Chapter 3
Julius woke with a start.
He was still in Bob’s chair, curled in a ball around Marci’s bag. He didn’t smell any threat, but his heart was pounding in his chest. That usually happened after a bad dream, but he didn’t remember having one. He was writing it off as stress, pulling up his blanket again to go back to sleep, when he remembered he hadn’t had a blanket when he’d fallen asleep. He was groggily trying to make sense of how one had magically appeared on top of him when he heard the soft clink of china directly beside his ear.
This time, Julius jumped out of the chair completely. He landed on his feet in a crouch with Marci’s bag under one arm, Amelia’s ashes in the other, and both hands raised to defend himself from whatever was in the room with him. When he looked frantically for the threat, though, all he saw was a familiar tall dragon in an impeccably neat black suit attempting to fit a large breakfast tray onto Bob’s crowded desk.
“Good morning, sir,” Fredrick said without looking up from the loaded tray he was balancing on the table’s corner. “Did you sleep well?”
Julius stared at him blankly for a good thirty seconds, and then he collapsed back into the chair. “Don’t do that,” he gasped, clutching his chest, which his poor heart was currently trying to pound its way through. “What are you doing here?”
“Serving you breakfast,” the F said as he finally got the tray steady. “Or attempting to. With all the trouble in the mountain and no Fs around to check attendance, hardly any of the human staff showed up for work this morning. The kitchen was entirely abandoned, so I had to make do with whatever I could find. I’m not quite as good a chef as my sister, but I think I managed.”
From the glorious spread of toast, jam, eggs, and other breakfast items, Julius thought Fredrick had done a lot better than merely “managed,” but that wasn’t what he was concerned about.
“I don’t mean the food,” he snapped, pushing himself up again. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be free!”
“I am free,” Fredrick said sharply. “That’s why I’m here.”
Before Julius could ask what he meant by that, the dragon dropped gracefully to his knees. His hands hit the floor next, and then Fredrick bowed down, lowering his head until his short hair brushed the stone at Julius’s feet.
“Great Julius,” he said solemnly. “My siblings and I owe you more than we can ever repay. You fought for my clutch’s freedom against the will of Brohomir and the Heartstriker herself. Because of you, we have flown free as dragons for the first time in our lives. But as joyful as I am at this, I cannot be at ease knowing how much my siblings and I owe to you. Therefore, as the eldest, I swear on my fire and my life to serve you faithfully until our clutch’s debt is repaid.”
He bowed lower when he finished, pressing his forehead flush against the floor before rising smoothly back to his feet. He’d already turned to the breakfast tray to start arranging a plate by the time Julius found his voice again.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I assure you, I am not,” Fredrick said, picking up a white porcelain mug. “Tea or coffee? You never mentioned which you prefer to be served, so I brought both.”
“Neither,” Julius snapped. “And I don’t want you to serve me! The whole reason I did this was so you could be free to live your own life!”
“I am living my own life,” the F said angrily, turning to glare down at him. “That’s why I’m here. Because I know that I can’t live under this debt.”
“But there’s no debt. You don’t owe me—”
“You freed us from six hundred years of slavery under Bethesda,” Fredrick said, staring at him in horror. “What would you have me do? Run away and ignore what we owe?”
“Yes!” Julius yelled at him. “Go! Run! Fly away! Enjoy being a free dragon. That’s what I freed you for, so you could finally escape this place. If you want to repay me, go do that.”
By the time he finished, Fredrick looked dangerously insulted. “With all due respect, sir, your estimation of debts is a joke. The whole clan knows you let Bethesda off practically for free. But while softhearted leniency is your right as clan head, I am not so lacking in pride that I will accept it for myself or my siblings. That’s why I swore on my own fire rather than offering you a life debt. I knew you would refuse it, that you would attempt to be nice. But this is not a matter of kindness, Great Julius. My clutch might be at the bottom of Heartstriker, but we have always had our honor. I will not allow you to make a mockery of that now with your misplaced pity.”
Julius sighed so hard it hurt. “That’s not what I—”
“You gave me freedom,” Fredrick said over him. “But I’ve been a servant my entire life. It’s all I know how to be. The difference is that now, thanks to you, my service is mine to give, and I choose to give it to you. If you don’t wish me to serve you in this way, I’ll find another, but I will repay our debt to my satisfaction, and you have no right to stop me.”
He was growling deep in his throat by the time he finished, and his eyes—which looked an even brighter green than usual this morning for some reason—had narrowed to deadly slits. It was the same look Julius’s other siblings got when they were threatening to eat him, only much worse, because now that he was unsealed, Julius could feel for the first time just how big a dragon Fredrick was.
Not that that was a total surprise—F was pretty high up the Heartstriker alphabet—but the reveal was still way more than he’d been prepared for, and the fact that Fredrick’s human form was so much taller than his definitely wasn’t helping. The oldest F loomed over him in every way, and as much as Julius hated the idea of debts, especially ones that involved serving, he didn’t see how he was getting out of this without starting a fight he couldn’t win.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He was still wearing his Fang. But while the sword would stop Fredrick from physically attacking, it couldn’t do anything to solve the real problem, which was draconic pride. Now that Fredrick had equated leniency with pity, he would fight any efforts to lessen his burden to the death. That left Julius with two options: challenge his brother, or give up and accept his service. The first was too stupid to consider, but as bad as the second made Julius feel, he had to admit it would be nice to have a dragon who was entirely on his side. And that breakfast tray did look awfully good.
“Okay,” he said, slumping back in his chair. “I accept your service, but if you’re going to work for me, I have some rules. Rule one, no bowing. You’re a dragon in the new Heartstriker now, and you lower your head to no one. Rule two, no heroics.” He drummed his fingers against the sword at his side. “I have this to protect me from any threat, but you can be hurt, and I’m telling you right now I won’t count any unnecessary injuries against your debt.”
“I would never be so cheap,” Fredrick said, insulted. “But your Fang only protects you from other Heartstrikers. As your servant, I reserve the right to defend you against enemies from outside the clan.”
Seeing how Julius had zero intention of getting into an altercation with outside powers, that seemed like a decent compromise. “Deal,” he said with a nod. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Fredrick said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’ve vowed to serve you and your interests, but in the brief time I’ve known you, you’ve displayed a near-suicidal level of disinterest in your own well-being. Therefore, since you are clearly a terrible judge of your own best interests, I will be ignoring any orders I feel are not in your actual service.”
Julius had lived with dragons long enough to know that that was a dangerously open-ended agreement, but it wasn’t as though he could actually tell Fredrick what to do. Whatever he said, the F was just going to do his own thing, and Julius hadn’t wanted to give him orders in the first place. Either way, it wasn’t worth arguing over, so he just nodded again, holding out his hand. “Welcome aboard.”
The F shook his hand with a triumphant smile, dipping his head just low enough that Julius couldn’t call him out for bowing before turning back to the breakfast tray. “Biscuit or toast?”
“Both,” Julius said eagerly. “And tea is fine. I don’t like the smell of coffee.”
That was a lie. Julius loved the smell of coffee. Especially Marci’s, which was the problem. Even the faint scent from the sealed carafe on Fredrick’s tray was enough to trigger memories that he couldn’t deal with after last night, and he turned away with a grimace. “Get rid of it, please.”
Fredrick arched a curious eyebrow, but he didn’t say a word. He just picked up the insulated pot and carried it out to the hall while Julius poured himself a cup of tea with lots of cream.
From there, breakfast was surprisingly pleasant. Despite Fredrick’s insistence that he was a mediocre cook, his eggs and bacon were much better than anything Julius could have managed on his own. There was plenty to be had, too, which was good. Julius hadn’t eaten a proper meal since the last time Fredrick had fed him after the fight with Gregory. But wrong as it felt to be served by one of the dragons he’d worked so hard to free, a guilty part of Julius was very happy Fredrick was here. After so much conflict and sorrow, it was nice to have company, and once he stopped growling at Julius about debts, the F snapped back to his usual dry, witty self. Even in the bizarre surroundings of Bob’s hoarded room, it was enough to make Julius relax for the first time in ages.
