Chapter 10
General Jackson’s truck convoy arrived with much fanfare.
Ten UN armored personnel carriers rolled into the sheltered area below the ramps like soldiers charging the enemy line. Each one was covered with what had to be a million dollars’ worth of glowing military-grade wards, which explained how they’d made the journey from the armory in Chicago through the still-dangerous magic levels. They slowed down when they hit the dirt to let the dragons get out of the way, but they didn’t stop until they’d formed a protective circle around General Jackson, who hadn’t even looked up yet from the makeshift war table she’d fashioned from the top half of Julius’s front door.
When the APCs were in position, the bulletproof doors rolled open, and UN soldiers with ANTI-DRAGON TASK FORCE stamped in yellow letters across their augmented body armor poured out, much to the chagrin of the watching crowd.
“Are you serious?” Lao demanded, his eyes shining like blue fire as he placed himself between the soldiers and the Qilin. “You dare bring dragon slayers to our aid?”
“I’m the general of the Anti-Dragon Task Force,” Emily replied dryly, her eyes still locked on the map of the Great Lakes region she’d sketched onto the cracked wood with one of Marci’s sticks of casting chalk. “You go to war with the army you’ve got.”
Lao growled low in his throat, but the general didn’t even raise her head until the last officer hopped off the trucks, a young man with a confident air and reams of preprinted ward tape attached to holsters to his belt. The yellow band on his arm marked him as a battle mage, but Emily looked much more excited about the sleek, cement block-sized augmented reality receiver he was carrying in his hands.
“Finally,” she said, grabbing the receiver and setting it down on the door-table beside her. The officer handed her a smartphone in a Kevlar case next. Emily snatched it out of his hand, taking a quick picture of her hand-drawn map before swiping her fingers through the phone’s augmented reality field to bring up an actual map in the air above it.
“Much better,” she said, smiling at the glowing projection of the Great Lakes region. “Status report.”
The battle mage saluted and started rattling off a bunch of jargon Julius didn’t understand. It must not have been what the general wanted to hear, though, because her face—the only part of her body that wasn’t currently made of scrap metal—grew dourer by the word.
“What’s wrong?” Julius asked after she’d dismissed the soldier.
“Everything we already know, plus a bit more,” Emily said, sweeping her hand through the AR to replace the floating map with a circular display of satellite images and magical readouts. “It seems the Leviathan is bigger than our original estimation. I don’t know if Raven was wrong about his size or if he’s grown in the last half hour, but we’re going to be stretched even thinner than planned. The good news is that Canada, the US, and Mexico are all sending their air forces to help. Washington in particular is being extremely generous, though I think we can all guess why that is.”
She glanced pointedly at David, who was busy schmoozing with the heads of two European clans. The senator smiled when he saw her looking and took his government-issued phone out of his pocket, wiggling it at her before sliding it back into place.
“The president of the US has preauthorized a nuclear strike and designated Senator Heartstriker as the man on the ground,” Emily continued. “I don’t intend to use it because I’d like to avoid having all of our forces and what remains of the DFZ vaporized, but it’s good to know we’ve got an ace in our pocket.”
“Would it even work, though?” Julius asked nervously, glancing up at the Leviathan. “Can you nuke something that big without destroying everything you’re fighting to save?”
“We can damn well try,” the general said grimly. “But if we have to launch a nuclear strike, we’ve already lost, so it’s a moot point.”
“It won’t come to that,” Julius assured her. “Marci’s plan will work.”
“It’d better,” Emily grumbled. “Because all our other options are just different flavors of defeat.”
Another soldier came up to them as she finished, an older woman wearing a bright-orange vest that read LOGISTICS and carrying a heavily armored metal box the size of a picnic basket. Emily grinned when she saw it, clearing the table so the soldier could set the box down. The woman was still saluting when Emily popped the locks and threw the box open, revealing an array of complicated-looking military gadgetry packed inside custom-cut black foam.
“Here,” the general said, grabbing what looked like the world’s most expensive black plastic headband and holding it out to Julius. “Put this on.”
“What is it?” Julius asked, taking it from her.
“Coms rig,” she replied, grabbing a second one to place over her own head. “It’s got a full AR interface, a camera, a phone, and an old-fashioned radio, just in case things go really south. There’s also GPS, though with the Leviathan blocking the satellites, that’s probably useless.” She pointed at the satellite pictures that showed nothing but a wall of black above the entire northern border of the Midwestern US. “It’s also got military-grade mana-contacts that are better than anything on the civilian market, so it should work in your dragon form as well as your human one. Just make sure at least one side stays in contact with your skin at all times, and you’ll have full AR sound and capability.”
That sounded extremely useful, but… “Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because you’re in charge,” Emily said, looking at him as if she couldn’t understand how that was a question. “I overheard your dragon powwow. It’s clear you’re the one the others are looking to as the leader of this assault.”
“That’s only because Amelia told them I was running things!” Julius said quickly, putting up his hands. “I’m not—”
“It doesn’t matter how you came to be in charge,” the general said brusquely. “You are, and to be frank, I’m delighted. Despite the bad blood between us, you’ve been extraordinarily fair and reliable. Those are rare qualities in a dragon, and priceless traits in an ally.”
