Dragon’s Heir: Dystopian Fantasy

by Ann Gimpel

  “I hope to hell they don’t let Loki off so easily,” Bjorn sputtered.

  “Odin has plans for him,” Gwydion said.

  “What plans?” Geir piped up.

  “Ye’d approve, young dragon.” Bran patted his scaled shoulder. “Hel, Fenrir and Jormungand will ensure Loki doesna escape as the three of them work to repair the damage to Yggdrasil’s roots. The One Tree will assist them.”

  “Who are they?” Geir asked. “I know Hel. She’s my good grandma. But the other two. Fenrir and Jor-something.”

  “Loki’s other children,” I told him. “They hate him as much as you do.”

  A burst of brilliance morphed into Hel. I blew out a weary breath. I’d had just about as much extended family time as I could take for one day. Maybe Ceridwen had done me a favor by being absent.

  “Och. Ye’re safe!” Hel raced to Geir and wound her arms around him.

  “Good Grandma,” he purred.

  “Aye, child. Good Grandma.” She pushed back and examined him with magic and her eyes. “None the worse for wear, I see.”

  “Ye’ve been pressed into duty,” Gwydion informed her.

  She rolled her dark eyes. “Nay. Doona tell me. Whatever it is will keep till Odin runs me down. Since I know something is afoot, I may avoid him for a while. Meantime, I have a passel of new dead to attend to. Doona expect to see Arawn any time soon. He has a fuller plate than me. Wait a bit,” she told Geir—and I suppose me and Bjorn—“and then come visit me in Niflheim.”

  “I will,” Geir said.

  “Good boy.” Hel kissed his forehead and then vanished as quickly as she’d materialized.

  Quade built a journey spell. I remember it settling around us and Geir wrapping his forelegs around me, but the rest of the trip faded to black. Guess shifting took more out of me than I knew.

  Or maybe I was just plain done in all the way to my bones. Bjorn and I had accomplished a miracle—with a lot of help from our allies. Most importantly, we had our son back. The outer borderworld problem was fixed. All that remained was hunting down residual evil in the Nine Worlds and killing it off. A big job, but doable now the portals were sealed again.

  Before we left Fire Mountain, I’d make certain the dragons spent more time working on defensive magic with Geir. Bjorn and I could benefit from a tutorial too. Neither of us knew jack shit about being dragons.

  The thought rocked me, reminded me I could shift. I tried to tap into a sense of wonder, but all I felt was numb. The miracle of everything would mean a lot more once I’d slept for a few hours.

  Chapter Twenty, Bjorn

  Two Weeks Later

  Power crackled in the dragons’ training arena, turning the air blue with a static charge. Rowan and Geir were practicing aerial strafing runs under Nidhogg and Ysien’s watchful eyes. I watched through my dragon’s eyesight, which was quite unlike how I viewed the world in my other body. Colors reflected differently, and I was far more sensitive to movement in a vertical plane.

  I’d had my turn at battle strategy and was picking up pointers I’d missed in the heat of things when I was in the air. The wonder of my dragon form hadn’t quite percolated through all the layers of my heart and soul. But I was getting there. For some reason, I’d assumed shifters had dual personalities, but it didn’t hold true for the three of us. We were the same “person,” regardless of whether we had wings and scales or not.

  We were nearly ready to leave Fire Mountain. For several reasons.

  The most important was we had a lot to do back in the Nine Worlds. While the dragons paid lip service to us having responsibilities outside their domain, they were doing their damnedest to ensure we remained. It had more to do with Geir than Rowan—er, Runa—and me, but our hosts had been closemouthed when I’d asked why they’d referred to our son as a prince.

  Nidhogg clapped his forelegs together, talons clanking like chains. “Ye’ve done well.”

  My mate and son swooped around the oblong arena, playing with each other. Geir had been enthralled by our dragon forms, and we’d indulged him by shifting often. He was still growing fast and was about half Ysien’s size.

  Nidhogg and Ysien glided to where I stood. It was a dragon maneuver where they extended their wings for balance and lift, but were still mostly walking. “There will be a special meeting in the council room,” Ysien told me.

  “You expect us to be there?” I furled my scaled brows.

