A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  That was the real barb. Marci firmly believed her spirit was not evil, but her dad’s description of Ghost’s reality wasn’t exactly rosy. Now that she understood it, Marci could see why Aldo was so insistent that she not give up this place. After what he’d been through, it probably did seem like paradise to him, and she wasn’t sure if she could live with herself if she took that away.

  Unless…

  “Speaking hypothetically,” she said slowly. “If I left, could you stay? Keep things up for me here?”

  Aldo sighed. “I wish I could. But this is your death, Marcivale. You’re the reason all of this exists. Without you to live in them, your dragon’s memories are just memories.”

  So much for that. “I suppose leaving and coming back is also out of the question?”

  “That’s my understanding,” he said uncomfortably. “Again, I’m not an authority. I only know what you know and what I’ve learned from watching the Empty Wind do his job. From what I’ve observed, though, mortals only seem to get one life and, therefore, one death.”

  “So in other words, no second chances.”

  “Death is notoriously hard to cheat,” Amelia said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”

  “I know,” Marci said, looking up at the hole again. “But Julius was always the one who found all the loopholes. I’m just…” Dead, she finished to herself. Dead and trapped between her dad and a hard place. But as she was getting nice and depressed about that, something her father had said came back to bother her.

  “You said you were inside the Empty Wind as he did his job,” she said, looking at him. “What job was that specifically?”

  “Finding and rescuing the Forgotten Dead,” Aldo replied without missing a beat. “When a person is forgotten by everyone, they become part of the Empty Wind’s domain, which means he can hear their voices and come to them. If they’re lucky, he finds them before their death fills in completely and they’re torn apart by the magic. That’s why he’s a wind. He has to be fast.”

  “That can’t be right,” Marci said. “If everyone gets forgotten, that means the Empty Wind is basically all of death. Are there no other options?”

  Aldo shook his head. “None that I know of.”

  “But that’s crazy,” she said. “Ghost is only one spirit, and he only rose a month and a half ago. What happened to human souls before that?”

  Her father shrugged helplessly, but when Marci looked at Amelia, the little dragoness was deep in thought. “That’s a very good question,” she said at last. “The last time I studied mortal death was before the disappearance of magic. I never made it to this side, obviously, but I knew several death gods.”

  Marci’s jaw dropped. “You knew gods?”

  “That’s what we called Mortal Spirits back then,” Amelia explained. “Anyway, I didn’t know the Empty Wind specifically back then, but—no surprise considering how obsessed mortals have always been with the subject—there were tons of death-related spirits who flitted around the Sea of Magic, plucking human souls out of their deaths and carrying them off to wherever was appropriate. I was actually trying to seduce one to get more information when the drought hit and all the spirits vanished. So, since I couldn’t get information and didn’t have to worry about mortality myself, I abandoned the subject and turned all my attention to planar travel. Mostly so I could get out of this newly magicless dump. But now that you bring it up, I wonder. What did happen to human souls during the drought?”

  “I’m more amazed that the afterlife was apparently governed by Mortal Spirits,” Marci said. “Mortal Spirits are the ones we create, so you basically just told me that humanity makes our own gods.”

  “Pretty much,” Amelia said. “But just because you thought them up doesn’t make them any less godly, or terrifying. Humans have always created their own monsters. Excluding dragons, of course. We’re imports.”

  Marci nodded, head spinning. This was a lot to take in, but it made her more determined than ever to get out of here. She was teetering on the edge of so many secrets. All she had to do was reach a little further, find out just a little more, and everything would snap together. It must have been clear on her face, too, because her father sighed.

