Last Dragon Standing

by Rachel Aaron

  “What?” Marci said, blinking slowly as the absurdity of that statement pushed its way through her grief. “What do you mean she ate Bob?”

  “I mean her water reached up and grabbed him out of the sky!” Chelsie snarled, the words coming out in dangerous puffs of smoke. “You were just talking to her. Make her cough him up now, or I’ll…”

  She trailed off, the smoke fading from her breath. Across the beach, the cloudy blue water in front of them was parting, the waves giving way to dry land as a woman made of water walked out to meet them. She moved slowly, dragging the lake water behind her like a train. It wasn’t until Algonquin knelt in front of them, though, that Marci saw why. The spirit wasn’t trailing water. She was carrying a dragon.

  Bob’s multicolored body was cradled in her water. He was curled up so tightly, his feathered tail was wrapped around his nose. He didn’t move when the spirit released him, or when Chelsie charged toward him across the exposed lake bed. It wasn’t until Marci ran over as well that the seer finally unclenched himself enough to reveal what he was cradling in his claws.

  It was a fire. A sputtering yellow-and-green flame no bigger than a candle’s. But despite its tiny size, the warmth it gave off was strong. Strong and familiar, a heat Marci would know anywhere.

  Julius.

  “What did you do?” Chelsie roared, her fangs dripping fire as she turned on Algonquin. “I swear, spirit, I will set your lakes afire if you—”

  “It wasn’t her,” Bob gasped, coughing up water as he struggled to his feet. “It wasn’t Algonquin, Chelsie.”

  “Then who did this?” his sister demanded.

  Bob was still coughing too much to answer, so Algonquin spoke for him.

  “Julius did.”

  The spirit spoke slowly, lifting her face to reveal a fall of water so sorrowful, there was no human expression that could match it. “He gave his life to save me, to give me a second chance.” Her water dropped as she finished, and then Algonquin bowed, dipping so low before the flicker of Julius’s fire, she nearly merged with the mud. “A mortal’s life is the greatest treasure they possess. Being immortal, I have no death to give in return, but I…” Her beautiful voice began to shake. “I am sorry. For what I’ve done. For what I put all of you through. For my selfishness and anger, I am sorry.”

  The words were soft, but they darted through the quiet air like fish, because they weren’t just for Julius. Algonquin was apologizing to her own banks and creatures, and to those watching beyond. Now that things were quiet, Marci could feel them all around. The little faces peeking from the grass and mud, the birds that landed in the reeds and trees and the deer that watched fearfully from the woods beyond—the Lady of the Lakes was apologizing to all of them. She might even have been apologizing to the dragons. If that was the case, though, it fell on deaf ears, because Chelsie was already rushing back to the shore where the Qilin was waiting with their daughter on his golden back.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I have to get Amelia,” Chelsie said quickly, spreading her wings for takeoff. “She’s the one who knows the most about preserving dragon fire. You stay with Bob. Don’t let Julius go out before—”

  A blast of wind cut her off, knocking Chelsie back to the beach. Even Marci was blown off her feet as a black shadow appeared above them. It happened so suddenly, her first horrible thought was that the Leviathan was back. When she looked up, though, she realized she was only partially right. It was a giant monster from another plane, just not the one they’d been fighting.

  “Brohomir!”

  “Oh dear,” Bob said, closing his claws protectively around Julius’s sputtering flame as he lifted his head to face the Black Reach, who was hovering above them like a weather front.

  “Ungrateful seer!” the construct thundered, black smoke pouring from his mouth. “I showed you mercy! I gave you my fire! I spent uncounted thousands of years of my power to cover your wager, and this is how you repay me?”

  “Well, technically, I didn’t do it for you,” Bob said. “You see—”

  “Spare me your excuses,” the Black Reach snarled. “There was one thing you could not do. One thing, and you stuck your snout right in it! I haven’t even had a chance to look and see which futures you sold, but I felt you do it. You have committed the one crime I can never forgive, and now I have no choice but to kill you!” He slammed his tail into the lake, splashing water so high into the air, it froze. “Do you know what I went through to spare you? How hard it was to fight ten thousand years of programming to do what I felt was actually right? Why did you put me through all that if you were just going to betray me now?”