  “Aye. Why else would we tell you about it?”

  To avoid blowing ash in his face, I summoned shift magic. I’d never warmed to Ysien. His patronizing attitude still made me want to punch him. The punching equivalent for a dragon was raining ash and smoke over whatever was closest. I still had difficulty controlling what emerged from my mouth, and I didn’t want to anger him.

  Like all of us, Ysien was who he was, spines and all. Nidhogg relied on him, and he was intensely loyal to dragonkind. After dealing with Loki, I’d lowered my standards and been more accepting of Ysien and a few others who rubbed me the wrong way. At least, I was trying. They might be highhanded and annoying, but dealing with them was trivial compared with Loki or Ceridwen or Cadir.

  My body finished rearranging itself. Shifting came easy after my initial batch of failures. I nodded at the blue dragon. “Thank you for including us.”

  “Ye’re quite welcome,” Nidhogg inclined his head in return. “Consider leaving Geir with us while ye check on the Nine Worlds.” I opened my mouth, but he was quick to add, “Consider it. There are many advantages.”

  “I’m certain there are,” I replied. “Runa and I have talked it over. Our place is in the Nine Worlds. We will visit here, of course, but our homes are in Midgard and Vanaheim.”

  “Yours, perhaps.” Ysien spewed ash off to one side. “But Geir belongs here. In Fire Mountain.”

  I looked dead at both dragons. “Nay. His place is with his mother and me. What time is this special meeting?”

  “Now.” Nidhogg did not sound pleased, and I’d become skilled at reading him.

  “We will be there,” I said, grateful when both he and Ysien teleported out of the arena.

  I motioned to Runa and Geir—no reason not to use her dragon name here in Fire Mountain. It made the dragons happy and didn’t put her at risk. My mate and son floated down next to me. Runa shifted, and it gave me an idea.

  “Geir. How about if you shift?”

  “Why?” He tossed his head back.

  I drew a power circle around the three of us and draped it in warding. It wouldn’t keep Nidhogg from eavesdropping, but it would make him work harder. “There is a special council meeting,” I told my family.

  “When?” Runa raised a russet brow.

  “Right now. The dragons will make another pitch for Geir to remain with them.”

  “I’m going with you,” Geir said. “I don’t care what they want.”

  “You will hold your tongue at this meeting,” I said. “And it would help if you wore your human form. They think of you as one of them. You are, but you have another face, and this would be a good time to show it.”

  “We’ll need something for him to wear.” Runa narrowed her eyes. “A quick stop by our room should yield trousers and a shirt. Bet he’ll fit into your stuff.”

  “He might,” I said and focused on Geir. “What about it?”

  The air around him glistened with his particular blend of power. It was similar to what Runa and I achieved with our mingled magics. When the light cleared, he was human. At least in form. His blond hair hit him midback, and he might have been a youth in his late teenaged years. Well-shaped muscles spanned his lanky frame.

  He shook himself from head to toe. “Feels weird,” he muttered.

  “Of course it does,” Runa told him. “Just like being dragons feels odd to your da and me. While we’re about it, I’m not especially warming to hearing myself called Runa. It might be my ‘true name,’ but I get this big, fat disconnect when someone calls me by it.”

&n
bsp; “Once we return to the Nine Worlds, you can be whomever you’d like,” I said. “Come on. We should hurry.”

  Courtesy of a couple of fast teleport spells, we were walking into the dragons’ council chambers a scant handful of minutes later. My breeches and shirt more or less fit Geir. At least, he wasn’t buck naked. I hesitated beneath the arched entry as I searched for an unobtrusive spot where we could stand.

  “Walk to the front,” Nidhogg boomed.

  Damn. My instincts had been spot on. This “special” meeting was aimed at Geir. The dragons were determined to hold him here, but I was equally determined to leave. Fire Mountain might be the ancestral home of my dragon side, yet it wasn’t the home I sought. Nor was it where I wished my son to grow up.

  I placed Geir between Runa and me. We joined hands and walked the length of the ridiculously large chamber that was jampacked with dragons. Steam puffed from hundreds of jaws until the mist hovered so thickly I could barely see a few meters ahead.