Julius was glad to hear it. He knew the others didn’t share his sentiment, but the UN general was a good ally for them as well. Dragons were powerful but, as he’d recently discovered, not nearly as numerous as he’d been led to believe. If they were going to keep his promise and hold out until Marci was done, they needed all the help they could get.
“I’m always ready to make an ally,” Julius said. “I’ve already told the others not to attack any of your planes, even by ‘accident,’ but I need you to make sure your soldiers do the same. If a dragon gets shot down, I can’t guarantee this won’t dissolve into a brawl.”
“Don’t worry,” Emily said. “My people aren’t stupid enough to pick a fight with this many dragons. So long as no one claws a jet out of the sky, we shouldn’t have any problems.”
She shot a sideways look at Fading Smoke as she said that, and Julius winced. “I’m picking up that you two have history,” he said quietly. “Is that going to be an issue?”
“That depends on how much stock you’re putting in Arkniss,” Emily said, her mechanical eyes whirring as she refocused on Julius. “I know saying a dragon is untrustworthy is like saying the sky is blue, but Arkniss is special. A decade ago, my superiors in Copenhagen made a deal with him for safe access to airspace over the Mediterranean. He invited us to his fortress under the Rock of Gibraltar, signed the treaty, and then betrayed us before the ink was dry. All of my subordinates died, and I was taken captive and tortured for four months before Raven got me out.” She looked down at the scrap-metal hands Raven had rigged up for her with a sigh. “Bastard cost me my last real limb.”
“I’m sorry,” Julius said, horrified.
The general shrugged. “Price of being a dragon slayer. Point is, Fading Smoke is not someone I trust with my soldiers. Normally, that wouldn’t even need to be said, but since we’re enemies of an enemy together, I feel it would compromise mission integrity if I didn’t warn you.”
“I’ll make sure he’s positioned as far from you as possible,” Julius promised. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you for caring,” she said, turning back to her maps. “I have to stay down here and coordinate UN forces, so I’ll be counting on you to be my eyes in the sky. I’ll be feeding you real-time positions for all human units, so make sure you keep that headpiece on at all times. I’ve instructed my pilots to obey any orders from you the same as they would from me, so don’t be afraid to send in the jets yourself if you need them.”
Julius swallowed. Being in charge of a dragon clan was one thing, but he was used to Heartstriker. Ordering military air strikes felt much scarier, somehow.
“Don’t make that face,” Emily said. “I know you’re not a killer, because if you were, I’d be dead. But I like that in an ally. I know I can count on you not to waste my soldiers’ lives.” She lifted her head, giving him a sincere smile. “I’m glad you’re the one I ended up with. We didn’t get off to the best start, but if we die today, it’s been an honor to work with you, Julius Heartstriker.”
Julius had no idea how to reply to that. He felt obligated to say “You too” or something similar, but he couldn’t, because even though she’d come back, he still hadn’t forgiven the general for killing Marci. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to look at her without that old hurt and anger coming up, but there was a practical, eyes-on-the-prize honor to Emily Jackson that he couldn’t deny. She wasn’t kind or compassionate, but Julius trusted her to fight for humanity’s survival—and by extension, all of theirs—to the bitter, bitter end.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
The general nodded and turned back to her map, using her fingers to redraw the battle lines on the projected maps that she’d originally drawn in chalk on the door-turned-table. Duly dismissed, Julius stepped away to fiddle with his new piece of military hardware. The headpiece was easily the coolest gadget he’d ever used. The mana contacts barely needed to touch his skin to hook into his personal magic, and the AR interface was the fastest and most responsive he’d ever seen. He was poking through the floating menus when he felt something loom over him. That was all the warning he got before a giant arm wrapped around his neck.
“Ack!” he cried, hands flying up instinctively to fight off his attacker before he realized the arm belonged to his brother. “Justin!”
The knight of the Heartstrikers cackled in reply, lifting Julius off the ground with a wicked grin. “Look at you,” he said, grinding the knuckles of his free hand into Julius’s scalp. “Got the Phoenix herself eating out of your hand. I knew I’d make a dragon out of you someday!”
“Justin…” Julius gasped, slapping his hands against the vise of his brother’s arm, which was still locked around his neck. “Air…”
Justin released him, and Julius doubled over, coughing as spots danced in front of his eyes. He was still trying to catch his breath when Justin slapped him on the back hard enough to send him sprawling on the ground.
“I always knew you’d pull it off,” the knight said proudly as he yanked Julius back to his feet. “Everyone said your coup against Mother was a fluke, but I knew you had fire in you. You had a weird way of showing it, but you still beat the Qilin and kept our clan from getting conquered. I just got the whole story from Fredrick, and it was awesome. I can’t wait to rub this in the rest of our clan’s faces forever. They told me I was stupid for wanting to be your knight, but who’s looking stupid now?”
He yelled that last part at the gathered group of Heartstrikers, who rolled their green eyes, and Julius winced. “Could you not?” he said, dusting himself off. “I still need them to listen to me, you know.”
“Oh, they’ll listen,” Justin said confidently. “The White Witch and Amelia the Planeswalker just whistled up every living dragon to fight under your banner. Everyone’s scared of them, and they’re taking orders from you. That makes you the most important dragon in the world.” He slapped Julius on the back again. “I knew you had it in you!”
