A Dragon of a Different Color

by Rachel Aaron

  “You don’t understand,” the emperor snapped. “My mother needs me. She sacrificed nearly all of her fire to give me life, and what little she has left relies on my luck to remain stable. If we were safe at home, it wouldn’t be an issue, but in enemy territory, as I am now—”

  The mountain rumbled, and the emperor stopped, his chest rising as he took a deep breath.

  “Again, not a good time,” he said when the shaking finally stopped. “Unless you’re here to tell me where my mother is, it’s probably better if you deal with your emergency on your own.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t,” Julius said, taking a deep breath of his own. Here went nothing. “We need your help.”

  The Qilin laughed. A deep, mirthless sound. “You can’t be serious.”

  Julius stared hard into the golden veil so the emperor could see just how serious he was. “Chelsie’s in trouble.”

  The emperor slumped back in his throne. “Of course she is,” he growled, pressing his hand hard against his veiled forehead. “What else would she be? But you already know how to solve this problem. Surrender, embrace my rule, and—”

  “I would at this point if I thought it’d do any good,” Julius said. “But this is no longer something we can solve with broad strokes. My sister’s gone to the DFZ, and I’m afraid—”

  “The DFZ?” The emperor’s head shot up. “But terrible things are happening there.”

  “I know,” Julius said, frustrated. “Why do you think I’m here?”

  “Why did you let her go?” the Qilin snapped back.

  “I don’t let Chelsie go anywhere,” Julius reminded him. “She’s free to do what she wants now, and she never listened to me even when she wasn’t. Anyway, she’s not there because she likes it. She was lured by Bob.”

  The emperor tilted his head in confusion. “Bob?”

  “He means Brohomir, Great Seer of the Heartstrikers,” Fredrick explained quickly. “Bob is his family name.”

  The golden dragon seemed baffled. “Why would one of the three seers want to be called—” He shook his head. “You know, never mind. It’s not important. Why is Chelsie chasing your seer?”

  Julius bit his lip. That was as good an opening as he was ever likely to get to tell the Qilin that Chelsie was chasing down the last remaining egg of the clutch she’d made with him, but the timing couldn’t be more wrong. The Qilin was already extremely upset, and while the truth would certainly get him moving, telling him the real reason Chelsie had run all those centuries ago now might be the straw that broke the dragon’s back. It certainly didn’t play to Julius’s plan to break things gently, so he settled for a half-truth instead.

  “Bob stole something very precious to her,” he said, keeping his voice earnest and even. “He knows she’ll stop at nothing to get it back, and he used that to get her to chase him into the DFZ. Why or for what purpose, I don’t know, but the DFZ is the last place any dragon should be right now.”

  “I don’t disagree,” the Golden Emperor said. “But what you’re saying makes no sense. Brohomir is the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers. Why would he work against you?”

  “Again, I don’t know,” Julius said honestly. “There’s a good chance this is all part of his master plan for our clan, but that’s actually what scares me the most. He might be our seer, but I’ve seen Bob in action enough now to know that his idea of acceptable sacrifices doesn’t match mine. He’s already killed one of my sisters for his plots. I’m worried Chelsie is next.”

  Saying those words out loud felt like betrayal. No one was more aware of just how much he owed to Bob than Julius was. The changes he’d made in his family, the battles he’d won, the fact that he was still alive to keep pushing—it was all thanks to his brother. That constant support had earned the seer Julius’s blind faith in a lot of things, but when Bob had asked him not to free Chelsie, Julius had finally seen the line that divided them. That had always divided them. The same line Bob himself had warned him about every time he’d reminded Julius that he wasn’t nice.

  “When I overthrew my mother, I swore I’d never let anyone in my family be thrown away ever again. That applies to Bob, too. Even if this is all part of a plot to make a better future, what’s the point if we have to throw away our family to get there? Even if I’m wrong about Bob, Chelsie’s mad enough to kill him right now, and I can’t let that happen. I don’t want anyone to die, especially not to another Heartstriker, so please. Please.”

