Her smile turned into a sharp-toothed leer as the red dragons stalked toward them. Julius swore under his breath and turned to face them, dropping a hand to his Fang. Fredrick had already moved to guard his flank, staring at the approaching red dragons with grim determination. “Sir,” he said quietly. “We can’t—”
“I know,” Julius said, drawing his sword, not that it would do much good. His Fang only froze Heartstrikers, and while it was still a perfectly serviceable blade, Julius had never been much good with those. The Mongolian dragons certainly didn’t look worried. They didn’t even have weapons, and they were still advancing fearlessly, grinning at Julius and Fredrick as if taking the two of them down would be no problem at all. Which, considering their size, it probably wouldn’t be.
“If you kill me, you’ll have to wait even longer for your surrender,” Julius warned. “Weeks, maybe months.”
“A trial to be sure,” the empress replied. “But one I’m willing to endure to be rid of a recalcitrant whelp bent on impeding the best stroke of luck your backward clan’s ever had for the sake of his pride. I’m sure your replacement will not make the same mistake.”
Julius cursed under his breath. So much for that. The red dragons were now less than ten feet away, spreading out to attack Julius and Fredrick from both sides at once. Because he was a real dragon, Fredrick instantly adjusted his position to match the new arrangement, but all Julius could focus on was how he’d just gotten them both killed. He was about to suggest they make a break for the balcony when the door in the wall behind the new throne—the one that led to what had been to Bethesda’s apartments—clicked open.
The Empress Mother went still at the sound. So did the twins. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then the empress flicked her fingers, and the twins bolted back to their guard positions by the door, leaving Julius and Fredrick standing back to back in the middle of the room as a dragon wearing blue robes came around the corner of the massive throne.
Locked in fight-or-flight, Julius’s instincts focused instantly on the newcomer. But while he was obviously a member of the emperor’s court, the new dragon looked legitimately baffled by the scene in front of him. By contrast, the Empress Mother had suddenly become the picture of serenity, her bloodthirsty smile evaporating as she turned to acknowledge their visitor.
“What is it, Lao?” she asked placidly. “Does my son require my attention?”
The new dragon, Lao, shook his head. “No, Empress. I was just passing through on my way to find the youngest Heartstriker.”
The Empress Mother blinked in surprise, but Julius had already jumped. “That’s me!” he said loudly, shoving his Fang back into its sheath. “I’m Julius Heartstriker.”
“So I see,” Lao said, looking him over before turning back to the empress. “Were you busy with him, Empress Mother? The Qilin wanted to ask him a question, but I’d be happy to wait if you’re—”
“No!” Julius said. “We actually came up to ask for an audience with the emperor. The Empress Mother was just about to grant it when you arrived.”
The old dragoness’s red eyes narrowed dangerously, but when she didn’t call him on the lie, Julius knew he’d just found the limit of her vaunted power.
“I’d like nothing better than to speak with the Golden Emperor,” he said brightly, turning all of his attention to Lao, whom Julius’s nose had just identified as the blue dragon who’d thrown the robe over the Qilin when he’d landed and handed Julius the surrender scroll. “You work for him, right?”
“I am his cousin and sorcerer,” Lao said, looking nervously at the Empress Mother. But while it was clear he knew he’d interrupted something, his loyalty must have been to the emperor alone, because he didn’t ask her if he should wait again. He just turned and walked back to the door that led to Bethesda’s apartments in the rear half of the mountain’s peak, beckoning for the Heartstrikers to follow.
Julius didn’t wait to be told twice. He bolted for the exit, dragging Fredrick behind him as they fled the throne room under the Empress Mother’s murderous glare.
***
“That was lucky,” Fredrick whispered when they were safely on the other side.
“I think ‘lucky’ is the operative word,” Julius whispered back, looking around at what had been his mother’s front parlor.
Like everything else up here, the Heartstriker’s private rooms had been swept absolutely clean. Unlike the empty Hall of Heads and throne room, though, these had been redecorated with potted plants, vases in a variety of styles from traditional Ming to modern art pieces, and paintings. Absolutely lovely paintings, actually.
Like the vases, the art on the walls came in a wide variety of styles with modern abstract pieces hanging next to traditional watercolor landscapes depicting gorgeously rendered dragons floating over mountains and rice paddies. The wide difference should have been jarring, but the colors, lines, and textures had been deftly arranged so that each painting balanced its neighbors. The result was perfect harmony, an effortless greater beauty that was the polar opposite of Bethesda’s gaudy gold furniture and left no question as to whose rooms these were now.
“This way,” Lao said. “The immaculate Qilin desires to see you immediately.”
Julius followed obediently, doing his best not to trip over his feet as he gawked at the beautiful changes, which continued down the hallway that ran through the middle of his mother’s suite. He was taking a mental inventory of everything that had been replaced when Lao stopped at the doorway to what had been Bethesda’s sitting room, the one where she and David had been waiting for Julius the morning of their first Council meeting. When he tried to walk inside, though, the blue dragon stopped him.
“Your sword.”
Julius blinked at him. “Sword?”
Lao’s jaw tightened in annoyance. “However insignificant the threat may be, we cannot allow armed outsiders to enter the Golden Emperor’s presence. You must hand over your weapon before I can permit you to go inside.”
Julius found it odd that the Living Embodiment of Good Fortune would worry about something as mundane as a sword. But the request wasn’t unreasonable, so he obediently removed his Fang, though he didn’t offer it to Lao. When the blue dragon scowled, he explained, “Fangs of the Heartstriker are particular about who touches them.”
He’d expected to have to say a lot more than that, but to his surprise, Lao nodded. “We’ve already had a run-in with the sword on the balcony,” he said, leaning away from the sheathed blade in Julius’s hands. “You may leave it here, along with your servant.”
“Fredrick’s not my servant,” Julius said quickly. “He’s my brother, and I’d like him to come with me if that’s okay.”
The Chinese dragon’s eyebrows shot up. “That’syour brother?”