There were so many things wrong with that statement, Julius didn’t know where to begin, so he didn’t bother. Arguing with his brother over facts was the same as banging your head against a wall: painful and ineffective. There was no point, anyway. If Justin was happy, that was good enough for Julius, so he dismissed the inaccuracies and accepted the compliment as it had been intended. “Thank you, Justin.”
“I’m the one who should be grateful,” Justin said, puffing out his chest. “You made me look amazing, and I wasn’t even there! I should give you a boon for this.”
“Please don’t,” Julius begged. “I’ve had enough trouble with debts to last me the rest of my life. The last thing I need is another…”
He trailed off. Justin went quiet as well, dropping a hand to the wrapped handle of his Fang of the Heartstriker as Marlin Drake left his knot of dragons and approached, a charming, hungry smile on his too-handsome face.
As soon as he got within striking distance, Justin put himself between the older dragon and Julius. “What do you want, clanless?”
“Just coming to pay my regards while we wait,” Drake replied smoothly. “The Affiliated Clanless Dragons have always been steadfast allies of the Heartstriker. Bethesda’s been a regular on my show for fifty years, you know.”
“Yeah, we know,” Justin snapped. “She makes us watch every time she’s on. But I don’t see what your famewhoring sellout of a dragon-and-pony show has to do with anything.”
“Justin,” Julius hissed, putting a hand on his brother’s arm as he dropped his voice to a whisper. “We don’t have enough allies to afford insulting one!”
“But he’s the head of the clanless,” Justin hissed back. “They’ll take anyone who’ll swear loyalty to Drake. Complete lack of standards. Don’t believe me, check out who’s lurking in his ranks.”
Justin glanced at the mismatched knot of Marlin Drake’s “clan” standing at the far edge of the cavern. Sure enough, the clanless dragons stood out from the rest of the room like platypuses among swans. All the other families were clearly cut from the same cloth with similar clothing and physical features. Even the Golden Empire’s dragons—which were technically twenty different clans held together by a lucky golden claw—looked like a matched set. But the only uniting feature of the clanless dragons was that they were standing together. They came from every family, age, and type, including a few breeds Julius had never seen before. All of them looked scruffy and intimidated by the bigger powers surrounding them, but one dragon in particular seemed to be going out of his way to hide in the shadows, his green eyes glowing like a sulking cat’s.
“Is that…” Julius squinted through the gloom, breathing in deep to catch the dragon’s scent. When he found it, he grabbed Justin’s arm. “That’s Gregory!”
It didn’t seem possible, but Julius’s nose didn’t lie. There was no question the dragon lurking at the urban cavern’s edge was Gregory no-longer-Heartstriker. Just seeing him was enough to make Julius’s long-healed injuries twinge as if they were fresh. The only reason he didn’t panic was because Gregory looked just as freaked out as Julius felt. The banished dragon was practically cowering behind his fellow clanless, watching the Heartstrikers as though he expected them to come over and rip his head off at any second, which, given the way Justin was growling, was probably a legitimate fear.
“You dare bring a traitor into our midst?” the knight snarled, taking a menacing step toward Marlin Drake. “Some ally.”
“I didn’t bring him,” Drake replied. “He was called by the Planeswalker and summoned by the White Witch same as the rest of us. My only crime was vouching for him, but don’t worry. I’ve heard all about the unpleasantness at Heartstriker Mountain, and I promise you personally that he will be no trouble.” He looked over his shoulder at Gregory with a killing smile. “As a clanless dragon, he has nowhere else to go. Even Heartstriker’s enemies would not shelter a traitor. I’m his only safe harbor, and I’ve made it very clear that my protection is strictly conditional on our continued good relations with your family.” He turned back to Julius with a smile. “You won’t even know he’s here.”
“I’ll believe that when it happens,” Julius grumbled. But annoyed as he was at this new complication, a very small part of him was happy that Gregory had found someone to take him in. Dragons were highly social creatures, and traitor or not, no one deserved to be alone.
“This has been a very humbling experience for him,” Drake said, leaning around the still-growling Justin to lock his eyes on Julius. “He was actually the one who first told me your name. You’re the head of Heartstriker now, aren’t you?”
“I’m one of three heads,” Julius corrected. “I share power with Bethesda and my brother Ian via a clan council.”
“Dragons don’t share power,” Drake said dismissively. “On paper, perhaps, your rule is split, but I just saw every dragon in the world deferring to you, which tells me where the real power lies.” He moved a little closer. “So how did it actually go down? Gregory was tragically short on the details, and Bethesda threatened to eat me when I asked her. I’d love to hear the whole story from the dragon who was in the middle of things.”
He smiled eagerly, and Julius bit his lip. “We don’t really have the time right now to—”
“Of course, of course,” Drake said, moving closer still despite the increasing volume of Justin’s growling. “You can tell me everything on my show when this is over. An exclusive interview with you and your Merlin, and your knight, of course.” He flashed a smile at Justin, who seemed surprisingly mollified by the possibility of being on television despite badmouthing the whole idea earlier. But while his brother was looking pleased, Julius was starting to get annoyed.
“If we survive, I’ll think about it,” he said, moving away. “Right now, we have more important things to worry about.”
