“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘greedy,’” Svena replied with a huff. “Just because you’re the Spirit of Dragons doesn’t mean all our treasures are yours. If you come for me, I will fight you, and when my opponent is a self-styled god, I see no reason to fight fair.”
“You’ve never fought fair,” Amelia grumbled. “But fine, whatever, do it your way. So long as the teleporting gets done, I don’t care if you make the circle out of orphan hearts.”
Svena looked confused. “What are you talking about? The hearts of children without parents are no more magical than the hearts of any other child, which is to say not very magical at all. You know perfectly well that humans are a vastly inferior source for—”
“For the love of—it was ajoke,” Amelia groaned. “Just cast your spell before Julius has a conniption.”
Both dragons looked at Julius, who blushed. He hadn’t realized his nerves were showing that badly, but since he had their attention… “Wearein a hurry. So please, if you wouldn’t mind…”
“I don’t mind at all,” Svena said, walking into the large, clear patch of dirt beside the crater Bob had made when he’d come in. “Amelia’s the one wasting time digging for other dragons’ treasure. Greedy snake.”
Amelia could only shrug at that one, but Svena wasn’t looking at her anymore. Her ice-blue eyes were fixed on the ground as she carefully paced off a length of dirt between the wall of cracked on-ramps and the broken house. When she’d walked out a circle that was roughly forty feet in diameter, she held out her hand.
“Katya.”
Katya sighed and began plucking the fluffy white baby dragons off her body. “Can you hold them for a moment?”
Before Julius could answer, Katya shoved the entire clutch at him. He was still struggling to keep the squirming whelps from hitting the ground when Katya ran over to take position on the opposite side of the circle from her sister, biting her lip nervously as she held out her hands. She’d barely gotten them up before Svena stomped over and started correcting her form, smacking the younger dragoness’s limbs until they were in positions that—to Julius at least—looked only marginally different from how they’d been at the start. It must have been a critical margin, though, because Svena nodded and walked back to her spot, raising her own arms in a graceful arc until they were a mirror image of Katya’s.
“Just like we do at home,” Svena said, breathing out a long plume of ice-pale smoke. “Now.”
The word was barely out of her mouth when both dragonesses brought their hands down, and the circle Svena had made in the dirt with her footsteps exploded in blue-white fire. The blast that rolled off it hit Julius like a bucket of frozen seawater, and he wasn’t the only one. The ghostly flames lowered the temperature of the entire cavern by a good twenty degrees, making everyone except Ghost shudder. Lacy frost was creeping across the ground in curls when Katya stepped back to cede the ignited circle to her sister, who looked smugger than Julius had ever seen her.
“Andthatis how it’s done,” Svena said, casting a superior look at Amelia, who was openly gaping. “With a proper magical education and attention to form and detail, even a fire-deaf dragon like Katya can assist in creating masterpieces. You would do well to take note, Planeswalker.” She turned back to the circular inferno of freezing flames in front of her. “Now that the initial base is ignited, all I need is a name and a location to grab any dragon from anywhere on this plane,includingfrom behind wards.”
Amelia looked impressed despite herself. “For real? Wards too? So you can just grab anyone at any time?”
“It would hardly be useful otherwise,” Svena said proudly, her blue eyes brighter than ever as they reflected the dancing flames. “This is the greatest work of my clan. I was the primary architect, but we all did our share, and that cooperation is reflected in its power. It is an unbeatable strategic weapon, a spell capable of grabbing any dragon, anywhere. The only one we could never get was Brohomir, but only because he always saw it coming and moved.”
“And me,” Katya said, walking over to take the whelps back from Julius. “It’s written into the base magic of the spell that members of our own clan can only be teleported if we’re willing. That was the price of my help. Otherwise, Estella would have ripped me back home every time I escaped.”
“There are afewlimitations,” Svena admitted grudgingly. “It takes at least two of us to make the initial circle, and I have to be one. It’s also enormously draining. Given that I just laid a clutch of eggs, I shouldn’t have been able to make it work at all, but there’s so much free-floating magic around right now, I don’t have to worry about collapse, which makes things much easier. Also, Amelia’s connection to our fire might have given Katya and me a tiny boost, which pushed us over the edge.”
“Right,” Amelia said, rolling her eyes. “So what you’re saying is your amazing treasure spell is a giant pain in the butt that you’re only able to cast because I’m helping you.”
“I could cast it any time I liked!” Svena snapped back. “It would just require a few months of set up. With proper planning, though, it is an unstoppable weapon!”
“Then why’d you never use it?” Amelia asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Because once we did, everyone would know we had it,” Katya explained. “If the other clans knew we could grab any of them at any time, they would unite against us. We’d be enemy number one for the entire world, and even we couldn’t stand against that.”
Svena scowled at her sister while Amelia began to howl. “Some super weapon! You can’t even use it without putting a target on your own clan!”
“Which is exactly why I did not wish to reveal itnow,” Svena growled. “There will be no putting it back in the bag after this, but it’s too late to turn back.” She looked pointedly over her shoulder at the Qilin’s arriving dragons, who were so busy gawking at the ring of blue-white fire, they almost missed their landing. “The whole world will know soon enough, so we might as well make it count.” She glanced at Amelia. “Whom am I grabbing first?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Amelia said, putting up her hands. “You can’t just start plucking dragons out of their strongholds! All we’ll get is a bunch of terrified, angry lizards, which is more harm than good. We gotta warm them up before we bring them in.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Svena asked snidely. “Send them a letter?”
Amelia’s lips curled in a smirk of her own. “Not quite.”
She stepped up to the edge of the flaming blue circle, and her body began to flicker, her edges rippling in the cold wind coming off Svena’s roaring magic like a candle flame. Then, in a wink, she was gone entirely, replaced by the same dragon made of fire Julius had seen when she’d first come back from the dead. He was still gawking at her flaming wings when Amelia’s voice boomed through his fire, filling his head with the burning bite of her magical teeth.
Hear me, serpents of the Earth,she said, the words throbbing like a physical force inside his chest.Your new god speaks! I am Amelia the Planeswalker, the Spirit of Dragons. As you’ve all felt since last night, our racial fire is now connected to the magic of this world. No longer are we wanderers, refugees in a foreign land. With my life, I have won us a new home, but you must fight to keep it. The Lady of the Lakes has sold us to a Nameless End, a force of absolute destruction from beyond our plane. To avoid extinction, we must dig deep into the magic of our new world and come together as one force against our common foe.
That sounded pretty inspiring to Julius, but Amelia wasn’t finished.This is not a request,the Spirit of Dragons boomed, her magic gripping his flames like a fist.If you refuse to fight, then you are not worthy of our new power. Just as I connected all of you to the magic that is now flooding this world, I will cut you off, leaving you a fireless worm. You will be even lower than we sank during the drought, while those around you who answered my call will be bathed in my power. If you do not wish this to be your fate, accept Svena the White Witch’s hand when she reaches for you, and she will bring you to me. Once we are all assembled, I will explain how we will beat back this invader and defend our new home.
She finished with a flourish, cutting off with a jab so sharp, every dragon in the yard coughed out a puff of smoke. Even Svena’s squirming whelps went still, their blue eyes wide as they stared in awe at Amelia, who looked incredibly pleased with herself.