  When we finally reached the dais, I guided us off to one side.

  “Your place is here.” Nidhogg pointed to an open spot between himself and Dewi. The other elders stood behind them.

  “We’re good where we are, thanks.” Runa smiled brightly.

  I half expected to see Odin or Hel, but everyone in the room besides us were dragons.

  “I said—” Nidhogg began.

  Dewi motioned him to silence. “As they will,” she told him, punctuated by a blast of telepathy that bypassed me.

  The twin blind seers shuffled forward. “We will share a vision,” one said.

  Amid a chorus of bugles, the second one raised his forelegs. Unlike the other dragons whose talons were red, his were milky just like his eyes. “Quiet. And then I shall begin.”

  I shielded my thoughts. The roomful of dragons reminded me of a bunch of children settling in to listen to a bedtime story. Eager and focused, they stopped talking among themselves.

  “Deep within our beginnings, while we gloried in the wonder of being dragons, our elders cautioned us we could command still greater magic. Most of us dinna believe such was true. After all, dragons are the most powerful magical beings in all worlds.”

  Bugles and trumpets raced through the chamber. The blind seer waited, his jaws lolling in a satisfied smile. Once the crowd quieted, the other seer picked up the tale. “Over eons, we lost sight we could be more than we are until the Breaking. It opened our eyes not just to treachery within the Nine Worlds, but to Cadir’s half-dragon spawn and her…potential.”

  “Thanks for keeping me in the dark so long,” Runa mumbled, obviously not caring the dragons would hear.

  The seer nearest us turned his sightless gaze our way. “Remember when I answered one of your questions? Told you that ye command the full spectrum of power. All four elements. All four seasons. All the strength of both the Norse and Celtic pantheons. With dragon magic to season the mix.”

  I nodded. Runa did too.

  The seer angled his head to one side. “Your son holds every magical element that I listed within him. He is the future of dragonkind. He embodies our greater magic, our potential.”

  Whoops and bugles rose to a deafening pitch.

  I caught Runa’s gaze out of the corner of one eye and saw her shake her head. I agreed. I’d fight to the death to avoid the dragons transforming Geir into a symbol for some new breed of wyrm.

  Prince, my ass. They’d turn him into a stud horse.

  A green female hustled from the far side of the room. I smelled pheromones long before she reached us and stepped in front of my son. “Just once,” she smiled enticingly. “What harm could it do?”

  Calls of, “I want him too,” reached me.

  Geir had shrunk back against Runa, but he straightened and strode purposefully to the empty spot between Nidhogg and Dewi, giving the hussy dragon a wide breach. I shooed her away. She might have approached us, but I was banking on her not spreading her misplaced lust any nearer Nidhogg, Dewi, or the elder council arrayed behind them.

  “Quiet!” Nidhogg thundered. “Our prince would speak with us.”

  I watched Geir’s face, hunting for clues. Had them labeling him “prince” stoked his young ego? Would he fall into line, accept the dragons’ plans for him? Was I being selfish by wanting him to remain with us? Runa gripped my hand. “Believe in him,” she said near my ear.

  Geir stood straight and clasped his hands behind him. “Thank you for giving us a chamber and food. Thank all of you who fought to secure the outer borderworlds.” He scrunched his eyes closed for a moment.

  When he opened them, he went on, “While I appreciate the, um, honor you’ve offered me, I am not your prince. I shall remain with my parents.”

  “For now, perhaps.” Nidhogg’s tone was silk and compulsion. “But surely, once ye’ve had time to realize how much ye miss Fire Mountain, ye’ll return to us.”

  “I have no idea what my future holds,” Geir said in clear, ringing tones. “I am still very young. It will take a long time for me to figure things out. To be honest, being responsible for anyone’s future except my own doesn’t sound very appealing.”

  Pride for my son swelled through me. He’d had very little in the way of direction from Runa and me, but he had good instincts. Before the dragons could engage him with further inducements, he hurried back to my side.

  “Good time to leave,” Runa murmured.

  “Never been better,” Geir agreed.

  Caught between wanting to be gone ten minutes ago and a need to at least pay lip service to the manners cherished by dragonkind, I said, “Get a spell going. I’ll be ready soon.”