“But right now might be our last chance to talk,” Drake said, his sea-blue eyes gleaming dangerously. “I’m dying to know more about the runt of a J who rose from the bottom of his clan to become the leader who commands the respect of every important dragon in the world. The Qilin, Svena, the Planeswalker, even Bethesda’s Shade all defer to you, and I find that fascinating. Not surprising, of course. Unlikely success is in your blood. After all…” His lips curled into a coy smile. “You are my son.”
Julius jerked back so fast he nearly fell over. His face must have been a sight, because Marlin Drake’s smirk turned into a laugh. “When we survive this, call me,” he said, flipping a business card out of his sleeve and tucking it into the front pocket of Julius’s jacket. “We’ll do a whole series. ‘The Unlikely Dragon Who Saved the World!’ It’ll be a sensation.” He gave Julius a final wink and turned around. “Bring your Merlin girl as well. When I’m done, the two of you will be the talk of the world. I just hope you’re ready to be famous.”
He walked off with a wave, leaving Julius staring after him with his mouth hanging open.
“There he goes again,” Justin said, shaking his head. “Leave it to the First Dragon in Television to turn our real life into a cheesy ‘tune in next week’ style cliffhanger.”
Julius’s head bobbed, but he was still too shocked to speak. It wasn’t until Justin grabbed his arm and started dragging him back toward the other Heartstrikers that he finally blurted out, “Did you know?”
His brother stopped, confused. “Did I know what?”
“That!” Julius cried, pointing at Marlin Drake’s back. “Did you know he was our father?”
“Of course I knew,” Justin said. “Drake does the dad reveal whenever one of us gets famous enough to catch his attention. He pulled it on me back when I became the clan’s knight at seventeen, though I never got invited to do an interview.”
Julius stared at him. “You’ve known who our father was since we were seventeen, and you never told me?”
“You never asked!” Justin cried. “I’m not psychic! I don’t know what you want. Even when you do tell me, it doesn’t make sense half the time.”
“I would think this would be obvious!” Julius cried back. “He’s our dad!”
“All the more reason to keep it to myself,” Justin snapped. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey Julius, you seem to be having a good day, so let me ruin it by telling you that our father is a clanless reject whose only claim to power is being in charge of other clanless rejects. He’s also a shameless huckster who made his fortune spilling dragon secrets for human entertainment, and our mother only slept with him so she’d have a regular spot on his talk show.’” Justin rolled his eyes. “Seriously, you were mopey enough as it was back then. I wasn’t about to make it worse by telling you the truth.”
If he’d been less upset, Julius would have been touched by Justin’s thoughtfulness. Emotional sensitivity wasn’t usually his brother’s strong suit. But while hearing the logic behind the decision made him feel slightly less betrayed, he still couldn’t believe Justin had kept this from him.
“We have to tell the other Js,” he said angrily. “They deserve to know.”
“I’m pretty sure they already do,” Justin said. “Like I said, Drake does the dad reveal whenever one of us gets important, and unlike you, all of us became important a while ago.”
Julius’s shoulders slumped. “So I’m the last to know?”
His brother nodded. “None of us talked about it because who brags about a deadbeat dad? But we all knew. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner. Marlin Drake’s a sea serpent, and his dragon form is all over his movie posters. Didn’t you ever notice we all shared his coloration and head shape?”
“Blue and green aren’t exactly uncommon Heartstriker colors,” Julius said defensively. Then he thought of something else. “Wait, if our father’s a sea serpent, why don’t we have any water-related powers?” Having gills or something would have been really useful all those times he’d nearly drowned fighting Vann Jeger and Algonquin.
“Because like I said, he’s a deadbeat,” Justin growled. “Bethesda picked prime mates for her early clutches because she was breeding up her power base. By the time she got to us, though, she needed other things more than she needed strong dragons, so her standards for good matches started going downhill. Drake is only slightly older than the H’s and the last surviving member of his clan, so it wasn’t like he had a broad power base to start from. Even if he had been ancient and powerful, though, it’s never gonna be a good mix when you’re combining scaly sea serpents with feathered dragons.” He huffed in disgust. “If we did get something good out of the match, I’ve never found it. I can’t even go into the water in my true shape without looking like a drowned chicken.”
Julius had never been crazy enough to try swimming as a dragon for that exact reason, but hearing they’d gotten nothing from their dad made him angry all over again. Worse, Marlin Drake hadn’t even bothered to seek him out until Julius had something he wanted. Like a true dragon, he’d only cared about his son when Julius became useful, and even then, his caring was limited to how Julius could be used to his advantage.
“He and Bethesda deserve each other,” Julius snarled, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’d rather have no father at all than another parent who only sees me as a tool.”
“That’s what children are to dragons,” Justin said with a shrug. “You see, this is why I never told you. The rest of us could handle the truth, but you were always too soft. You wanted parents who loved you, but that just doesn’t happen for us. Anyway, it’s not like Drake matters. He’s half our DNA, but he’s not family. We are. We’re Heartstrikers, clan. That’s something Drake could never have given us, and who wants to be part of a stage show for humans, anyway?”
He finished with a grin, but Julius could only stare at his brother in awe. Their entire life, Justin had been his bully, the tormentor of his childhood. He’d hunted and harassed and irritated Julius more than any other J, and yet, of everyone in the family, Justin was the only one who’d always been there. Even when he was being a pompous, overbearing jerk about it, he’d always looked out for his little brother even at the risk of his own life. He could be an absolute pain, but Justin had been truer to Julius’s idea of family than any other dragon, and though he’d always known it deep down, Julius loved him for it now more than ever.
