A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  “See you soon,” he called up to the Black Reach, waving at him with his sword before returning the blade to his shoulder and strolling into the Underground, using his Magician’s Fang like a machete as he hacked a path through the thick strands of toxic, glowing magic waving like wheat in front of him.

  “One more time,” the eldest seer muttered back, reaching down to grip the strap of the battered messenger bag he’d been carrying since he’d left Heartstriker Mountain. The one that—now that Brohomir had refused his final chance to lift himself from the rails—held their last hope for the future.

  With a grim shake of his head, the Black Reach sat down in the spot Brohomir had vacated, settling in to watch as the glowing magic began to swirl around Algonquin’s darkening ball of compressed water like stars around a black hole.

  Epilogue

  There’d been a time, once, when Algonquin hadn’t believed in losing. After all, when you lived forever, you could never truly be defeated. There were only setbacks, temporary interruptions that would eventually erode, leaving her free once again to do what needed to be done.

  But not today.

  She crouched at the very bottom of her domain, curled in a ball in the sand with her water drawn in as close as it would go. Above her, the Sea of Magic raged like a typhoon. If she’d been willing to rise, she could have seen it filling the vessels of the Mortal Spirits, but she wasn’t willing. She’d seen too much tragedy already, including hers. It was all gone: her chances, her hopes, her future. It had all been stolen, and no matter how long she waited, how long she persisted, how hard she fought, it was never coming back.

  But it can.

  She lifted her water to see a familiar shape in the darkness where no one else should ever be.

  But this is where I live, too, the Leviathan replied softly, reaching up with his tentacles to smooth her shaking waves. You invited me here. I answered your call, Algonquin. I came to your aid when no one else would, and we made a bargain. For sixty years now, I’ve acted as your second, supporting all your efforts to win back your world from the out-of-control forces of human magic. Not because I thought you would succeed, or because I wished you harm, but because in order for me to truly help you, I needed you to be like this.

  “What?” she snarled. “Defeated? Hopeless?”

  Empty, he replied, his voice echoing. Living things are always full. You’re all so packed with rage and hope and plots and expectations and dreams that there’s no room for anything else. It is only when you realize that all is lost, when you give up, that you are free to reach beyond yourself. Only in emptiness can you find the victory you were too small to realize on your own.

  “There is no victory anymore,” she said, sinking lower. “The Mortal Spirits are filling, and when they rise, we will be crushed. Even if humanity died tonight, the trenches they carved in the magic are too deep to fade. Don’t you see?” Her water began to cloud. “I will never be free.”

  Then let go, he whispered. I promised to help you fight until the end. Until all hope was lost, and now it is. It’s time to let go of yesterday’s war and start winning the next one.

  “But I can’t!” she cried. “They’re too big, too strong! I can’t beat—”

  I can.

  The Nameless End moved closer, his tentacles creeping across the floor of her vessel until she was surrounded.

  I am greater than all of your enemies combined, he whispered, sliding into her waters. Let me devour you, and I will destroy everything that has ever stood in your way. The spirits, the humans, the dragons—everything that causes you pain. I will eat them all. All I need is your life. Give me your undying spirit, your vessel to be my foothold, and I will wipe everything clean. I will scour the filth that has hurt you from this world, and when I am finished, your plane will be born anew. A blank slate, a pure land from which new spirits will rise. Clean ones. Free souls without shackles, without pasts or pain. That is what I offer, Algonquin. You can have your paradise back again, and all it will cost is you.

  It was a tempting picture, but… “What good is paradise if I won’t live to see it?”

  That is for you to decide, he said, raising the smooth black shell of his face to the storming magic above. Though a better question might be, what good is your life now? What are you really giving up? A failure. A loss. That’s all I’m taking, and in return, I will give you what is now impossible: a second chance. A better life for all the spirits of the land who come after you.

  “But what about the spirits now?” she asked. “My life is one thing, but what of the trees and the animals and the mountains? We are the land. If we go, what is left?”

  There can be no new beginnings without an End, he said quietly. It’s time to make a choice. Either you accept this failure forever, until the end of time, or you give yourself to me and let me start everything over. I will devour without prejudice or mercy, starting with you. When I am finished, your world will indeed end, but I promise I won’t let it collapse. When I am done scraping it clean, I will leave your plane with just enough magic to start over. Maybe this time you’ll get it right.

  Algonquin curled back into a ball. His words were nothing new. This had always been their agreement, but she’d never thought her price would actually come due. She’d been so sure she could fix this, so certain she could overcome as she always had. This time, though, Algonquin saw no way out.

  Even on her longest timeline, the Mortal Spirits were there, raging across the landscape that was her body. She and her fellow spirits would suffer at the mad gods’ whims from now until forever. There was no escape, no hope, no reprieve. All she could see of the future was a living hell. Next to that, was death really so bad?

  Death is peace, the Leviathan promised, his tentacles closing over her like a net. Aren’t you tired?

  She was exhausted. Exhausted and sick. Sick of humanity. Sick of fighting. Sick of getting her hopes up only to lose again and again. Sick of it all.