  He clasped his hands in front of him. “You already came all this way for Chelsie’s sake. Help me save her now. Lend me your luck, your magic, your fastest jet—anything. Just help me do something before it’s too late.”

  He was begging by the time he finished, pleading so shamelessly, any proper dragon would have been appalled. But Julius had never been a proper dragon, and he’d never had much use for pride. If it would have gotten him to the DFZ faster, he would have crawled on his belly. He was about to try it when the Emperor heaved a long sigh, reaching up to remove the golden veil from his face so he could look Julius eye to golden eye. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Julius demanded.

  “Because it’s not my problem,” the Qilin said calmly, rising from his throne. “If you want to surrender, then we can—”

  “How is this not your problem?” Julius cried over him. “Chelsie’s the entire reason you came here! How can you abandon her?”

  “Because I swore I wouldn’t do this again!”

  The emperor’s shout was still echoing when the mountain began to shake again. Unlike before, though, this was no tremor. The throne room rocked under Julius’s feet, splitting open the patched cracks left in the floor from the battle with Estella. Cracks spread through the ceiling as well, setting the empty chains that had once held the Quetzalcoatl’s skull swinging wildly. One actually snapped, crashing to the floor directly behind Julius. If he hadn’t been so quick on his feet, the giant metal chain would have landed on top of him. He was on the watch for more projectiles when the shaking stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and he looked up to see the Qilin hunched over on his throne with his head clutched in his hands.

  He was so still, he looked even more like a statue than the golden dragon he was sitting on. He didn’t even seem to be breathing when the emperor suddenly slumped over the arm of his throne, his whole body shaking.

  “You should leave,” he panted, his perfect face pale and beaded with sweat. “I’m not…I am not calm right now.”

  “That’s okay,” Julius said. “I’m not calm, either.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” the emperor said. “But when you get upset, you don’t do this.” He waved his hand angrily at the broken floor, but Julius just kept shaking his head.

  “I don’t care if you wreck the throne room. I just want your help.”

  “How do you not understand yet?” the emperor cried, shooting to his feet. “I want to help you. If I were anyone else, we would already be on the way, but I’m not. I’m the Qilin, the good fortune that upholds the Golden Empire and the bad fortune that will destroy it if I fail in my duty. I learned that the hard way because of your sister once before. I will not put my empire through it a second time.”

  “Then why are you here?” Julius demanded. “Why are you bothering us at all if you won’t help Chelsie when she needs it?”

  “Because I can’t!” Xian shouted, his golden eyes flashing with a terrible light. “I came here because I thought that I’d found a way to cheat the system. I thought if I conquered Heartstriker and put Chelsie under my luck, I could keep her safe without having to…without being weak. But obviously I can’t.” His eyes flicked to the damaged floor again, and he sank back down to his throne in defeat. “I should never have come.”

  “But you did,” Julius growled, glaring at him. “You came here. You conquered our clan. You put this pressure on us. You did all of that because you didn’t want Chelsie to die. Now she’s in real trouble, and you’re going to turn your back on her beca
use you’re afraid?”

  The emperor’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You should,” the Qilin growled, glaring down with a rage Julius had never seen. “I’ve made no secret of the love I have for your sister, but an emperor’s life does not belong to him alone. The last time I was selfish, my empire paid the price. Now you’re telling me to do it again, and you have the nerve to question my sincerity when I tell you no?”

  “Yes,” Julius said. “Because I don’t think you’re saying it to be a good emperor.” His eyes narrowed. “I think you’re scared.”

  “Of course I’m scared!” the Qilin cried. “You’ve seen what I can do!”

  As if on cue, a large chunk of the damaged ceiling chose that moment to fall, crashing to the ground directly between them. Julius jumped out of the way with room to spare, but when he looked up again, the emperor was hunched over his throne, defeated.

