by Rachel Aaron
“What are you doing?” he demanded as he struggled to hold David’s hand in place. “Did you even listen to what you just said? The tide has turned. You can’t win like this anymore!”
“I know,” David said with a smile that turned Julius’s blood to ice water. “Which is why I’m going to win like this.”
His other hand—the one that, until now, had been employed for the vise-like handshake—released Julius’s fingers and shot forward. It still wasn’t really that fast, but stopping David’s grab for the Fang had put Julius at a very bad angle, and with his hand already positioned less than a foot from Julius’s bandaged stomach, David didn’t have far to go. Julius barely had time to spot the gleam of the knife that slid out of David’s sleeve before the dragon plunged it into him, stabbing through the bandages and into his ribs before angling up in a precise strike for his heart.
He was going to make it, too. Despite his restored dragon form, Julius had been a human for a very long time. Where other dragons would have changed right there and let the size difference spoil the attack, Julius’s first instinct was to jump backwards. Since he was still gripping David’s wrist to keep him away from the Fang, though, this turned out to be impossible, and the mistake cost him dearly. In the time he’d wasted trying to simultaneously scramble back and keep his Fang safe, David had stepped in for the kill, sinking his long knife to the hilt in Julius’s already-injured chest. And then, just when Julius was sure he’d doomed himself to the stupidest, most gullible death possible, a miracle happened.
The medical room door flew open, and Fredrick burst into the room, tossing his laden tray of food on the floor as he lunged straight at David. The other dragon was so focused on Julius, and so used to ignoring the Fs, he didn’t even notice the new dragon until Fredrick’s hands wrapped his chest, yanking him back and dragging the knife out of Julius’s ribs a split second before it reached his heart.
“You idiot!” he roared, snatching his hands off David as though holding onto the other dragon was physically painful, which, given how many seals of obedience Bethesda had put on his clutch, it probably was. “She’ll kill you for this!”
For a moment, David could only stare at the F in stupefied shock, and then he pulled himself back together, casually brushing Julius’s blood off his shirt cuffs like he did this every day. “Please,” he said at last, looking at the still-seething Fredrick in contempt. “Bethesda won’t do a thing. She’s wanted this whelp dead for—”
“He wasn’t talking about Bethesda.”
The cold whisper made them all freeze. Even Julius, who should have been focusing on not bleeding to death, went perfectly still, his eyes darting to the shadows behind David, who’d gone white as a sheet. But unlike the rest of the disastrous last few minutes, this time, Julius’s instincts were right on the mark. By looking at the shadows, he was the only one who saw Chelsie before she grabbed David.
He almost wished he hadn’t. He’d seen his sister in a lot of different lights, but she’d never looked half as deadly as she did right now. She grabbed David’s throat like she meant to rip it out right there, yanking him back against her so fast, he never had a chance to fight.
“I warned you,” she growled as David made a terrified sound. “You knew what would happen if you did something stupid. Well, David, that”—she forced his head down to look at Julius—“was a very stupid thing to do. Now you’re going to learn the hard way what happens to stupid dragons who don’t listen.”
“Wait,” Julius gurgled, reaching out a bloody hand. “Chelsie, stop! Don’t—”
His sister didn’t listen. She just turned and kicked the door open, dragging the still-choking David behind her as she stomped into the hallway. When Julius tried to follow, though, his legs refused to work. He was still struggling to stand when Fredrick shoved him back down to the floor.
“Be still,” the F hissed, pinning him to the ground. “You’re going to bleed out.”
“It’s just a knife wound,” Julius hissed back, craning his neck in a frantic effort to keep Chelsie and David in sight. “I’ll be fine. I’m a dragon.”
“You are a J,” Fredrick snarled, letting Julius go for a split second while he grabbed a cloth napkin from the wreck of the tray he’d tossed over when he’d come in. “And you’ve already been seriously injured. Do you think David chose this time to attack by chance?” He shook his head as he shoved the napkin into Julius’s wound. “He knew exactly what he was doing. You could die from this, and then where will we be?”
