by Rachel Aaron
Julius almost said “With Chelsie” before he remembered his promise to keep his sister’s lair a secret. “Safe,” he said instead. “And, up until fifteen minutes ago, asleep. But you’ve found me now, so—”
“Yeah,” Justin snapped. “Walking around alone. Do you even comprehend the danger you’re in? I went by your room an hour ago on the off chance you’d gotten desperate enough to sleep there, and I found this.”
He held out what looked like a large brick of cream cheese with several wires poking out of it. “What’s that?” Julius asked.
“Plastic explosives,” his brother said. “Cheap but effective. Someone rigged them to a pressure plate under your mattress so they’d go off the moment you sat down, which would have been a good way to get around your Fang if whoever put it there hadn’t forgotten that I can smell C4 a mile away.”
That was very good to know, because to Julius’s nose, the white block in his brother’s hands didn’t smell like anything at all. Even so. “Someone actually put live explosives in my room?” he cried, horrified. “What is wrong with this family?”
“At least they were taking you seriously,” Justin said, casually tossing the brick of explosives in his hand. “There’s enough here to blow a hole in a good-sized tank. That’s a lot more than anyone would normally bother packing for a J who wasn’t me.”
“Don’t say that like it’s a compliment,” Julius snapped, feeling weirdly insulted. It was one thing to know your family was trying to kill you, but explosives under his bed just felt like dirty pool, even for dragons.
“No point getting your feathers in a ruff now,” Justin said, tossing the disarmed plastic explosive in the trash can beside them. “This is just the warm-up. Gregory and his goons have been out spreading rumors about you all night. Every time I turn around, he’s got someone new cornered.”
That wasn’t good. “What’s he been saying?”
“More of the same,” Justin said with a shrug. “That you’re not a real dragon and you’re only in power thanks to Bob. All of which is true, of course, but he has no right to be badmouthing you over it.”
“How do you figure that?” Julius asked, because he thought that was actually a valid criticism.
“Because he wasn’t there,” his brother growled. “I was. I saw that the whole thing was a seer plot from the get-go, but just because Bob set ’em up doesn’t change the fact that you knocked them down. I saw you stay ahead of Chelsie that night in the throne room, just like I saw you pull the Fang out of Grandfather’s skull and spare Mother’s life when you could have killed her. Gregory doesn’t have jack next to that. He’s just some punk who came in at the last second and is trying to get power for himself by acting like a big shot.” He cracked his knuckles. “I hope he does try to kill you today. I can’t wait to see the smug look go flying off his stupid face when I punch him off the mountain.”
He finished with a bloodthirsty grin, but Julius still couldn’t help feeling touched. “Do you really mean that?”
“Absolutely,” his brother said. “I’m going to punt him into Texas.”
“No, no,” Julius said quickly. “I meant the other stuff. Do you really think I deserve to be at the head of Heartstriker?”
Justin gave him a funny look. “Of course. I wouldn’t have signed the contract booting Mother out of power if I’d felt otherwise.”
“But…you were her favorite,” Julius said, happy to finally have a chance to ask the question he’d been wondering about since his brother had joined them the night of the coup. “I don’t doubt your loyalty, I just want to know why.”
“It was her decision to make me her favorite,” his brother said with a shrug. “Frankly, I didn’t care one way or the other. I want what I’ve always wanted: to be the champion of the biggest, best clan in the world. When Bethesda was the Heartstriker, that meant working for her. But then she said some things that made me realize she wasn’t the all-powerful clan head I thought she was, and after you beat her, the choice only got easier.” He smiled at Julius. “Unlike Mother, you’ve always been there when I needed you. That’s what a clan needs: someone who will fight for all of us, not just themselves. You do that, so I fight for you.”
“And it doesn’t hurt that you got a promotion in the bargain,” Fredrick pointed out.