  “You see?” he said miserably, looking down at the rubble. “It’s always like this. Even when I’m calm, I’m afraid, because I know the moment I get upset, I’ll destroy everything. When your sister left me, we had earthquakes every day for a year. All of Nanjing burned down. Twice. My maternal aunt, Lao’s mother, died of a heart attack after she mentioned Chelsie’s name in my presence. Dragons don’t even get heart attacks, but I gave her one. I caused it all, disaster after disaster, misery after misery, on and on and on.”

  He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t risk that again. You’re right when you say I love your sister, but that’s the problem. Love brought me lower than anything else before or since, and when the Qilin goes down, he takes everything else with him. That’s the truth of being the Golden Emperor, and it’s why I can’t help you now. Because no matter how much I love her, I can’t fix this problem, and I have no right to drag my empire through the mud with me again.”

  He said that like it was the end. Like there was nothing more that could ever be said, but Julius shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

  The emperor looked up. “What?”

  “You’re wrong,” Julius repeated sadly. “Everyone calls you a luck dragon, but the more I learn about you, the more I realize you’re actually the opposite. You’re not lucky. You’re cursed, in a lot of ways. Your whole empire is built around capitalizing on your magical good fortune, but that fortune’s only good when you’re happy, and no one’s happy all the time. You go on and on about how it’s your responsibility to stay serene and bring good fortune to your people while overlooking the fact that it is utterly irresponsible to bet the fate of twenty dragon clans, hundreds of millions of humans, all the land in China, and now Heartstriker on the happiness of one dragon. Especially since you don’t even seem to be getting your fair share of the deal.”

  “That’s absurd,” the Qilin said dismissively.

  “Is it?” Julius crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. “When was the last time you were actually happy?”

  The emperor’s jaw tightened. “I endeavor always to maintain the serenity—”

  Julius held up his hand. “I didn’t say serenity. I asked about happiness. When was the last time you actually enjoyed being you?”

  “I can’t remember,” the Qilin said irritably. “But that’s not the point.”

  “It’s the entire point!” Julius cried. “You’ve been telling me since you got here about how it’s your responsibility to bring good fortune. That your all-powerful luck would rain down blessings and protection on us if we’d only agree to join you. But that’s not what I’ve observed. From what I’ve seen so far of how your empire runs, it’s mostly about avoiding the consequences of your unhappiness.”

  He pointed over his shoulder at the closed throne room doors, where Lao was presumably still waiting on the other side. “Your cousin, your mother, the ones that you should trust most, they all treat you like you’re a living nuclear weapon, and they’re right. You’re a disaster waiting to happen, because no one’s life, not even the Golden Emperor’s, is devoid of suffering. Being alive means being unhappy at points, and yet the entire Golden Empire is based on the idea that you’re somehow exempt from that. You’ve built your entire civilization on a fallacy! The very concept of an eternally serene Golden Emperor sets an impossible standard, and you’ve bought into it. You tell yourself you’re just being responsible, just staying calm, but the reality is that you’ve become so afraid of your own magic, you’d rather let the love of your life go into danger alone than risk making yourself upset.”

  His words echoed off the cracked walls, but the Qilin said nothing. Julius wasn’t even sure if the emperor was listening anymore. He just sat there on his throne with his head down and his fists clenched, and the longer Julius watched him, the more his heart went out to the Qilin.

  “I know how tempting it is to give up your own happiness for others,” he said gently. “Believe me, I know, but that kind of thing only goes so far. It might seem good and noble, but there’s a point where self-sacrifice becomes a liability, not a gift, and I think you passed that a long time ago. You’ve spent so much of yourself trying to be a good emperor, it’s left you with nothing of your own. No happiness. No hope. No love. Since you arrived, I’ve heard the story of how you’re the most powerful Qilin ever born over and over, but what’s the point of all that power if you can’t use it to save the one you love?”