“Thank you, brother,” he whispered, stepping in to wrap his arms around Justin’s chest.
“Yeah, yeah,” Justin muttered, tolerating the hug for a good five seconds before pushing Julius away. “Don’t get all mushy on me. You get a pass as the Nice Dragon, but some of us have actual reputations to maintain.”
“You’re the knight of the Nice Dragon,” Julius pointed out. “Doesn’t that buy you some slack?”
Justin’s answer to that was an appalled look. But just as Julius was about to tease him again, the military com he’d just put on his head buzzed to life. General Jackson’s face appeared in the AR in front of his face a moment later. “Canadian Command in Windsor says that magical levels have dropped enough to authorize flight,” she said, her voice surprisingly loud despite the fact that the com unit had no supplemental speakers. “I’m clearing all air units for combat. Repeat, all air units are cleared for combat. Get up there and bring that bastard down.”
“That’s our cue,” Julius said to Justin as all the UN forces began to scramble. “Ready?”
“Are you kidding?” Justin said, drawing his sword. Fire engulfed him before the blade was even out, replacing his towering human form with a bright-green-feathered dragon with the bone cage of his transformed Fang of the Heartstrikers locked over his jaws and a look of pure glee shining in his green eyes. The moment the change finished, Justin launched into the air, his Fang transforming the flames that flashed between his giant teeth into the magical green fire of the Quetzalcoatl as he flew straight up into the shadow of their enemy. Julius was still staring after when he realized no one else was flying.
“What are you waiting for?” he shouted, turning to the rest of the dragons. “The magic’s down! It’s time to fight back! Go!”
“You heard the small Heartstriker!” Svena called, striding out from the circle of her sisters with her whelps clinging to her shoulders like a living cloak of snowy down. “Fly, you idiots!”
She shed her human form as she spoke, revealing the beautiful white dragon underneath. Then, babies still clinging to her frosted scales, Svena launched herself into the air as well, shooting up through the hole in the Skyways with a single powerful beat of her frosted wings. Her sisters followed at once, as did everyone else. Within seconds, the air was full of flapping wings and scraping claws as all the dragons of the world took off en masse.
Julius was the last to go, waiting until the cavern was empty before shedding his own human mask to transform into his dragon. As always, the weight of his transformed Fang was surprisingly heavy on his head, but at least it gave him somewhere safe to tuck his com unit before he launched into the air as well, following the others into a sky that was already full of fire.
***
“And they’re off,” Bob said, rising from his seat on Julius’s last remaining step. “Quite the spectacle, isn’t it?”
He glanced at the Black Reach, who was standing beside him, but the construct’s face was bleak. “I find no joy in watching the race I was made to protect fly to their almost-certain deaths.”
“Thank you, Captain Bringdown,” Bob said. “But loath as I am to undercut your doomsayer routine, death is no longer a foregone conclusion. We’re in new territory, predictively speaking, and new territory means new opportunities.”
“That is true,” the Black Reach admitted. “But just because the cards have been reshuffled doesn’t mean they’ve changed their faces. We’re still up against the same unbeatable foe.” He arched a narrow eyebrow at Bob. “Unless you’ve got something in mind that changes the fundamental fact that we are outmatched in every way, I fail to see how any of these newly created futures will turn out differently than the old ones.”
“I always have something in mind,” Bob said with a smile. “This is my plot, remember? I didn’t make the Leviathan mess, but I orchestrated its current form.” He nodded at the sky full of dragons. “This fight is taking place on my board with my pieces. If there’s a way out of this, I already have everything I need to make it happen. I just have to find it.”
“And then what?” the Black Reach said, shooting a dangerous look at the pigeon snoozing on Bob’s shoulder. “Use that to ensure it? Sell all other futures for the latest version of the happy ending where you survive?”
“My lady’s already done her part,” Bob said, placing a hand on the pigeon’s feathered back. “She helped me survive you. Now that the veil of my death has finally been lifted, I’m free to use my genius to find us a real way out of this. No cheating required.”
“That sounds dangerously close to desperation,” the Black Reach growled. “Hope is fine for others, Brohomir, but we seers must always embrace reality. If you let what you want to happen blind you to what will happen, you’ll be just as unprepared for the end as they are.”
Bob’s jaw clenched. “Perhaps I am being overly optimistic, but the only other option is to prepare for defeat, and I never could stand losing. You’re the one who taught me that even certain doom isn’t certain until it actually happens, and if there’s any seer who could find a way out of this, it’s me. After all…” His lips curled into a smirk. “I’m the one who beat you.”
The Black Reach didn’t dignify that with a response. He just stood there silently, rolling Marci’s Kosmolabe between his long-fingered hands as the dragons overhead began burning the Leviathan’s tentacles to ash.
***
The sky was chaos.
Though it was technically thin enough to move through, the magic still clung to Julius like glue. Flying through it was like trying to swim through molasses, forcing him to fight with all his strength just to stay airborne. Even after he got the hang of it, it was still a struggle to keep from being sent spinning whenever the bigger dragons blew past him, sometimes much bigger.