At least until he heard the familiar footsteps banging down the hall.
Julius closed his eyes with a long sigh. He barely had time to put down his fork before someone started pounding on the door to Bob’s room like they were trying to break it down. Fredrick didn’t even have time to get over there before the door slammed open, and Justin stomped into the room.
“There you are,” he snarled, going straight for Julius. “I was looking everywhere for…” He trailed off when he saw the tray and Fredrick, and then his eyes went wide. “No fair!” he cried. “Why do you still have an F? No one else got one!”
Fredrick stiffened, and Julius put a hand over his face. “Justin…”
“I volunteered to serve the Great Julius,” Fredrick said, his scornful voice sharp enough to cut. “The rest of my clutch is free to do as they please.”
“Oh, well, good thing I’m the Great Julius’s knight, then,” Justin said, walking eagerly over to the tray. “Are those blueberry muffins?”
He was reaching for pastries when Fredrick smacked his hand. “I serve the Great Julius only,” he said in a deadly voice. “If you wish to eat, the kitchen is downstairs.”
Justin’s answer to that was to bare his teeth, and Julius leaped to intervene before something got bitten off. “You can have mine,” he said, offering Justin his plate. “I can’t eat all of this, and I would hate for Fredrick’s work to go to waste.”
“I’d rather it go to waste than to him,” Fredrick growled as Justin took the plate. “He might be your full brother, but now that I’m free to say it, you should know that the Knight of the Heartstrikers is a spoiled, undisciplined, ungrateful—”
“That’s how it is, eh?” Justin said, looking Fredrick straight in the eyes as he plucked a muffin off Julius’s plate and shoved it into his mouth. “You want to show off your freedom, Freddy? I’m game. I’ll take you anytime, anywhere. I win, you cook for me for a month.”
For a terrifying moment, Fredrick looked like he was actually going to take that bet, but he never got the chance. Julius grabbed his Fang before the F could get a growl out, freezing both dragons in place.
“That’s enough,” he said firmly, glaring at both of them. “We’ve got plenty of enemies already. Let’s not give them a head start by biting chunks out of each other.”
Neither dragon looked happy about that, but eventually, they both relaxed enough for the Fang’s magic to let them go. Julius held on to his sword a bit longer anyway, just to be sure. When he was certain no one was going to do anything too stupid, he turned back to Justin. “Why were you looking for me?”
“Do I need a reason?” Justin said, pausing to scrape the rest of Julius’s loaded plate into his mouth, where he swallowed it all in one impressive gulp. “I’m your knight. My place is at your side. I would’ve been here sooner, but that hack of a doctor wouldn’t let me out of the infirmary.”
That was worrisome. True, Chelsie had eviscerated him during the fight in the treasury, but that was days ago, and this was Justin. He never took more than twenty-four hours to heal from anything. “Why were you still in the infirmary?”
“Nothing serious,” Justin said casually, grabbing another muffin off the tray before Fredrick could stop him. “I just used up a lot of my fire smoking Vann Jeger, so I’m a bit slower on the recovery than normal.”
To prove it, he pulled up his shirt, and Julius gasped. Justin’s torso was covered in bandages, some of which were spotted with red. “We have to get you back to bed.”
“Nothing doing,” Justin said, popping the muffin into his mouth before yanking his shirt down again. “One, there’s no bed to go back to. The infirmary’s as empty as the rest of the mountain since the F in charge of doctoring flew the coop. And two, my place is with you. A knight stays by his clan head’s side at all times. Not that you’re making it easy, hiding away up here.” He snorted and reached for the platter of bacon. “I should put a leash on you.”
Worried as he was, Julius couldn’t help but smile at that. Justin had an odd way of showing it, but it was nice to know he cared. “You should still sit down,” he said, hopping up from Bob’s chair. “I hurt just looking at you.”
Justin rolled his eyes. “No way. I’m not a wuss like you who has to sit down every time he bleeds, and I need to be on my guard. With Conrad gone, I’m the only fighter left. If you die on my watch in an empty freaking mountain, I will never live it down.”
That last bit was so Justin, it took Julius several seconds to realize the rest of what he’d said. “Wait, Conrad’s gone? When did that happen?”
“Last night,” Justin said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her, but Mother’s dead serious about evacuating the mountain. She sent Conrad to Washington, DC last night to help David prepare our emergency fallback position.”
This was the first Julius had heard of a fallback position. “So why didn’t anyone tell me?” he cried angrily. “Bethesda doesn’t get to order an evacuation. That’s a Council decision!”
“You weren’t around,” Justin said with a shrug. “And it’s not as if there’s much to evacuate. Between Chelsie’s rage quit, Amelia kicking the bucket, Bob vanishing, the Fs on strike, and everyone else running off to hunker down in their own territories, Heartstriker Mountain’s a ghost town. Even the human staff is playing hooky. The only reason Mother’s still here is because she hasn’t finished moving her treasury into the security vaults downstairs.”
“Of course she is,” Fredrick growled. “God forbid Bethesda put anything ahead of her gold.”
“Well, she still should have called me,” Julius snapped, but his heart wasn’t in it. Other than pride and the fact that it was their home, there wasn’t much reason to stay at Heartstriker Mountain if there was no one here to protect, and while he was angry she hadn’t discussed it with him first, DC wasn’t actually a bad move. They had allies there thanks to David’s congressional seat, and staying in the US capital meant that any large-scale attack would be seen as an act of aggression against the United States as well as Heartstriker. Strategically speaking, they couldn’t ask for a better place to lie low.
He just wished it didn’t feel so much like running away.
“Hey,” Justin said, lowering his voice. “I know it sucks to be driven back, but this doesn’t have to be all bad. Conrad can handle Bethesda, but you’re my charge, and our birthday’s coming up.”
Julius blinked in surprise. With everything that was happening, he’d forgotten all about his birthday until Justin mentioned it. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing,” Justin said with a shrug. “But twenty-five is a milestone, and if we have to run anyway, why not go somewhere fun? I was thinking Vegas. I know you hate gambling, but the food’s great, and the girls are—”
“Not Vegas.”
Justin stared at him. “Why not?”
Because Marci was from Vegas. “Just not there.”
His brother crossed his arms over his chest. “This is about your human, isn’t it?”
When Julius didn’t reply, the knight began to growl. “You can’t mope about her forever, you know.”
“It’s only been three days,” Julius reminded him.
“Yeah, well, it’s not like you didn’t know this was going to happen,” Justin snapped back. “She’s mortal. Death’s in her definition.”
Julius’s jaw clenched. “Drop it, Justin.”
“No,” he said angrily. “This is ridiculous. You’re a dragon. I’m not going to let you waste your time pining for a—”
“I said drop it!”
The words came out in a roar that made everyone jump, including Julius. He hadn’t known he was capable of making a sound like that. At the same time, though, he had no intention of taking it back. He might not be hiding in his room anymore, but the memory of Marci’s death was still an angry wound in his chest. If Justin didn’t stop poking it, Julius couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.
“I’m not going to Vegas,” he said, more calmly now. “I’m not going anywhere until—”
A loud noise cut him off. All through the mountain, claxons were sounding, their high-pitched wails cutting through the stone. The emergency lights cut on a second later, filling Bob’s dark cave with a red glow punctuated by bright-white flashes.
“What’s that?” Julius yelled, covering his ears against the painfully loud noise.
“The panic alarm,” Fredrick yelled back.
Julius paled. He’d never heard the panic alarm before. “What does it mean?”
“That there’s something worth panicking about,” Justin said, grabbing Julius’s arm and yanking him toward the door. “We need to get to the bunker STAT.”
“Shouldn’t we be running?” Because if there was something a mountain full of dragons needed to panic about, a bunker didn’t seem like it would do much good.
“No time,” Justin said as he pulled his brother into the hall. “Fredrick?”
“On it,” Fredrick said, darting past them down the flashing hall to the elevator, and then past that to what looked like a blank space on the wall. A space that turned out not to be blank at all when Fredrick pressed his fingers against a crack in the stone.
“Here,” he said, swinging the wall open to reveal a small emergency stair leading down.
