A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  Julius didn’t need Katya’s nod to know his brother was right. Svena was a cruel, ruthless dragon, and proud of it, but she had her own kind of honor. She would never stoop to killing her rival while Amelia was lying helpless. Even her wintry scent was concentrated in the middle of the room, a dozen feet away from the divan that had been the Planeswalker’s deathbed. Bob’s scent, on the other hand, was everywhere. Including all over Amelia’s ashes.

  That was the most damning evidence of all. Even Julius couldn’t deny that the only way Bob’s scent could have gotten on those ashes was if he’d had his hands in them. Even if he’d discovered Amelia’s remains after the fact, Bob had undeniably been here, and since nothing surprised a seer, that meant he’d known. He might not have done it, but he’d known Amelia was going to die today, and he’d let Svena see him. Whatever the truth actually was, he’d deliberately let the Daughters of the Three Sisters assume he was guilty, and now they were all in deep trouble.

  “Why?” Julius asked the ashes. “Why would he do this?”

  “Who knows?” Katya said bitterly. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry this happened. For both our clans.” She put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “I know what it’s like to have your seer turn on you.”

  Julius appreciated the sentiment, but he didn’t think that was it. Estella had been psychotic, but Bob was…well, Bob. He was flighty and ridiculous and impossible to understand, but no matter how bad things looked, he always came through in the end.

  Except when he was telling Julius not to free Chelsie.

  “There has to be something else going on here,” Julius said, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “Something we’re not seeing. Some plot or scheme or—”

  “Of course it’s a plot,” Bethesda said. “That’s all Brohomir does. But whatever he’s working on this time, we’ve got a real problem. I signed your little extortion note, but Amelia and Svena are the only dragon mages in the world good enough to remove my seal. Now one’s dead and the other’s on the warpath, how am I getting my dragon back?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” Julius yelled at her. “The seal? Your daughter is…”

  He couldn’t even say it. He’d thought he’d hit rock bottom after Marci’s death, but in a horrible way, that had been comforting. Terrible as he’d felt, at least he’d known things couldn’t get worse, but he was wrong. Not only had he lost Marci, he’d lost Amelia, too, the only dragon he could have remembered her with. He’d lost his sister. He’d lost his friend, and unless he was willing to call his own nose a liar, Bob was the cause. Whether he’d killed her himself or just let it happen, his brother had clearly had a hand in this, which meant Julius had lost him, too.

  “Why?” he whispered again. “Why would Bob betray us?”

  Bethesda snorted. “Welcome to my life.”

  Julius couldn’t remember ever hating his mother as much as he did right now. But when he turned to tell her that her commentary was not appreciated, he found Bethesda standing right beside him.

  “As delighted as I am to see you getting a taste of your own medicine, there’s more at stake here than your hurt feelings,” she said. “I don’t know what spurred Bob to throw us under the bus today, but he did a very good job. With Amelia dead and Svena hating us because of it, we’ve lost both of our defenses against Algonquin’s magic. If she attacks the mountain now, we’re sitting ducks.”

  Julius hadn’t even considered that angle. “Do you think she will?”

  His mother shrugged. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already. We might have dropped a bit on her priority list since your ill-timed coup has left us too weak to pose a real threat to whatever she’s doing in the DFZ, but we’re still the world’s biggest dragon clan, and the one on her doorstep. Trust me, that hammer is going to fall, and it’s not the only one. Heartstriker has many enemies. No one’s made a serious try for us in centuries thanks to our size and the fact that we’re relatively isolated here in the Americas, but recent events have changed that calculus. Mark my words, when news spreads that Chelsie’s quit, Amelia’s dead, Bob’s gone rogue, and I’m sealed, there will be no safety anywhere. We’ll be up to our necks in dragons hungry to take a bite out of our territory. Algonquin won’t need to lift a watery finger. All she has to do is bide her time, and the other clans will do us in for her.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” Julius argued. “We’re down, sure, but we still have Conrad, Justin, and a hundred other Heartstrikers. If we call everyone back to the mountain—”

  “We’d just be giving Algonquin a bigger target,” Ian cut in. “And that’s assuming our family would answer the call.”

