Chapter 15
Marci was drowning in bloody water, and she didn’t even care. She fought the current dragging her down with everything she had, kicking and screaming out all the air in her lungs as she lunged for the dragon she could still barely see silhouetted by the fiery glow above her. She was still reaching for him when the fire vanished, and she burst gasping from a puddle of freezing water hidden in the wreckage by the base of Algonquin’s Tower.
She immediately tried to dive again, screaming at Julius that she was coming back, and he’d better not be dead when she got there. She was throwing her body at the shallow water when a cold hand grabbed her wrist.
“Enough, mortal.”
Marci’s head shot up to see Algonquin standing over her. Her watery body was clear again, as blue and deep as her lake with no trace of the precious blood she’d taken them through to get here.
“Take me back!” Marci demanded, grabbing the spirit with both hands. “I have to save Julius!”
“You can’t,” Algonquin said, flowing around Marci’s grip. “He’s dead.” Her voice began to quiver. “A dragon died for me.”
She spoke the words in wonder, but Marci refused to hear them. The Lady of the Lakes was wrong. Julius couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible. She’d just gotten him back. Nothing was that unfair.
Marci.
She shoved Ghost’s soft voice out of her mind, falling to her knees in the mud beside the puddle that was all that remained of Lake St. Clair. She didn’t want to listen to anyone. She didn’t even care if she died anymore. Everything she wanted was with Julius. She just wanted to go back to where he was and—
Marci!
“Mortal!” Algonquin shouted at the same time, snatching Marci back into the water a split-second ahead of the tentacle that fell from the sky to consume the puddle they’d emerged from. They surfaced again a few moments later, popping out of another, even smaller puddle at the far edge of the lake.
“Hurry!” Algonquin cried as Marci coughed up water on the muddy lake bed. “We have to keep moving!”
But there was nowhere to run. The lake bed was a dry bowl around them, and the shadow of the Leviathan was directly overhead, its constantly roving tentacles turning as one to focus their hooked ends on the spirit cowering in her last inch of water.
“Algonquin.”
It was like hearing an earthquake speak. The name vibrated in Marci’s bones, making her whole body ache. Algonquin was shaking too, her water rippling in a million little spikes as the tentacles drew closer, coiling together into a single huge mass that fell around the two of them like a noose.
“Return,” the Leviathan boomed. “Now.”
Algonquin pulled her muddy water tight. “I will not.”
“The time for rebellion is over,” the Nameless End said. “Your surrender was accepted. You have no more voice. No more power.” The black noose tightened. “Return to me now.”
“I will not!” Algonquin cried, her watery voice ringing as she surged up from her last shore. “I am done being a fool! The victory you offered was nothing but defeat by another name. I’m ashamed it took me so long to see that, but I will correct that mistake now.” She rose higher still, pulling everything that was left of her water from the mud and the dirt until she was a pillar of blue inside the ring of black. “I reject you, Leviathan! I revoke your name and your privilege in this world! You are no longer welcome in my waters! Be gone, devourer, and never return!”
She spoke the words like a banishment, but though they rang beautiful and clear through the still air, nothing happened. There was only silence, followed by a rumble that shook the ground as the Devourer of Worlds began to laugh.
“It is far too late for that. You were the greatest spirit of this land. Now, you are nothing but mud on the ground. Your water is already mine, great Algonquin, as is the name you gave me when you welcomed me in. You have no power over either anymore, just as you have no power over me.”
Lying in the now bone-dry dirt, Marci sucked in a terrified breath. For all Julius’s hopes that Algonquin was the key to winning this, the Nameless End still sounded like he had all the cards. But though the Leviathan was laughing at her, Algonquin stood defiant, her water shimmering in the dark of his shadow.
“That is where you are wrong,” she said triumphantly. “You may have all the power, but so long as even the memory of them exists, these lakes are and shall forever be mine. Their water will always belong to me, and now that I am no longer shackled with your presence, I am free to call them home.”
The world rumbled as she finished, forcing Marci to scramble to her feet as all the water left in the empty basins—the mud, the drips from the sodden water plants, the blood left in the rotting bodies of the fish—rose from its hiding places to answer its Lady’s call. Each stream was tiny, barely more than a few drops, but together they made a torrent, swelling Algonquin’s pillar until its swirling edges pushed right up against the ring of the Leviathan’s tentacles.
“You are the one who has no power here, outsider!” Algonquin’s voice cried from every drop. “Everything you’ve ever claimed was stolen from me. Now, you will give it back!”