Justin grinned. “Always count on an F to know the bolt-holes,” he said, shoving Julius inside. “Move.”
Julius didn’t wait to be told twice. He was already running down the stairs after Fredrick. Justin followed on his heels, pausing just long enough to close the secret door on the alarms blaring behind them.
***
They changed tunnels several times, following Fredrick through a labyrinth of secret passages that crisscrossed the normal hallways and staircases before eventually stopping at an elevator. Not a nice one, either. This was a terrifying-looking steel box on a cable at the top of an open shaft that went straight down. In all his years in the mountain, Julius had never seen anything like it. He couldn’t even say where in the fortress they were after all those turns, but he didn’t waste time asking questions. He just followed his brothers through the elevator’s open gate, sticking close to Justin as he hit the lone red button to start the drop.
Even plummeting through the dark at nauseating speeds, it still took a solid minute of falling before the stripped-down elevator finally jerked to a stop. When the steel cage rolled open, the stone of the hallway outside wasn’t even the same color as the mountain above, which Julius took as a sign that they were even deeper than the basement tunnel where Chelsie and the Fs hid their secret rooms. Deeper than he’d ever gone before, down below the roots of the mountain itself.
“This is crazy,” Julius whispered as Justin herded them out. “I knew the emergency bunker was deep, but not this deep.”
“That’s because it’s not,” Fredrick said, moving out of the way as Justin stomped past to punch a key code into the pad beside the metal door at the end of the short tunnel. “The emergency bunker is a quarter mile above us. This is the deep bunker.”
Julius gaped at him. “How many bunkers do we have?!”
“When everyone wants to kill you? Never enough,” Justin said as the light above the door turned green. “In.”
The heavy bolt had barely cleared the lock before Justin yanked it open, tossing the foot-thick metal security door aside as though it were made of cardboard to reveal an enormous room that looked like a cross between a natural cavern and NASA Mission Control.
Unlike every other room in Heartstriker Mountain, which had been hollowed out of the stone to suit the needs of the mountain’s draconic masters, this one seemed to be a natural formation. It had gently curving walls, water running down one corner, and stalactites hanging from the ceiling high overhead. There’d been stalagmites on the ground as well at one point, but they’d all been shaved off to create a floor for the massive array of computer consoles and spellwork control circles. Human ones, oddly enough.
“Why are we using human magic for our wards?” Julius asked as Justin herded them inside.
“Because Bethesda doesn’t trust any of us to do it,” Fredrick explained, looking around at the empty chairs. “Though where the mages who’re supposed to be operating them are right now is anyone’s guess.”
That didn’t sound good. “Should we call someone?”
“No time,” Justin said, marching over to one of the larger consoles. “We’ll just have to get by without—”
He cut off as the steel door behind them swung open again, and Bethesda herself swept into the room. The alarm must have woken her, because she was wearing a floor length, blood-red, see-through lace negligee. Her hair was brushed out perfectly, though, so it might have just been a dress. With his mother, it was hard to tell.
“I should have known I wouldn’t be lucky enough to get here first,” she grumbled when she saw Julius. “I was hoping to lock you out.” She turned her glare to Justin. “Why are you always so fast?”
“Because I do my job,” Justin said, poking at the machine in front of him. “How does this thing work again?”
“Oh, let me,” Bethesda snapped, hiking up her lacy skirt as she hurried across the cave to take Justin’s place in front of the central command console. “Fredrick,” she said as she placed her hands on the controls. “I have no idea why you’re still skulking about, but if you don’t want to die, I suggest you take the drones.”
Given that he was already in front of the console with the name of a major drone manufacturer printed across the front, it looked as though Fredrick was already doing just that. He stopped the moment Bethesda gave him an order, though. A move that did not go unnoticed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she growled.
“Whatever I please,” Fredrick growled back, staring at her with pure, unfiltered hate. “I serve Julius now. Not you.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Fredrick’s reply was to just keep glaring, and Bethesda pressed a hand to her forehead. “You are,” she groaned, closing her eyes. “What have we become?”
“Better without you,” Fredrick said, giving their mother one last poisonous look before turning to Julius. “What are your orders, sir?”
Julius bit his lip. “Um, what can you do?” Because he had no idea how any of this worked. He hadn’t even known they had a room like this until a few minutes ago.
The F turned back to the large console in front of him. It lit up the second his hands got close, throwing a complicated web of augmented reality interface options into the air above it. Fredrick plunged his fingers into the commands, and screens covering the walls flickered to life with multiple camera feeds from all over the surrounding desert.
“That works,” Julius said, grinning. “Good job, Fredrick. Thank you.”
“All of my clutch were taught to use the mountain’s security systems,” he said with a shrug. “But you’re welcome, sir.”
Bethesda made a disgusted sound, but she kept any actual comments to herself as she focused on the AR controls above her own console. “I’ll take the perimeter. Fredrick, you focus on quadrant one. I want to know what tripped that alarm.”
Only when Julius nodded did Fredrick obey, pulling up a large map of the desert surrounding Heartstriker Mountain and waving his hand over the southwestern portion. A second later, the map filled with tiny green dots that began moving in unison as all the screens on the walls flipped to show camera feeds from that part of the desert. “Drones are up.”
“Good, because everything else is down,” Bethesda growled, scowling into the floating interface in front of her. “I don’t understand. I just had the sensors checked last…”
Her voice faded as she looked up at the picture that had just appeared on the biggest screen in front of them. From the high angle and the way it was weaving back and forth, the shot was clearly from a drone, but what the camera was actually showing was far harder to make out. All Julius could tell was that something was flying through the western edge of the Heartstriker’s airspace. Several somethings, moving very fast, but the way they moved didn’t make sense at all. They weren’t soaring like planes or flapping like birds or even floating on the wind. They were snaking, weaving through the clear desert morning like eels in a tight, undulating formation.
“What is that?” Julius asked, squinting at the screen. “Some kind of water spirit?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Bethesda said, her face pale. “Those are dragons.”
That couldn’t be right. “But they have no wings,” he said, pointing at the snaking shapes. “What kind of dragon doesn’t have wings?”
“Chinese ones,” Fredrick replied in a tight voice.
Julius’s eyes went wide. Since his clan was banned from China, he’d never paid attention to the Chinese clans beyond what showed up on the mainstream news. Even now that he knew what he was looking at, the undulating shapes on the screen still didn’t look like any dragons he’d seen. They were too long and compact, their sleek bodies sliding effortlessly through the morning air like silk through the sea. The longer he watched, though, the more similarities he found. They might not move how he was used to, but they had dragon heads and dragon teeth, dragon claws on their curled dragon feet. Most telling of all, though, was that they were beautiful. Breathtakingly so, in the dangerous, deadly way that only truly old and powerful dragons could be.
Even at this distance, watching through a drone camera, he could see power shimmering over the already brilliant red, green, and cobalt of their fishlike scales. Some of them even had manes, huge tufts of brightly colored fur that made them look like lions. Others had long horns that rose from their heads in smooth, arcing forks. The lack of wings let them fly in tight formation, the whole pack moving as one like a school of fish, making it impossible to tell their true numbers as they shot through the early-morning sky toward the mountain.
“They’re coming right at us,” Justin announced.
“Where else would they be going?” Bethesda said irritably. “We’re the only things out here.” She slammed her fists on the console. “I told you we were going to be invaded!”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Julius said. “We don’t know it’s an invasion yet.”
“Oh, come on, Julius!” she cried, whirling around. “Even you can’t be this naïve. The day after I explain to you we’re sitting ducks, a flock of foreign dragons charges our airspace. What do you think they’re here to do? Say hello?” She cast a nervous glance up at the screen. “I’m just glad Chelsie’s gone.”
“Why?” he asked, suddenly suspicious. “What does she have to do with this?”
“I’d love to tell you,” his mother replied. “Alas, you made me swear on my fire to keep that secret, so I’m afraid you’ll just have to wallow in your own irony. In the meanwhile, we need to prove that a wounded clan is a far cry from a dead one. Justin?”