  “You’re going to leave.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Marci nodded anyway. “I’m sorry, Daddy, but I didn’t die to stay safe and not know. There’s so much we lost during the drought, so much knowledge that humanity needs if we’re going to survive, and I think I might be on the edge of figuring it out. Algonquin herself said the magic didn’t vanish a thousand years ago for no reason. She thinks the Merlins had a hand in it. I don’t know if that’s right, but if the return of Mortal Spirits means bringing back the gods who save the souls of the dead—that’s a big deal. Well worth risking what’s left of my death. Besides, I can’t stay here knowing that I’m living in a house built on Julius’s mourning. I don’t want him to love me when I’m dead. I want him to love me when I’m there to enjoy it. I want my life back, and if risking my soul is what it takes, then I’m ready. I know what I want. I’ve always known. The only thing holding me back is what happens to you.”

  She hadn’t meant for that to sound quite so accusatory, but to her enormous relief, her father looked pleased rather than offended. “We always did look out for each other, didn’t we, carina?”

  “Of course,” she said, reaching down to squeeze his hand. “You’re my dad.”

  “And you’re my baby girl,” he whispered, squeezing back. “That’s why I had to try. I knew you wouldn’t want to stay. You’ve always charged ahead, but I had to try to keep you safe. If you are determined to see this through, though, I have no right to stop you. Your life stopped being mine to dictate years ago, just like my life is not your responsibility.”

  “Of course it is,” she said angrily. “You’re my father, and you’re being sheltered by my death. If I leave and all of this collapses, what happens to you?”

  Aldo looked deeply offended. “I might be a dead man, but I’m still a grown one. Of course I’d love to stay with you in this paradise, but what kind of father trades his daughter’s happiness for his own? And it’s not as though you’re casting me out into oblivion. I always have somewhere to go. I’m forgotten, after all.”

  “No, you’re not!” Marci cried. “I remember you again. I should never have forgotten you in the first place!”

  “You did what you had to do, carina,” Aldo said. “And if you’re serious about leaving, you’re going to have to do it again.”

  Marci stared at him. “What?”

  “Like the dragon said, I was sent here by the Empty Wind to be your guide,” he explained patiently. “If I’m to do my job, I have to return to him. He can’t find you on his own, but if you let me go, I will be his again, and the Empty Wind can always find what’s his. The only reason I haven’t gone already was because I wanted to be sure you weren’t being pushed into a decision without knowing your options. When I saw your memories, I worried the dragons were using you, but I should have known better.” He chuckled. “You’ve always done exactly as you pleased. Nothing, not death nor dragons nor spirits, can change that. What chance did I have?”

  He smiled at her, but Marci shook her head stubbornly. “I can’t just forget you again. You’re my father. You raised me, taught me magic. When Mom left, you were the one who stayed. The one who loved me.” Her voice began to shake. “I already lost you twice. I can’t lose you again.”

  “You already have,” he said, reaching up to brush her cheek. “I’m dead, Marci. I had my life. Even better, I had you.”

  “And I forgot you!” she cried, disgusted with herself all over again, but her father was shaking his head.

  “You gave me up,” he said. “There’s a difference. I’m not here because you forgot me, but because you held my memory so dear, it was strong enough to bind a god. And make no mistake, that’s what you did. I lived inside the Empty Wind. I saw his anger firsthand, the horror he
could have easily become, but you never let him. You dug in your heels and held him to the nobler parts of his purpose. You kept him sane, kept him safe, which was why he was able to let me go. He’s never released a soul in his care before, but he would do far worse to get you back. The forgotten dead are constantly screaming at him, begging him to wreak their vengeance and right their wrongs. But as loud as they are, your voice is stronger. Dead or alive, you are his Merlin, the voice of his reason. You’re the one who helps him be more than just a mindless slave to the fears and emotions that created him, and as much as I would love to stay here forever with you, he needs you more than I do.”