So far as he could tell just by looking, the average dragon seemed to be in their mid-hundreds. This meant most of them weren’t much bigger than Gregory, but some were enormous. The Daughters of the Three Sisters in particular filled the sky like a weather front, turning the ruined city into a snowy wonderland as they blasted the Leviathan’s black tentacles with their frosted flame. Conrad dominated as the wing leader of the Heartstriker attack, his enormous size matched only by Bethesda herself, who kept to the center of the pack, shouting orders at her dragons from a safe distance. But as huge as the dragons were, they were nothing compared to the monster they fought.
The first time Julius had crawled up to look at him, the Leviathan’s black body had filled the sky. Now, though, the Nameless End was the sky. Even this high up, Julius could see no end to him. Not even the memory of sunlight got past him now, leaving the city blacker than any night under his shadow. If it hadn’t been for all the dragon fire going off, Julius wouldn’t have been able to see at all. He had no idea how the human pilots were going to manage, but the military flew night missions all the time, so he assumed they must have a way. He just hoped whatever system they used saw well enough to avoid the dragons, because from some of the near misses going on above him, crashing into each other in the dark posed more danger right now than the Leviathan.
“Julius!”
General Jackson’s voice was an explosion in his ear. Her face appeared in his AR a moment later, floating in the sky somewhere off to his left, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her attention was on the screen behind her, which Julius could only see because she’d apparently patched him directly into her own AR.
“Satellites are up,” she said. “We still can’t see through the Leviathan, but from the heat map data, it looks like Lakes Superior and Ontario are already dry. I’m ordering a flyover to be sure, but you should go ahead and tell your dragons to focus on protecting what’s left of Lakes Michigan, Erie, and Huron so we’re not wasting our time defending already lost territory.”
“Understood,” Julius said, looking around at the dragons, who’d already fanned out over the DFZ at astonishing speed. “I’ll spread the word.”
“Roger,” Emily said before her feed cut out.
Julius took a deep breath. Technically, less territory to defend was good considering how much they had to cover, but it was still disheartening to hear they’d already lost two of the five Great Lakes. What he could see of Lake Erie in the distance didn’t look good, either. When he tried shouting to the others to spread the information, though, he realized within a few words that no one could hear him.
As the runt of his clan and a firm believer in staying out of trouble, Julius hadn’t spent much time in his dragon form, and practically none in actual combat. His fight with Gregory had been relatively close quarters, so he’d never realized just how fast a voice—even a dragon’s roaring one—fell off over distance. In the two minutes it had taken him to get up in the air and get the information from the general, the dragons had spread out over several square miles, much too far for his voice to carry. He was desperately trying to think of another way to get the word out when a laughing voice bubbled up in his fire.
Looks like you could use a divine intervention.
Julius almost sobbed with relief when his oldest sister materialized in front of him, her giant dragon body coalescing out of bright-orange-and-red flame that kept burning even after her red feathers had formed. “Sorry to be fashionably late,” Amelia said, spreading her wings to fly beside him. “I had some business on the other side. What’s the deetz?”
“Leviathan’s already eaten two lakes,” Julius replied immediately. “We need to focus on defending Michigan, Erie, and Huron, but I can’t—”
“Say no more,” his sister replied, breathing a lick of fire as she cleared her throat. Then, without warning, she roared, shaking the air and filling his magic with her voice.
Listen up, worms! she bellowed. Thanks to our late start, we’re already down two lakes. Ontario and Superior are Leviathan food, so anyone headed there needs to pick another body of water. I’m not going to bother assigning you all positions because we don’t have that kind of time, so if you’re fighting and you find yourself competing with other dragons for targets, move somewhere else. Likewise, if you’re having trouble covering your area, call for me, and I’ll send someone your way. The humans will be sending us backup in—
She glanced at Julius. “How long until we get jets?” she asked in her normal voice.
He frantically brought up the updated maps the general had shared to his AR. “Two minutes.”
Two minutes, Amelia repeated, the words hammering thorough his fire. Remember, those planes are friends, not food. If I catch any of you being idiots, I’ll snuff your fire on the spot and send you to an idiot’s death. Ignore the Leviathan’s main body as well. Our target is the tentacles. As my brother Justin is already demonstrating—she motioned at Justin’s distinctive flame in the distance, and Julius’s head was suddenly filled with the image of his brother blasting black appendages out of the sky with giant bursts of his green fire—they burn pretty well, but don’t get carried away and waste time trying to turn everything to ash. The only thing we’re up here to do is keep the Leviathan from drinking any more water than he already has, so just focus on stopping the tentacles from reaching the ground, and we should be all good.
Her voice faded from Julius’s fire after that, leaving the actual Amelia smirking at him from behind a wreath of smoke. “That went well,” she said brightly. “You’ve got a line to the Phoenix, right?” When Julius nodded, Amelia rubbed her claws together. “Excellent. You’ll be my wingman. You feed me intel from the ground, I’ll spread it to the troops in between bouts of being a fiery god of death.”
“Sounds good to me,” Julius said, looking nervously at the dozen tentacles he could see in the area immediately surrounding them. “We need all the firepower we can get.”
“Firepower is my middle name,” Amelia said, the words coming out in curls of smoke as fire licked at her fangs. “You might want to get behind me.”
Julius dove at once, darting behind his giant sister seconds before a wave of fire exploded out of her mouth. It was so bright, it whited out Julius’s vision. By the time he could see again, all the tentacles around them were ash, and Amelia was looking very pleased with herself.
