by Rachel Aaron
“You’re my partner,” he said quickly. “I’m not going to leave you at the mercy of Mortal Services. I’ll be here whenever you need me, and”—here went nothing—“I was also hoping we could have dinner tonight. Just the two of us.”
The words came out in a rush, but considering how long he’d been prepping to ask Marci out, Julius was pleased with his delivery. Marci, however, looked inexplicably disappointed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly panicked. “Is dinner bad for you?”
“No, no, dinner’s great,” Marci said. “It’s just…” Her cheeks turned pink as her eyes went back to the feathered dragons hovering in the sky outside. “I was kind of hoping you could take me flying.”
Julius’s heart skipped multiple beats. “Flying?”
“Only if you can,” she said quickly, face getting redder by the second. “I don’t know anything about the physics of it, but I’ve always dreamed of flying on a dragon. If you don’t want to, though, that’s totally cool.”
Not want to have Marci clinging to his back, shrieking in delight as he flew her over the desert at sunset? Julius couldn’t even imagine it. “I will absolutely take you flying.”
His reward was instantaneous. “Really?” Marci cried, her whole face lighting up before she sprang out of bed, nearly tackling him in a full-body hug. “You are the best dragon ever!”
When she said it like that, Julius could almost believe it. He was about to wrap his arms around her as well when someone knocked on the door. When Julius looked over his shoulder, Bob was standing in the hallway on the other side of the infirmary room’s observation window, making exaggerated hand motions at the spot on his wrist where his watch would be if he’d been wearing one.
Julius’s stomach sank. “I think that’s my cue,” he muttered, turning back to Marci. “You’ll call me?”
“I will,” she promised, looking him in the eyes. “And remember, Julius. You fought a dragon-slaying fjord spirit, went to another plane of existence, foiled an ancient seer, and saved your clan from utter destruction, and that was just what happened yesterday. You can totally handle a meeting with your mother. Don’t let her tell you otherwise.”
Julius dropped his eyes, face burning. He couldn’t tell her how much it meant to hear someone say that, but he was determined to try. “Thank you,” he said. “Really, Marci. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied, giving him a shove. “Now get out of here. Your brother’s scaring the nurses, and I’m worried it’ll delay my discharge.”
She wasn’t kidding. Bob’s gestures had been getting more and more extreme as they’d talked, eventually reaching the point where the human nurses in the hall had started actively backing away. Clearly, Bob’s presence was not good for efficient running of the clinic, so Julius gave Marci a final smile and stepped outside to greet his brother.
***
“Well,” Bob said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as Julius closed the door. “That looked promising.”
“What are you doing here?” Julius asked, ignoring the heat that remark brought to his face. “And why are you dressed like that?”
Every time Julius saw Bob, the seer looked as if he’d gotten dressed by falling backwards into his closet and wearing whatever he landed on. That was still the case this morning, only Bob seemed to have stumbled into a much fancier closet. Rather than his usual odd shirts and paint-stained jeans, he was wearing a dizzying combination of black tuxedo pants, a peacock-blue silk trench coat, a snake-skin vest, and a burgundy velvet top hat complete with multiple white ostrich plumes. Even his pigeon had a pink lace rosette tied to the top of her head like a little hat, and the combined effect was enough to make Julius—who was still wearing the long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans Bob had left for him after he’d changed back from his dragon last night—feel like the odd one out.
“Should I be dressed up, too?”
“Probably,” Bob said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and steering him down the hall. “But there’s no time for that now. This is your big morning, Julius the Nice Dragon! You don’t want to be late to the inaugural meeting of the brand-new first-ever Heartstriker Council.”
Julius grimaced. “About that. I—”
“This is the chance we’ve been waiting for,” Bob said over him, his green eyes sparkling. “At long last, the future is wide open. Estella, my greatest obstacle, is dead, and even if her replacement were born tomorrow, it would be fifty years before she mastered the World of Seercraft enough to comprehend my plans.” He grinned in delight. “For the first time in my life, the entire board is mine. Do you know what that’s like?!”
“No,” Julius admitted. “But aren’t you getting ahead of yourself? There’s still the Black Reach to worry about.”
Bob clicked his tongue. “Firstly, if you can’t see the irony inherent in telling a seer he’s ‘getting ahead of himself,’ I’m officially disowning you as my brother. Secondly, I don’t bother worrying about the Black Reach because I can’t do anything about him. His plots function on a completely different level than mine. Now that you know what he is, I shouldn’t have to explain why.”
Julius nodded. He’d already figured out the Black Reach was really Dragon Sees Eternity, twin brother to Dragon Sees the Beginning and an immortal construct dedicated to preserving the future of all dragonkind. He was also, at least according to Bob, the one who was ultimately responsible for the death of all seers. That struck Julius as the sort of thing you should keep track of, but Bob had already moved on.
“I’ll deal with the Black Reach in time,” he said, hurrying them both out of the infirmary and into the crowded hallway that connected the side building where the mortals were housed to the main spire of Heartstriker Mountain. “Right now, we have a wide-open playing field, which means it’s time to think BIG.”
