by Rachel Aaron
Julius caught it by instinct. “What’s this?” he asked, examining the object in his hand, which looked and felt like a small brick that had been shrink-wrapped in white plastic.
“Emergency rations,” the F replied apologetically. “I know it’s not ideal, but the Golden Emperor’s servants have taken over all the kitchens. After what happened with the Empress Mother, I don’t trust them not to try and poison us, so I dug into Chelsie’s stash.”
He wasn’t surprised at all to hear Chelsie had a stash of emergency rations. She probably had ten years’ worth of everything a dragon could need squirreled away down here. Given the dust in the plastic’s wrinkles, the ration in his hands was probably older than him. Unappetizing as that was, though, now that the subject of food had been broached, his stomach was pointedly reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and freeze-dried food was a lot better than nothing.
“Thank you,” he said, ripping the plastic open.
Fredrick smiled. “I believe that’s my line. It seems I owe you another debt. Thanks to you, my clutch has a history for the first time in our lives. After six centuries of being Bethesda’s shame, we have a lineage with a mother and a father we can be proud of.”
“That wasn’t me,” Julius said, biting a chunk off of the tasteless, rock-hard ration. “You’d already figured out all the dots. I just happened to be there when they connected.”
“But you were the one who convinced Chelsie to own them,” Fredrick countered. “You got her to talk, which is more than I could ever do. You’d already freed us from being servants, but with this, you’ve freed us from Heartstriker as well, and for that we can’t thank you enough.”
He said this with absolute sincerity, but Julius was staring at him in horror. “Wait,” he said at last, swallowing the hard lump of ration. “What do you mean ‘freed us from Heartstriker?’ You’re not leaving, are you?”
“Why would we stay?” Fredrick asked, his not-quite-green eyes staring straight into Julius’s. “We were servants in this mountain for six centuries. To most Heartstrikers, that’s what we’ll always be. We were already dreading the fight for our rightful position as an upper-alphabet clutch, especially since we suspected we weren’t actually Bethesda’s children, but now we don’t have to worry about any of that. Thanks to you, we’re no longer the lowest clutch in Heartstriker, but the first clutch of the Golden Emperor.”
“We still don’t know how he’s going to take that.”
“It doesn’t matter how he takes it. It’s the truth. Even if he’s furious, unless the Qilin is ready to disavow us—and I think you’ll agree the dragon we met this morning is far too honorable for that—he has no choice but to welcome us as his children.” Fredrick broke into an excited grin. “Don’t you see? In one stroke, we’ve gone from servants in our own home to royalty. The children of an emperor! Do you know how much that will mean to my brothers and sisters? How much it means to me?”
Julius did now. The truth had come out so quickly earlier, he hadn’t stopped to think about what these revelations would mean to the dragons of F-clutch. He hadn’t even considered the idea that they would leave, which was ridiculous in hindsight. Who’d want to stay and fight for recognition in the clan that had always treated them like trash when they could have a new start as the children of an emperor? Assuming the backlash of the Qilin’s luck didn’t kill them all, Julius could easily see Xian being over the moon to discover he had children. Once he got over his shock, he’d probably welcome all of them with open arms, and to his shame, Julius wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
He should have been delighted. Ever since he’d learned the truth of their situation, he’d been fighting to free F-clutch, and what better future could he wish for them than one full of love and stability? At the same time, though, Julius had been really been looking forward to having at least one faction of Heartstrikers who didn’t view him only as a tool. He was also afraid of losing Chelsie, because if the Fs left, she would too, and why not? With the exception of Julius, their entire family hated and feared her. Without her children, she had no reason to stay, and selfish as it was, that made Julius incredibly sad. All of it did. Even if the cause was happy this time, he was so sick of losing the ones he cared about.
He was still trying to work through that tangled knot of emotion when his phone went off in his pocket. Loudly, which was strange since he distinctly remembered muting it. Once the ringtone made it past the first three notes, though, he understood why. His phone was playing the Imperial March from Star Wars, which was the ringtone he’d assigned to the Unknown Caller.