“What kind of dragon would I be if I accepted a deal that had nothing in it for me?” Justin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “But for real, Gregory can go flame himself. I saw you beat Bethesda. That makes you clan head by every measure that counts, and it’s my duty and pleasure as your knight to turn anyone who says otherwise into dragon hash.”
Like most of Justin’s compliments, that was as terrifying as it was sincere, but after twenty-four years as his brother, Julius had learned to roll with it. “Thank you, Justin.”
“Yeah, well, you can show your appreciation by not going off alone again,” Justin grumbled. “I’ve got a lot riding on you. Conrad’s already told me he doesn’t think I’m ready for this job. If you get yourself offed on my watch, I’ll never live it down.” He grimaced and stepped aside, finally letting Julius and Fredrick out of the stairwell door. “So what are we doing?”
“Meeting with the UN,” Julius said, glancing down the empty hall. “I don’t suppose you know where they are?”
“If you mean the humans, they’re in the third room from the left, hanging out with Katya.”
Julius blinked in surprise. “Katya? I didn’t even know she was still here.”
Justin nodded. “I thought they were here to meet with her, actually. But if you want to crash, I’m down.”
“We’re not crashing,” Julius said quickly. “I’m just surprised. But she’s our ally, too.” And as former head of the Daughters of the Three Sisters, at least for the few hours they’d existed before Svena had renamed them, she certainly had good reason to want to meet with the UN as well. “I think this might actually work out in our favor. Lead on.”
Justin nodded and started down the hall, leading Julius and Fredrick to the door he’d mentioned, which opened into an elegant but surprisingly small room that looked as if it was mostly used for making people wait.
As promised, Katya was already there, standing beside the floor-to-ceiling window with one—Julius wasn’t sure which—of her sisters. She brightened the moment she saw them, flashing Julius a warm, sincere smile that was still a shock to see on a dragon’s face. “Julius,” she said. “Excellent. We were waiting for you.”
“Sorry for the delay,” Julius said, glancing nervously at the two humans in the center of the room, who, despite the multiple leather chairs and couches, were standing as well.
When he’d heard he’d be meeting the undersecretary of magic, Julius hadn’t known what to expect, but the man who turned to greet him most definitely wasn’t it. Up until this point, every magical human Julius had met had looked the part: the mages at Lark’s party, Ross and his crazy alligator-themed everything, even Marci with her wild colors and giant, spellworked plastic bracelets. This man, on the other hand, looked like a banker. An extremely conservative one, with his somber suit, dark-gray gloves, and polished leather shoes. He also looked old. Remarkably so for a mage. Like most dragons, Julius was terrible at guessing human ages, but going by the gray in his neatly trimmed beard, he put the man in his fifties, which, given that magic had only been back for sixty years, made him a first-generation mage.
Even Julius, who knew embarrassingly little about human magic, knew that was impressive. Unlike Marci’s generation, who’d grown up with magical schooling all the way to the university level, first-generation mages had had to figure out everything on their own. They also had a very low survival rate since all the magical practices that were now banned as too dangerous had gotten that way from first-gen mage accidents. These two factors combined meant you almost never saw a mage over forty in a position of power, but despite his dull clothes, this man radiated power like heat. Everything about him—from the wa
y he stood perfectly at ease despite being one of only two mortals in a room full of magical predators, to the measuring look in his gray eyes as he examined Julius from head to toe—projected the sort of absolute confidence Julius normally saw only in other dragons. But while all of that was definitely noteworthy, what really threw Julius for a loop was the woman standing at his side.
Julius had never seen two humans who looked more opposite. Where the mage was old, graying, and pale, the woman standing next to him was stocky, dark-skinned, and seemingly ageless. She also dressed in a somber, expensive suit, but unlike the banker mage beside her, the woman wore hers like armor, an illusion that was only enhanced by the obvious outline of muscles beneath her tailored sleeves. Even her hair, which was thick and jet black, had been braided away from her face in narrow, military-precise rows, while her dark eyes dug into Julius like claws, assessing and weighing his prowess and threat as efficiently as any dragon. Neither human looked or smelled the least bit afraid, and Julius had to quickly remind himself that he was the apex predator here as he stepped forward to greet his guests.