  Moving midway between where I’d been standing and the dais, I bowed. “I second my son’s thanks for your hospitality, but we have overstayed our welcome. We shall stop by and visit from time to time, but we have much work ahead of us. The Nine Worlds will not knit back together without help. And I am still their Master Sorcerer.”

  I stood tall and waited. Would Nidhogg order me to remain? I didn’t think he had that level of authority, but neither did I want to end up in the position of being insubordinate.

  Better not to burn bridges.

  Nidhogg—my father—snared me in his hypnotic gaze. I stared back, waiting, but I wouldn’t wait forever. Perhaps he knew as much because he finally nodded. “I will see you in the Nine Worlds. Ye and your mate and my grandson.”

  “I will look forward to it.”

  “Ye canna let them leave,” one of the seers protested.

  “We are not their jailers,” Dewi said in a pointed tone, followed by, “and I shall see you when ye stop by Inverlochy Castle.”

  It was good enough for me. I made my way to the magic bubbling around my mate and my son. As soon as I got near enough, it whisked us into a dragon journey spell. “Nice work,” I said once we were headed toward Midgard.

  “Some things about commanding dragon magic are quite useful.” Runa grinned.

  “Did I do the right thing?” Geir looked from his mother to me.

  I started to say yes. Instead I turned his question back at him. “Did you do what felt right to you? What was in your heart?”

  “I did,” Geir replied.

  “Then it was the right thing,” Runa reassured him.

  “I don’t know where I fit,” Geir went on. “I’m not like them, but I’m not like you, either.”

  I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “We all pass through a sticky spot like that,” Runa told him. “For me, it lasted until I found the witches and they taught me whoever I was was all right.”

  “How old were you?” Geir trained his eyes on his mother.

  “Way older than you,” she retorted.

  Speaking of witches, I sensed the markers in her journey spell. “Headed for Ben Nevis, are we?”

  “Is that all right?” She furled her brows.

  “More than all right,” I replied. “After two weeks of dragons, I
’m not ready to face the Celts or Odin and Asgard quite yet.” I wasn’t exactly keen to pick up the reins of my sorcery practice, either. I’d do it, but a break would be welcome.

  “Know what you mean.” Runa’s generous mouth split into a smile. “They always want something. With the witches, we can just be ourselves.”

  “Ourselves,” Geir echoed.

  We chatted of this and that as we crossed the distance between Fire Mountain and the Nine Worlds. This and that being various applications of magic and what might work best in a particular situation. Not a usual conversation in most families, but a necessary one in ours.

  “How long do you think it will take to clear out the rest of the goblins and trolls and whatever else got stuck in the Nine Worlds?” Runa asked.

  “No idea. It will take as long as it does,” I told her. Privately, I figured decades would pass before we finished our cleanup work. If we ever did. Evil was ubiquitous. Eradicating it beyond a certain point wasn’t practical. And then there was the niggling issue of the Morrigan, Ceridwen, and Loki. I figured the shrouding we’d fashioned would hold the trickster for a while, but not forever.

  I doubted Odin would have the stomach to keep him locked away when the shroud’s magic faded.

  “Did the Morrigan kill all the vampires?” Geir asked.

  “Probably not,” Runa told him. “Plenty of vamps on Midgard.”

  “I figured out what she did,” our son announced. “Easier than cutting off their heads.”

  “You can teach us.” Runa rested a hand on his shoulder.

  I patted the collection of enchanted steel hanging off my body. I’d be glad to tuck the blades away in a cupboard in my cottage on Vanaheim. At least the longsword Runa carried had come in handy.

  “Almost there,” she said.

  Sure enough, a portal formed, and we tumbled onto the familiar packed-dirt courtyard in front of the Ben Nevis cave system. From long habit, I scanned the area for threats but didn’t find any.

  Runa’s nostrils twitched, and she inhaled. “Home. It smells like home.”

  “It smells earthy and welcoming, like Midgard,” I said. The dry, hot air on Fire Mountain wasn’t nearly as annoying as it had been my first trip there, but its sameness had grown old. The climate on the dragons’ world never changed. I shrugged. I appreciated my dragon-nature, but it would never displace the rest of me.