Her cry ended with an explosion. High overhead, the black body of the Leviathan bulged and ruptured as millions of gallons of water—the entire contents of the Great Lakes—burst from its sides. The lakes poured out in a thousand deafening waterfalls, the white cascades slamming into the dry beds and filling the empty river. The roar of it was so loud, Marci couldn’t hear herself think. Even Ghost’s voice in her head was drowned out as the surging water refilling Lake St. Clair rushed up her body. But just as Marci’s head was about to vanish under the churning tide, hard, cold hands grabbed her and yanked, lifting her body high above the waves as Algonquin’s voice crashed through them.
“Now, Merlin!” the spirit cried, frantic and triumphant. “Push!”
For a terrifying second, Marci had no idea what that meant. Then she felt it. The water wasn’t the only thing rising. Magic was building around Algonquin, and not just on this side. Through her connection to Ghost, Marci could feel the wave rising in the Sea of Magic as well. It swelled larger by the second, growing even larger than the lakes as millions of spirits—none of whom should have been up so soon—rose from their vessels once again to join with Algonquin, adding their rage to hers until the entire world yelled in one voice.
GET OUT!
It came from Ghost and from Algonquin, from Raven and Amelia, from every spirit of every sort. Even Marci screamed it as she grabbed the magic and shoved, adding her strength to the rest as the whole plane pushed in unison against the predator trying to eat it.
GET OUT!
The Nameless End roared in the sky, its tentacles digging into the ground as it fought to stay anchored, but without Algonquin’s stolen water giving it weight, its roots were no longer strong enough. As Marci pushed and pushed, channeling magic until her soul felt like it was burning, she swore she could feel the plane itself twisting, the dimensional walls closing in on the crack the Nameless End had squeezed itself through. With each push, the hole grew smaller and smaller, and as it shrank, the End began to fade, its impenetrable body turning back to shadow, then to empty sky. Then, with a final deafening pop, the Leviathan’s presence vanished entirely, and the planar barrier snapped back into place with a crack, healthy and strong and whole, as it always should have been.
The second it was over, all the roaring magic slid away. The waves on both sides slumped as all the powers drained back into their respective vessels. Marci slumped as well, her body sinking into the freezing, choppy water of the refilled Lake St. Clair before Ghost—back in his warrior form at last—caught her in a bear hug.
“We did it!” the spirit cried, spinning her up and out of the water on his newly restrengthened wind. “Can’t you feel it, Marci? He’s gone! The roots, the tendrils, even his stench, they’re all gone!”
Her spirit’s joy flooded her mind as he spoke, but Marci barely felt it. Now that it was over, her eyes were locked on the sky where the Leviathan had been. The empty sky, where the most important person in her life had just been lost forever.
Marci couldn’t look at anything after that. She turned away with a sob, burying her face in the darkness of Ghost’s chest, which was why she didn’t see the tiny ribbon of blue tumbling down from behind the evening clouds, or the large dragon with feathers brighter than a bird of paradise’s that flew up to catch it.
***
Brohomir was flying faster than he’d ever gone in his life. He shot through the air where the Leviathan had been, wings pumping harder and harder as he raced to catch Julius’s plummeting body before it hit the ground. If it hit, every chance of his future was gone, but if Bob could catch him…
He put on a burst of speed, folding his wings like a dart as he reached out with his claws to snatch his baby brother’s body out of the air. Julius’s bloody feathers began to crack and turn to ash the moment he touched them. Bob wasn’t sure what that meant now that Amelia had tied their magic to this plane, but ash was never good. He’d set this whole thing up on the slimmest of long shots with none of his usual groundwork, but Julius had always been a lucky little dragon. He’d just have to hope the streak held.
“Now, my love,” he whispered, pulling his brother’s body against his much larger chest before Julius could crumble any further. “Do it now!”
I cannot.
The pigeon was hovering in front of him, but just like that first time, it was the Nameless End he saw in his mind, boundless and dark. Final. Now as then, the words in his mind held the indelible weight of unavoidable end. This time, though, the sadness in her voice was personal.
I’m afraid you were a few seconds too late. The future you seek is now so unlikely, I’m afraid the price we agreed on will no longer be enough.
“Then I will pay more,” Bob replied without hesitation, looking down at his brother. “Of all the dragons I’ve used, he deserved it least. I crushed his hopes, betrayed his trust at every turn, but through all of it, he never abandoned me. I will not abandon him now.” He tightened his claws, closing his eyes as more of Julius’s feathers cracked and fell to ash. “Whether we’re buying futures or setting them up ourselves, someone always pays. I’ve avoided my bill for a long, long time, but this time, the most important time, it will be me.”