  “They did before.”

  “Yes, when Bethesda called,” Ian said, glancing pointedly at their mother, who looked sickeningly smug. “I’m confident the Council is the right path for Heartstriker’s long-term stability, but we’re not there yet. Anyway, even Mother would have a hard time getting Heartstrikers to return to the mountain again under these conditions. In case you haven’t noticed, everyone’s run home to secure their own territories.”

  Julius had noticed. It was hard not to notice when a mountain built for hundreds of dragons was suddenly empty. “So we’ll explain the situation and ask them to come back.”

  “No dragon with an ounce of self-interest is going to leave their home territory undefended while things are this uncertain,” Ian argued. “And since you freed Chelsie, we have no way to make them.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Julius said. “We shouldn’t rely on fear to get our way.”

  “A lovely sentiment that doesn’t help us now.”

  “Why is this even a thing?” Julius demanded, frustrated. “Algonquin declared war on all the clans. We should be banding together against her, not fighting amongst ourselves.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Bethesda snapped. “This is the best time to fight. Algonquin’s a force to be reckoned with, but we’re the dragons of the Americas! The only clan that comes close to Heartstriker in numbers or territory is the Golden Empire, and no one’s crazy enough to go after China. Two weeks ago, I’d have said the same about us, but between your backstabbing and Algonquin’s wave hanging over our heads, we’re bleeding inside and out. We’ve always been a tasty target, but now we’re a badly wounded one as well, and no dragon anywhere can pass up wounded prey.”

  The way she said that made Julius wince. He’d never heard his mother sound so grim before. But tempting as it was to dismiss all the doom and gloom as typical Bethesda hyperbole, he didn’t think she was exaggerating this time. “What should we do?”

  “What can we do?” she said, sinking down on the end of the velvet divan beside her eldest daughter’s ashes. “It’s over. I’d already accepted that Brohomir had betrayed me, but with this blow, he’s cut the rest of the clan off at the knees as well. We can’t rally, can’t fight, can’t defend ourselves. At this point, the only option we have left is to cut our losses and go somewhere safe to rebuild.”

  He stared at her in horror. “You mean leave Heartstriker Mountain?”

  “We can’t stay,” she said, waving her hand around at the empty room. “Amelia’s magic was our primary defense, but every ward she set vanished with her death. I’m in her room, for fire’s sake. That alone is proof that security has been utterly compromised.”

  Julius couldn’t argue there, but… “This is our home!” he cried. “We can’t abandon it.”

  Bethesda shot him her dirtiest look yet. “Yes, well, maybe you should have thought of that before you ruined everything.”

  He’d thought he was immune to his mother’s insults by this point, but that one hit too close. He might not have personally sealed his mother’s dragon or killed Amelia, but Heartstriker’s weakness was undeniably Julius’s fault. Even if it hadn’t been, he was one of the clan heads now. It was his responsibility to keep them all safe, and he was racking his brain for how to do that when Ian suddenly spoke up.

  “We are no
t abandoning anything,” the tall dragon growled. “I don’t care how many enemies are against us, I did not claw my way to the top of two clans to lose both in one day.” He glared at Julius and Bethesda. “You two do whatever it takes to protect us in the short term. I’m going to bring back Svena.” He turned his glare on Katya. “Take me to your sister.”

  The white dragoness bared her teeth at him. “First of all, you’re not at the top of our clan anymore, so you don’t get to give me orders. Second, you do not want to be around Svena right now. She’s fresh off the loss of Amelia and the trauma of laying eggs. She’ll eat you alive.”

  Ian bared his teeth as well. “Take me to her, Last Born.”

  For a terrifying moment, Julius was certain there was going to be blood, but then Katya sighed. “Your funeral.”