“Not bad, not bad,” she said, lifting her eyes to the giant above them. “I wonder if that would work on the big one?”
“But you just told us to ignore the Leviathan’s main body,” Julius reminded her. “And aren’t you the one who said it couldn’t be defeated?”
“Normally, yeah,” Amelia said. “But as I just demonstrated, I’m a god now. Gods don’t follow normal rules.”
“Neither does he,” Julius argued. “Remember what Raven said? The Leviathan is using Algonquin’s magic as a cover to hide his true form from the plane. Underneath that, though, he’s still a Nameless End. If you go inside, he could devour your magic.”
His sister scoffed. “Who said anything about going inside? I’m just going to try and burn a hole in his belly. I bet that would slow the tentacle production rate.” She grinned. “No way to know except to try.”
The idea of getting any closer to the Leviathan than they already were made Julius’s skin crawl. Even this close, he could already feel how alien it was. How hungry. But when he turned to tell his sister that he really didn’t think this was a good idea, Amelia beat her wings, blasting him away.
The wind rolling off her flaming feathers was hot as a furnace and strong as a hurricane, and it got stronger with every flap. All of her was looking bigger, actually. Julius didn’t know if she’d been hiding her true size this whole time or if she was simply whatever size she wanted to be now, but Amelia’s fiery body was already twice as large as Justin’s, her fiery wings spreading until they lit up the entire DFZ. With one flap, she rose a hundred feet, bringing her flaming body directly below the Leviathan’s as she opened her mouth to unleash the brightest gout of dragon fire Julius had ever seen.
He almost turned away too late. Even after he closed his eyes, the blast left him blind, lighting up the dark city like an atomic noon. Amelia’s fire was so powerful, the heat of it curled his feathers and made it hard to breathe even a hundred feet away. He couldn’t see what it was doing to the Leviathan, but it seemed impossible that so much fire would have no effect. Then, just as his hopes were starting to rise, the light snuffed out, and his sister vanished, her fiery form going dark as dozens of black tentacles shot through the air where she’d been.
“Amelia!” Julius cried, dodging frantically as one of the spears shot past him. “Amelia!”
Don’t be dramatic, scolded the voice in his fire. His sister reappeared beside him a few moments later, though in a much smaller form. Her feathers hadn’t even finished firming up when Svena swept in.
“What was that?” the white dragon panted, lowering the temperature several degrees with her frosty breaths. “And did it work?”
“Testing the Leviathan’s resistance,” Amelia replied, her own breaths worryingly short. “And no.” She glanced up at the Leviathan’s black shell, which, despite her incredible display of firepower, looked just as glossy and impenetrable as it had before.
“I don’t understand,” Svena said, pushing back one of the whelps who’d crawled too far up her neck. “I felt that blast all the way to my core. You hit him with the combined force of all dragon fire. Nothing should be immune to that.”
“I don’t think he’s immune,” Amelia said. “I saw my attack do a little damage before he tried to spear me, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped, and I’m afraid that’s kind of my fault.”
“How do you figure that?” Julius asked.
“Being made of sentient magic, spirits aren’t usually bothered by physical weapons,” his sister explained. “For example, you couldn’t hurt Algonquin with a sword. No matter how hard you hit, your blade would just go right through her while she laughed. The reason dragons have never had a problem with this particular defense is because we’re magic too. We’re fighting fire with fire, so to speak, except our fire is from a different plane. That’s why spirits have always seen us as such an enormous threat despite our relatively small numbers. We have a weapon they can’t easily counter: our dragon fire. Unfortunately, when I became the Spirit of Dragons and tied our fire into the magic of this plane, I might have… broken that.”
“What?” Svena shrieked. “I noticed the tentacles were taking longer to burn than they should, but I thought that was just the Nameless End’s influence. I didn’t realize you’d broken our fundamental advantage!”
“Not on purpose!” Amelia cried. “And if I hadn’t tied us all into the magic, we wouldn’t be here to fight at all!”
“We might as well not be,” Svena snapped, jerking her long claws back at the dragons flaming all around them. “Look at how slow everyone’s going! We’re all going to die up here because you neutered our fire!”
Julius didn’t think the assault was going slowly at all. Maybe it wasn’t up to Svena’s standards, but tentacles were still turning to ash at a perfectly acceptable rate, and in any case, “It doesn’t matter,” he said, shoving his body between the two dragonesses, who were both getting dangerously smoky. “We were never planning to assault the Leviathan directly, and we can still burn the part that matters.”
He pointed across the city at the bursts of light where Conrad was burning entire clusters of the Leviathan’s tentacles. “Our only job is to stall that thing long enough for Marci to banish it, and our fire still works fine for that.” He turned back to Svena. “We’re still on target, so please go back to your sisters and help protect Lake Erie. Also,” his voice grew pleading, “please put your children down somewhere safe. I know bringing whelps into battle is an ancient dragon tradition, but it’s terrifying to watch.”
“Terrifying for a weak dragon like you, perhaps,” Svena said with a sniff. “But my children are strong. When we survive, they will treasure this memory. Anyway, there’s nowhere else to put them. The ground is just as dangerous, so they might as well be with me.”