  Marci looked away. She remembered perfectly well what had happened with the dead in Algonquin’s Reclamation Land, how she’d pulled Ghost back from the brink, but it was still embarrassing to hear all of that stuff from her dad. Much as it made her cringe, though, he was right. Ghost could be every bit as aloof as the cat he pretended to be, but when things got bad, she was the one he clung to. After Emily had shot her, he’d begged harder than Julius for Marci not to leave him alone. Ultimately, that was why she’d taken his hand. Not just because he saw the path to becoming a Merlin, but because as much as she’d wanted to stay with Julius, she knew her dragon could go on without her. Ghost couldn’t. He was her spirit, her responsibility, and no matter the odds, Marci had to get back to him.

  “Okay,” she whispered, lifting her eyes at last. “What do I have to do?”

  Aldo looked down at their tangled hands. “Let me go.”

  Marci gritted her teeth. Even when he told her to, unclamping her hands from his felt like a betrayal of everything she cared about: her family, her childhood, her old dreams. Her father was such a huge part of her life before the DFZ, Marci didn’t know how things would make sense without him. But as she stared at her fingers, trying to work up the courage to unlock them, Aldo leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers.

  “It’s all right, carina,” he whispered. “Even if you don’t remember me, I’ll always remember you. In a life of foolishness and failure, you were the one thing I got right. You are my darling now and forever, and I will never stop being proud of you.”

  Marci closed her eyes with a sigh. “You’re not making this easier.”

  “You never did the easy thing,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s time to let go.” He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Goodbye, Marcivale.”

  She couldn’t answer. All her goodbyes came out as sobs as she opened her hands at last.

  The moment her fingers went slack, the warmth of her father’s hand was replaced by bitter cold that cut like a knife. When she looked down to see why, though, all she found was a thread.

  It was thin as spider’s silk, glowing against her skin like blue-white moonlight. She was leaning closer to inspect it further when drops of warm water began dripping on her palm around it. Tears, she realized belatedly. Her tears, from her eyes, which made no sense at all. Marci didn’t remember crying, but her eyes were wet and puffy, and her chest hurt as if she’d been heaving. Clearly, something had happened, but she couldn’t remember what. All she knew was that she’d lost something, something very important, but before Marci could figure out what it was, the freezing thread across her palm began to twitch.

  “What does that mean?” Amelia asked, skittering down Marci’s arm to get a better look.

  “I don’t know,” Marci said, wiping her eyes before reaching down to lift the thread away from her aching hand. It really was terrifyingly cold. Cold as the grave. As cold as—

  Her whole body jerked. Even stranger, Amelia’s did the same, the little dragon jumping like a startled lizard before scrambling back up Marci’s arm to the shelter of her short hair behind her ear.

  “Did you feel that?!”

  Marci nodded, craning her head in all directions. Since she’d first woken up in her death, she and Amelia had been the only things that had moved. Now, though, a wind was picking up, blowing the dust off the gravel drive in the otherwise perfect stillness.

  “Hoo boy,” Amelia said, hooking her tail tight around the back of Marci’s neck. “So what happens now?”

  “How should I know?” Marci said, pushing up to her feet. “You’re the expert!”

  “An expert in theory,” the tiny dragon corrected her. “I’ve never been dead in practice.”

  Marci rolled her eyes, but criticizing her friend’s recklessness would have to wait. In the brief time they’d been talking, the wind had gone from a breeze to a hurricane. On the ground, dust was being swept up into cyclones, and the lights inside the house were swaying wildly where they’d left the door open. Even the parked car was starting to slide sideways, blown across the gravel drive inch by inch. How many inches, though, Marci couldn’t see because she was now flat on her stomach, clinging to the asphalt roofing for dear life. But when she looked to make sure Amelia hadn’t been blown away, the little red dragon was staring at the ceiling, her amber eyes wide.

  At the peak of the cavern, in the middle of the terrifying black hole that led to the outside, a hand was reaching down. At least, it looked like a hand. It was hard to tell since it hadn’t yet broken through the obsidian surface. Instead, the magic had stretched like rubber, leaving whatever it was grasping desperately through a wall of wetly shimmering black. That would have been terrifying enough on its own, but the whole thing was made a million times worse by the fact that it was all happening directly above Marci’s head, the grasping hand following her unerringly no matter which way she moved. She was wondering if she should make a break for the house’s storm cellar when she saw something glittering in the center of the blackness. A thread, she realized with a start, glowing in the dark like moonlight directly in the middle of the hand’s grasping palm.