“Last night wasn’t big enough?” Julius asked, struggling to keep up with his much taller brother’s strides.
“Overthrowing Bethesda and changing the entire Heartstriker clan structure was just set-up,” the seer said flippantly. “Once I’ve got my dragons in a row, it’ll be time for the real show.”
Julius nodded. “Which is?”
“Nice try,” Bob said, wagging his finger. “But you’re in the big leagues now, kiddo. That means no more freebies.”
“Come on.” Julius groaned as they crossed the marble lobby toward the golden elevator that would take them all the way up to Bethesda’s throne room at the mountain’s peak. “It’s easy for you to be relaxed. You already know how everything’s going to turn out! But all this uncertainty is hell on the rest of us. After everything we’ve been through, can’t you trust me enough to give me a hint?”
“Trust is irrelevant when you can see the future,” Bob said, turning on his heel to stare down at his littlest brother. “But if it makes you feel better, it’s because I trust you that I can’t tell you what’s coming.” He smiled wide. “You are the best, most sophisticated tool I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. You are the crowbar I’ve picked to pry apart the universe, Julius Heartstriker. If you think I’m going to jeopardize that so you can feel less anxious, you’re crazier than I am.”
“But you’re not crazy,” Julius said, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared right back up at the seer. “Are you?”
Bob’s confident smile didn’t budge, but something in his face sharpened. It wasn’t even a movement, more like a shift of perspective that threw his usual carefree smile into a new, unsettling light.
“There’s a certain madness inherent in all seers,” he said quietly. “It’s impossible to see as much as we see, to know what we know, and not have it change your perspective. Eventually, you stop seeing the individuals at all. It’s all just percentages and likelihoods, moves on the board, and when you’re always playing twenty moves ahead, you can’t help but look insane to everyone who’s still trapped in the present.”
He sighed and reached up to adjust hi
s pigeon’s hat. “It’s a lonely life, sometimes, but a very exciting one full of possibility. And speaking of possibility.” He dug into his jacket pockets, pulling out several crumpled sticky notes, a mismatched set of silverware, and one of those lace-wrapped packets of birdseed people threw at weddings before finally producing a densely folded piece of parchment. “You’re going to need this.”
“What is it?” Julius asked, taking the paper, which had been folded over so many times it was practically a solid cube.
“The new clan charter I had everyone sign last night. The magically binding document that lays out the redistribution of Bethesda’s powers to the Council and thus determines the future of our entire clan.”
Julius nearly dropped it. “And you’ve been carrying it around balled up in your pocket?”
“Next to my heart,” Bob said sweetly, laying a gentle hand on his chest. “That’s my only copy, so be careful. I’m only entrusting it to you because you’re going to need it. This morning marks the first official meeting of the Heartstriker Council, and you can bet your newly unsealed tail feathers that Mother’s going to try every trick in the book to undermine the process. Your only hope of stopping her is to know exactly what the new rules are and force her to follow them. Otherwise, we might as well just give up now and hand her the clan back.”
That was a defeat Julius didn’t even want to think about. “I’ll try my best,” he promised, carefully tucking the folded square of paper into his own pocket. “But why are you saying all of this to me? Aren’t you going to be there, too?”
“Why would I go?” Bob said with a shrug. “I’m not on the Council.”
Julius recoiled in horror. “You can’t make me do this alone!”
“But you must be alone,” the seer said firmly. “You were the one who wanted it this way, Julius. You refused to kill Mother and take power properly. You were the one who wanted a Council and the one who put himself into one of the three seats—”
“Only because no one else would do it!”
“—and now you have to follow through,” Bob said over him. “You got everything you wanted. Bethesda was overthrown with zero Heartstriker deaths, and the whole clan has been turned down a new, hopefully less abusive path. But just because you swept the board doesn’t mean you’ve gotten out of the responsibility of actually making it all work.” He dropped his voice to a menacing whisper. “It’s time to put your money where your mouth is, Julius. No good dragon goes unpunished.”
He said that as though he were handing down a death sentence, but before Julius could think of a proper way to respond, the golden elevator they’d been waiting on finally arrived.
“No time for regret now,” Bob said, his face going back to its usual goofy smile as he pushed the elevator’s slowly rolling door all the way open and shoved his little brother inside. “But it won’t be so bad. You’ve already got two seats of the three-seat Council locked down. Once you fill the final vacancy, the Council will be complete, and the three of you will be the Heartstriker, magically and legally. That’s power, Julius! I know you’re a miserable excuse for a dragon, but even you should be able to enjoy that. Especially since Mother’s the one who’s sealed this time. Also, you’ve got your lovely sword now.” He nodded at the sheathed Fang strapped to Julius’s hip. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”
That was easy for Bob to say. He’d had his Fang since who knew when. Julius didn’t even fully understand how his worked yet, not that any weapon could make him feel better about confronting the mother he’d lived his entire life in mortal terror of on the morning after he’d gotten her dethroned. But it was way too late to back out now. Bob had already mashed the button for the throne room, blocking the other dragons who tried to get on with his body as he waved Julius good-bye.
“Good luck!” he called as the doors closed. “And remember my sage advice!”