  Then let it go, he whispered as his darkness curled in tighter. I’ll take care of everything. All you have to do is let me in.

  She turned away, looking down into herself at her water, at all she would lose.

  You mean have already lost, the Leviathan corrected patiently. It’s over, Algonquin. Let me in.

  She had nothing left to say. He was right. No matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t win as herself. Not anymore.

  So, with a sigh, the Lady of the Lakes gave up. She relaxed her clutched water, letting it flood her vessel and over the Leviathan, whose black tentacles were already sinking in to drink her down. As his shadows spread to every part, his black tendrils working through her like roots, the immortal Algonquin, the land herself, began to die.

  And in the physical world, in the night sky above a smoking city lit up like a fairy circle with new magic, the Leviathan’s shadow began to become real.

  Thank you for reading!

  Thank you for reading A Dragon of a Different Color! If you enjoyed the story, or even if you didn’t, I hope you’ll consider leaving a review. Reviews, good and bad, are vital to any author’s career, and I would be extremely thankful and appreciative if you’d consider writing one for me.

  Want to know when my next novel is available? Visit www.rachelaaron.net and sign up for my New Release Mailing List! List members get first looks and bonus content, including the list-exclusive Heartstrikers short story, Mother of the Year. The list is free, and I promise I will never spam you! You can also follow me on Twitter @Rachel_Aaron or like my Facebook page, facebook.com/RachelAaronAuthor, for up-to-date information on all of my new books.

  I’m already hard at work on the fifth and final Heartstriker novel, which I hope to have out early next year. If that’s too long to wait, you can always check out one of my other already completed series. Simply click over to the “Want More Books by Rachel?” page in your eReader’s table of contents or visit www.rachelaaron.net to see a full list of all my books complete with their beautifu
l covers, links to reviews, and free sample chapters!

  Thank you again for reading, and I hope you’ll be back soon!

  Yours sincerely,

  Rachel Aaron

  Enjoyed A Dragon of a Different Color? Need a new Rachel Aaron book right now?! Try the Fantasy series that started it all,

  THE LEGEND OF ELI MONPRESS

  Eli Monpress is talented. He's charming. And he's the greatest thief in the world.

  He’s also a wizard, and with the help of his partners in crime—a swordsman with the world’s most powerful magic sword (but no magical ability of his own) and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls—he's getting ready to pull off the heist of his career. To start, though, he'll just steal something small. Something no one will miss.

  Something like… a king.

  "I cannot be less than 110% in love with this book. I loved it. I love it still. Already I sort of want to read it again. Considering my fairly epic Godzilla-sized To Read list, that's just about the highest compliment I can give a book." - CSI: Librarian

  Keep reading for a sneak peek of the first chapter, or buy it now in ebook, print, or audio!

  Chapter 1

  In the prison under the castle Allaze, in the dark, moldy cells where the greatest criminals in Mellinor spent the remainder of their lives counting rocks to stave off madness, Eli Monpress was trying to wake up a door.

  It was a heavy oak door with an iron frame, created centuries ago by an overzealous carpenter to have, perhaps, more corners than it should. The edges were carefully fitted to lie flush against the stained, stone walls, and the heavy boards were nailed together so tightly that not even the flickering torch light could wedge between them. In all, the effect was so overdone, the construction so inhumanly strong, that the whole black affair had transcended simple confinement and become a monument to the absolute hopelessness of the prisoner’s situation. Eli decided to focus on the wood; the iron would have taken forever.

  He ran his hands over it, long fingers gently tapping in a way living trees find desperately annoying, but dead wood finds soothing, like a scratch behind the ears. At last, the boards gave a little shudder and said, in a dusty, splintery voice, “What do you want?”

  “My dear friend,” Eli said, never letting up on his tapping, “the real question here is, what do you want?”

  “Pardon?” the door rattled, thoroughly confused. It wasn’t used to having questions asked of it.

  “Well, doesn’t it strike you as unfair?” Eli said. “From your grain, anyone can see you were once a great tree. Yet, here you are, locked up through no fault of your own, shut off from the sun by cruel stones with no concern at all for your comfort or continued health.”

  The door rattled again, knocking the dust from its hinges. Something about the man’s voice was off. It was too clear for a normal human’s, and the certainty in his words stirred up strange memories that made the door decidedly uncomfortable.

  “Wait,” it grumbled suspiciously. “You’re not a wizard, are you?”

  “Me?” Eli clutched his chest. “I, one of those confidence tricksters? Those manipulators of spirits? Why, the very thought offends me! I am but a wanderer, moving from place to place, listening to the spirits’ sorrows and doing what little I can to make them more comfortable.” He resumed the pleasant tapping, and the door relaxed against his fingers.

  “Well”—it leaned forward a fraction, lowering its creak conspiratorially—“if that’s the case, then I don’t mind telling you the nails do poke a bit.” It rattled, and the nails stood out for a second before returning to their position flush against the wood. The door sighed. “I don’t mind the dark so much, or the damp. It’s just that people are always slamming me, and that just drives the sharp ends deeper. It hurts something awful, but no one seems to care.”