Bob’s number.
Julius threw his half-eaten ration on the ground, grabbing the phone from his pocket as fast as he could. When the AR display popped up, though, he saw that it wasn’t actually a phone call. Bob had sent him a picture. A selfie, to be precise, and a bad one. His face was hardly in the shot at all. Instead, the focus was on the landscape behind him, which was one Julius realized with a jolt that he recognized. Bob was standing in the dirt lot under the Chance Street Skyway, just a couple blocks away from Julius and Marci’s old house in the DFZ. He was racking his brain over why Bob would send him a picture like this when the phone was snatched out of his hand.
There’d been no sound of a door opening, no footsteps on the stone floor, but given whose rooms they were in, Julius wasn’t surprised at all when he looked up to see Chelsie standing next to him with his phone clutched in her hands and a killer’s terrifying snarl on her face.
“Found you,” she growled.
“Chelsie, wait,” Julius said. “Let’s not jump to—”
But when had she ever listened? His phone clattered to the ground, flung from Chelsie’s hands as she lashed out at the empty space between them. Dragon magic followed the movement like a razor, slicing the air open like a claw through blubber before she dove into the gap, disappearing right in front of his eyes.
“No!”
Julius lunged after her, but all his reaching hands caught was empty air as the rip snapped shut again. When it was obvious she was really gone, he whirled on Fredrick. “What was that?”
“She teleported,” the F said grimly.
Julius had figured out that much already. “But how? She doesn’t have her Fang.” She hadn’t been carrying a weapon at all. Julius didn’t even think she’d been wearing shoes.
“She doesn’t need the Fang anymore,” Fredrick said proudly. “In case you couldn’t tell from all the wards she put on this place, my mother’s not a bad mage, and she used that Fang for six hundred years. That’s more than enough time for any reasonably clever dragon to reverse-engineer a spell.”
Julius still couldn’t believe it. “You mean Chelsie’s been able to teleport on her own this entire time?”
“How else do you think she manages to be everywhere at once?” Fredrick said with a shrug.
That would explain a few things. “So she can teleport at will to anyone in the family?”
“No, that part was the sword,” Fredrick said. “As a relic of the Quetzalcoatl, the Defender’s Fang is directly connected to Heartstriker’s clan magic, and all of us through it. On her own, Chelsie can only cut to places she knows, and she can’t transport others. Without a blade, the holes she cuts are only big enough for her, and only if she’s fast.”
“But she could teleport to the DFZ?”
“Easily,” Fredrick said. “But don’t worry. Sword or no sword, she won’t lose to Bob.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Julius said, reaching down to grab his phone off the floor.
The seer’s picture was still on the screen. Julius flicked it away, pulling up his news feed instead. Sure enough, the ongoing evacuation of the DFZ was the top story on every network, followed by warnings about the unprecedented elevation of ambient magic levels.
“This is bad,” he muttered, turning the screen so Fredrick could see. “I don’t know what or why, but something terrible is about to happen, and Bob jus
t lured Chelsie right into the middle of it.”
Fredrick’s face went pale. “When did this happen?”
“Just a few hours ago,” Julius said. “I only found out because Ian came home, but the whole world’s going nuts about it. That’s why this is all so suspicious. Bob’s been avoiding Chelsie since I freed her. Now he pops up just in time to lure her into the heart of the biggest magical upheaval since the night it first returned? There’s no way that’s coincidence.”
“Nothing with seers is coincidence,” Fredrick agreed. “But what’s he trying to do?”
“I don’t know,” Julius said angrily. “But I’m pissed he used me to do it.” He scowled at the terrifying headlines calling for people all over North America to seek shelter. “We have to stop him. This is too dangerous. I don’t care if he can see the future. If he plays chicken with whatever Algonquin’s doing, he’s going to get someone killed.”
“He already got someone killed,” Fredrick reminded him.
“That’s why I need to go,” Julius said, whirling toward the door. “I already lost Amelia to this. I’m not losing anyone else.”