With that, he offered it all, opening the entire breadth of the futures he’d seen to her, but the Nameless End shook her head.
It is not enough.
For the first time in his life, Brohomir began to despair. “No,” he said, voice shaking. “It’s all I have. It has to be enough.”
I’m sorry, she said, but you cannot buy the future you wish with what you have to offer. Her beady eyes flashed. At least, not alone.
Bob jerked in surprise, but the Nameless End just cooed sweetly, swooping in to rub her head against the feathers of his neck. You kept your promise, Brohomir of the Heartstrikers, she whispered. It was a good story. I have been handsomely rewarded for my gamble all those years ago. Now, I too will pay my portion to help you end it well.
She swooped away, her little body floating on the wind until she was hovering right in front of his eyes, and as she flew, Bob’s futures began to disappear. They vanished one by one, plucked like flowers by an invisible hand. Not all of them, just the ones he’d marked for sale back when he’d thought he was being fiendishly clever. It was still a lot, though not nearly enough, but just as he began to worry something was wrong, Bob realized her futures were fading too.
All the futures they’d shared, the thousands of years they could have lived together were disappearing one by one. Each loss felt like a cut, but when he instinctively reached out to stop her, Julius’s body slipped from his grasp. He caught his brother again at once, cradling the little dragon protectively to his chest as the last of the futures—his and hers—vanished, leaving him facing the unknown for the first time since he was thirteen. He was still staring hopelessly at the abyss when he felt feathers brush against his face.
The price is paid, his End said, her voice huge in the way he’d experienced only once before. The future is bought. The brushing feathers moved closer as the pigeon gave him a final peck on the cheek. Thank you for sharing your present with me.
Then she was gone, her touch vanishing like the shadow it always had been, and in the place where she’d been was a short, golden chain.
Bob grabbed it out of the air with a snap of his teeth and shoved it into Julius. The golden links vanished the moment they touched his bloody feathers, and then Bob was knocked out of the sky as the new future forced its way into place. The sudden jolt caused even more of Julius’s body to crumble to ash, but as he felt apart, Bob finally spotted what he’d been waiting for. In the center of Julius’s chest, an ember was still glowing.
The last ember.
That was all Bob had time to make out before he opened his mouth and engulfed them both in fire. Not normal fire, but life’s fire, the core of the flame that made him a dragon. He breathed as much as he could force out, breathed until his heart stuttered and his wings faltered. Then, just as the world started to go dark around him, he felt something flare.
That flash of hope was the last thing Bob saw before his fire ran out. Without even enough magic left to fly, he began to plummet, wrapping his wings around what was left of his brother as they crashed into the churning water of Lake St. Clair, which, much to Bob’s surprise, rose up to catch them.
***
“Bob!”
The scream made Marci jump. She hadn’t had the presence of mind for anything but weeping, but Ghost must have carried her to shore at some point, because when she looked up, they were standing on the wreckage-strewn beach where Algonquin’s lake met her Reclamation Land. Marci was still trying to figure out what was going on when a shadow whooshed over her head, followed by Chelsie’s black-feathered body as the enormous dragon landed in the sand right beside her.
“Marci, help me!” the dragon yelled, her green eyes frantic. “Algonquin just ate Bob!”
“What?” Marci said, blinking slowly as the absurdity of that statement pushed its way through her grief. “What do you mean she ate Bob?”
“I mean her water reached up and grabbed him out of the sky!” Chelsie snarled, the words coming out in dangerous puffs of smoke. “You were just talking to her. Make her cough him up now, or I’ll…”
She trailed off, the smoke fading from her breath. Across the beach, the cloudy blue water in front of them was parting, the waves giving way to dry land as a woman made of water walked out to meet them. She moved slowly, dragging the lake water behind her like a train. It wasn’t until Algonquin knelt in front of them, though, that Marci saw why. The spirit wasn’t trailing water. She was carrying a dragon.
Bob’s multicolored body was cradled in her water. He was curled up so tightly, his feathered tail was wrapped around his nose. He didn’t move when the spirit released him, or when Chelsie charged toward him across the exposed lake bed. It wasn’t until Marci ran over as well that the seer finally unclenched himself enough to reveal what he was cradling in his claws.
It was a fire. A sputtering yellow-and-green flame no bigger than a candle’s. But despite its tiny size, the warmth it gave off was strong. Strong and familiar, a heat Marci would know anywhere.