“Welcome to Heartstriker Mountain,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Julius Heartstriker.”
The woman’s sharp gray eyes grew sharper. “Julius Heartstriker?”
As always, the emphasis on the J at the start of his name made Julius sweat, but Justin was already on it. “One of the three members of the new Heartstriker Ruling Council,” he said sternly, standing beside Julius like an attack dog. “Usurper of Bethesda.”
That got the humans’ attention. “We’d heard there’d been a coup, but we didn’t know the details,” the woman murmured, looking Julius over with a new eye. “I suppose that makes you the dragon to talk to, then?”
Before Julius could explain it wasn’t quite that simple, she grabbed his still offered hand in a crushing grip. “I’d hoped to talk to Bethesda herself, but if you can make decisions, that’s good enough. I’m General Emily Jackson, head of the United Nations Magical Disaster Response Force. I’m sure you already know my associate.”
She glanced at the mage, who did not offer Julius either of his gloved hands as he introduced himself. “Sir Myron Rollins,” he said in a genteel voice that sounded straight out of a BBC period drama. “Royal sorcerer of Great Britain, chair of Tectonic Magic at Cambridge University, Master of Labyrinths, and undersecretary of magic for the United Nations.”
That was quite the list of titles, but Julius had grown up surrounded by dragons who collected epitaphs like baseball cards, and he knew from experience that anyone who greeted you with their full list was someone with a dangerously high opinion of themselves. This, in turn, gave him a much lower opinion of the mage. He was far more interested to find out the seemingly young-looking woman beside him was actually a general. Given her bodybuilder’s physique and aggressive stance, he’d assumed she was a bodyguard. Clearly, however, she was no such thing, which meant they had two high-ranking UN officials and zero staff in the room, a fact that made Julius more nervous than anything else yet. He might not know much about human politics, but anything that got multiple bigwigs to visit you unannounced, in person, and without their entourages was probably very serious business.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” he lied, turning to Katya, the only one in the room he was actually happy to see. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing much,” she replied, eyeing the humans. “I hope you don’t mind my butting into your meeting, Heartstriker, but when I heard the Phoenix was in the mountain, I couldn’t go before I’d seen her for myself.”
He blinked in confusion. “Phoenix?”
“Didn’t you know?” Katya said, eyeing the general coldly. “General Jackson is quite famous. She’s the head of the UN’s anti-dragon unit, among other things.”
That explained a lot. “So why are you called the Phoenix?” he asked, turning back to the general.
The human started to answer, but Katya beat her to it. “Because no matter how many times you kill her, she always comes back,” the dragoness snarled, baring her teeth in an uncharacteristic show of aggression. “You were the one who killed Illiria, Dragon of the Dalmatian Coast.”
“My team did take down a dragon with that name,” General Jackson replied without blinking an eye. “She was terrorizing towns all over the Eastern Mediterranean and demanding tribute. That sort of behavior might have flown a thousand years ago, but these days, we call it extortion. Illiria was warned multiple times, and when she refused to correct her behavior, we had no choice but to take action.”
“No choice,” Katya repeated, turning to Julius. “Illiria was a dear friend of mine. Old fashioned, perhaps, but very loyal. She hid me from Estella several times. I was most upset to hear of her death.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the general said, not sounding sorry at all. “But even dragons are not above the law. My organization does not discriminate amongst threats. Our mandate is to protect the basic human right to a peaceful existence without being threatened or, in this particular case, burned alive by a rogue dragon. If you have an issue with that, you may file a formal complaint with the UN general council.” Her lips curled into an odd smile. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Katya stiffened, and Julius decided he’d better cut in before the whole “burned alive” thing happened again. “You didn’t come to Heartstriker Mountain to kill any of us, I hope?”