  And just like that, Marci knew what to do.

  “Hold on tight,” she told the dragon on her shoulder as she dropped into a crouch. “I’m going to jump.”

  “Jump?” Amelia said, her voice panicked as she looked back and forth between the grasping hand above their heads and the three-story drop below. “No, no, no. Jumping off a roof is a very bad idea when you don’t have wings.”

  No argument there, but the way the hole was positioned, there was no chance Marci could reach the grasping hand with just her legs. It was just too far, the roof too steep. She had to jump to make it, and the wind encouraged her, blasting up the side of the house in front of her. If she jumped, Marci was sure it would carry her up, and since the gale was already starting to lift the roof off the house, she saw no reason to hesitate. It was jump or be tossed, so Marci grabbed the burning-cold thread in her hand and went for it, leaping off the roof just as the nails gave way.

  The moment her feet left the ground, she saw Amelia’s point. It might have looked close, but the hand reaching through the darkness must have been much bigger than she’d realized, because now that she was moving toward it, Marci could see that hole she was jumping toward was actually several feet farther up than she’d realized, which meant she was now sailing out over nothing. But just as Marci was wondering if it was possible to die inside of your own death, the wind blowing up the side of the house caught her like a net, blasting her straight up toward the hand reaching down.

  The second she was in range, Marci reached out to grab one of the giant fingers. And immediately regretted it.

  When she touched the blackness, magic like nothing she’d ever felt exploded through her. It reminded her of the first time she’d pulled off Julius, only a million times more. That had felt like plugging into the sun. This was being caught in a supernova. The shock was so great, she couldn’t make herself let go, not even when her hand began to dissolve in front of her eyes, her fingers vanishing like shadows in sunlight. She was still staring in horror when the giant hand clenched down, grabbing her body like a closing trap.

  At this point, Marci was certain she was going to die. Again. The intense magic was all around her, dissolving her body like sugar in water.
But then, just when she was sure she was dust, a shock of cold washed away everything else as the hand yanked her through the hole into darkness, and then into a freezing embrace.

  “I’ve got you.”

  The voice was so loud and relieved, she barely recognized it, but the cold that followed the words felt like home.

  “I’ve got you,” Ghost said again, hugging her so tight, all the dissolved bits came back together. “I found you, Marci.”

  “I knew you would,” she whispered back, opening her eyes against the freezing wind as she raised her head to look up at her spirit…

  And saw his face.

  Chapter 3

  Julius woke with a start.

  He was still in Bob’s chair, curled in a ball around Marci’s bag. He didn’t smell any threat, but his heart was pounding in his chest. That usually happened after a bad dream, but he didn’t remember having one. He was writing it off as stress, pulling up his blanket again to go back to sleep, when he remembered he hadn’t had a blanket when he’d fallen asleep. He was groggily trying to make sense of how one had magically appeared on top of him when he heard the soft clink of china directly beside his ear.

  This time, Julius jumped out of the chair completely. He landed on his feet in a crouch with Marci’s bag under one arm, Amelia’s ashes in the other, and both hands raised to defend himself from whatever was in the room with him. When he looked frantically for the threat, though, all he saw was a familiar tall dragon in an impeccably neat black suit attempting to fit a large breakfast tray onto Bob’s crowded desk.

  “Good morning, sir,” Fredrick said without looking up from the loaded tray he was balancing on the table’s corner. “Did you sleep well?”

  Julius stared at him blankly for a good thirty seconds, and then he collapsed back into the chair. “Don’t do that,” he gasped, clutching his chest, which his poor heart was currently trying to pound its way through. “What are you doing here?”