The knight’s head popped up at his name, and Bethesda shot him a deadly smile. “Show these snakes the price of trespassing on Heartstriker land.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before Justin’s grin grew to match her own. “On it,” he said, striding over to tap the surface of a very black, very deadly-looking console in the far corner of the room. Unlike the others, though, this was one he clearly knew how to use, tapping his fingers through the AR until the whole interface turned an ugly, angry red. “Missiles armed.”
“Wait, missiles?” Julius said. “We have missiles?”
“Of course we have missiles,” Bethesda said as the red interface appeared on her command console as well. “Whose mountain do you think this is?”
Before he could reply, she swept her hand through the tangle of menus floating in the air above her console, painting the undulating shapes of the dragons on the screen above with candy-red target icons. She was halfway through by the time Julius made it to her side.
“Mother, stop!” he cried frantically, grabbing her arm. “We can’t just shoot down any dragon who flies over our territory!”
“Of course we can,” she said, yanking out of his grip. “It’s our territory. They’d do the same thing if we flew into Beijing.”
That was probably true. Still. “We don’t even know for certain why they’re here yet! Shouldn’t we at least fire a warning shot or—”
“And waste a surprise attack?” She rolled her eyes. “You are clearly not a wartime consigliere.”
“But—”
“You can ask them about their intentions all you like once they’re on the ground,” she said in a patronizing voice. “For now…”
She brought her fist down on the command grid with a bloodthirsty grin, and a new set of sirens began to scream as missile launch warnings flashed on every monitor in the room. The ground above them began to rumble a second later, but as Julius braced for the inevitable roar of rockets, everything went suddenly quiet.
The triumphant smile slipped off Bethesda’s face.
“What happened?” she demanded, hunching over her console. “Why aren’t they launching?”
“It’s aborted,” Justin said, nodding at the cascade of flashing warning messages covering the missile system’s AR. “Looks like a system failure.”
Growling low in her throat, Bethesda shoved away from the central command console and marched over to his. Pushing Justin out of the way, she stabbed her manicured nails through the floating mesh of missile commands, grabbing the floating error messages and yanking them closer so she could read what had gone wrong. The longer she stared at them, though, the more confused she appeared.
“That’s impossible,” she said at last.
“What’s impossible?” Julius asked, hopes rising.
“This!” she cried, flinging her hands up at the interface. “It’s not a system failure. Every single missile just threw an error, and not even the same one. If they’d all failed the same way, I could see it being a hacker or a bug, but one hundred and forty-four missiles having unique fatal malfunctions at the exact same time? That doesn’t happen! The odds would be—”
She stopped cold, green eyes going wide. “Oh no,” she whispered, looking back up at the dragons on the screen. “No, no, no.”
She started cursing after that, spewing a crescendo of profanity in an impressive number of languages. The outburst was even more shocking for Julius than the panic alarm had been, because though his mother often lost her temper, she rarely cursed. It was low class, she’d claimed, a mark of vulgarity. But she seemed to be making it up for it now, and the worst part was, Julius didn’t know what had set her off. Other than getting closer, the knot of dragons looked the same now as it had before she’d tried to attack. He was staring at the beautiful shapes on the screen, trying to figure it out, when the rising sun broke over the peak of Heartstriker Mountain, lighting up something shiny and golden hidden at the center of the pack.
“What’s that?” he said, squinting at the lovely spark of gold that was blinding even through the cameras.
“The end of the road,” his mother said bitterly, finally switching back to English. “That, my dear idiot son, is the Qilin. The Golden Emperor, which is only appropriate, because we are imperially screwed.”
He stared at the screen in wonder. “But I thought the Golden Emperor never left China?”
“He doesn’t,” Bethesda snarled. “Which is why I’m upset. Though at least this explains what happened to my missiles.”
“What does his being here have to do with our missiles failing?”
His mother looked at him like he was insane. “Did you sleep through all your dragon politics classes?”
“I went to class!” Julius cried. Sometimes. When he wasn’t hiding to escape being the rest of J-clutch’s punching bag or spell practice dummy, or both. “But we didn’t exactly spend much time on China since our entire family is banned from setting foot in the country.”
Bethesda closed her eyes. “For the love of—Fine.” She marched to the front of the bunker, stiletto heels clicking furiously on the stone as she stopped under the wall of monitors and reached up to tap her nail on the one showing a close-up of the knot of dragons.
“You see all these colored dragons?” she said in her most patronizing voice. “These are members of the Twenty Sacred Clans, the original dragon clans of China who were conquered thousands of years ago by the first Golden Emperor. I thought initially they were all we were dealing with. You know, a normal invasion force composed of soldiers and shock troops. Alas, it seems we’re not that lucky, because they brought their boss.”
She rose up on her tiptoes to point at the gleam of gold hidden inside the dragon’s tight formation. “Now do you understand? This isn’t some errant thuggery to take advantage of our weakness. That’s the Golden Emperor, the Qilin, Greatest Dragon of China, the Luck Dragon, Living Embodiment of All Good Fortune, the—”
“I’ve heard his titles,” Julius interrupted. “And I see how him being here is bad, but—”
“Clearly, you don’t see,” Bethesda snapped. “Because if you did, you’d know those aren’t just titles. I’m called ‘The Heartstriker’ because of what I’ve done, but the Qilin is called ‘the Living Embodiment of All Good Fortune’ because that’s what he is. He’s a luck dragon. Literally. That’s how he conquered all the dragons in China without losing any of his own. That’s how he conquered the modern human nation of China in less than three days after the return of magic and how he’s held it for the last sixty years without a single rebellion. It’s not because he’s an amazing general or a brilliant tactician. It’s because that’s how his magic works. Anything he desires—power, empire, the wealth of nations, other dragons—his good fortune gives him, and now we’re in his sights.”
She said all of this as though it were indisputable fact, but Julius still couldn’t wrap his head around it. “How is that possible? Is he some kind of seer?”
Bethesda scoffed. “Of course not. Seers see the future and use that knowledge to make sure events happen in their favor, but their magic can’t actually change events. They can only see, not shove. The Qilin is the opposite. He can’t see the future any more than we can, but his magic moves it around like clay, manipulating events blindly to ensure that he always gets what he wants. That’s how you end up with every missile in our arsenal independently throwing a different error the moment I decide to shoot him out of the sky. It’s all just bad luck.”
“I thought you said the Qilin brought good luck.”
“Bad luck for your enemies is good luck for you,” she said. “And Heartstriker is most definitely the Qilin’s enemy. Who do you think banished us from China?”
If he’d thought he’d get anywhere this time, Julius would have taken that opening to ask, why? What had happened to make the Qilin hate their clan so much? But he’d hit the brick wall of China too many times at this point to even waste his breath. Whatever had happened in the past would have to stay there for now. He was more concerned with surviving the next few minutes.
“We need to find out why they’re here.”
“What’s to find out?” Bethesda asked. “They’re the second-biggest clan in the world. We’re the first, and we’re vulnerable.” She shrugged. “Seems pretty obvious to me.”
“But how did they know we were vulnerable?” he asked. “It’s not like we’ve put out a press release.”
“Because this is the Qilin!” she cried. “He doesn’t need normal things like inside knowledge to win. Whatever day he picked was bound to be the right day because that’s how he works. He doesn’t have to try. Everything he wants simply happens.”
“Then we should make something happen first,” Justin said, grabbing his Fang. “I say we go out there and—”
“No,” Julius said. “We can’t do that.”
His brother’s face fell into a dangerous scowl, and Julius sighed. “I’m not doubting your capabilities, Justin, but look around. There’s only four of us. Three if you take out Bethesda, who’s sealed. That’s about a hundred short of what we’d need to fight a force that size.”
“He did bring a lot,” Fredrick agreed, still glued to his drone screens. “I’ve been trying to get a head count. The tight formation makes it difficult, but I estimate we’re looking at fifty dragons. At least.”
“Fifty?” Justin said, incredulous. “Last I heard, the entire Golden Court only had eighty-two. Did he bring every dragon in China?”
“Well, at least we know he’s taking us seriously,” Bethesda pointed out. “What a comfort that will be when he’s putting our heads on pikes.”
Julius sighed. “You’re not helping, Mother.”