“Nowhere if I don’t do something,” Julius said through clenched teeth, grabbing the lapel of Fredrick’s suit in a last-ditch effort to pull himself up. “I have to go after her.”
“No,” the dragon growled, smacking him right back down. “If you die, all our work goes down the drain.”
“But this is exactly what I’m working to stop!” Julius cried, staring pleadingly at his brother. “Please, Fredrick. If Chelsie kills David because he tried to kill me, everything I just went through with Gregory will be for nothing.”
“He should die,” Fredrick snarled. “He knew he’d lost, and he still tried to kill you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Julius said, panting. “We can’t keep doing this. Sister killing brother, mother killing child, on and on and on. I don’t care how much a dragon deserves to die, unless someone lets a killing offense go, the killing will never stop. That’s the entire reason I refused to fight Gregory. That’s why I’ve done all of this, and it’s why I can’t let Chelsie do what we both know she’s about to do right now. You have to let me go.”
“No,” Fredrick growled, looking him in the face at last. “Don’t you get it? You’re our only hope. My clutch has lived our entire lives as Bethesda’s slaves. You’re about to be in a position where you can actually do something to change that, and I will break both your arms before I let you throw your life away and our freedom with it trying to save a monster like David.”
“But I’m not trying to save David!” Julius cried, beating his fists weakly against Fredrick’s chest. “I’m trying to save us all. Do you think I don’t know how much easier my life would have been if I’d just killed the dragons who tried to stop me? If I’d killed Bethesda? I could have fixed all of this with one sword stroke, but I didn’t. Not because she didn’t deserve to die, but because you can’t build a peaceful future on corpses, and I care about that a lot more than I do about justice. We’ve been up to our eyeballs in family blood since this clan was founded. Now we finally have a chance to change for the better, but it only happens if we actually stop killing each other long enough to take it.” He grabbed Fredrick’s arms as hard as he could, pulling himself up until they were nose to nose. “Please, brother,” he begged. “If you care about anything I’ve done these last few days, help me.”
Fredrick’s eyes narrowed, and for a long moment, Julius was sure the F was about to throw him back down to the ground. But then, to his amazement, Fredrick leaned down and eased his arm under Julius’s.
“Keep this on the wound,” he ordered, shoving the bloody napkin into Julius’s hand. “And don’t try to walk. I’ll carry you.”
Julius nodded, not caring how ridiculous they looked as his brother lifted him off the floor. There’d be time for dignity later. Right now, the only thing that mattered was catching Chelsie before she slaughtered David in front of everyone and undid all of Julius’s hard work.
“Hurry,” he gasped, gritting his teeth as he pressed the cloth to his bleeding stomach.
Fredrick obeyed, helping Julius out of the room with surprising speed. It still wasn’t fast enough to keep up with Chelsie, but her trail was easy to trace. All they had to do was follow the lines of gawking dragons down the hall from the main infirmary and up the stairs to the clan’s grand, hotel-style dining room one floor up.
It was the same room where Ian had dragged Julius for breakfast just that morning. Now, as then, it was packed with dragons. Even Ian was there having pre-dinner drink
s with his crowd of supporters. But while it was obvious everyone was here to gossip, by the time Fredrick and Julius made it through the doors, the packed room was deathly silent. Every green eye in the place was locked on Chelsie as she slammed David down on the elegantly decorated banquet table at the room’s center, knocking over a vase of flowers as tall as Julius in the process.
“You can’t do this!” David shouted as Chelsie drew her sword, showing him the Fang’s bone-white blade before she pressed it against his chest. “You were forbidden from helping him!”
“I’m not helping him,” Chelsie said coldly. “I’m punishing you.” She leaned in closer. “You have no idea what kind of day I’ve had. But since I can’t kill the ones who truly deserve it, I’ll settle for you. You’re about to be a public example of what happens to idiot Heartstrikers who—”
“Chelsie!”
Her body went stiff, and then she turned with deadly slowness to glare at Julius as Fredrick slowly limped them in.