He was halfway down the hall before Fredrick grabbed his sleeve. “Maybe that’s why you shouldn’t.”
“What?”
“The Black Reach said the best way to foil Bob’s plans was not to do what he asked,” Fredrick explained. “He may not be directly giving you orders, but Bob sent that picture to your phone, not Chelsie’s. He has all of her numbers, even the secret ones. He could have easily sent that picture to her directly. The fact that he didn’t means he must have wanted both of you to know that he was in the DFZ.”
Julius stared at him in confusion. “How do you know what the Black Reach told me?”
“The door was very thin,” Fredrick said with a shrug.
“You eavesdropped on me?”
“How am I supposed to serve you if I don’t know what’s going on?” Fredrick snapped. “Of course I listened. Better than you did, apparently, because I remember that the last thing the Black Reach said was ‘See you in Detroit.’ He knew Bob would lure you there, which tells me that you shouldn’t go.”
That was a good point. Still. “I can’t let Chelsie go into that alone,” Julius said. “The DFZ’s more dangerous than ever, and she’s too angry to make good decisions. She needs our help, and if Bob really is headed down some kind of dark path, then so does he. We can’t just sit here and do nothing!”
“I’m not saying we should,” Fredrick said. “But you should have more faith in Chelsie’s ability to take care of herself. Brohomir is older and a seer, but he’s never been a fighter, and he stole her egg. Chelsie is Heartstriker’s most deadly dragon, and I’ve never seen her as angry about anything as she’s been over this. If Bob gets in her way, she’ll gut him like a fish, and why would he risk that?”
“Why would he do any of this?”
“To lure you!” Fredrick yelled, grabbing Julius by the shoulders. “Haven’t you been listening? You’re his focus. Whatever power play Bob’s making, you are undoubtedly at the heart of it, which is exactly why you need to stay away from this. He’s not luring Chelsie. He’s using her to lure you, and if you believe the Black Reach, then the only way to stop this is not to go.”
That argument made a tremendous amount of sense, but Julius couldn’t follow it. The image of Amelia’s ashes piled on her divan was burned into his brain, and she was the one Bob had loved most. If he was willing to kill the sister who’d been a mother to him for his plots, what would he do to Chelsie? He’d known everything, and he’d been perfectly fine with leaving Chelsie and her children in slavery for six hundred years. Surely he wouldn’t stop at killing her now if that was what it took, and as good as Chelsie was, no one could beat a seer.
“I have to go.”
Fredrick bared his teeth. “Why?”
“Because I’m not losing anyone else!” Julius cried, yanking out of his grip. “It doesn’t matter who wins. If Chelsie fights Bob, we lose.” And he was so sick of losing. He had no idea what choice was right, what he should do. It was all just plots inside of plots, spiraling down forever. Bob was obviously pulling his strings, but Julius was too angry to fight it. He was sick of death, sick of tragedy. If Bob was counting on him to try and save Chelsie, then Julius was going to play right into his hands. He’d lost too much to do anything else.
“We’re going to the DFZ.”
Fredrick growled deep in his throat, but Julius didn’t give him a chance. “My mind’s made up,” he said as he marched out of Chelsie’s bunker. “I know this is a seer plot, I know I’m falling for it, and I don’t care. I won’t sit here and play the long game while my family kills each other.”
“But what are you going to do?” Fredrick asked, running after him. “Chelsie can teleport. We can’t. Even if Ian’s brought the suborbital jet back, flying to the DFZ will take—”
“I know,” Julius said, picking up speed as he ran down the Fs’ hall and into the stone tunnel that led to the stairs. “But I’m not going to fly.”
“Then where are you going?”
Julius flashed his nephew a grim smile over his shoulder. “To see if I can’t get lucky.”
Fredrick’s face paled, but if he had more to say, Julius didn’t hear it. He was already bounding up the spiral service stairs toward the top of the mountain.