“No,” the general assured him. “Quite the opposite. Our mission today is one of peace and, hopefully, successful alliance against our mutual enemy.”
Julius could think of only one enemy big enough for that broad a categorization. “You mean Algonquin.”
The general nodded. “As I said, we do not discriminate between threats. My division was created to protect human populations from any supernatural threat, and as the only spirit to ever destroy and then take over an entire city, Algonquin has been on our radar for a long time. Until recently, though, the situation was deemed stable, but now that she’s executed the three most powerful living dragons and declared war on the species, things are different.”
“I’m surprised you care,” Katya said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Last I heard, you were the human assigned to take down my mothers when they rose. Not that I would have stopped you, of course, but for you to claim their deaths are what spurred you to action smacks of insincerity. You’re just a human. Wouldn’t your life be easier if spirits and dragons took each other out?”
“It would,” the general said. “But it’s not that simple.” She turned back to Julius. “When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. As the clan controlling all of the territory surrounding Algonquin’s land, the Heartstrikers are her obvious next target. If the two of you were to go to war, all of North America would be in danger of being dragged into the conflict. As someone whose job is specifically to defend the common people from magical threats, that’s not an outcome I can tolerate.”
“And so you’ve come to make an alliance with us against her,” Julius said. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The general smiled. “My thoughts exactly.”
That actually made a great deal of sense, but there was something about all of this that didn’t sit right. “So why the rush?” he asked. “I’m new to this, but I’m pretty sure generals and undersecretaries don’t rush off to make treaties in person at eight thirty in the morning unless it’s an emergency.”
“Then we clearly have different definitions of the term,” Sir Myron said, speaking up for the first time. “Because I would count Algonquin’s simultaneous slaughter of the three most magical dragons in the world using a previously unknown magical weapon of mass destruction as quite an emergency. But you are correct, Heartstriker. There is another reason we came here in person, and I’m guessing it’s why she”—he nodded at Katya—“is here as well.”
Katya stiffened, and the mage smiled, pulling off his glove to reveal an entire handful of thick, steel rings engrave
d with intricate, maze-like patterns that positively reeked of magic. “I am not like other human mages,” he said, spreading his fingers. “Being self-taught, I have none of the usual limitations of spellwork or circles. I have learned to feel and use magic according to its natural shape, and the shape of your magic, Katya of the Three Sisters, is missing a very large piece.”
“Of course it is,” she said angrily. “Our mothers are dead.”
“But that’s not the reason,” Sir Myron replied, wiggling his fingers in a way that sent a ripple of magic through the room. “Unlike you, we still have access to the DFZ. Enough to know that, while the heads of the Three Sisters were placed around Algonquin’s tower—along with the heads of every other dragon unlucky enough to be in the DFZ two nights ago—all the bodies are yet to be accounted for.”
Julius gaped in horror. He hadn’t even thought of Algonquin’s head display as anything but a macabre show of her power, but the moment the mage drew his attention to the incongruities, the pieces fell into place. If she’d just killed those dragons as he’d assumed, they would all be ash like Estella. But if their heads were still around, that meant their corpses must be, too, along with all the leftover magic contained inside. It was just like the Quetzalcoatl’s feathers! Algonquin must have killed them in a way that preserved their physical bodies and magic, and as someone who, until very recently, had made his living hunting down magical animals in the DFZ and selling the parts to mages for use as reagents to fuel their circles, Julius had a pretty good idea as to why.
“She’s using them,” he said, eyes going wide. “She’s not just killing dragons. She’s junking their bodies for magical power!”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite that way,” Myron said with a distasteful frown. “But yes, that’s our assumption. Having not seen the evidence ourselves, we have no proof, but—”
“You need no proof,” Katya growled, turning to Julius. “You’re right.”
Julius began to sweat. “So you’re saying that Algonquin, the spirit who just declared war on all of us, is using the bodies of the Three Sisters, who were the three most magical dragons alive, as a battery?”