“You did this to me!” she screamed at him. “I owned my mistakes in China, but everything I’ve suffered since isyourfault. You were Bethesda’s seer. One word from you was all it would have taken to free me and my children, but you said nothing.” She bared her teeth. “Nothing!For six hundred years!”
“What could I have said?” Bob asked, his voice tired. “I needed you, Chelsie. Bethesda was useful, but you were the glue that kept everything together. Fear ofyouis what united Heartstriker, or at least kept us from flinging ourselves apart. You were the one who enabled us to become the largest clan in the world. Larger than even the Golden Empire. Large enough to get us here.” He pointed at the ground between them. “Tothismoment. This future. Everything I’ve done leads right here, right now, and the only way I did it was you.”
“Save it,” Chelsie snapped, edging closer. “I don’t care if this was the only way to avoid the end of the world. You used me. You used mychildren. But all that stops today. You want to talk about the future? These are the only words you need: it’s over, Brohomir. You will never use me or my childreneveragain, and if you don’t give me back my egg right now, you’re not leaving this place alive.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” he said, putting up his hands. “You have every right to be upset. I know certain actions of mine look callous out of context, but there’s a good reason for that. I’d be happy to explain it to you if you’d just stop being such aChelsiefor a minute and just—”
She teleported behind him. The move got her so close, she actually felt the tips of his long hair before Bob leaped out of the way, dancing nimbly across the mud. But not far enough.
The moment he slowed, Chelsie teleported again, burning through her magic to reappear right on top of him. She wasn’t even aiming for a hit this time. She was just recklessly charging forward, pushing with everything she had until she was moving too fast to see, too fast to plan.
It was a terrifying way to fight. Chelsie was normally a careful hunter, the sort who always had a plan. When your enemy was a seer, though, no plan was good enough. Brohomir had already foreseen every possible iteration of every clever idea she could come up with, so Chelsie didn’t bother. She just attacked, going after her oldest brother with nothing but her bare hands, her killer’s instinct, six centuries of pent-up rage, and a roar that echoed to the Skyways as they both went down in the mud.
And below them, unnoticed in the fray, the ground continued to tremble.
***
The moment he stepped through the portal, Julius knew something was deeply wrong. The DFZ had always felt more powerful than other places, but the pea-soup-thick magic he’d grown accustomed to while living here was now more like a boiling pot. He could actually feel it rumbling under his feet when Fredrick’s cut dumped them out into the empty dirt lot from Bob’s selfie, and under any other circumstances, that would have had his full attention. Now, though, the trembling pressure was relegated to the background, just another crisis to add to the list as he, Fredrick, and the Qilin looked up to find themselves in the middle of an assassination in progress.
As promised, the Defender’s Fang had dumped them practically on top of Chelsie, which was how Julius had a perfect view of his deadliest sister’s back as she launched herself at Bob. The seer dodged, of course—this was Bob, after all—but Chelsie didn’t even slow down. She just turned and attacked again, slamming her foot into the dirt to use as a pivot as she spun to grab the seer’s shoulder.
For a terrifying moment, Julius saw Bob’s eyes widen in surprise before Chelsie yanked him backward. She brought her unbraced leg up at the same time, slamming her knee into the small of the seer’s back for a kick that sent him flying into the dilapidated garage across the street like a cannonball, shattering the one remaining unbroken window and collapsing what was left of the roof.
Even for a dragon, that was a serious hit. Julius was already moving to go help his brother when Bob kicked his way out of the debris and rolled back to his feet. He took a second to shake the dust out of his long hair, and then stepped to the left just in time to avoid Chelsie as she teleported behind where he’d just been.
But while the quick move let him dodge her first punch, nothing could save him from the second. Julius hadn’t even seen her arm going up. Her hand was just suddenly there, slamming into Bob’s side as she took him down to the ground with her on top.
Chelsie shifted position the second they hit, turning in a flash so she ended up crouching above Bob’s chest with her knees on his arms and both hands free to go for the seer’s exposed throat. Julius was desperately grabbing his Fang to stop her before she clenched down for the kill when a calm, deep voice beat him to it.
“Chelsie.”
The name sailed through the dark like a warm breeze. Wherever it passed, the world stopped to listen, though none so much as Chelsie herself.
Julius had never seen anything go as utterly still as his sister did in that moment. For five long heartbeats, she was frozen. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even breathe. Then, with painful slowness, she turned her head, tearing her eyes away from her pinned prey to stare in horror at the golden dragon standing on the street behind her.
“Xian.”
The whisper was a terrified curse. If anyone had saidhisname that way, Julius would have been haunted, but the Qilin didn’t look upset. He looked relieved, his golden eyes almost hopeful as he watched her watch him. They were both still just staring at each other when Julius caught the scent of Bob’s blood.
With a nervous glance at his sister, Julius darted across the street and into the destroyed garage. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get his brother out from under Chelsie, but the Qilin’s effect must have been even stronger than he realized. His sister didn’t so much as twitch when Julius crept up beside her and grabbed Bob under the arms to ease him out of her hold.
It was still hairy. Chelsie was basically sitting on top of him, but Bob was twisty in more ways than one. With Julius’s help, he managed to wiggle out from under Chelsie’s weight, scooting several feet back into the relative safety of the collapsed garage door.
“Thank you, Julius,” Bob said, falling onto his back with a relieved sigh.
Julius was too angry to answer, so he just focused on removing the six-inch shard of twisted metal from Bob’s shoulder. There was an equally large shard of glass buried in his leg, probably from his crash through the garage door. The scariest wound by far, though, was the one Chelsie had left on his throat: two perfect handprints of bruised skin that wrapped around the column of his neck like a collar.
“Bob,” he said at last, voice shaking. “What were youthinking?”
“I know,” the seer said, looking down in dismay at the blood seeping through his red velvet coat. “I thought if I wore red, it wouldn’t stain as badly, but—”
“Who cares about your coat?” Julius hissed, glancing nervously back at Chelsie, who was still spellbound by the Qilin. “She almost killed you.”
“I’m notthatsoft,” Bob said, his voice insulted. “Though I admit things did go worse than anticipated.”
“You stole her egg and taunted her into coming after you!” Julius cried. “How did you think it was going to go?”
“Don’t blame me,” Bob said. “This is your fault. Itoldyou not to set her free. If she’d still had her Fang, this would have been an entirely different fight. She’s used that sword for hundreds of years. Fighting her with it would have been like following a script. Barehanded conflict wasn’t nearly as predictable, as you can see.”