“Julius!” Ian cried, his eyes going wide as he saw the blood dripping from his brother’s stomach. “What happened to—”
“Shut up!” Chelsie roared, making Ian sit right back down as she kept her eyes on Julius. “And you stay out of this.”
“No,” Julius said, glaring back at her as Fredrick set him on his feet in front of her. “This isn’t how we do things anymore.”
“This is exactly how we do things,” she growled, turning back to her victim. “David tried to kill you, which is still against the rules. Until the Council says otherwise, no one kills Heartstrikers except for Bethesda and myself. David knew that, but he stabbed you anyway, and now he’s going to pay in kind.”
David turned a little green at the eagerness in her voice, and Julius grabbed his sister’s arm. “No,” he said again. “He has nothing to pay for. I’m still alive.”
“Only because of Fredrick,” Chelsie growled, yanking her arm away. “Besides, the fact that you survived just means David here is a rule-breaker and a failure, and we all know the price of failure.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room, making Julius’s skin crawl. No. He hadn’t fought this hard just to backslide now, especially not for something as stupid and pointless as this. Chelsie didn’t even seem to be looking at David. She was just fighting blindly, Justin’s dried blood cracking off her fingers as she clenched her sword so hard, Julius worried it might break. And the moment he saw that, he knew what he had to do.
“Chelsie, stop,” he said quietly. “You don’t want to kill David.”
“Oh, I assure you, I do,” she growled, sneering at him over her shoulder. “Did you know he was the one pulling Gregory’s strings? He’s the reason for all your injuries, not just that knife wound. Still think he doesn’t deserve to die?”
“I don’t care what he deserves,” Julius said. “I care about what makes us better, and that’s never death. You know that better than anyone. You’ve killed more dragons than all of us put together. Tell me, has it ever made the clan better?”
His sister bared her teeth. “I can think of one death that would solve all our problems. But you won’t do that, will you?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I won’t kill Bethesda.”
Chelsie’s look turned deadened. “Then you don’t get to stop me from carrying out her will.”
“But this isn’t her will,” he said. “It’s yours.” He pointed at David, who was still sprawled on the banquet table in front of them like a chicken waiting to be butchered. “You’re killing him because you can’t kill Bethesda. Because she hurt you, and this is a way you can hurt her without technically disobeying. I get it, okay? I understand. But it’s also why I can’t let you do this, because you’re not a killer. You are better than what she’s made you, Chelsie, and as soon as the Council is formed, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure you never have to kill again.”
“You can’t change anything,” Chelsie snarled. “Nothing ever changes for us, Julius. Not so long as Bethesda is alive.”
“You’re wrong,” he snarled back. “We’ve already changed so much. Look around! Would this many dragons be sitting together if Bethesda was still actually in power?”
She snorted. “They’re just afraid.”
“Of you,” Julius said. “But they don’t have to be.” He pulled himself as straight as his wound allowed. “I’ve already proven how far I’m willing to go to change this clan, and it hasn’t been in vain. Gregory’s banished, and David’s failed now, too. Every piece Bethesda’s put on the board to stop this has lost, because she’s not the game master anymore. She’s just another piece, same as all the rest of us, but the real victory is that we’re playing our own game now. One where we decide the rules, and that includes you. I’m not saying you have to forgive her, all I’m asking is that you work with me. Help me make a better clan, one where this”—he nodded at David—“doesn’t happen.”
“Impossible,” she muttered, though she didn’t sound as certain as she once had. “Dragons always kill.”
“So do humans,” he reminded her. “But that doesn’t mean they let murder rule them. And if mortals can do it, surely we can, too. But we’ll never know if we don’t try. I’ve already taken the first step. Now it’s your turn.” He smiled at her. “Let me help you, Chelsie. Let him go.”
Chelsie said nothing for a long time after that. Then, slowly, she lifted her sword and slid it back into her sheath. “You don’t know how lucky you just got,” she growled at David before turning her glare on the rest of the room. “Show’s over, but don’t think this means you get a break. Council or no, I’m always watching, and don’t you forget it.”