Julius.
“What did you do?” Chelsie roared, her fangs dripping fire as she turned on Algonquin. “I swear, spirit, I will set your lakes afire if you—”
“It wasn’t her,” Bob gasped, coughing up water as he struggled to his feet. “It wasn’t Algonquin, Chelsie.”
“Then who did this?” his sister demanded.
Bob was still coughing too much to answer, so Algonquin spoke for him.
“Julius did.”
The spirit spoke slowly, lifting her face to reveal a fall of water so sorrowful, there was no human expression that could match it. “He gave his life to save me, to give me a second chance.” Her water dropped as she finished, and then Algonquin bowed, dipping so low before the flicker of Julius’s fire, she nearly merged with the mud. “A mortal’s life is the greatest treasure they possess. Being immortal, I have no death to give in return, but I…” Her beautiful voice began to shake. “I am sorry. For what I’ve done. For what I put all of you through. For my selfishness and anger, I am sorry.”
The words were soft, but they darted through the quiet air like fish, because they weren’t just for Julius. Algonquin was apologizing to her own banks and creatures, and to those watching beyond. Now that things were quiet, Marci could feel them all around. The little faces peeking from the grass and mud, the birds that landed in the reeds and trees and the deer that watched fearfully from the woods beyond—the Lady of the Lakes was apologizing to all of them. She might even have been apologizing to the dragons. If that was the case, though, it fell on deaf ears, because Chelsie was already rushing back to the shore where the Qilin was waiting with their daughter on his golden back.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I have to get Amelia,” Chelsie said quickly, spreading her wings for takeoff. “She’s the one who knows the most about preserving dragon fire. You stay with Bob. Don’t let Julius go out before—”
A blast of wind cut her off, knocking Chelsie back to the beach. Even Marci was blown off her feet as a black shadow appeared above them. It happened so suddenly, her first horrible thought was that the Leviathan was back. When she looked up, though, she realized she was only partially right. It was a giant monster from another plane, just not the one they’d been fighting.
“Brohomir!”
“Oh dear,” Bob said, closing his claws protectively around Julius’s sputtering flame as he lifted his head to face the Black Reach, who was hovering above them like a weather front.
“Ungrateful seer!” the construct thundered, black smoke pouring from his mouth. “I showed you mercy! I gave you my fire! I spent uncounted thousands of years of my power to cover your wager, and this is how you repay me?”
“Well, technically, I didn’t do it for you,” Bob said. “You see—”
“Spare me your excuses,” the Black Reach snarled. “There was one thing you could not do. One thing, and you stuck your snout right in it! I haven’t even had a chance to look and see which futures you sold, but I felt you do it. You have committed the one crime I can never forgive, and now I have no choice but to kill you!” He slammed his tail into the lake, splashing water so high into the air, it froze. “Do you know what I went through to spare you? How hard it was to fight ten thousand years of programming to do what I felt was actually right? Why did you put me through all that if you were just going to betray me now?”
“Because I also had to do what was right,” Bob said with a shrug. “And for the record, I don’t regret it at all. Especially since you’re not going to kill me this time, either.”
“There, you are wrong,” the Black Reach snarled, reaching out his charter-bus-sized claws. “There’s no escape this time, Brohomir of the Heartstrikers. You’ve already done what can never be forgiven, and from the number of futures I can no longer see, you did it to the hilt. I don’t know what you got in return, but it certainly wasn’t your survival, because every future I see has your life ending right here.”
“Then I’d suggest you look again,” Bob said. “Because I know for a fact that you can’t kill me.”
The construct growled in frustration, but he must have been at least a little bit curious, because he asked, “And how is that?”
“Because you are the death of seers,” Bob replied. “And I am no longer a seer.”
The giant dragon froze. “What?”
“I’m no longer a seer,” Bob repeated. “I still have my powers, but I gave up every future where I use them in exchange for this.” He held up his claws, opening them just enough so the Black Reach could see the precious fire hidden inside.
The eldest seer squinted. “Is that Julius?”
“My littlest brother,” Bob said, nodding. “He was the axis around which I built the machine that saved the world. We all owe him our futures, including you, but since I’m the one who set everything up, it only felt fair that I be the one to foot the bill this time around. The fact that this selfless act of brotherhood also conveniently puts me outside of your jurisdiction is merely a convenient coincidence.”
“It is never coincidence with you,” the Black Reach snarled, looming close. “You planned this.”
