’d left his body behind. He could actually see it falling over at the edge of the shrinking hole with Emily’s head still clutched in his hands. That was all Myron was able to catch before the DFZ’s tail wrapped around him, dragging him down into the churning magical dark.

  Chapter 7

  “It’s you.”

  The Qilin’s golden eyes flicked back to him questioningly, but Julius couldn’t explain what he still couldn’t believe himself. Even with the proof staring him in the face, the idea that Chelsie’s disastrous affair in China hadn’t been with some random noble son, but with the Golden Emperor himself seemed ludicrous. How had she managed to pull that off? How had they even met?

  But crazy as the whole thing sounded, at least this explained why the Qilin had stopped to look at her back in the desert. At the time, Julius had written off the emperor’s interest as caution. Chelsie was famous for being Bethesda’s backstabber, after all. Now, though, he realized that was stupid. The Qilin was luck incarnate—he had nothing to fear from Bethesda’s Shade. He’d been looking up at her in longing, the same longing that was plain on his face right now as he turned back to the unfinished painting. A painting that was obviously from the same expert hand as the picture Chelsie kept hidden in her room.

  “It was you,” Julius said with an excited grin. “You’re her Chinese dragon!”

  “Spoke of me, did she?” the emperor said, crossing his arms tight across his chest. “I’m surprised. One would think she’d tire of bragging about a six-hundred-year-old conquest.”

  The bite in his voice was enough to make Julius take a physical step back. “Whoa,” he said putting up his hands. “I don’t know what you think’s going on, but she definitely wasn’t bragging.”

  “Why shouldn’t she brag?” he said bitterly. “I was her greatest conquest.” He glanced over, clearly expecting Julius to agree. When it was obvious the younger dragon had no idea what he was talking about, though, the Qilin’s angry scowl faded into confusion. “You really don’t know what happened?”

  “No,” Julius said, shaking his head wildly. “You have to understand, no one tells me anything. Chelsie almost took my head off once just for mentioning China. That’s not hyperbole, either. She literally had me pinned on the ground.”

  A smile ghosted over the emperor’s lips. “That sounds like her.”

  “Then you know how stubborn she can be,” Julius said desperately. “Please, I’m begging you, tell me what happened in China. Give me something to work with.”

  Give me a way to fix this.

  The Qilin gave him a funny look. “I knew you were an odd sort of dragon,” he said, turning back to the painting. “It’s not a story I like to remember. I certainly don’t come off looking like a glorious emperor. But the whole point of bringing you here was to make you understand why I have to conquer your clan, and you can’t understand without knowing, so…”

  He trailed off with a long sigh, staring at the picture he’d painted of Chelsie with an emotion Julius couldn’t name.

  “This was how I first saw her,” he said at last, reaching up to brush a finger over the delicately painted flush of Chelsie’s cheek. “I was walking in my garden, and she was just…there. Like a bolt of lightning. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me she’d been sent to China by Bethesda as a special envoy for the emperor’s coronation. Needless to say, this was news to me. Old news at that since I’d been emperor for two months already at the time. When I told her she was too late and asked why she hadn’t come to the palace to announce herself, she just shrugged and said the guards had turned her away.”

  “Wait,” Julius said, confused. “So she didn’t realize you were the emperor?” Because he had no idea how anyone with eyes could miss that.

  The Qilin smiled. “In her defense, I wasn’t dressed for court. I also wasn’t expecting to meet an envoy from another clan in my private garden at the heart of the palace. To this day, I have no idea how she got in. My mother’s security was very tight. There were wards, walls, guards, alarm spells, everything that could be had back then.”

  “Chelsie is the master of being places she shouldn’t,” Julius agreed. “But what was she doing in your garden if your coronation was over? What was she after?”

  The emperor’s expression grew sheepish. “I asked the same thing. Demanded, really. Naturally, I assumed she was there for me. The mate of the Qilin becomes his empress, and I’ve had to chase ambitious dragonesses out of stranger place
s than my garden. When I confronted her about it, though, it became clear that not only did she have no idea whom she was talking to, she didn’t care. She claimed she’d only infiltrated my palace because she’d gotten bored with the city outside.”

  Julius arched an eyebrow. “And you believed that?”

  “Honestly?” He smiled. “I did. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but she had a frankness to her that I’d never encountered. It certainly wasn’t the normal awe of the Qilin. I was…charmed, I suppose. And a little insulted, because she seemed far more interested in the fish than she was in me. She’d never seen a koi before, apparently.”

  That mental image was enough to make Julius grin. He could absolutely see his blunt sister giving an emperor the cold shoulder. He also understood why someone like the Qilin might find that refreshing. “Is that what attracted you? Because Chelsie didn’t treat you like a god?”

  The emperor looked at him like he was crazy. “I was attracted because she was beautiful. Have you seen your sister?”

  “Not in that way,” Julius said, face turning red.

  “She was the most beautiful dragon I’d ever seen,” the Qilin went on. “And she was the daughter of the infamous Bethesda, whom even we’d heard rumors about. Anyone would be intrigued. But that was just what caught my attention at the beginning. What held it was Chelsie herself. She was…” He trailed off, scowling in frustration. “I don’t know the word in English. It’s what animals are.”

  “Wild?” Julius suggested. “Scary?”

  “Unworried,” the Qilin said, his golden eyes bright. “The Golden Court is a place of tradition and status. It can be intimidating and cruel to outsiders, especially ones like her. Many of my dragons considered her an ignorant barbarian and treated her accordingly. But where anyone else would have taken offense, and rightly so, Chelsie didn’t care. Quite the opposite. She used their disdain as an excuse to do whatever she wanted.”