  “Because I also had to do what was right,” Bob said with a shrug. “And for the record, I don’t regret it at all. Especially since you’re not going to kill me this time, either.”

  “There, you are wrong,” the Black Reach snarled, reaching out his charter-bus-sized claws. “There’s no escape this time, Brohomir of the Heartstrikers. You’ve already done what can never be forgiven, and from the number of futures I can no longer see, you did it to the hilt. I don’t know what you got in return, but it certainly wasn’t your survival, because every future I see has your life ending right here.”

  “Then I’d suggest you look again,” Bob said. “Because I know for a fact that you can’t kill me.”

  The construct growled in frustration, but he must have been at least a little bit curious, because he asked, “And how is that?”

  “Because you are the death of seers,” Bob replied. “And I am no longer a seer.”

  The giant dragon froze. “What?”

  “I’m no longer a seer,” Bob repeated. “I still have my powers, but I gave up every future where I use them in exchange for this.” He held up his claws, opening them just enough so the Black Reach could see the precious fire hidden inside.

  The eldest seer squinted. “Is that Julius?”

  “My littlest brother,” Bob said, nodding. “He was the axis around which I built the machine that saved the world. We all owe him our futures, including you, but since I’m the one who set everything up, it only felt fair that I be the one to foot the bill this time around. The fact that this selfless act of brotherhood also conveniently puts me outside of your jurisdiction is merely a convenient coincidence.”

  “It is never coincidence with you,” the Black Reach snarled, looming close. “You planned this.”

  “Actually, I planned a lot less than this,” Bob said, his voice strangely thick. “My lady and I worked this cleverness out together, as we do all things. When the moment came, though, the price was higher than we expected, and I did not have enough. I would have given everything, I owed Julius that much, but my lady spotted me the difference.” His voice began to shake. “An End sacrificed her one present to give us a chance at a better future. Surely you can appreciate the poetry in that?”

  “There is no appreciation that can save you now,” the Black Reach snarled. “Even if the only futures sold were your own and a Nameless End’s, you still crossed the line, and for that you must die.”

  “Why?” Bob demanded. “Your purpose is to stop seers before they sell our futures. That’s why you had to kill Estella even though her initial deal wasn’t on our plane, because we both knew she’d never stop until I was dead. I’m a different case entirely. I can’t sell a future ever again. I gave that power away to save my brother’s life, so what would killing me accomplish?” He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m now the safest seer you could ever ask for, because I am now physically incapable of breaking your rules. If anything, you should be thanking me for this. Not only did I save your favorite dragon’s life, but with me no longer able to meddle in the future and Chelsie’s daughter not due to have her first vision until she hits puberty, I’ve bought you a decade of vacation. When was the last time you got that?”

  He finished with a toothy grin, but the Black Reach looked unamused. “It doesn’t matter if the ends were good, the means
you employed go directly against my purpose. I cannot let that go without punishment.”

  “Without punishment?” Bob cried. “I gave up my powers! Do you know how good a seer I was? I beat Estella, who was two thousand years older than I was, at her own game! I orchestrated the plot that saved the world! I beat you! No one is ever going to top that, and I just gave it away!”

  Chelsie rolled her eyes. “So much for modesty.”

  “It’s the truth,” Bob snapped. “I’m amazing, and you know it. By losing my powers now, I’m quitting at my peak. That’s punishment enough for the entire world.”

  “Enough,” the Black Reach growled, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I don’t have time for your antics. I used up more of my fire today than I have in the last ten thousand years combined. I should use more to punish you, but while you absolutely deserve to die, I have decided to postpone your execution.”