Julius bit back a frustrated sigh. That was not how this was supposed to end, but he supposed Chelsie had to keep a tight hand on things until he actually came through on his promise to improve her situation. For now, though, her method still definitely worked. The crowded room was so silent you could have heard a snail breathe as Chelsie turned and marched back into the hall, slamming the double doors behind her with enough force to rattle the chandeliers.
The bang broke the terrified silence, and then everyone started talking at once. Several dragons actually rushed Julius, but Ian got there first, appearing at his side so fast, Julius wondered if Svena had taught him her teleporting trick.
“What did I tell you?” he said proudly, wrapping his arm around Julius’s shoulders. “Afraid of nothing. He can even talk Chelsie down!”
“That’s not why I did this,” Julius said, wincing in pain as Ian’s grip bit into the still-healing burns on his shoulder. “I—”
“Now you see the proof,” his brother went on as if Julius hadn’t spoken. “I told you all he was the real deal. Some of you didn’t believe me, but would Bethesda have fought so hard if he wasn’t a true threat? No. She threw the best she had at him, even Chelsie, and Julius still came out on top. He’s even eliminated our final competition.” He nodded at David. “Now, all that’s left is to claim our victory.”
The room began to applaud, and Ian drank it in, gripping Julius even tighter. “We’ve got this,” he whispered excitedly. “Can you stand long enough for a vote?”
Julius didn’t know. Now that the crisis was over, he was feeling nauseous and lightheaded. If Ian hadn’t been physically holding him up, he probably would have fallen face-first on the banquet table beside David. But while he didn’t care for the grandstanding, he couldn’t deny Ian had a point. For the first time ever, all the Heartstrikers around them were smiling and talking to each other excitedly. That was a huge change from the mistrust bordering on violence he’d seen when they’d flooded into the mountain yesterday morning, and Julius was desperate to lock that positivity in before Bethesda figured out a way to ruin it. Desperate enough that even though he was sure Fredrick was probably going to have to hold him up through the whole thing, he nodded anyway, earning himself a beaming grin from Ian.
“I knew you were one of us,”
his brother said proudly, glancing down at Julius’s wobbly legs. “I’ll have someone get you a chair.”
“Thanks,” Julius muttered, sinking down into the chair one of the other Js who were always around Ian now had already slid in behind him. He sat down with a sigh, closing his eyes to focus on managing the pain as Ian took control of the room, ordering dragons out to gather everyone in the throne room, because they were doing this tonight. He was about to ask Fredrick to get him another tray of food, because he was clearly going to need it, when David finally pushed himself up off the banquet table.
The sudden movement made Julius flinch back instinctively, but for once, the politician dragon didn’t look slick, sly, or dangerous. Quite the opposite. His face was pale and still a bit terrified, but the look in his eyes when he looked at Julius was a humbled mix of gratitude and bewilderment.
“You stopped her from killing me.”
“Of course I kept her from killing you,” Julius said irritably. “How many times do I have to say this? We don’t kill—”
“No,” David cut him off. “I meant you saved my life. She would have gutted me for sure if you hadn’t grabbed her arm.” He dropped his eyes. “I owe you a debt, Julius Heartstriker.”
Julius was grimacing before he even finished. Not this again. But when he opened his mouth to tell his brother he didn’t do the life debt thing, a new, far better idea occurred to him.
“You do owe me,” he said, nodding. “And you know what? I’m cashing it in right now.”
David’s head whipped up in confusion, but Julius was on a roll. “You want to repay me for saving your life?” he said with a pained, but still sincere, grin. “Help me make this Council work. You’ve been a professional politician for decades. That means you’re an expert on all the problems we’re about to have. You’re the best resource we’ve got for this, so my price for saving your life is that, until the next election cycle, you have to swear to help me build this Council. And I don’t mean arrange things for your own benefit, either. I mean actually help me design a clan that will smoothly, peacefully, and fairly work for the benefit of all the dragons who live in it.”