  “Let me have a look,” Eli said, his voice soft with concern. He made a great show of poring over the door and running his fingers along the joints. The door waited impatiently, creaking every time Eli’s hands brushed over a spot where the nails rubbed. Finally, when he had finished his inspection, Eli leaned back and tucked his fist under his chin, obviously deep in thought. When he didn’t say anything for a few minutes, the door began to grow impatient, which is a very uncomfortable feeling for a door.

  “Well?” it croaked.

  “I’ve found the answer,” Eli said, crouching down on the doorstep. “Those nails, which give you so much trouble, are there to pin you to the iron frame. However”—Eli held up one finger in a sage gesture—“they don’t stay in of their own accord. They’re not glued in; there’s no hook. In fact, they seem to be held in place only by the pressure of the wood around them. So”—he arched an eyebrow—“the reason they stay in at all, the only reason, is because you’re holding on to them.”

  “Of course!” the door rumbled. “How else would I stay upright?”

  “Who said you had to stay upright?” Eli said, throwing out his arms in a grand gesture. “You’re your own spirit, aren’t you? If those nails hurt you, why, there’s no law that you have to put up with it. If you stay in this situation, you’re making yourself a victim.”

  “But . . .” The door shuddered uncertainly.

  “The first step is admitting you have a problem.” Eli gave the wood a reassuring pat. “And that’s enough for now. However”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“if you’re ever going to live your life, really live it, then you need to let go of the roles others have forced on you. You need to let go of those nails.”

  “But, I don’t know . . .” The door shifted back and forth.

  “Indecision is the bane of all hardwoods.” Eli shook his head. “Come on, it doesn’t have to be forever. Just give it a try.”

  The door clanged softly against its frame, gathering its resolve as Eli made encouraging gestures. Then, with a loud bang, the nails popped like corks, and the boards clattered to the ground with a long, relieved sigh.

  Eli stepped over the planks and through the now empty iron doorframe. The narrow hall outside was dark and empty. Eli looked one way, then the other, and shook his head.

  “First rule of dungeons,” he said with a wry grin, “don’t pin all your hopes on a gullible door.”

  With that, he stepped over the sprawled boards, now mumbling happily in peaceful, nail-free slumber, and jogged off down the hall toward the rendezvous point.

  ***

  In the sun-drenched rose garden of the castle Allaze, King Henrith of Mellinor was spending money he hadn’t received yet.

  “Twenty thousand gold standards!” He shook his teacup at his Master of the Exchequer. “What does that come out to in mellinos?”

  The exchequer, who had answered this question five times already, responded immediately. “Thirty-one thousand five hundred at the current rate, my lord, or approximately half Mellinor’s yearly tax income.”

  “Not bad for a windfall, eh?” The king punched him in the shoulder good-naturedly. “And the Council of Thrones is actually going to pay all that for one thief? What did the bastard do?”

  The Master of the Exchequer smiled tightly and rubbed his shoulder. “Eli Monpress”—he picked up the wanted poster that was lying on the table, where the roughly sketched face of a handsome man with dark, shaggy hair grinned boyishly up at them—“bounty, paid dead or alive, twenty thousand Council Gold Standard Weights. Wanted on a hundred and fifty-seven counts of grand larceny against a noble person, three counts of fraud, one charge of counterfeiting, and treason against the Rector Spiritualis.” He squinted at the small print along the bottom of the page. “There’s a separate bounty of five thousand gold standards from the Spiritualists for that last count, which has to be claimed independently.”

  “Figures.” The king slurped his tea. “The Council can’t even ink a wanted poster without the wizards butting their noses in. But”—he grinned broadly—“money’s money, eh? Someone get the Master Builder up here. It looks like we’ll have th
at new arena after all.”

  The order, however, was never given, for at that moment, the Master Jailer came running through the garden gate, his plumed helmet gripped between his white-knuckled hands.

  “Your Majesty.” He bowed.

  “Ah, Master Jailer.” The king nodded. “How is our money bag liking his cell?”

  The jailer’s face, already pale from a job that required him to spend his daylight hours deep underground, turned ghostly. “Well, you see, sir, the prisoner, that is to say”— he looked around for help, but the other officials were already backing away—“he’s not in his cell.”

  “What?” The king leaped out of his seat, face scarlet. “If he’s not in his cell, then where is he?”

  “We’re working on that right now, Majesty!” the jailer said in a rush. “I have the whole guard out looking for him. He won’t get out of the palace!”

  “See that he doesn’t,” the king growled. “Because if he’s not back in his cell within the hour . . .”

  He didn’t need to finish the threat. The jailer saluted and ran out of the garden as fast as his boots would carry him. The officials stayed frozen where they were, each waiting for the others to move first as the king began to stalk around the garden, sipping his tea with murderous intent.

  “Your Majesty,” squeaked a minor official, who was safely hidden behind the crowd. “This Eli seems a dangerous character. Shouldn’t you move to safer quarters?”

  “Yes!” The Master of Security grabbed the idea and ran with it. “If that thief could get out of his cell, he can certainly get into the castle!” He seized the king’s arm. “We must get you to a safer location, Your Majesty!”

  This was followed by a chorus of cries from the other officials.

  “Of course!”