  “Because it isn’t my power,” the Qilin said, looking up at last. “I have responsibilities. Dragons who depend on—”

  “You have dragons who are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves,” Julius said. “They’re dragons! Every other clan in the world survives without the Qilin’s luck. It’s perfectly possible to live a long, fulfilling life without the blessing of a magical emperor, so maybe it’s time you stopped worrying so much about your dragons and started worrying about you. What do you want? What makes you happy? And before you dismiss that as selfish, I think there’s a lot of evidence that a happy Qilin would do his empire a lot more good than one that’s merely calm. If nothing else, whatever damage you cause now by going to save Chelsie will be minuscule compared to the fallout of knowing you could have saved her but were too afraid to try.”

  The Qilin closed his eyes with a sigh. “What you say makes sense,” he admitted. “But I don’t know if that’s because you’re actually right, or because I want to believe you so badly, I’m willing to twist logic.”

  “Why can’t it be both?” Julius asked. “Not to sound like a stereotypical Heartstriker, but what’s the good of being emperor if you can’t do what you want now and again?”

  Pale as he still was, Xian actually smiled a tiny bit at that. “I lied to you before,” he said. “When you asked about the last time I was happy. I do remember. It was when I was with your sister. With Chelsie.” His smile widened. “She also wasn’t afraid to argue with me.”

  Julius smiled back. “Heartstrikers aren’t known for being meek.”

  “No, you’re not,” the emperor agreed. “But that’s what I liked about her. She wasn’t afraid of upsetting me, wasn’t afraid of anything. I used to think that was reckless. Now, I wish I’d been reckless, too. How much of this could have been avoided if I’d acted differently?”

  “We’ll never know,” Julius said. “But it’s not too late. Before Bob lured her out, I’d convinced her to meet you.”

  The emperor’s eyes went wide. “You did?”

  “You’re not the only one who’s been bottling things up for centuries,” Julius said smugly. “She wanted to talk, or at least make a start, but then Bob called and everything went wrong. She teleported to the DFZ, and—”

  “She can teleport?” the Qilin said, amazed.

  “It was news to me, too,” Julius assured him. “But that’s not important. What matters is that Chelsie’s alone with Bob right now in the middle of whatever mess is going on in the DFZ. If you want to get a chance to talk to her, then we need to get there, too. Before things get worse.”<
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  The Qilin lowered his eyes. He was clearly on the edge, but Julius could almost see the centuries of fear hanging from his neck like millstones, all the years of hard lessons that had made him a prisoner of his uncontrollable luck. If things had been less dire, he would have stepped back and left the emperor to figure it out on his own. There was no time, though, so Julius decided to give it one final push.

  “If you weren’t a luck dragon, would you go to her?”

  “Of course,” the emperor said without hesitation. “But—”

  “Then do it,” Julius said, holding out his hand. “Your luck is supposed to make you happy, right? Make it earn its keep. Come with me. Use that luck to find and save Chelsie. Let it do something good for a change before we miss our chance forever.”

  That must have been the final straw. Like a dam breaking, the Qilin let out a long sigh, and the tension that had been hanging over the room since the first earthquake melted away. “All right,” he whispered, stepping down from his throne to take Julius’s hand. “All right.”

  “Thank you,” Julius said, gripping the Qilin’s elegant fingers.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Xian said nervously, pulling back his hand to take off his heavy outer robe in favor of the lighter and more mobile, though still very golden, inner one. “I just hope she doesn’t run again as soon as she sees me.”

  “She won’t,” Julius promised, secretly hoping that was true. “So any thoughts on how we can get to the DFZ in a hurry?”

  The Qilin froze. “I thought you had a plan.”

  “Getting your help was the plan,” Julius said with a shrug. “You’re the walking miracle.”

  The emperor muttered something under his breath in Chinese. “You do know I don’t control my luck?”

  “But the things you want still tend to happen,” Julius reminded him. “And you want to save Chelsie, right?”

  “More than anything,” the emperor said grimly. “Including, apparently, the safety of my clans.”