“I couldn’t kill you until I knew you understood,” she explained, taking careful aim at the Heartstriker’s neck. “I’ve paid too much for this to accept mere death. I had to see you break, just like your death is going to break your clan, just like I’m going to break everything Brohomir has ever touched. That’s what I went to our dead world to purchase.Thatis what I paid for. Not your death or the deaths of your children, but Brohomir’s utter defeat. I will smash his dreams to dust and grind his ambition under my feet, and when I am done, I will die satisfied at last, because I will havewon.”
By the time she finished, Bethesda was shaking. “You are mad,” she whispered.
“And you are dead,” Estella replied, bringing her sword down.
But then, just as Estella began the strike that would cut the head off of the Heartstriker clan and begin the irreversible downfall of her most hated enemy, something landed on her hand. It was less than nothing, a tiny spattering of black, sandy dust, but it still made Estella freeze, because here, in the moment where every move was planned down to the smallest detail, the dust was asurprise. She was trying to decide if it was a significant one when the ceiling opened up, dropping a dragon and his human directly on her head.
***
After so long falling through the dark, the sudden burst of light hit Julius like a punch. But while it was instantly obvious he and Marci were finally back in some kind of world and no longer falling through…whatever it was Dragon Sees the Beginning had dropped them into, it took him an embarrassingly long time to actually recognize the huge, golden space as his mother’s throne room lit up by the evening sun. That was as far as he got before they crashed down on top of something wiry and wiggling that smelled like an icy sea.
“Get off me!”
Julius hadn’t even finished landing before the wiggly something threw them off again, launching them both across the room. Julius landed on his feet by pure habit, and then scrambled to catch Marci, who hadn’t had his training. When they were both safely on the ground, he finally looked around to see where, and also when, they had landed.
The answer wasn’t what he’d hoped. They were, indeed, in his mother’s throne room, but the Heartstriker wasn’t on her throne. She was on her knees, held there by Chelsie. Amelia was there too, as was Conrad, and, surprisingly, Justin, though he didn’t look good at all lying on the floor in front of the cratered wall that he’d obviously been thrown into. But worse than all of that by miles was Estella.
Julius swallowed. Apparently,shewas the wiry thing they’d landed on, and she looked furious about it, glaring at Julius with murder in her eyes.
“You,” she snarled, her pale fingers curling into fists. “It’s alwaysyou! Why am I even surprised?”
Julius glanced at Marci, who shrugged.
“You’realwaysin his plans,” Estella went on. “Not that I know why. You are literally the lowest of your clan, the bottom of the bottom! If Brohomir wasn’t so obsessed with you, I wouldn’t even know you existed.” She bared her teeth. “What is it he thinks you’re going to do here? Talk me to death?”
“It’s not too late,” Julius said quickly, stealing a quick glance through the balcony at the sun, which was only inches away from the horizon. “We can still come to a mutual—”
“You must bejoking,” Estella scoffed, flinging her hand out. “Kill them!”
The second she barked the order, Chelsie, Conrad, and Amelia turned on Julius and Marci as one. “Oh boy,” Marci said, sticking close to Julius as he backed them away. “Not good.”
“No,” he agreed, edging back as Chelsie and Conrad both leaned down to pick up the Fangs that, for some reason, they hadn’t been holding. “Any brilliant ideas?”
“Me?” Marci hissed. “You’re the one who just sold his future for a solution!”
That he had, but the solution he’d paid for was more of a big picture kind of thing, and he didn’t see how it was going to help them now with his three scariest siblings bearing down on them. “I think we should try to separate them,” he whispered. “Remember, we don’t need to win, just survive.”
“Staying alive is always a good plan,” Marci said, reaching up to put her hand on Ghost, who was still clinging to her shoulders. “I’ll take Amelia, you get the other two. Ready?”
“No,” he said, just as Marci yelled, “Break!”
She darted sideways, hands flaring as she yanked down her magic and circled to flank Amelia, who was the farthest away. This left Julius alone in the middle of the room with Conrad and Chelsie. He was wondering if he could survive a jump off the balcony when he saw Justin stirring out of the corner of his eye.
That gave him an idea, and he flicked his eyes up toward the massive skull hanging from the throne room’s ceiling. Specifically, he looked at the skull’s left fang, the one that had been Justin’s.
Under normal circumstances, this should have meant Julius wouldn’t have a chance of getting it out since Fangs could only be pulled by the hand they accepted, and any sword that preferred Justin wouldnevertake Julius. But these weren’t normal circumstances. This was the timeline leading up to the moment in the future Julius had purchased, the one where he was guaranteed to still be alive, and if Estella could leverage the chain’s absolute certainty to make the impossible happen, then so could Julius. He had to dosomethingin any case, because while he’d been thinking, Chelsie and Conrad had gotten almost within sword’s reach. So, with nothing to lose but his life, Julius put his faith in the future and jumped as high as he could, hands reaching up to grab his grandfather’s deadly, curving fang.
He’d never actually touched a dragon bone before this moment. Not surprisingly, it was warm as stone in the desert. It was also stuck fast, and for a terrifying second, Julius was sure he’d just turned himself into a hanging target. But then, right before Chelsie swung to cut him down, an old, terrifying magic bit into his hand, and Julius looked up to see that he was no longer clinging to a tooth. He was holding a sword, the huge, familiar Fifth Blade of Bethesda.
He was also falling.
Big as Justin’s sword was, it was still much smaller than the tooth it had been. This size difference meant the sword was no longer connected to the skull, an unexpected consequence that turned up in his favor as Julius plummeted to the ground just in time for Chelsie’s attack to slice through the air where he’d been. He landed on his back, rolling when he hit to come up running. That still shouldn’t have made a difference given who was after him, but Estella’s control must have made Chelsie and Conrad sluggish, because Julius made it all the way across the room without getting snagged, jumping for his downed brother like he was sliding into home plate.
“Justin!”
Justin’s eyes popped open. He was lying on his back in a pile of rubble, his face and chest battered like he’d been beaten. “Julius?” he said softly, squinting like he wasn’t yet convinced this wasn’t a hallucination. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s not important,” Julius said, holding out his brother’s Fang. “I know you’re hurt, but do you think you can pull it together long enough to help me save our clan?”