Julius wasn’t sure about that. Now that the attacks had started, the Leviathan was sending down more tentacles than ever, except this time, not all of them were going for the water. Several were aimed at the dragons, including one that was flying right at Svena’s back. Before he could warn her, a blast of fire scorched the incoming attack out of the sky, and then Ian swooped down beside them.
At least, it smelled like Ian. Julius had never seen his brother’s dragon, which was oddly dark with deep reddish-brown feathers like a falcon’s. But there was no other Heartstriker with eyes that rich brown color, and if that wasn’t a big enough tip-off, the angry, possessive way he was staring at Svena banished all doubt.
For several moments, Svena looked just as shocked as Julius felt. Then her eyes narrowed. “I don’t recall asking for your help,” she said icily.
“You didn’t need it,” Ian agreed, his voice as cold as hers. “But they did.” He nodded at the whelps on Svena’s back, who were staring at him with huge blue eyes. “You can easily survive a direct hit. They cannot. Therefore, considering the number of tentacles in the sky, I think the best tactical move would be to divide them between us. That way, if one of us goes down, all of our children won’t be lost.”
“How very practical,” Svena said.
“Our entire relationship has been practical,” Ian reminded her. “That’s why I treasured you. I thought we understood each other. You were the one who changed.”
“I did not change!” she snarled. “Your family took my rival and betrayed me! I had every right to be enraged!”
“But not without me,” Ian said, getting closer. “I would have fought them with you, Svena, and I don’t fear your rage. It’s part of what attracted me to you in the first place. You should have known that and kept me close. Instead, you shut me out. That was your choice to make, but you have no right to keep my children from me.”
Svena looked extremely distressed by that, and Amelia rolled her eyes. “Can’t you two save the custody battle for when the world isn’t ending?” she snapped, glaring at Svena. “Just take him with you and work it out on the battlefield or something. I don’t care what you do so long as you do it on the move, because while you two were bickering, the rest of your clan was falling behind.”
The cluster of white dragons in the distance was looking a bit harried, and Svena sighed. “Ian,” she said primly. “Your idiot sister makes a good point. I admit I was hasty in my decisions before, but—”
“Hasty?” Ian growled. “You freaked out over assumed information, broke our treaties, stole my children, and locked me out in a magical apocalypse after I flew all the way to Siberia to talk to you!” He crossed his short forefeet in front of him. “I deserve an apology, but since part of the reason I admire you is because you never give those, I’ll settle for full reinstatement as your consort and a life debt.”
Amelia whooped with laughter as Svena’s eyes grew wide. “Scale’s on the other foot now, snowball!”
“Shut up, fire chicken,” Svena snapped, but she really did look nervous as she watched Ian. Then, finally, she nodded, and the binding magic of the life debt landed on all of them like frozen teeth.
Ian sucked in a breath as the cold struck him, and his face split into a triumphant smile. “There,” he said, reaching out to the whelps, who happily leaped to him, their little noses quivering as they sniffed his feathers. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“That was amazing!” Amelia cackled, grinning at Svena, who looked ready to blast her in the face again. “Svena giving a life debt to her lover! Now I know the world is ending.”
Julius was feeling the same way, but not because of Svena and Ian. The whole time they’d been talking, he’d been watching the battle—both with his eyes and on the radar screen his com had picked up from the incoming jets. From what he could tell, their end of the fight was going as well as he could have hoped. Justin was having the time of his life blasting endless targets to his violent heart’s content, Conrad was a powerhouse, and the Golden Emperor had all of Lake Michigan on lockdown, leading his dragons in such perfect harmony, it looked as if they’d choreographed the whole thing in advance.
But while the Golden Empire was hands down the best, they weren’t alone. All the dragons were fighting together rather than with each other. Even Gregory was fighting. The clanless dragons were a little far away, but Julius had seen enough of Gregory’s fire to know it anywhere, and it was pushing just as strong as the others. So far as he could see, everyone was doing their part, including the wing of planes that had just arrived over Lake Erie. The humans had just entered the fight, but already they were shooting down tentacles almost as fast as the dragons were, and—more importantly—not shooting dragons. It was incredible, the greatest display of unity he’d ever seen or heard of.
And it wasn’t working.
No matter how fast they burned them, the Leviathan’s tentacles always came back faster. Destroy one, and two more would pop up in its place, shooting down at the tiny pools of water like kamikaze bombers. For every one they caught before it touched the ground, another got through, sucking up gallons of water before their forces could destroy it. Julius knew their efforts had to be slowing down the Leviathan’s consumption compared to when he’d been drinking unhindered, but he couldn’t shake the horrifying feeling that they weren’t actually making much of a difference, and what progress they were achieving was coming at a heavy cost.
As he’d seen with Amelia and Svena, the Leviathan’s tentacles were no longer just going for water. Several were actively attacking dragons now, swatting them out of the air every time they left an opening. So far, everyone he’d seen get hit had come back up, but the damage was evident in their slowed wings and uneven flight. He’d come into this knowing it would be a battle of attrition, but as he watched it unfold, Julius became more and more worried that they were already on the losing end of it.
Please, he thought silently, turning toward the western edge of the city where he could still smell a hint of Marci’s scent. Please, Marci, hurry.
He was still begging when a huge, slimy tentacle smacked him from behind, sending him spinning through the air.