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.”
“Youcan’tbe serious.”
Fredrick’s reply was to just keep glaring, and Bethesda pressed a hand to her forehead. “Youare,” 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 theyhada 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. Ijusthad 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 thewaythey moved didn’t make sense at all. They weren’t soaring like planes or flapping like birds or even floating on the wind. They weresnaking, 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.
