“He really doesn’t,” Marci piped in. “He can’t even bring himself to kill a—”
Estella whipped her tail, whacking Marci across the room. Julius tried to go after her, but the seer still had him pinned, and all he managed was a truncated wiggle. All he could do was keep reminding himself that he’d already guaranteed that they’d get out of this alive as he watched her land hard on the stone floor. That was cold comfort when she didn’t get up, but Estella had already grabbed his head, forcing his attention back to her.
“You wasted your future,” she growled. “I still have five minutes before the sun sets, andnothingis going to stop me. I don’t know what you did to freeze all my Heartstrikers, but that just makes them easier to kill. You, however, will die first. A fitting punishment for the whelp who spoiled my final victory.”
Her claws dug tighter into his throat with every word. By the time she finished, spots were dancing across Julius’s vision, but no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t push her off. She was simply too big, too old, too strong. He was starting to think that Dragon Sees the Beginning had lied to him about being able to put chains together despite not being a seer when an enormous crash echoed through the throne room.
Estella’s head snapped up and swiveled toward the throne room’s front doors. “No,” she snarled. “Not yet. It doesn’t happen yet.”
But whatever “it” she was talking about didn’t seem to be listening, because another crash came right on the heels of the first, echoing through the throne room like a thunder clap. Estella’s grip on Julius’s throat had loosened when she’d looked up, letting him gasp air back into his lungs. When his vision cleared again, he saw why she was upset.
Something was banging into the massive wooden doors of the throne room like a battering ram. Each hit sent waves of magic crackling over the ward Julius could now see super-imposed like a glowing box over the throne room’s interior, making Amelia jerk against whatever force it was that kept her frozen. But just as Julius was starting to get really worried about his sister, the throne room doors exploded open with enough force to blow Estella off him completely. She was still rolling back to her feet when a tall figure walked out of the rapidly clearing smoke, strolling into the ruined throne room like he owned it.
“Beating up whelps, Estella?” said a familiar voice. “That’s not very sporting.”
Julius sagged into the floor. The relief he felt at hearing Bob’s voice was so strong it was painful. From Estella’s glare, she felt the same, though not from relief. “Well, well,” she growled. “The puppet master graces us with his presence at—”
Her voice cut off with a hiss as she recoiled, dropping defensively to her haunches. Considering Bob was still in his human form, Julius had no idea what could have scared Estella into such a threatened position, and then he saw the second figure step out of the blasted doorway behind his brother.
That cheered Julius up enormously. Backup, finally! But his excitement quickly turned to confusion, because the figure who walked up to join Bob wasn’t one of Bethesda’s security team. He wasn’t even a Heartstriker. He was, however, mostdefinitelya dragon.
His clothing and features in his human guise suggested one of the Chinese clans. That didn’t exactly narrow it down—there were alotof Chinese dragons—but he didn’t smell like any of the families Julius had met. He was handsome, of course, like all dragons, but there was something about him that didn’t quite fit. After a thousand years of being forced to live in them, most dragons wore their human bodies like a second skin, but this dragon’s moved like a puppet, standing unnaturally still and stiff beside Bob like he was a statue someone had just now breathed life into. But strange as all that was, none of it explained how his presence could spook a dragon seer as old and dangerous as Estella. But while she was clearly trying to hide it, there was no disguising that Estella was, in fact, terrified, her eyes locked on the new dragon like he was death himself.
There were few things in the world more dangerous than a terrified, trapped dragon. As such, Estella should have been Bob’s first concern, but after his initial greeting, he didn’t even acknowledge her. Instead, the seer turned to Julius, looking him up and down with a radiant smile. “Look at you!” he cried. “All grown up! You actually look like a dragon now. If I didn’t know better, Imightbe afraid.”
He paused there, obviously waiting for an answer, but Julius didn’t know what to say.
“How rude of me,” Bob said, turning to the strange dragon beside him, the one who had yet to look away from Estella. “Allow me to introduce the Black Reach. Estella already knows him, of course since he was…how did she phrase it? Oh yes, ‘orchestrating the downfall of empires before her mothers were even born.’” He finished with a wide smile, but it wasn’t a pleasant one when he finally turned to face Estella. “See? I warned you that gloating only leads to ironic quotation.”
