“Amelia!” Julius cried, dodging frantically as one of the spears shot past him. “Amelia!”
Don’t be dramatic,scolded the voice in his fire. His sister reappeared beside him a few moments later, though in a much smaller form. Her feathers hadn’t even finished firming up when Svena swept in.
“What was that?” the white dragon panted, lowering the temperature several degrees with her frosty breaths. “And did it work?”
“Testing the Leviathan’s resistance,” Amelia replied, her own breaths worryingly short. “And no.” She glanced up at the Leviathan’s black shell, which, despite her incredible display of firepower, looked just as glossy and impenetrable as it had before.
“I don’t understand,” Svena said, pushing back one of the whelps who’d crawled too far up her neck. “I felt that blast all the way to my core. You hit him with the combined force of all dragon fire.Nothingshould be immune to that.”
“I don’t think he’s immune,” Amelia said. “I saw my attack do a little damage before he tried to spear me, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped, and I’m afraid that’s kind of my fault.”
“How do you figure that?” Julius asked.
“Being made of sentient magic, spirits aren’t usually bothered by physical weapons,” his sister explained. “For example, you couldn’t hurt Algonquin with a sword. No matter how hard you hit, your blade would just go right through her while she laughed. The reason dragons have never had a problem with this particular defense is because we’re magic too. We’re fighting fire with fire, so to speak, except our fire is from a different plane. That’s why spirits have always seen us as such an enormous threat despite our relatively small numbers. We have a weapon they can’t easily counter: our dragon fire. Unfortunately, when I became the Spirit of Dragons and tied our fire into the magic of this plane, I might have… broken that.”
“What?” Svena shrieked. “I noticed the tentacles were taking longer to burn than they should, but I thought that was just the Nameless End’s influence. I didn’t realize you’d broken our fundamental advantage!”
“Not on purpose!” Amelia cried. “And if I hadn’t tied us all into the magic, we wouldn’t be here to fight at all!”
“We might as well not be,” Svena snapped, jerking her long claws back at the dragons flaming all around them. “Look at how slow everyone’s going! We’re all going to die up here because you neutered our fire!”
Julius didn’t think the assault was going slowly at all. Maybe it wasn’t up to Svena’s standards, but tentacles were still turning to ash at a perfectly acceptable rate, and in any case, “It doesn’t matter,” he said, shoving his body between the two dragonesses, who were both getting dangerously smoky. “We were never planning to assault the Leviathan directly, and we can still burn the part that matters.”
He pointed across the city at the bursts of light where Conrad was burning entire clusters of the Leviathan’s tentacles. “Our only job is to stall that thing long enough for Marci to banish it, and our fire still works fine for that.” He turned back to Svena. “We’re still on target, so please go back to your sisters and help protect Lake Erie. Also,” his voice grew pleading, “pleaseput your children down somewhere safe. I know bringing whelps into battle is an ancient dragon tradition, but it’s terrifying to watch.”
“Terrifying for a weak dragon like you, perhaps,” Svena said with a sniff. “Butmychildren are strong. When we survive, they will treasure this memory. Anyway, there’s nowhere else to put them. The ground is just as dangerous, so they might as well be with me.”
Julius wasn’t sure about that. Now that the attacks had started, the Leviathan was sending down more tentacles than ever, except this time, not all of them were going for the water. Several were aimed at the dragons, including one that was flying right at Svena’s back. Before he could warn her, a blast of fire scorched the incoming attack out of the sky, and then Ian swooped down beside them.
At least, it smelled like Ian. Julius had never seen his brother’s dragon, which was oddly dark with deep reddish-brown feathers like a falcon’s. But there was no other Heartstriker with eyes that rich brown color, and if that wasn’t a big enough tip-off, the angry, possessive way he was staring at Svena banished all doubt.
For several moments, Svena looked just as shocked as Julius felt. Then her eyes narrowed. “I don’t recall asking for your help,” she said icily.
“You didn’t need it,” Ian agreed, his voice as cold as hers. “But they did.” He nodded at the whelps on Svena’s back, who were staring at him with huge blue eyes. “You can easily survive a direct hit. They cannot. Therefore, considering the number of tentacles in the sky, I think the best tactical move would be to divide them between us. That way, if one of us goes down, all of our children won’t be lost.”
“How very practical,” Svena said.
“Our entire relationship has been practical,” Ian reminded her. “That’s why I treasured you. I thought we understood each other. You were the one who changed.”
“I did not change!” she snarled. “Your family took my rival and betrayed me! I had every right to be enraged!”
“But not without me,” Ian said, getting closer. “I would have fought them with you, Svena, and I don’t fear your rage. It’s part of what attracted me to you in the first place. You should have known that and kept me close. Instead, you shut me out. That was your choice to make, but you have no right to keep my children from me.”
Svena looked extremely distressed by that, and Amelia rolled her eyes. “Can’t you two save the custody battle for when the worldisn’tending?” she snapped, glaring at Svena. “Just take him with you and work it out on the battlefield or something. I don’t care what you do so long as you do it on the move, because while you two were bickering, the rest of your clan was falling behind.”
The cluster of white dragons in the distancewaslooking a bit harried, and Svena sighed. “Ian,” she said primly. “Your idiot sister makes a good point. I admit I was hasty in my decisions before, but—”
“Hasty?” Ian growled. “You freaked out over assumed information, broke our treaties, stole my children, and locked me out in a magical apocalypse after I flew all the way to Siberia to talk to you!” He crossed his short forefeet in front of him. “I deserve an apology, but since part of the reason I admire you is because you never give those, I’ll settle for full reinstatement as your consort and a life debt.”
Amelia whooped with laughter as Svena’s eyes grew wide. “Scale’s on the other foot now, snowball!”
“Shut up, fire chicken,” Svena snapped, but she really did look nervous as she watched Ian. Then, finally, she nodded, and the binding magic of the life debt landed on all of them like frozen teeth.
Ian sucked in a breath as the cold struck him, and his face split into a triumphant smile. “There,” he said, reaching out to the whelps, who happily leaped to him, their little noses quivering as they sniffed his feathers. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“That was amazing!” Amelia cackled, grinning at Svena, who looked ready to blast her in the face again. “Svena giving a life debt to her lover! Now Iknowthe world is ending.”
Julius was feeling the same way, but not because of Svena and Ian. The whole time they’d been talking, he’d been watching the battle—both with his eyes and on the radar screen his com had picked up from the incoming jets. From what he could tell, their end of the fight was going as well as he could have hoped. Justin was having the time of his life blasting endless targets to his violent heart’s content, Conrad was a powerhouse, and the Golden Emperor had all of Lake Michigan on lockdown, leading his dragons in such perfect harmony, it looked as if they’d choreographed the whole thing in advance.