  It might have been Marci’s imagination, but she would have sworn Bob shuddered in relief. “Good choice,” he said when he’d recovered, though not nearly as casually as he’d probably meant. “Saw things my way, did you?”

  “No,” the Black Reach said, and then the enormous dragon faded away, leaving only the tall Chinese man wearing the same black silk robe he’d worn every time Marci had seen him.

  “The decision is strictly practical,” the now human—and very tired-looking—construct continued. “Right now, your magic is the only thing keeping Julius Heartstriker’s fire burning. If I kill you, he will die as well, and I didn’t just spend half my fire protecting his futures to lose them now. Even if I wait until he’s stable to kill you, though, doing so will burn through too much of my remaining power, and I simply don’t have the fire to spare. Already, my flames are critically low. I need to rest and regroup what little remains if I am to survive. That demands several quiet decades, and I’m sure those will be much easier to obtain if I’m only dealing with one new seer instead of two.” He reached out to tap Bob on the snout. “Right now, the male incarnation of the dragon seers is still locked up in you, even if you can’t use it. If I kill you, that power will be reborn into a new fire, which means I’ll have to scramble all over again, and I just don’t have that sort of energy.”

  “Now you really do sound like an old man,” Bob said with a chuckle. “A venerable and wise one, who sees the world clearly through his lens of vast experience.”

  The construct rolled his eyes at the fawning recovery and stepped closer still, looking up at Bob’s dripping dragon with the stoic finality of a judge pronouncing a verdict. “Brohomir of the Heartstrikers, consider yourself lucky. You are still sentenced to death, but for practical reasons, including the fact that you are currently not a risk to the futures of dragonkind, your execution is commuted until I recover. Or until you annoy me too much.”

  Bob’s face split into a triumphant grin. “Nonsense. You’d get bored without me.”

  The Black Reach’s eyes narrowed, and Bob quickly backed down. “Thank you for your mercy, great construct,” he said meekly. “I should probably take Julius to Amelia now.”

  “That would be best,” the Black Reach agreed, glancing at the dragons watching from the shore. “Any more coincidences I should know about before I go?”

  “No,” Bob said, looking worriedly at the tiny flame in his claws. “But if you could spare a teensy, tiny bit more of that fantastic fire, I think we might need it. Julius was always small, but this is a terrifyingly dim fire, even for a runt.”

  The Black Reach’s scowl softened at that.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter 16

  Death was a gentler experience than Julius expected.

  Growing up with daily threats, he’d always expected his end would be quick, brutal, and messy. But while being ripped apart from the inside had been all that and more, the actual dying part hadn’t been so bad. Peaceful, almost, which was why Julius was very confused when he woke up to find himself lying in a hospital bed.

  He jolted, his whole body going stiff just in time for him to realize it was his human body, which only made everything even weirder. He was positive he’d died as a dragon. Inside a Nameless End, no less. If he was going to wake up anywhere, it should be inside his own death, as Marci had described. He knew he wouldn’t be lucky enough to get their house, as she had, but he’d certainly expected better than a human hospital, complete with mint-green walls and scratchy sheets.

  At least it smelled nice. The whole room smelled of Marci’s magic. Tons of it, actually, as though he were inside one of her casting circles. Not that he minded, of course, but it was still odd. Why was there so much magic? And why was his chest so heavy? Like there was a weight lying right in the middle of his—

  Julius froze, eyes growing wide. Marci was sleeping on his chest. The real Marci, unless ghosts came with dark circles under their eyes and hospital scrubs. That did explain the overwhelming scent of magic, though. Everything around him—the sheets, the bed rails, the hospital’s monitoring equipment, the walls, the door, the window—was covered in spellwork written in Marci’s precise hand. From the overlapping marker stains on her fingers, she must have been at it for days, but Julius had no idea what it was all for. He was arguing with himself about whether he should wake her and ask or let her sleep since she looked so tired when he realized the two of them were not alone.