Julius curled into a protective crouch. It seemed suicidally stupid to taunt Estella in her current condition, but even though Bob was openly mocking her, the white dragon didn’t seem to hear him. She was still staring at the Black Reach, and the longer she stared, the more betrayed she look.
“Him,” she said at last. “Of all dragons, you come to me withhim?”
“I do not play favorites, Northern Star,” the Black Reach replied in a voice that sounded far too deep for his human body. “And I already warned you what would happen when we met again.”
“You think I care?” Estella snarled, showing a wall of sharp, white teeth. “I knew what was coming, and Ichoseto die here in victory rather than wither away in eternal defeat. I have paid the price for my own future, and even you won’t stop me.”
“I don’t have to stop you,” the Black Reach said sadly, nodding toward the balcony. “You’ve already done that yourself.”
Estella’s head whipped around, and her blue eyes went wide. “No.”
Outside, the last sliver of the sun was disappearing below the horizon. As the light vanished, Chelsie, Amelia, and Conrad all began to move again, looking at the throne room like they had no idea how they’d gotten there. Only Bethesda remained frozen, but Julius didn’t have time to think about why that was. His eyes were glued to Estella as the ancient seer finally broke.
“NO!” she wailed, clawing her way across the throne room until she was hanging off the balcony’s sheer edge, staring at the place where the sun had been like she could make it rise again through will alone. “It was not for nothing.It cannot be for nothing!”
“It wasnotfor nothing,” the Black Reach said, pointing at Julius. “He bought back the future you threw away, Estella. In this moment, thanks to him, you are still alive, which means you still have a choice. You are a seer. You know better than any that the future is never set. It’s not yet too late to let go.”
“It’sfartoo late,” she growled, smoke pouring from her mouth as she turned back around. “My fate was sealed the moment I picked up the Kosmolabe, but if it’s my time to go,” her blue eyes flicked to Bob, who was still standing beside Julius, “he’sgoing with me.”
The words were still echoing when Estella opened her mouth, whiting out the whole room with her fire. Like all of her magic, it was freezing cold, an icy flame that consumed everything it touched, including Bob, who was standing right at its center, and Julius who’d gotten caught in the blast behind him. But then, just when Julius was certain he was dead and just hadn’t realized it yet, he noticed that, despite the blinding white fire blazing all around him, he wasn’t actually in pain. Likewise, Bob was still there, whole and unburned, standing in front of him with a pigeon on his shoulder and a Fang of the Heartstriker in his hands.
For the rest of his life, Julius was never able to say where Bob’s sword came from. His blade was even bigger than Justin’s, a massive wall of curving, bone-colored power. Even accounting for the fact that Fangs of the Heartstriker had a flexible relationship with physical reality—changing shape and size seemingly at will—there was still a limit, and Bob definitely hadn’t been carrying a sword when he’d walked in. For all Julius knew, the pigeon had coughed it up. Wherever it had come from, though, the sword was in Bob’s hands now, and he was using it to split Estella’s fire like a rock against the tide until, after what had to be a solid minute, Estella’s fire finally sputtered out.
She collapsed on the balcony, panting and glaring in pure hatred as Bob lowered his sword. “Always a trick,” she spat, forcing herself back to her feet. “Always a way out.”
“Of course,” Bob replied, stabbing his sword into the stone floor and leaning on it like the Fang of his grandfather was a hitching post. “That’s what clever dragons do, Estella. We keep finding ways to win even when older, wiser dragons tell us winning is impossible.”
“You can’t be clever forever,” she snapped. “I’ll never stop, Brohomir, and now, thanks to your soft whelp of a brother, I don’t have to.” She sat up with a smirk. “He bought me a new future. He actuallygave uphis future to buy back what I’d traded away to crush you. Now, thanks to his soft-hearted idiocy, I don’t have to stop. I am free to hunt you until the end of time, until the moment finally comes when your cleverness isn’t enough. And then, Great Seer of the Heartstrikers, I’ll see you fall at last.”