“Actually, I planned a lot less than this,” Bob said, his voice strangely thick. “My lady and I worked this cleverness out together, as we do all things. When the moment came, though, the price was higher than we expected, and I did not have enough. I would have given everything, I owed Julius that much, but my lady spotted me the difference.” His voice began to shake. “An End sacrificed her one present to give us a chance at a better future. Surely you can appreciate the poetry in that?”
“There is no appreciation that can save you now,” the Black Reach snarled. “Even if the only futures sold were your own and a Nameless End’s, you still crossed the line, and for that you must die.”
“Why?” Bob demanded. “Your purpose is to stop seers before they sell our futures. That’s why you had to kill Estella even though her initial deal wasn’t on our plane, because we both knew she’d never stop until I was dead. I’m a different case entirely. I can’t sell a future ever again. I gave that power away to save my brother’s life, so what would killing me accomplish?” He shrugged. “Nothing. I’m now the safest seer you could ever ask for, because I am now physically incapable of breaking your rules. If anything, you should be thanking me for this. Not only did I save your favorite dragon’s life, but with me no longer able to meddle in the future and Chelsie’s daughter not due to have her first vision until she hits puberty, I’ve bought you a decade of vacation. When was the last time you got that?”
He finished with a toothy grin, but the Black Reach looked unamused. “It doesn’t matter if the ends were good, the means you employed go directly against my purpose. I cannot let that go without punishment.”
“Without punishment?” Bob cried. “I gave up my powers! Do you know how good a seer I was? I beat Estella, who was two thousand years older than I was, at her own game! I orchestrated the plot that saved the world! I beat you! No one is ever going to top that, and I just gave it away!”
Chelsie rolled her eyes. “So much for modesty.”
“It’s the truth,” Bob snapped. “I’m amazing, and you know it. By losing my powers now, I’m quitting at my peak. That’s punishment enough for the entire world.”
“Enough,” the Black Reach growled, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I don’t have time for your antics. I used up more of my fire today than I have in the last ten thousand years combined. I should use more to punish you, but while you absolutely deserve to die, I have decided to postpone your execution.”
It might have been Marci’s imagination, but she would have sworn Bob shuddered in relief. “Good choice,” he said when he’d recovered, though not nearly as casually as he’d probably meant. “Saw things my way, did you?”
“No,” the Black Reach said, and then the enormous dragon faded away, leaving only the tall Chinese man wearing the same black silk robe he’d worn every time Marci had seen him.
“The decision is strictly practical,” the now human—and very tired-looking—construct continued. “Right now, your magic is the only thing keeping Julius Heartstriker’s fire burning. If I kill you, he will die as well, and I didn’t just spend half my fire protecting his futures to lose them now. Even if I wait until he’s stable to kill you, though, doing so will burn through too much of my remaining power, and I simply don’t have the fire to spare. Already, my flames are critically low. I need to rest and regroup what little remains if I am to survive. That demands several quiet decades, and I’m sure those will be much easier to obtain if I’m only dealing with one new seer instead of two.” He reached out to tap Bob on the snout. “Right now, the male incarnation of the dragon seers is still locked up in you, even if you can’t use it. If I kill you, that power will be reborn into a new fire, which means I’ll have to scramble all over again, and I just don’t have that sort of energy.”
“Now you really do sound like an old man,” Bob said with a chuckle. “A venerable and wise one, who sees the world clearly through his lens of vast experience.”
The construct rolled his eyes at the fawning recovery and stepped closer still, looking up at Bob’s dripping dragon with the stoic finality of a judge pronouncing a verdict. “Brohomir of the Heartstrikers, consider yourself lucky. You are still sentenced to death, but for practical reasons, including the fact that you are currently not a risk to the futures of dragonkind, your execution is commuted until I recover. Or until you annoy me too much.”
Bob’s face split into a triumphant grin. “Nonsense. You’d get bored without me.”
The Black Reach’s eyes narrowed, and Bob quickly backed down. “Thank you for your mercy, great construct,” he said meekly. “I should probably take Julius to Amelia now.”
“That would be best,” the Black Reach agreed, glancing at the dragons watching from the shore. “Any more coincidences I should know about before I go?”
“No,” Bob said, looking worriedly at the tiny flame in his claws. “But if you could spare a teensy, tiny bit more of that fantastic fire, I think we might need it. Julius was always small, but this is a terrifyingly dim fire, even for a runt.”
The Black Reach’s scowl softened at that.
“I’ll see what I can do.”