“What advice?” Julius said, grabbing the elevator door only to snatch his hand back again when he remembered that his mother didn’t bother with safety features that kept closing elevators from taking off fingers. “You didn’t tell me anything!”
The seer smirked at him through the last crack of the closing doors. “Be yourself.”
Julius was getting mighty sick of that line, but it was too late to ask his brother for more. The mirrored golden doors had already shut, and the elevator had started to roll, whisking Julius up through the mountain at terrifying speed toward the peak, where Bethesda waited in her lair.
Or what was left of it, anyway.
With all the craziness that had happened last night, Julius hadn’t had much time to think about what the aftermath of battle in the throne room would mean for the actual, physical throne room. In the sober light of morning, though, the damage was staggering. The grand stone hallway lined with the heads of Bethesda’s enemies where the elevator let out wasn’t too bad, but the great gold-painted wooden doors at the end had been turned into splinters from the blast Bob had created when he’d broken Amelia’s ward, and it only got worse from there.
In the huge cavern of the Heartstriker’s throne room itself, massive structural cracks ran down the walls and into the floor. The enormous golden mosaic depicting Bethesda in all her feathered glory had been obliterated entirely when Conrad had thrown Justin into it, and the balcony was blackened on all sides where Estella’s white fire had touched it. In the center of the room, his grandfather’s giant skull, which had been proudly suspended from the gilded ceiling, was now lying haphazardly on its side, and his mother’s ornately carved throne was a pile of gilded rubble.
Since he’d been here when it happened, none of the damage was actually surprising, but seeing the trappings of his family’s power lying broken on the ground hit Julius harder than he’d expected. He was still staring at it when the door that led to his mother’s private apartments—the one that had been hidden behind the giant throne, but was now just a door in the wall—opened to reveal a cross and surprisingly dusty-looking Frieda.
Julius flinched. He supposed being greeted by his mother’s secretary was better than being jumped by Bethesda herself, but not by much. Like most Heartstrikers, he’d always been leery of Fs. Unlike the rest of her children, whom she’d expected to leave the mountain and make a name for themselves as soon as was physically possible, Bethesda had always kept her sixth clutch close. They were the ones trusted with the unglamorous but vital jobs that kept the Heartstriker clan running. The Fs were her accountants, security staff, and managers for the army of human servants that kept Bethesda’s mountain fortress from falling apart. They even raised her children. Julius’s own clutch had been brought up by a pair of F sisters—Francis and Fiona—with Bethesda visiting only when she felt the need to inspire the proper levels of fear.
There were all sorts of rumors about why F-clutch had been singled out for this special treatment. The most popular one was that F-clutch’s father had jilted Bethesda, and she’d punished his children with menial labor as a result. Another theory was that since F-clutch had been born so soon after E—less than a year, in fact, a speed that was unheard of among dragons, even one as famously fertile as Bethesda—they’d all come out magically stunted, forcing Bethesda to keep them close lest they become a liability.
Knowing his mother, both of these explanations seemed likely to Julius. But however the Fs had come to be servants in their own mountain, none of them had ever seemed particularly happy about it. This went double for Frieda, who, as the eldest female F, had the honor/curse of being Bethesda’s personal aide, a job that would break anyone.
She seemed to be feeling the full brunt of it this morning, too. In addition to the dust that covered her usually impeccable suit dress, her normally sleek black hair was escaping from its tight bun in long, frazzled wisps. Even standing up straight with the doorframe for support, her whole body looked wilted, her green eyes ringed with dark circles as she sourly looked Julius over.
“You’re late.”
Julius w
as not late. Thanks to Bob, he was actually precisely on time for the eight a.m. meeting. Now didn’t seem like a good time to argue, though, so he let it slide, flashing his sister his most polite smile. “May I come in?”
Frieda stepped to the side, holding the door wide to accommodate Julius’s sword as he stepped into his mother’s receiving room, which looked very different than it had when Bob had sent him in here to change clothes last night. Then, it had been an impressive showcase of gaudy golden furniture, endangered animal skins, tables too ornate to actually hold things, and other trophies of Bethesda’s expensive and questionable taste. Now, it was an even bigger mess than the throne room.
Every piece of furniture—the silk couches, the gilt mirrors, even the wrought-iron fireplace grate—had been smashed beyond recognition. The damask-papered walls were shredded, and the Persian rug had been burned almost beyond recognition. One of the corners was actually still smoking, and Julius quickly moved away, joining Frieda on the only remaining clear stretch of floor.
“What happened?”
Frieda looked at him as if he were stupid. “Mother.”
Julius winced. Before last night, he never would have believed Bethesda would do something like this to her property. Other people’s stuff, sure, but never her own. Apparently, she was taking her reduced power even worse than he’d anticipated.
“It’s been this way all night,” Frieda continued, kneeling down to resume sweeping up the shattered remains of what had been a crystal brandy decanter with matching tumblers. “She’s very upset.”
Her dirty look made it clear she blamed Julius for that, but while his heart went out to his sister, he refused to apologize for Bethesda’s temper tantrum. “Where is she?”