“And you are?” she drawled, glowering at him. “If you’re so confident, Julius, what would you suggest we do? Talk nicely?”
“Actually,” he said, “that’s exactly what I plan to do.”
Bethesda’s eyes went wide, and then she dropped her head to her hands. “I knew it,” she groaned. “We’re doomed.”
“We are not doomed,” Julius said, exasperated. “Stop being ridiculous for a moment and listen. I might not understand the Qilin’s magic a hundred percent yet, but I’ve seen enough to guess it’s not the sort of thing we can bash our way through. That said, he hasn’t actually attacked us yet. If your claims about his power are true, Mother, then his luck could have just as easily caused those missiles to explode on top of us rather than simply not work. Since they didn’t, we can assume the Qilin wants us alive, at least for now. That’s something we can work with.” He stared at the tight formation of dragons on the screen. “I think our best option is to go out there and see what he wants.”
“He wants our clan,” Bethesda said. “And you’re telling us to give it to him!”
“What else are we going to do?” he cried. “We can’t fight. Negotiation is all we have left.”
“It’s not a negotiation when you have no power,” his mother said, but the words weren’t angry this time. They were hopeless, which was almost worse. “This is going to be a surrender.”
“Not if we play it right,” Julius said stubbornly, pulling himself straight. “I didn’t go through all the pain of standing up to you and forming a Council to give up now. We might be alone here, but our clan is still alive.”
“For now,” Justin said.
“Now’s all that matters,” he said firmly, keeping his eyes on his mother. “As I just said, if the Golden Emperor wanted us dead, we’d already be gone. Since we’re not, we have to assume he wants something else. That’s power if we can use it, so I say we try. I mean, what have we got to lose?”
Bethesda slumped back against her console. “I don’t know if you’re pathetic or accidentally brilliant,” she said, shaking her head. “But I wasn’t looking forward to running…”
She trailed off with a sigh, and then she pushed herself back up straight, squaring her shoulders with a flip of her glossy black hair. “Fine,” she said, looking down her nose at Julius. “You win. Let’s go talk. If nothing else, we’ll die facing our enemy.”
“We’ll die as Heartstrikers should,” Justin said proudly, drawing his sword.
“Stop that,” Julius said angrily. “No one is going to die, and you are not coming with us.”
Justin went very still. “What did you say?”
The words came out in a terrifying growl, and Julius flinched back instinctively. He knew that look on his brother’s face. He wasn’t sure what came after it since he’d usually already surrendered by this point, but not this time.
His brother was as brave as dragons got, but he was also injured, outnumbered, and couldn’t be trusted not to start a fight if his life depended on it, which it did. Things weren’t looking good for any of them, but if Justin went up there, he would almost certainly die. That wasn’t a risk Julius was willing to take. Not over something this stupid. Not when he’d lost so many already.
He didn’t care if Justin hated him forever, he would not allow him to walk out and face what might very well be their deaths. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something he could explain to his brother easily. Even if he could get Justin to admit he was too injured to fight, he’d insist on going with them anyway because he was pig-headed like that. But Justin management had been a vital J-clutch survival tactic from the moment they’d hatched, and unlike every other part of being a dragon, it was one Julius excelled at. He used that knowledge now, pulling on every bit of his experience as he looked pleadingly at his older brother and spoke the words that never failed.
“I need your help.”
“Of course you do,” Justin said. “Have you seen how many dragons are out there? They’ll eat you alive without me.”
“That’s just it,” Julius said. “They will try to eat me if you’re there. Without you, though, I think we might have a chance.”
Justin blinked. “Come again?”
“You’re a power of the clan,” he explained. “A Knight of Heartstriker. If you went out there, they’d have to fight, but Bethesda and I are different. She’s sealed, and I’m a weakling. If we go out there alone, attacking us will be beneath the Qilin’s dignity. That buys us a chance to talk, which is the entire point of this.”
“But you’re the clan head,” he growled. “I’m your knight. My duty lies with you.”
“Your duty is to protect the clan,” Julius said. “We can’t risk you, Justin. With Chelsie gone, Bob doing who knows what, and Mother and I trapped here, you and Conrad are the only two active Fangs we have left. If we go down, we need you to rally the rest of Heartstriker. I need you to—”
“Forget it,” Justin snarled, getting in Julius’s face. “You think I can’t see what you’re doing? I’m your brother, idiot. I know you, and if you think for one second I’m going to let you go out there alone to do your Nice Dragon nonsense without backup, you’re a bigger moron than Mother says.”
Julius sighed. “Justin—”
“No!” his brother yelled. “I look after you. Always have, always will. End of story.”
“I don’t need you to look after me.”
“Too bad. I—”
“Justin!”
Justin blinked in surprise, and he wasn’t the only one. Bethesda and Fredrick were staring at him as well, but Julius refused to back down. He was touched that his brother cared so much, but he couldn’t let Justin treat him like a whelp who needed to be carried around anymore. Especially since this was the one part of being clan head he was actually confident he could do.
“Have some faith in me,” he said. “You’ve seen me talk my way out of tighter spots than this. Mother and I will be fine, but without Chelsie to force them together, the rest of the clan could easily fall apart. I can’t let that happen, not after everything we went through, so I’m begging you, Justin, help me do this. Don’t waste yourself fighting here. Go find Conrad and David, tell them what’s going on, rally the clan to fight off whatever the emperor has in store for us. That’s what I need from you, not this.” He reached out to touch the sword in Justin’s hands. “If you want to be my knight, protect what I care about most. Don’t let Heartstriker fall just when we’ve finally started to change things.”
That was his last, biggest card, and it seemed to work. Justin didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue, either. He just stood there, thinking while Julius sweated, until, at long last, he turned away.
“I’ll take the southern emergency tunnel,” he said, sheathing his Fang. “There’s a canyon at the end I can use to make an unobserved take-off. As soon as I get reinforcements, I’ll be back.” He glared over his shoulder at Julius. “Don’t you dare die.”
“I won’t,” Julius promised. Then, before he could chicken out, he stepped forward and gave his brother a hug. “Thank you, Justin.”
“Get off me,” Justin growled, but it still took him a suspiciously long time to wiggle out of his brother’s grasp. “Just make sure you don’t screw up, okay? And don’t let Fredrick save you. If I get shown up by an F, my reputation’s over.”
Julius nodded. “I owe you.”
“Big time,” Justin agreed, giving him a final scowl before he walked out the door. When it swung shut behind him, Julius turned to find his mother watching.
“That was smoothly played,” she said, twisting her glossy black hair thoughtfully between her fingers. “I always forget how manipulative you can be for a supposedly nice dragon. All it took was a few well-chosen words, and the loose cannon was neatly packed up and sent off toward something actually useful. If you weren’t so disgustingly emotional about it, I’d almost be proud.”
Julius decided to ignore that, glancing at the monitors instead for a final check on the enemy’s position. Sure enough, the knot of dragons was starting to separate, with some peeling off to keep watch from the sky while the rest came in for a landing. When he was certain none of the watchers were headed for the tunnel Justin was taking, Julius turned and walked toward the door. Bethesda followed him a second later. It wasn’t until they were in the hallway, though, that Julius realized someone was missing.
“Fredrick?” he called, sticking his head back through the heavy door to look for the F, who was still staring spellbound at the landing Chinese dragons. “Are you coming, or do you want to stay down here? Because I don’t blame you at all if—”
“No,” Fredrick said, tearing himself away from the screen. “I’ll stay with you, of course. Forgive me.”
Julius didn’t see how there was anything to forgive. He actually thought the F would fare much better down here. If nothing else, he could let the rest of the clan know if this turned out to be a terrible idea. But Fredrick was already glued back at his side, and Julius had no time to argue. The elevator Justin had taken up to the standard emergency bunkers flew back down moments after he pushed the button, ready to whisk them up to the surface for their first—and perhaps last—meeting with the Golden Emperor.
***
By the time they made it all the way back up to the ground floor, the desert was full of dragons.
