The emperor’s already pale face went even paler, and he shot to his feet. “Where is she?”
Julius pointed at the flooding water, and the Qilin started pulling off his golden robe to dive in. Before he’d gotten his arm out of the sleeve, though, Fredrick broke the surface again, and this time, Chelsie was with him.
“Julius!” he yelled, his normally calm voice frantic. “Help me!”
Julius was there before he could finish, charging into the water to help his brother haul Chelsie’s dead weight into the shelter of the broken skyway. When the emperor moved in to help as well, though, Fredrick turned on him with a snarl. “Don’t touch my mother!”
“It’s okay, Fredrick,” Julius said, putting up his hands. “He’s himself again.”
The Qilin nodded rapidly, but Fredrick wasn’t paying attention. He was leaning down to do CPR on Chelsie, breathing into her mouth five quick times before sitting up to press his locked hands into her chest for the compressions. He repeated the cycle twice, alternating between forcing air into her lungs and pushing it back out through her chest. Then, just as he was about to start the third round of breaths, Chelsie’s body convulsed.
She rolled over with a gasp, coughing out lungfuls of muddy water as Fredrick slapped her on the back. She was still struggling to breathe when a voice called the emperor’s name.
“Xian?”
Everyone looked up to see the Empress Mother standing in the farthest recess of the fallen skyway, her silk slippers pressed together on the last remaining dry patch of land.
“Come,” she said calmly. “Let’s go.”
The Qilin looked at her like she was insane. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You can’t possibly want to stay withher,” the empress said, sneering at Chelsie, who managed to glare back even while choking. “Whose fault do you think this is?”
“Mine,” Xian said firmly, rising to his feet. “And yours.”
He looked around at the destruction as if he was seeing it for the first time, which, to be fair, he probably was. “I did this,” he whispered, voice shaking. “But you helped push me to it.” His jaw clenched as he turned back to his mother. “You used me.”
“I did,” she said, lifting her chin. “You are the Qilin. You exist to be used for the good of our Golden Empire. A weapon against the enemies who would—”
“Enemies?” he cried, flinging out his arm toward Fredrick. “Is mysonthe enemy? Isshe?” He shifted to point at the little dragon the Empress Mother was still clutching in her arms. “How long have you known I had children?”
The empress’s jaw tightened beneath the sag of her wrinkled skin, and the Qilin began to growl. “How long, Mother?”
She sighed. “I suspected the truth shortly after hearing Bethesda had clutched two years in a row, but I knew nothing for certain until today. That is thetruth, Xian, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d known from the beginning. I still wouldn’t have told you, because I knew you’d dothis.”
She waved her hand at the flooded lot dotted with collapsed roads. “To allow such a disaster would have been a disgrace to my name and yours. But it had to be done eventually, so I chose to let it happen here. This way, it is Algonquin who suffers, not our subjects. I should think you’d be glad of my foresight.”
“I am glad,” Xian said quietly. “Glad it wasn’t worse. Glad I didn’t—” He cut off with a wince, and then he turned away, putting his back to her. “Go home.”
The empress’s red eyes went wide. “I will not be dismissed like a—”
“So long as I am emperor, you will be whatever I say,” he growled. “Gohome,Empress. And leave the child.”
Her arms tightened on the little girl. Before she could say anything else, though, Chelsie blew a puff of fire into her hands to warm them.
The moment the magic flashed, the girl’s head popped up like a cork. She started to scramble, biting the empress with her baby fangs when the old dragoness wouldn’t let go. The empress dropped the whelp with a pained cry, and the little girl skittered across the ground before launching herself straight at Chelsie, latching on to her torso with all four limbs like a baby monkey.
From the look on her face, Chelsie was as surprised by this as everyone else. Julius, though, could only grin.
“I bet it’s your fire,” he said, smiling down at the little dragon, who seemed to be trying to burrow her way into Chelsie’s ribcage. “You did feed it to her every day for six hundred years. It makes sense she’d recognize it now.”
“I think you’re right,” Chelsie whispered, putting a hesitant arm around the little dragon. The shyness only lasted a second before she crumpled, wrapping herself around the little dragon with a sob. “I’ve got you,” she whispered, pressing kiss after kiss against the child’s fine black hair. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
In classic whelp fashion, the little dragon immediately tried to bite her. She actually landed one, sinking her teeth into her mother’s arm. It looked painful, but Chelsie didn’t seem to mind at all. She just laughed, prying the little dragon’s jaw off her arm with an indulgent smile while Julius stared in shock.
He didn’t think he’d ever seen his sister smile like that. He’ddefinitelynever heard her laugh, but she must have been too exhausted to hold back, because she was doing both in earnest now, the relief making her look centuries younger as she beamed down at the daughter she’d never thought would hatch.
“A proper dragoness,” she said, bopping the whelp on the nose and then snatching her finger back before the little dragon could bite it off. “At least I can see Bob hasn’t been starving you.”