  Ian turned on his heel, marching down the empty hallway that had once been packed with Amelia’s magical traps. With a shake of her head, Katya followed, reaching out to Julius as she walked past. “I’m sorry things turned out this way.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “More than I can say.”

  That last part was painfully true. There were no words to describe the pointless tragedy playing out around him. Looking down at the pile of ash that had once been his laughing, audacious, brilliant sister, Julius felt like there was nothing left. Death had taken it all—Marci, Amelia, Ian and Svena, even Bob—leaving him with nothing but his selfish mother, a broken clan, and a mountain he couldn’t defend.

  His only comfort was the knowledge that there had to be something he wasn’t seeing. Some greater end Bob was working toward that would make everything turn out okay. There was just no other reason why his brother would throw away everything he’d been working toward. So long as he believed Bob wasn’t actually insane, there had to be a method to this madness, and Julius was going to make the seer tell him what that was if it was the last thing he did.

  First, though, he had to take care of his sister.

  Since they tended to die in spectacular violence, dragons didn’t usually have funerals. Most blew away in the winds of their defeat, but if their ashes could be collected, the task was traditionally entrusted to someone close to the deceased: a mate, an heir, even a favored mortal. But other than Marci, who was also dead, Amelia didn’t have a favored mortal, and the only mate she’d ever mentioned was the Concept of Mountains, whom Julius had no idea how to contact. Any other time, he would have saved the honor for Bob, but that was out of the question now for obvious reasons, and since he’d never trust Bethesda with his sister dead or alive, Julius had no choice but to do the job himself.

  At least there was no shortage of appropriate vessels. In true Amelia fashion, there were liquor bottles scattered all over her room, including a very expensive-looking whiskey cask lying on the floor right next to the divan where she’d died. There were even a few drops left at the bottom, but Julius didn’t dare pour them out. He actually felt spirits were quite appropriate, and the scent of alcohol was a welcome break from the constant smell of death as he carefully tapped Amelia’s ashes into the bottle.

  When he’d collected her as best he could, he replaced the stopper and straightened up, cradling the bottle in his arms like a sacred object while his mother watched in disgust.

  “What was the point of that?” she asked, brushing the last of the ash off the couch with her hand so she could sit. “Her soul’s already burned out. All you’ve got there is her physical dust.”

  “It was still her,” Julius said stubbornly. “Amelia deserves better than to be left here.”

  Bethesda clearly thought that logic was beyond stupid. For once, though, she held her tongue. Good thing, too, because Julius was done with this conversation. He’d had enough of his mother to last five lifetimes, so he left her to her disgust, clutching Amelia’s ashes to his chest as he walked out of Amelia’s lair and down the hall toward the cavern that took up the other half of this floor of the hollowed-out mountain.

  Bob’s room.

  ***

  Julius had no idea what he expected to find. A clue, perhaps. Maybe some sort of message that would explain why Bob had done what it was now impossible to deny he’d done. When Julius finally jimmied the seer’s door open, though, all he found was junk.

  Bob’s cave was a hoarded mess. Though technically the same size as Amelia’s, the dragon-sized cave felt tiny and cramped, mostly because it was packed floor to ceiling with every sort of clutter imaginable. Priceless paintings were piled on top of old washing machines. Heaps of golden coins lay scattered next to broken birdcages and boxes of vintage auto parts. His closet was stuffed with chess sets—every one of which was open and missing the same piece, the white king—while his bathroom was crammed with taxidermy birds, including a stuffed dodo Julius was positive had been stolen from a museum.

  What all of this useless junk was actually for, he couldn’t begin to fathom, but after an hour of sorting through the piles, Julius was starting to seriously question his conviction of his brother’s sanity. The only good thing he could say about Bob’s hoard was that at least it was reasonably clean. There was some dust, but nothing worse than he’d had in his own room. Though, of course, his room hadn’t been stacked to the ceiling.