The Chinese dragons had completely surrounded Heartstriker Mountain. Julius could actually hear claws digging into the stone over their heads as the three of them hurried through the elegant marble lobby. Thankfully, though, none of the invaders seemed to be actually trying to get in. They were just sitting on top of the exits, biding their time until the Heartstrikers emerged.
“Like wolves watching a rabbit den,” Bethesda muttered, picking nervously at the lace of her crimson negligee-dress.
“I just hope they’re only watching the obvious doors,” Julius whispered back. “If they catch Justin—”
“Anyone who catches Justin deserves what they get,” Bethesda said, lifting her chin. “Let’s get this over with.”
Julius nodded, but their mother was already gone, marching through the double row of tinted, climate-controlled glass doors and out of the fortress entirely. Motioning frantically for Fredrick to stay in the lobby, Julius ran after her, matching his mother’s long stride as the two of them left the shelter of the roofed, hotel-style driveway and started down the road toward the jewel-colored dragons waiting for them where the white pavement of the mountain’s stately private drive met the blacktop of the ruler-straight desert highway.
It was a lot farther than it looked. Despite living here nearly all his life, Julius had never actually gone out the front of Heartstriker Mountain on foot. Pretty as the desert could be, there was simply no point in walking into hundreds of miles of flat dirt and broken rocks when you could drive or fly, and his sense of distance was further skewed by the dragons they were walking toward.
He’d known the Chinese dragons were big when they’d flown in, but seeing the giant shapes on camera and approaching them on foot were two entirely different experiences. Even Bethesda was starting to look intimidated as they closed the final distance, stepping off the driveway into the shadow of two enormous crimson dragons that were both easily as long as Conrad was in his armor. They weren’t quite as bulky thanks to the lack of wings, but it was still a terrifying thing to walk between. Julius was focusing on just getting through without cowering when the dragon on the right twitched his tail, and a giant wall of gleaming crimson scales landed on the road in front of them.
Both Heartstrikers stopped, then Bethesda crossed her arms over her chest and yelled something at the dragons in what Julius assumed must be very bad Chinese. Whatever she said, it made the dragon on the left scowl before replying in much more beautiful tones, his deep voice ringing through the sunny desert morning like music.
“Fantastic,” his mother growled.
“What?” Julius asked breathlessly. “What did he say?”
“Nothing important. Just that the Golden Emperor hasn’t landed yet.” Her lips curled in a sneer. “It seems we are expected to wait for our own conquest.”
That didn’t make sense to Julius. He’d seen all the dragons fly in together. Why would the emperor suddenly not be here? “Where did he go?”
“How should I know?” Bethesda snapped. “He’s probably taking a turn around the desert. You know, admiring his new property. Or he could just be making us wait to show us he’s the one with the power. Either way, I do not appreciate it. This situation is degrading enough without being forced to stand around like peasants awaiting an audience.”
Both of those were perfectly plausible explanations, though personally, Julius hoped the emperor was wasting their time as a power move. It was a jerk thing to do but still completely within the bounds of normal dragon behavior, and far preferable to the alternative. If the Golden Emperor already saw the Heartstriker lands as his, then they were wasting their time. He was turning to ask his mother if she could press the red dragons for more information when he heard a strange sound on the wind.
Far above them, something was jingling musically in the sky. It sounded like coins falling onto stone from a great height, but bigger. Richer, and it was getting closer by the second. When he looked up to see where the impossibly beautiful sound was coming from, though, all he got was a blinding flash of sunlight. He was still blinking the spots out of his eyes when the giant golden dragon landed almost on top of them.
Despite seeing the flashes on the cameras, it hadn’t occurred to Julius until this moment that the Golden Emperor would actually be golden. Even now, with the truth standing directly in front of him, he knew he couldn’t actually be seeing what he thought he saw. There was just no way a dragon could be made of metal and still be alive. But no matter how impossible the sight seemed, Julius had no other explanation for the unmistakable metallic gleam of pure, soft, yellow gold that shone from every overlapping scale. If it weren't for the curl of smoke drifting between his sharp white teeth, Julius would have sworn he was staring at a statue instead of an actual living dragon.
It wasn’t just the gold that made him look that way, either. Every inch of the dragon’s body was perfectly proportioned, making him look more like the golden ideal of a dragon than something that could actually occur in real life. Even when the Golden Emperor lowered his elegant horned head to allow his passenger—an elderly Chinese woman smothered from head to toe in brocaded black silk—to step down, the motion looked too ethereally graceful to be true. Julius was still staring at it in stunned wonder when the magnificent golden dragon vanished in a puff of smoke.
Even that was like watching poetry. The smoke shone white as new snow in the morning sunlight, floating over the rocky sand in perfect, billowing clouds that smelled of incense and dragon magic so strong, it burned Julius’s nose. Bethesda actually took a step back when it hit her, her green eyes widening in fear as the smoke blew away to reveal the man who was now standing in the dragon’s place.
He was beautiful, of course. This was nothing new since all dragons were pleasing to look at in their human guise, but what struck Julius was the way in which he was beautiful.
Though it was no longer golden, the Emperor’s human form was every bit as supernaturally perfect as his dragon had been. Every detail—the fall of his long black hair, the perfect smoothness of his skin, the way the golden robe the attending blue dragon quickly wrapped around him hung in perfect balance from his flawless shoulders—looked as though it had been designed that way on purpose. As if he were the subject in a painting whose every nuance had been prearranged to appear at best advantage, and only after great deliberation. Nothing, not even the odd square of golden silk the blue dragon placed over the emperor’s head like a veil, looked messy or out of place. It was all just…perfect. Terrifyingly so. As he watched, it was easy for Julius to believe that the Golden Emperor was the only truly real thing in the universe. A feeling that only intensified when the golden dragon turned at last to look at the two Heartstrikers who’d come out to meet him.
Or, at least, Julius assumed the emperor was looking at them. He couldn’t actually see his face through the golden silk cloth that was draped over his head like a death shroud. Anyone else would have looked silly standing barefoot in the desert wearing only a hastily knotted silk robe and a cloth over his head, but Julius didn’t think it was possible for this dragon to look anything other than exactly as he should. But while the emperor was clearly the center of everything, it was the old woman that spoke first. Old dragoness, Julius realized with a start, because while she looked frail and human, her scent was pure, sharp, angry dragon as she planted her cane on the desert road, pushing herself up to glare at Bethesda over the red dragon’s guarding scales.
“Whore of the Heartstrikers.”
Julius cringed. That was never a good beginning. To his amazement, though, his mother didn’t explode. She just pulled herself taller, staring down her nose at the hunchbacked dragoness like the old crone was a stain on one of her designer gowns.
“Fenghuang.”
He blinked in surprise. “Fenghuang” had been the name of his and Marci’s favorite Chinese takeout place in the DFZ. From the logo on the menu, he’d gathered it was the Chinese word for phoenix. But while that sounded suitably auspicious to him, the surrounding dragons were acting as though Bethesda had just spat in the old dragoness’s face.
The blue dragon who’d assisted the emperor with his robe in particular looked ready to explode. “Your tongue is not worthy to address the Empress Mother by her given name, Broodmare!” he yelled, snapping his teeth through a shimmer of blue magical fire.
Bethesda snapped right back at him, and Julius decided he’d better step in before something important got snapped off.
“You must be the Empress Mother,” he said, placing himself between his mother and the others. “I’m Julius Heartstriker, youngest son of Bethesda and one of the three members of the new Heartstriker Council. On behalf of my clan, we welcome the Golden Emperor to Heartstriker Mountain.”
The Empress Mother didn’t seem to buy the welcome part for a second, but her wispy eyebrows rose at the word council. “So the rumors are true,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the veiled emperor, who had yet to say a word. “The Broodmare has finally been overthrown by her children.”
“Actually, we’re a representative body,” Julius said, moving closer to his mother, who was being dangerously quiet. “Of which Bethesda the Heartstriker is an important part.”
“Is she?” The Empress Mother chuckled. “I’m not surprised to hear you discovered a way to cling to power, Broodmare. You always were desperate and shameless, though I didn’t think you’d sink so low as to elevate your youngest son. Tell me, did the older ones have too much pride to serve beside their belly-crawling mother, or has the Heartstriker clan become so weak that this whelp is the best you can muster?”