  On the far side of the room, sprawled across a plastic hospital chair like he’d been dropped there from orbit, was Bob. He looked absolutely terrible. His face was gaunt, as though he’d been starving for weeks, and his skin looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in months. But while his dark circles were even larger than Marci’s, the seer’s eyes were open, the bright-green glowing in the soft light from the window as he smiled at Julius.

  “Welcome back.”

  That felt needlessly cryptic, but Julius was too worried about the state of his brother to mind. “What happened to you?” he whispered frantically.

  “You did,” Bob replied, hauling himself up in his chair. “You gave us quite the scare. I must have poured five hundred years of fire into you before your flame caught, and who knows how much Amelia used. Even after we got you going, your fire was so weak we had to have someone with you at all times to keep it from snuffing out. We eventually set up a rotation. That’s what the spellwork was for. Marci and the other human, Myron, I think his name is, they figured out how to construct a system that would send concentrated dragon magic straight into you. Sort of like an IV, except for fire. Anyway, everyone’s been through to take their turn—Chelsie, Justin, Conrad, Fredrick, Svena, Katya, the Qilin.” He grinned. “You’ve got so many different magics in you, you’re practically the draconic average at this point. Even Mother dropped in to do her share.”

  Julius’s jaw dropped. “Bethesda came to help me?”

  “It was the fashionable thing to do,” Bob said. “You know her. If everyone’s doing something, she has to have her piece. I’m sure you’ll hear all about how she saved your life the next time she needs a favor.”

  He was sure he would. “But,” Julius said, clutching his sheet, “I don’t understand. I was dead. How did you—”

  “Never underestimate a desperate dragon,” Bob said with a wink. “I still had a Nameless End of my own, so I traded her all the futures where I use my abilities as a seer in exchange for one where you lived. Of course, that exchange only guaranteed that I’d save your fire. Keeping it going was another matter, but if you think I was going to let you go out after spending so much to save you, you’re crazier than everyone says I am.”

  Julius stared at his brother in wonder. “You… you did that for me?” he whispered. “Gave up your—Why?”

  “Because I owed you,” Bob said, his voice uncharacteristically sincere. “You’ve suffered for my plans for a long time now, Julius. The least I could do was pick up the slack at the end. Anyway, I was done being a seer. Once you’ve beaten the Black Reach, where else is there to go? The challenge was g
one, so I thought I’d give myself a handicap and try playing the game on your level for a while. You know, just for something different.”

  “But you’re the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers!” Julius cried. “How can you just give that up?”

  “Because I never asked to be it,” his brother said with a shrug. “There’s no pride in being what you were born to be. It’s how you use your gifts that counts, and I don’t need to see the future for that. Everything that makes me great was always up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Never forget, I was a genius long before I was a seer. If you think losing my vision of the future will make me any less good at manipulating dragons, you haven’t been paying attention. And speaking of attention, I need to be going.”

  “Why?” Julius asked, alarmed. “What’s about to happen?”

  “Nothing I’m aware of,” Bob said, pointing at his eyes. “Blind as a bat now, remember? But I haven’t slept since you went down two weeks ago, and I’d very much like to break my streak. Also, the sleeping pill I slipped your mortal should be wearing off any minute now, and I don’t think you want me in the room for that.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and Julius’s cheeks began to burn. Laughing at him, Bob rose from his chair and held out his arm for his pigeon, who hopped off Julius’s vitals monitor with a happy coo. It was such a usual Bob thing to do, Julius didn’t even realize it was wrong until his brother was almost out the door.

  “Wait!”

  Bob glanced over his shoulder, and Julius pointed to the bird-that-wasn’t-a-bird. “If you’re not a seer anymore, why do you still have your Nameless End?”

  “Julius!” Bob cried, cupping a hand over his pigeon’s head as though he were trying to shield her from such offensive speech. “What sort of dragon do you think I am? I would never use and leave a lady just because my plots were finished. I can’t believe you’d say that.”

  “Sorry,” Julius said quickly. “I didn’t mean to insult your, um—”