Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers Book 5)

by Rachel Aaron

“I’m not repeating the past!” Bob shouted. “I might be breaking the letter of your law, but when it comes to the spirit, our goals are the same! You’ve been working for ten thousand years to protect dragons from themselves. You’ve fought as hard as you could within the limits of your purpose, not just to stop rogue seers, but to make us better as a species. You’ve bent over backward to foster peace and end the in-fighting that has torn us down for so long. The future I mean to buy does all of that, and it keeps everyone from dying! How can you kill me for it?”

  “Easily,” the Black Reach replied, his voice final. “You knew the price, Brohomir. You were warned countless times, but no more.”

  He lifted his hand, which no longer looked like a hand at all. It was a dragon claw, an enormous one every bit as huge and deadly as Dragon Sees the Beginning’s. But where his brother’s talons had been as white as bleached bone, the Black Reach’s claw was as dark as the shadows that surrounded them. And it was in that moment, that second that seemed to stretch on forever, that Julius finally realized the Black Reach had never been more than a shadow himself. He truly was a construct, a carefully pieced-together mask created to hide the truth of what he was. Death. The final end no seer—no matter how clever or justified or righteous—could avoid.

  “You have made up your mind, Brohomir,” the construct said in a deep, sad voice. “And I see no more futures where you change it, which means the time has come. Now tell your brother to move aside and accept what you have made inevitable.”

  Bob took a sharp breath, his hands tensing on Julius’s shoulders, but whatever he was working up the courage to say never made it out, because Julius spoke first.

  “No.”

  Chapter 4

  The word rang through the cold air like a shot. Everyone beneath the broken spiral of on-ramps held their breath as Dragon Sees Eternity’s eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “No,” Julius said again, putting his arms out so that he was blocking Bob. “I’m not letting you kill my brother.”

  The construct’s giant claw flicked down, the point stopping less than an inch above Julius’s head. Terrifying as that was, though, Julius had been threatened by giant dragons many, many times. He couldn’t stop his flinch, but he didn’t move out of the way, which seemed to anger the Black Reach more than anything else.

  “Why are you doing this?” he snarled. “Your brother has done nothing but use you!”

  “He has,” Julius agreed. “But he never tried to hide it. For all his other faults, Bob’s been up front that I was his tool since the very beginning, and he’s never forced me to do something I didn’t already want to do. In fact, the only time he ever tried to give me a direct order was when he told me not to free Chelsie, and I did it anyway. You call me a pawn, but the choices that brought me to this spot were always my own. That makes this my problem as much as Bob’s, but it doesn’t excuse you.” His eyes narrowed. “You stand there and accuse Bob of ruining the future, but he’s the only one who saw this disaster coming and tried to stop it. You’re a seer too! You knew this was coming. Where’s your solution?”

  Dragon Sees Eternity frowned, but even though he’d asked the question, Julius was rolling too hard to stop. “At least Bob was trying!” he cried. “He used us, sure, but unlike Bethesda or Estella or anyone else who’s called us pawns, Bob takes what we want into account. I’m sure he didn’t have to help me achieve my dream of changing our clan to get what he wanted, but he did. He helped me and believed in me when everyone else in the world thought I was a failure. It’s because of him that I’m standing here as a clan head instead of cowering in my mother’s basement.”

  “You think he did that for you?” Dragon Sees Eternity scoffed. “He was manipulating you. He abused your compassion by playing the kind brother so you’d defend him, exactly as you’re doing now.”

  “I’m not defending him because I was manipulated,” Julius said. “I’m refusing to let you kill my brother because he’s my brother. Gregory treated me way worse than Bob has, and I didn’t let him die either, because killing doesn’t fix anything. When will you stubborn snakes get that through your skulls?” He flung his hands up at the blacked-out sky. “The world is ending! Literally! We should be working together to fight that, not wasting what little time we have left fighting each other. That’s how we got into this mess and lost our old home in the first place! Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

  In hindsight, lecturing an ancient construct of dragon magic several thousand times older and bigger than he was probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but Julius didn’t care. He was so sick of fighting the same fight again and again and again. Especially with the Black Reach, who, of all dragons, should have known better.