If she hadn’t been sealed, Bethesda probably would have been breathing fire by the time the old dragon finished. She certainly looked ready to burn something, but all Julius could do was sigh. Even if his mother hadn’t started it for a change, if he waited for the two dragonesses to stop insulting each other, they’d be here all day.
Whatever bad blood lay between the emperor’s mother and his own, it was obviously too much to cross in one morning. But unlike most dragon clans, which were ruled by their matriarchs, Julius had only ever heard of the Golden Emperor. He didn’t know why the empress was doing all the talking, but unless he was greatly mistaken, she wasn’t actually the one with the power here. That belonged to her silent son, and since things were already going just about as badly as possible, Julius decided to take a risk, pulling himself to his full height so he could look right over the hunchbacked crone’s head and address the only dragon who actually mattered.
“Why are you here?”
The Golden Emperor’s veiled head turned slightly, and a shiver ran through Julius’s body. With the bright sunlight beating down, he couldn’t see a thing through the golden silk, but that didn’t matter. He could feel the Qilin’s eyes on his skin. He was still trying to decide if it was a good feeling or a bad one when the Empress Mother lurched forward.
“Insolent whelp,” she snarled, her red eyes blazing with what would have been terrifying fury if she hadn’t been so frail. “You presume to speak to the august Qilin?!”
“Who else am I supposed to talk to?” Julius said impatiently. “He’s your clan head, isn’t he? And my mother and I are both heads of Heartstriker, so that makes us equals.”
“You are not equal to the dirt he walks on,” she spat, pulling herself as straight as her bent back allowed. “My son is the Golden Emperor, Head of All Clans and Living Embodiment of Good Fortune. You are not worthy to look upon his face, much less pollute his ears with the noise of your presumption.”
She finished with an imperial version of the disdainful glare dragons had been giving Julius all his life. The one that told him he was not only beneath their notice, but actively insulting them by daring to draw it. But while that used to be enough to send him apologizing all the way back to his room, Julius was not the dragon he’d been two months ago.
“I didn’t enter his presence,” he growled, stabbing his finger at the veiled emperor. “He entered ours. I don’t even understand why you’re bothering to insult us. You have to know by now that our mountain is empty. My clan has already evacuated, and you can see for yourself that Bethesda is sealed. You and your dragon army could kill us any time you choose. Since you haven’t yet, I can only assume there’s some other reason you’re here, and it would be a much better use of everyone’s time if you stopped insulting us and just told us what that was.”
His heart was pounding by the time he finished. Bethesda looked shocked as well, staring at him with an expression he’d never seen on her face before. At least, not when she was looking at him.
“Why, Julius,” she whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so proud of you. That was actually draconic.”
It was a sign of just how badly she’d twisted him up inside that a deep part of Julius still leaped to hear his mother finally, finally say she was proud. He was desperately trying to remind himself that being the kind of dragon Bethesda praised was not a good thing when the Empress Mother’s lip curled in disgust.
“I see the Broodmare’s unmerited arrogance breeds true,” she said, turning to hobble back to her son’s side. “But while you are clearly undeserving of such condescension, you are correct. The Golden Emperor in his great benevolence does not desire your deaths today.”
Though he’d just said as much himself, Julius let out a silent breath of relief. “Then what do you want?”
The Empress Mother scowled and glanced at the Golden Emperor. When his veiled head nodded, her wrinkled face grew sourer still. But while she clearly didn’t like whatever she was about to say, she spoke it clearly, her raspy voice loud and heavy with the ritualistic self-importance of someone who’d spent her whole life making imperial announcements.
“Bethesda the Heartstriker, self-styled Dragon Queen of the Americas, your incompetence has long been legendary. For centuries, we have ignored your arrogant folly since the petty dramas of barbarian lands are beneath the notice of those who live in the perfect harmony of the emperor’s wisdom. However, in light of recent events, we find we can no longer afford such luxuries.”
She paused there, and Julius exchanged a confused look with his mother. “I’m afraid I don’t—”
“A week ago,” the empress went on, as if she’d just been waiting for the chance to interrupt, “the spirit Algonquin, Lady of the Lakes, declared war on all our kind. The subsequent purge of Detroit killed countless dragons, including four of our own treasured subjects. Normally, policing this threat would fall to you since the Lady of the Lakes resides in your territory, but your failure to control her rise over the past sixty years has been so complete, so extraordinarily inept, you have left the Golden Emperor no choice but to take your burden upon himself. Therefore, from this moment forward, the Heartstriker dragon clan and all its requisite powers, treaties, and territories shall be brought into the exalted presence of the divine Qilin.” She lifted her chin. “We will now accept your surrender.”
The Golden Emperor nodded serenely as she finished, and the dragon in blue hurried forward to hand Julius a bound scroll he could only assume was the surrender treaty. He took it out of habit, but he didn’t break the seal or try to read it, mostly because he was still trying to wrap his head around what he’d just heard.
“Let me just make sure I’ve got this straight,” he said slowly. “You’re here because of Algonquin?”
“Don’t be fooled,” Bethesda growled. “That’s just their excuse. They’re conquering us because they can. They put on imperial airs, but the Qilin and his followers are no different from the rest of us. They still want all they can get.”
“Do not presume to compare the august Qilin with your own base desires, Broodmare,” the empress growled. “His mercy is the only reason you are still alive.”
“Such magnanimity. Kept alive to bow.” Bethesda’s lips curled in a sneer. “I think I’d rather be eaten.”
“That can be arranged,” the Empress Mother said coldly. “Remember, Heartstriker, this is your fault. Because of your negligence, Algonquin has progressed from a minor annoyance to a threat so large, even the Great Qilin can’t ignore it any longer. But though it would be far simpler to stand back and let the Lady of the Lakes drown you and all your horrid children, the Golden Emperor in his mercy has decided to spare your lives. Your youngest idiot there already holds the key to your salvation. Sign it, and we shall have no more quarrel.”
Bethesda cast a disgusted look at the surrender scroll in Julius’s hands. “And if I don’t?”
The old dragoness smiled. “Then we will kill you and your son and as many other Heartstrikers as it takes until we find one who is capable of reason.”
“You can’t just kill us until someone agrees,” Julius said angrily. “That’s not even how our clan works. We’re not an inheritance system anymore. We—”
“You say that as though you expect me to care,” the empress said over him. “But since you are a young and obviously simple dragon, allow me to explain: we don’t. Your clan and its politics have never been more than worms in our eyes, utterly beneath our concern. The only reason the Golden Emperor has lowered himself to even enter the barren waste you call home is because the weakness, ineptitude, and failure that is Heartstriker has finally become so enormous, so all-encompassing, that it can no longer be ignored. So, you see, it doesn’t matter to us what insane system you’ve convinced your mother to go along with. You lost your right to make decisions when you became too weak to enforce them. The only choice remaining to you, little Heartstriker, is whether you and your whore of a mother bow to your new emperor as the last heads of your clan, or as heads on the ground.”
From the smile on her face, it was clear which choice the empress preferred, and Bethesda looked angry enough to oblige her. If she hadn’t been sealed, she would probably have already attacked, and for once, Julius didn’t think he would have stopped her. It was infuriating to feel so helpless, so cornered by these smug dragons with their unbeatable power, and the fact that the oh-so-merciful Golden Emperor hadn’t deigned to speak to them himself yet only made it worse. Say what you wanted about Bethesda, at least she delivered her own threats. But to demand all of this through your mother while you just stood there safe behind a veil? That was arrogant even by dragon standards, and though he knew he shouldn’t make any decisions until he’d at least read the surrender agreement, Julius was already positive there was nothing he’d accept from these dragons. Even if the emperor offered to let them all live, Julius would never trust the clan he’d bled for to a dragon who held them all in such obvious contempt.
Unfortunately, telling the Golden Emperor to take a hike was not an option. He might hate it a lot more now that he’d met the enemy, but everything he’d said to Justin downstairs was still true. They couldn’t fight the Qilin’s luck. They couldn’t take his dragons. They couldn’t do anything. They were weak, sitting ducks, just as Bethesda had said. But though the Heartstrikers were outmatched in every possible way, the Empress Mother was wrong about one thing. There was still one option left to them aside from join or die.
