“Who told you?” she said at last.
“No one,” Fredrick said with a sneer. “We’re not stupid. Bethesda might have frightened everyone else into not asking questions, but we were the ones who were told that our birth was the reason we’d been sealed and trapped in servitude. Naturally, we investigated, and once we started digging, the truth became obvious pretty quickly. The only thing we didn’t know was whichmember of the Golden Emperor’s court was our father.”
“Why does that matter?” Julius asked, genuinely confused. “None of us knows who our dads are. I certainly don’t know mine.”
“It doesn’t matter to you because you’re Bethesda’s actual son,” Fredrick said bitterly. “She cared enough about your clutch not to want to share, but we were different. Despite claiming to be our mother, Bethesda never treated us like she did the rest of you. We were servants to her, not dragons. She didn’t even bother trying to manipulate us.”
“That’s a good thing,” Chelsie said.
“Is it?” Fredrick snapped, glaring at her. “Why do you think we searched so hard for our father? Given how you left China, we knew he wouldn’t be happy, but however unwanted we might have been, no dragon would tolerate his children living as slaves in another’s house. He would free us out of pride, if nothing else. For centuries, that was our hope. Even after the others gave up, I kept searching, but I never found him. Now, at last, I understand why. I was looking too low. When I saw the emperor’s unveiled face, Iknew.”
Julius frowned. “How did you know?”
Instead of answering, Fredrick reached up to brush his fingers across his face. Dragon magic bit down as he moved, and when it faded, Fredrick’s eyes were no longer Heartstriker green. They weren’t even the wrong color green they’d been all morning. They were gold. The perfect, warm, buttery, metallic color of golden coins.
The moment she saw them, Chelsie recoiled. “How?”
“How do you think?” Fredrick said angrily. “We were Amelia’s guinea pigs, remember? She was just trying to show up Svena by breaking Bethesda’s green-eyed curse, but the moment she saw my eyes, she started laughing. I pleaded with her to tell me what the gold meant. Ibegged, but she refused. Brohomir wouldn’t say anything, either. No one would.” He lifted his fists, his body shaking with rage. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Chelsie shook her head. “I couldn’t take that risk.”
“What risk?” Fredrick cried. “He’s an emperor! And helovedyou! I always assumed you ran away because our father was dangerous, but the dragon I met with Julius today isn’t like that at all. His mother is, but even she has to obey the Golden Emperor. Everyone does. He could have saved us! Why did you run from him?”
“Because hewasdangerous!”
This whole time, Chelsie had been clinging to calm, but the more Fredrick, the more hersonaccused her, the more she cracked.
“Do you think I wanted this for you?” she yelled. “Stuck with me under Bethesda’s boot? If there was any other way, I would have killed to get it, but therewasn’t. I didn’t keep this from you because I wanted to. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, because keeping you secret was the only way I could keep you safe.”
“Safe from what?” Julius asked.
Chelsie shot him a lethal-caliber version of thestay out of thisglare, but Julius refused to be put off. Everyone had stayed out of this problem for far too long. It was going to be painful, but if they were ever to have a shot at actually fixing this mess, he couldn’t spare the wound.
“Fredrick’s right,” he said firmly. “The Qilin’s not a vengeful dragon. If he’d known he had children, I’m certain he would have come for them, and for you. He might have been upset about being lied to, but he wouldn’t have been violent.”
“Xian is never violent,” Chelsie said, her voice faltering when she spoke the emperor’s name. “It wasn’t him I worried about. It was his magic. I heard him tell you how Qilin’s luck works, but do you knowwhyhe has that power?”
“He inherited it from his father,” Julius said.
“Exactly,” Chelsie said. “The Golden Emperor’s magic is unique among dragons. When a seer dies, their power is reborn into whatever dragon of the appropriate sex happens to hatch first after their death. With the right timing, any dragon clan can have a seer, but Qilin’s power is different. It was cultivated. Xian told me that his clan has always had a tradition of fortune magic, but the power wasn’t reliable. To solve this problem, his ancestors bred their lines together, consolidating their clan’s magic into one perfect dragon, the first Qilin.”
Julius had his own thoughts about the “perfection” of the Qilin’s magic, but Chelsie wasn’t finished.
“That perfection wasn’t natural,” she went on. “Like an ornate garden, it had to be carefully maintained. To make sure all the magic transfers from one generation to another, each Qilin fathers only one child, and only after an elaborate ceremony with a mate specifically chosen for her ability to complete the magical endurance run that is carrying a Qilin egg to term. Even then, the empress doesn’t actually lay the egg until the old Qilin dies to ensure that every bit of his fire is passed on.” She sighed. “I’m sure you can see where this is going.”
Julius nodded, glancing at Fredrick, who was the oldest of a clutch of twenty and, despite his golden eyes, mostdefinitelynot a Qilin. “You laid too many eggs.”
“That’s the least of what I did,” Chelsie said angrily. “When I got pregnant, I broke the line. Even with the Golden Emperor’s luck, it takes an insane amount of preparation to arrange the auspicious circumstances necessary to create a new Qilin. Each emperor only gets one shot at passing on his flame, and I took it.”
“How can you say that?” Julius asked. “You’re acting like this is all your fault, but it takes two dragons to make a clutch, and it’shisline. I know you said you were young and stupid, but—”
“Notthatyoung and stupid,” Chelsie snapped. “I was your age when I went to China, but I knew where eggs came from. Dragonesses aren’t even supposed to be fertile until they clear a hundred. Even then it takes a mating flight, which is why Xian and I stayed in our human forms at all times. It should have beenimpossiblefor me to get pregnant, but apparently I’m Bethesda’s daughter in more ways than one, because it happened anyway.”
“That still doesn’t mean it’s your fault,” Julius said gently. “Making the impossible happen is what the Qilin does.” And considering how happy he seemed to have been with Chelsie, his luck would have been running hot indeed. “Did he want children?”
It was hard to see in the dark, but Julius would have sworn his sister blushed.
“He told me once that he did,” she said quietly. “We both knew it was impossible. Maintaining the Qilin’s fire and passing it on to the next generation is the Golden Emperor’s most sacred duty, and Xian hasalwaysdone his duty. But knowing something can’t happen doesn’t stop you from wanting it.”