  “You told me back at Heartstriker Mountain that you were sick of watching history repeat itself,” he said, leaning toward the construct. “Why can’t you see that you’re doing the same thing? You saw this coming. You knew Bob’s back was against the wall, but did you help him? Did you even try to work with him to find a solution that wouldn’t get him killed? No. You just watched from a distance and judged. You didn’t even act until it was too late.”

  “I did act,” the construct snapped. “I gave him warning after warning—”

  “Warnings aren’t the same as help,” Julius said stubbornly. “If you really are the guardian of our future, then you should be helping us shape it, not just smacking down every seer who steps out of bounds. I don’t like Bob’s solution any more than you do, but at least he has one. Your answer to this seems to be to kill a seer who can’t fight back and then leave us all to die in the tentacles of an unbeatable monster that you never thought to warn us was coming!”

  He was growling by the time he finished, the words coming out in angry curls of smoke, which, if Julius had been calm enough to pay proper attention, would have made him jump. He never breathed smoke, but then, he’d never been this angry before. It was as if everything he’d fought against since he’d realized he could fight had finally come to a head in this one terrifying moment, and Julius was determined to beat it back once and for all, even if he had to use his own head to do it.

  “I’m not moving,” he said, wrapping his arms around his brother. “Bob might not be right, but neither are you. I don’t know if there is a right answer, but I’m certain murder isn’t it. So if you want to actually try something new, put your giant claw away, and we’ll talk this out like reasonable dragons. But if you’re determined to kill my brother for a crime he hasn’t committed yet and only planned to attempt because he saw no other way to save us, you’ll have to go through me to do it. I know I’m not enough to stop you, but I’m not moving, and you can’t make me.”

  Julius wasn’t actually certain of that last part. If Dragon Sees Eternity’s true form was anywhere near as big as that claw made him look, the construct could easily pry Julius off Bob and send him flying. He was still determined to try, though, so he held tight, clutching his oldest brother with all his strength. But while Julius fully expected that rash decision to be his last, he did not expect Marci to suddenly appear in front of him.

  “What are you doing?” he hissed, heart pounding in terror.

  “Same thing you are,” Marci said, reaching up to shove the Black Reach’s giant claw away from Julius’s head. “Taking my last stand. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on, but I did not just come back from the dead to lose you over Bob. No offense.”

  Bob spread his hands to show that none was taken, but before he could actually say anything, the ice around them turned to steam as the dragon magic binding Amelia broke.

  “Finally,” the dragon spirit growled, glaring at Svena as she stomped over to stand beside Marci.

  Julius gaped at her. “You too?”

  “Of course,” Amelia said, cracking her knuckles. “Bob and I have been partners in crime since before he could fly. He couldn’t tell me exactly how this would go down because of that whole ‘knowing the future chang
es it’ problem, but I knew it would come to a standoff eventually.” She nodded at Dragon Sees Eternity. “He is called the Death of Seers.”

  The construct growled in frustration. “So you’re going to let your sister die for you as well, Brohomir?”

  “I’m not dying for him,” Amelia snarled. “I’m fighting you. You might be a construct built by my ancestors, but I’m the first dragon ever to blend with the magic of this plane. I’m something you’ve never seen before, pal, and Marci here’s the First Merlin. She keeps monsters bigger than you for pets.”

  “Yeah!” Marci said, her face lighting up. “This is our world! We say who lives and dies around here. I’m not a fan of letting Bob put my future on rails, but I’m a big fan of avoiding the end of the world, and I think Julius makes a very good point. We’ll never get anywhere new if we keep playing by the same old rules.”

  “Took the words right out of my mouth,” Amelia said with a grin. “These are crazy times, and crazy times call for crazy plans, not the same old hard line. Isn’t that right, Chelsie?”