***
Though knowingly walking into a seer’s trap might suggest otherwise, Julius wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly how big a bullet he’d dodged when Chelsie had saved him and Fredrick in the hallway. So, since it wasn’t likely the Empress Mother had changed her mind about killing him in the last hour, Julius decided to try the diplomatic approach: grabbing one of the emperor’s human servants off the stairwell and calmly but firmly refusing to let the man go until he called Lao.
“You have a lot of nerve,” the emperor’s cousin growled over the phone when Julius identified himself. “Can you even comprehend how much trouble you’ve caused?”
“Nothing like what’s going to happen if you don’t let me talk to him.”
He didn’t even realize how terrible that sounded until Lao snarled, “Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s an emergency,” Julius said quickly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve got some information he’s going to want to know, but it’s not the sort of thing I can explain over the phone, and I can’t go up there with the empress trying to kill me. I just need you to let me talk to him for five minutes without dying.”
The blue dragon sighed, and then there was a click as he put Julius on hold. Thirty seconds later, Lao’s voice snapped back into his ear. “Come up.”
“What about the empress?” Julius asked nervously. “Can you send us an escort to make sure we don’t get beheaded on the way or—”
“You don’t have to worry about the Empress Mother,” Lao said, his voice hurried. “Just get up here. The Qilin will see you in the throne room.”
He hung up after that, leaving Julius staring at the terrified servant’s phone in confusion. “What was that about?”
“A trap would be my guess,” Fredrick said, looking up the open stairwell. “But at this point, what isn’t?”
“No way to know except to try,” Julius said, putting a hand on the place where his sword should have been before remembering he’d left it upstairs. One more reason to go back. “Let’s go see how far we can get.”
Fredrick scowled, but he followed Julius up to the very top, where the spiral servant stair discreetly ended behind the elevator at the end of the now-empty Hall of Heads. When the hidden doorway slid open, though, two red dragons were waiting on the other side.
Julius froze, eyes going wide in surprise and fear. Fredrick was far more sensible. He grabbed the door, yanking Julius back into the stairwell as he slammed it shut on their enemies. He was about to lock it when one of the red dragons ripped the sliding door off its track and threw it aside. Julius was preparing to jump down the
stairwell’s open center to get away when Lao pushed his way to the front.
“It’s all right,” the blue dragon said quickly, scowling at his fellow imperial dragons. “The clans of Mongolia obey the emperor.”
The two red dragons nodded, though they still looked like they were waiting for a reason to rip Julius and Fredrick apart as Lao ushered the Heartstrikers back into the hallway.
“Come,” he said, walking toward the throne room at a speed mortals would have called a run. “The emperor is not accustomed to being kept waiting.”
Julius didn’t have to be told twice. He sprinted after Lao, blowing past the two red dragons with Fredrick right behind him, reaching Lao’s side just as he threw open the throne room doors to reveal the Qilin sitting alone on the white-jade half of the two-seated golden dragon throne.
The moment he saw the emperor, Julius knew it was bad. Even with his veil down again, the angry hunch of the emperor’s shoulders said volumes. He actually looked even more upset than he had when he’d told Julius to leave, clutching the engraved arms of his throne as he waited impatiently for Julius and Fredrick to take their places.
“Thank you for seeing us again so quickly,” Julius said.
“Lao said it was an emergency,” the Qilin said, his deep voice clipped and sharp. “Though I should warn you, this is not a good time. My mother has gone missing, and I am anxious to find her.”
Julius blinked. “Missing? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” the Qilin snarled. “You think I don’t know where my empress is?”
Considering that was the entire problem, obviously not, but Julius didn’t have to say a word. The Qilin just growled and moved on, leaning hard on one arm of his throne as he tried to explain. “I don’t keep tabs on her specifically, but my mother has always been the one tied closest to my luck. Whenever I wanted her, she would appear, even before I knew I desired her company. This time, though, she hasn’t.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Julius said. “I just saw her here an hour ago.” And really, how far could the old dragon hobble in an hour? “But this is urgent. I—”
