“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.”
“Bi
g 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.