Stall.
“I’m afraid we have a problem, then,” Julius said apologetically.
The Empress Mother glared daggers at him. “What?”
“You just gave us an ultimatum,” he explained. “But I keep trying to tell you, Heartstriker doesn’t work like that anymore. You can threaten us all you want, but we’re only two heads of a clan that’s governed by a council of three, and our third member is currently out of the country on business. Since it takes all three of us to make any formal decisions for our clan, I’m afraid we can’t sign or bow until he returns.”
“Any dragon can be made to bow,” the Empress Mother growled, her red eyes narrowing. “But if you are that eager to die, I would be happy to oblige.”
“I’m sure you would,” Julius said quickly. “But you’re still missing the point. This isn’t about our individual lives. Your emperor is demanding that Heartstriker surrender and join him, and Heartstriker’s a lot more than just us. We’re two-thirds of the ruling council, but the magic that governs the clan, which used to be Bethesda’s alone, is now split between all of us and only enacted by the Council, whose members are elected. That means even if you chop off our heads, the power to make magically binding decisions affecting all members of the Heartstriker clan—including surrender—won’t pass to an heir who might be ‘more reasonable.’ It’ll go back to the dragons who elected us in the first place, which is where it will stay until they choose new leaders. So, unless you’re willing to wait while our clan elects new heads to replace the ones you chop off today, you need to back down. When Ian comes home, we’ll hold a vote on your surrender, but without that vote, the only way you’re getting our clan to surrender is if you chase down every single Heartstriker and force each of them to bow individually, and I don’t think even the Golden Emperor has that kind of patience.”
“It is you who tests our patience,” the Empress Mother snarled. “You think I can’t see what you’re doing, whelp? But if you think your pathetic attempts to stall—”
“I’m not trying to hide it,” Julius said with a shrug. “Obviously, I don’t want to die, but that doesn’t mean that everything I’ve said isn’t true. We’re no longer a one-dragon dictatorship with a single point of failure. We’re a true clan now, with power shared by all, so if you want us to surrender, your choices are to defeat all of us—which, while I’m sure you could, would be long, bloody, and expensive even by your august standards—or wait until Ian returns, which should take about a day. Once he’s back, the Council will convene to formally consider your terms. Until then, you’re welcome to stay at Heartstriker Mountain as our guests.”
He finished with a confident smile. On the inside, though, Julius’s whole body was pounding in time with his heart. None of what he’d said was a lie, but if the rest of his family was as frightened of the Golden Emperor as Bethesda seemed to be, the empress could easily kill them and get her surrender from whomever took their place. But even if the next Council came in ready to roll over, they’d still have to wait while the Heartstrikers elected someone to actually do the rolling, and considering how much trouble the last vote had been, Julius was confident he could be a pain in the Golden Emperor’s side to the very end. It was small comfort, but considering his other options had been “surrender or die,” Julius was pretty happy with his play. The Empress Mother, however, looked angrier than ever.
“Do not presume to play games with me, child,” she said, her gnarled hands shaking on the golden handle of her cane with barely restrained fury. “Your clan has already fallen in all but the last, most formal definition. Why should we waste time pretending to be your guests when we’ve already—”
Her voice cut off like a dropped knife. Behind her, the Qilin had inclined his head. It was a tiny gesture, not even a proper nod. Julius wasn’t actually sure how the Empress Mother had noticed it considering she’d been glaring at him the whole time, but the instant her son had moved, the old dragoness had gone utterly silent, leaving the air empty for the deep voice that came next.
And what a voice it was. In magnificent accord with the rest of his perfections, the emperor’s voice sounded like a temple bell mixed with the world’s most well-played cello and…and every other low, beautiful sound Julius could think of. It went straight through him, making him want to immediately agree with whatever was said if only to hear that heartbreaking voice speak again. He was actually daydreaming about what it would sound like when he realized that, lost in the pure joy of hearing the emperor speak, he hadn’t actually comprehended a word of it.
“What?”
“I said, ‘we accept,’” the emperor repeated, his deep voice just as wondrous as before, but slightly more irritated. “I have no interest in a drawn-out conquest. Already, I tire of standing in this sand pit.”
He shifted his bare feet, which were resting on the only seemingly non-rocky patch of the entire New Mexico desert, and his mother clenched her jaw. “My emperor,” she said. “This is obviously a ploy to waste our time.”
“So it is,” he agreed, turning his cloth-draped head to look up at the mountain. “But they would not be Heartstrikers if they did not connive. Still, it matters not. Whether they fall now or tomorrow, the end will be the same. We shall accept their hospitality and wait.”
The enormous dragons surrounding him growled in discontent, but Julius was fighting not to grin. “We’re happy to accommodate you,” he said, holding out his hand to the emperor. “Welcome to Heartstriker Mountain.”
“You don’t have to play host,” the Golden Emperor said, ignoring the offered hand. “We will not be here long. You said your final member was out of the country on business?”
“Yes,” Julius said. “In Siberia.”
That sounded like something he’d made up to make his brother seem as far away as possible, but it was true. Svena’s home really was in Siberia. He was trying to think how to assure the emperor of this without giving away too much of Ian’s game when the Qilin shrugged.
“Nowhere is far these days,” he said calmly. “Twenty-four hours should be sufficient to come back from anywhere in the world.” He glanced over his shoulder at the morning sun, which was now well on its way into the sky. “I will give you until this time tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Julius said awkwardly, looking at his mother. “I’m not sure if he can—”
“He will arrive on time,” the emperor assured him. “I will it.”
He said that the same way anyone else would say “It is inevitable,” and for the Qilin, Julius supposed it was. But while twenty-four hours wasn’t much, it was still infinitely more time than they’d had when they’d come out here. Maybe even enough to find a way out of this mess. It was all they were getting in any case, so Julius decided it was good enough.
“One day will be fine,” he said, nodding. “Thank you, and let me show you into the mountain. I’m afraid you’ve caught us a bit shorthanded, but I’m sure we can find you a proper—”
“There’s no need for that,” the emperor said idly. “I brought my own supplies.”
Considering he was barefoot and wearing a robe another dragon had thrown over his naked body when they’d landed, Julius didn’t see how that could possibly be true. Before he could ask what supplies he was talking about, though, the Golden Emperor turned and walked away, processing down the road toward the mountain at a serene, stately pace.
The other dragons fell into formation around him at once, surrounding their emperor in a wall of brilliantly colored scales and, surprisingly, what appeared to be genuine concern for his well-being. Julius didn’t know if their protectiveness was due to some unknown vulnerability in the Qilin’s luck magic or true respect for him as a leader. He was still trying to figure it out when the Qilin suddenly stopped.
Every dragon around him froze as well, but while they were watching the desert for threats, the emperor was looking up. Curious, Julius lifted his eyes as well, following the angle of the Qilin’s veiled face up the front of Heartstriker Mountain to the half-moon jut of the throne room balcony at its peak, where a slender figure stood at the edge, watching the drama below.
Technically, it was too far to see for certain, but Julius knew it was Chelsie. There was no one else who skulked around Heartstriker Mountain wearing all black. But while he wasn’t surprised at all that his sister had been spying, Julius was surprised she’d let herself get caught.
She fixed the problem at once, vanishing into the shadows within seconds of being spotted, but the Golden Emperor didn’t look away. For a full minute after Chelsie disappeared, he stood perfectly still, staring at the empty spot where she’d been. It went on so long, the dragons around him started to look nervous. The Empress Mother in particular seemed anxious, her bony fingers clutching down like claws on the golden handle of her cane. Even Julius—who had no idea what was happening—could feel the tension in the air like an invisible wire twisting around their throats. And then, just as the pressure was becoming unbearable, the Golden Emperor lowered his head. The terrible feeling vanished a second later, leaving all the dragons gasping in relief.
All except for the Qilin himself, who simply resumed his procession into the citadel of his almost-conquered enemy as though nothing had happened.