  Julius jumped. He hadn’t even realized she was there, but the moment Amelia said her name, Chelsie appeared beside them. She had a long piece of broken metal in her hands that she was holding like a sword, and her face was a sour scowl, as though she couldn’t believe it had come to this.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, shoving her way past Amelia to stand in front of Julius. “I’m not on Brohomir’s team, and I refuse to participate in the hell he calls a future, but I owe Julius more than can ever be repaid.” She pointed her makeshift sword at the Black Reach. “If you swing at him, I will swing first, assuming Fredrick doesn’t beat me to it.”

  The words weren’t out of her mouth when a cut opened in the air directly behind Dragon Sees Eternity, and the familiar curved blade of a Fang of the Heartstriker slid through the hole to rest on the construct’s back. A heartbeat later, Fredrick followed, stepping through the portal he’d made with the confidence of someone who’d been doing this for decades rather than a day. It wasn’t until he slid the edge of his Defender’s Fang up to the construct’s neck, though, that Julius finally realized what was going on.

  Dragon Sees Eternity was completely surrounded. Everyone facing him was doing so for their own reasons, but, like a triggered trap, the moment the Black Reach had turned his claw on Julius, all their disparate elements—dragons, humans, spirits, even the Qilin, who’d moved in to support Fredrick—had suddenly snapped together into one powerful whole. Even Svena and Katya had stepped forward, though Svena mostly seemed to be trying to keep her little sister in place. Ghost was there as well, his grave-cold magic filling the air to bursting as he prepared to fight at Marci’s command.

  If it hadn’t been so terrifying, the joy of seeing everyone working together for his sake would have made Julius cry. But while he was fighting back emotions, the Black Reach didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. He wasn’t even looking at the deadly force surrounding him. He was just standing there, staring at Bob with a sad, sad look.

  “Is there no depth you won’t stoop to, Consort of a Nameless End?” he asked bitterly. “You’ve built something truly amazing, a web of real connection built on trust and friendship instead of fear. You could change the world with power like this, and you’re throwing it away on a desperate, selfish bid to save your own skin.”

  “Am I?” Bob said, letting go of Julius as he rose to his feet.

  “That question insults us both,” the construct said irritably. “You know as well as I do that I can kill everyone here. Your forces are children, not even in their mid-thousands. I am a weapon forged from the combined magic of the greatest dragons of our old world. My fire could consume all of theirs without even noticing.”

  That sounded suspiciously like bluffing to Julius. The Black Reach had the advantage in age and power, but there was only one of him versus a lot of them. To his surprise, though, Bob nodded rapidly.

  “You are stupidly powerful,” Bob agreed. “No living dragon can challenge you, but that’s the most beautiful thing about this. We don’t have to beat you.”

  The Black Reach arched an eyebrow. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

  “From you,” Bob replied, leaning closer. “You were the one who taught me that the future is never set, old friend, but you wouldn’t know it from how you act. We seers get so focused on what’s ahead, we often forget that the most important decision is the one right in front of us. We forget that we make decisions too. We are part of the stream of time same as everyone else, and just as you told me only minutes ago that I could still choose to change my fate, you have a choice as well.”

  “You’ve left me no choice!” the Black Reach roared, pointing his claw at the pigeon, who was still sitting placidly on Bob’s shoulder. “You deliberately sought out the force whose only purpose is to break the one rule I’ve ever given you! I am the guardian of the future she exists to destroy! What choice do I have?”

  “A very simple one,” Bob said. “You can decide not to kill me.”

  A visible wave of anger rolled through Dragon Sees Eternity, but Bob wasn’t finished.