  By the time Julius’s search made it back around to the hall door, he was past ready to give up. If Bob did have a record of his plans, it wasn’t here. The best he’d found were the seer’s ever-present sticky notes, which covered the hoard like confetti. But though the notes were numerous, trying to make sense of the nonsense Bob had written on them was almost worse than finding nothing at all. Even when his own name appeared—which happened with disturbing frequency—it was never in a useful context. It was always things like “Sic Julius on Wrecking Ball” or “Confirm Julius footwear RE: icy conditions.”

  Even when a note did seem relevant, there was no way to know when it was supposed to happen. The colorful notes were stuck to seemingly random objects all over the cave, with no organization or clues as to when they’d been written. Multiple times, he’d found notes that looked centuries old with text that referenced something recent, like the one he’d found on the ceiling above the bathtub with a reminder for a concert that had taken place two weeks ago. But it was just as common to find apparently brand-new notes with detailed plans for things that had happened decades ago.

  He supposed the confusion made sense if you believed what Bob said about seers living in the future as much as the present, but that didn’t help Julius’s situation right now. In the end, the only thing he found that was remotely useful was a pile of moving boxes containing what had once been the contents of his room.

  That was the only good surprise today. Six weeks ago, Bob had claimed he’d sold all of Julius’s stuff to buy Justin a ticket to the DFZ. But while all the boxes were sealed and postmarked to be mailed to an auction warehouse, nothing had actually been sent off yet. This meant Julius was able to reclaim his belongings, including his replica Frostmourn. He also found his clothes, his books, his computer, even his bedsheets. It was all here, and yet, weirdly, none of it felt like his.

  It was hard to describe. Bethesda had only kicked him out a month and a half ago. That wasn’t even enough time for his stuff to stop smelling like him, and yet all of it felt like it had belonged to another life. The dragon who’d touched and treasured these things had never been to the DFZ. He’d never stood up for himself or said no to his family. Had never met Marci. In other words, he wasn’t Julius, and aside from trading out the stiff suit Fredrick had loaned him for his favorite pair of jeans, a comfy T-shirt, and his second-best pair of high tops, he ended up putting everything else back, sealing it all neatly back in its boxes before walking over to collapse in the worn recliner at the center of the cave’s lone bit of open floor.

  The chair must have been where Bob spent most of his time when he was here, because it smelled more like him than anything else in the room. Julius breathed in the familiar scent as he dug out his phone, waving hi
s hand through the projected cloud of the AR interface to bring up his archive.

  Modern phones didn’t normally keep a local call record. Things like that were usually left to the cloud. For once, though, Julius’s paranoia had served him well. Despite going through three phones and multiple networks over the last two months, he’d meticulously downloaded and backed up all of his correspondence since leaving home, including the cryptic texts and calls he’d received from the Unknown Caller, Bob’s not-so-secret identity. He’d intended to read through all of the seer’s messages in the hopes of finding something that might explain today’s tragic events, but the moment Julius tapped the archives icon, he got distracted by a much bigger folder in his archives. The one where he kept all his messages from Marci.

  Just reading her name brought the pain back with a vengeance. Upsetting and annoying as the Council meeting and discovering Amelia’s ashes had been, at least they’d provided a distraction. Now, though, the distraction was gone, leaving him staring at the automatically generated transcript of Marci’s last call during her plane ride to the DFZ. The one where she’d told him she’d be back soon, and almost said something else.

  His vision started to blur. The thin black phone slipped from his fingers, falling into his lap beside the bottle of Amelia’s ashes as he frantically pressed his palms to his eyes. Not now. He couldn’t afford to fall apart again, not when the clan he’d fought so hard to change was on the verge of collapse. This Council had been his idea. He’d promised his family a better future when he’d overthrown Bethesda. He couldn’t back out on that now. Somehow, some way, he had to make this work. Had to, or what was all their suffering for?

  He was still telling himself that, working up the courage to pick up his phone again and make another try at reading Bob’s messages, when a cold hand landed on his shoulder.