  “I’ve known you nearly all my life. In all those centuries, I’ve learned that the thing you hate the most isn’t seers who break your rule. It’s us.” Bob pressed his hands against his chest. “Dragons. You’ve been guarding us since we first fled to this plane ten thousand years ago, watching helplessly as we made the same mistakes over and over and over again. You used to complain to me about the endless clan wars filling the future with death everywhere you looked. It got so bad that you moved to China. China! With him!” He pointed at the Qilin, who looked insulted. “You loved to travel, but you sequestered yourself in rural China for centuries because the Qilin’s luck kept it relatively peaceful. That’s how much you hated dragons. You would rather constantly unpick the knots the Golden Wrecking Ball’s luck put in your plans than deal with the pointless violence of the normal clans anymore. But I’m changing that.”

  Bob put his hand on Julius’s shoulder. “I found a dragon who didn’t think like the others, and I put my entire clan under his care. I built Heartstriker into an empire bigger than any dragon clan this world has ever seen, and then I gave it all to him. But the best part—the best part—was that after I put Julius on top, he kept it without my help. He was able to stay in command because he understood what you lost faith in long ago: that dragons are not always defined by our lowest common denominator. That we are all different, and that we are just as capable of compassion, reason, and understanding as any other intelligent species. I didn’t manipulate him into being that way, either. Quite the opposite. Julius is Julius despite his environment. He’s living proof of his own concept, your concept, and the moment I realized that, I knew I’d found the lynchpin that would let me break the cycle you’ve always hated.”

  “Break the cycle,” Dragon Sees Eternity repeated skeptically. “Brohomir, you just put him in power. He hasn’t even done anything yet.”

  “Au contraire,” Bob said. “Julius has changed our clan more in these last two weeks than Bethesda managed in a thousand years. I may have set up the board, but he’s the one who played through. He changed our clan from a dictatorship to an elected Council structure in a matter of days, and he did it without killing. He reconciled our war with the Qilin without bloodshed as well, and repaired our relationship with the Daughters of the Three Sisters. His human also just became the first Merlin, which means we have a real shot at peace with the native species of this plane for the first time since we arrived and started eating them. And it was through his great and selfless service to the Qilin that my sister Amelia received the stroke of magical luck she needed to become the Spirit of Dragons, solving our greatest magical problem on this plane and giving us a new home.”

  He pulled Julius closer. “It’s true I pointed him at each of these events, but my brother was the one who actually made them happen. Together, our efforts hav
e reordered the world into a more peaceful, more cooperative, nicer place where the old draconic ideas of might-makes-right, take-what-you-want, step-on-everyone-else are finally seen for the barbarism they always were. That is the future Julius and I have built, and even after I sell everything else to buy the one timeline where we aren’t devoured by the Nameless End, that’s the future that will remain. It can be yours too, Black Reach. All you have to do is make your own decision not to kill the key players, and you can finally have what you’ve always wanted: a better dragonkind.”

  By the time he finished, Julius’s head was spinning. He hadn’t realized just how much they’d changed until Bob had spelled it out. But while he was feeling awestruck by everything they’d achieved, the Black Reach looked more furious than ever.

  “So that’s your final play?” he spat. “Bribery? I deny my purpose and spare your life, and you’ll give me a future I won’t hate?”

  “It’s not bribery,” Bob said, insulted. “It’s incentive. And I’m not asking you to defy your purpose. Why do you think you were tasked with making sure no seer ever sold a future again? It wasn’t because selling possible futures is inherently bad. Let’s not forget that seers were doing it for eons before the end. The only reason it was forbidden is because dragons got irresponsible and sold everything. That’s where we messed up. That is the mistake you were made to prevent, but I’m not doing that. I’m not selling timelines to gain an advantage over another clan or make myself a king. I’m trading millions of futures where we die for the one where we get to live. That’s all it is. Not a horrible crime, not a sellout, but a carefully planned shot at survival with a good dragon at the helm.”

  He put his hands on Julius’s shoulders. “That’s the choice I made, Black Reach. Now, I’m giving it to you. You can enforce the letter of the law and kill me simply for the act of trading a future. Or you can honor the actual reason you were made and help me save our species before fear of one End dooms us to another.”