“No thanks,” Amelia said, cutting him off. “Now that I can stay on this plane without worrying about my mother constantly trying to kill me, my schedule is full. Don’t get me wrong, I wish you crazy kids all the luck in the world with your alternative forms of government, but I’ve got much bigger targets on my radar than Heartstriker.”
“Count me out as well,” Conrad said. “I’m a knight, not a bureaucrat. I want the clan to be strong and secure. Other than that, I have no interest in how it’s run.”
“If Conrad’s out, then so am I,” Justin said, puffing out his chest. “I’m a knight, too. I’m supposed to be out there fighting duels and expanding our reputation, not sitting around in meetings listening to Juliustalk.”
“Oh comeon!” Julius cried. “You can’t leave all of this to me and Bob!”
“Actually, I’m afraid I have to bow out as well,” Bob said apologetically.
Julius whirled around to face him. “Why?”
Bob arched an eyebrow. “Because I’m the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers. I’ve already seen how I’d do on the council, and, trust me, it’s a hot mess. Everyone will be constantly accusing me of manipulating the votes—which of course Iwillbe whether I’m on the council or not—but that’s a kettle of seers we do notwantto open. No, I’ve seen how this shakes out, and we’re all far better off when I stay behind the curtain. Plus, Justin’s right. Meetingsareboring.”
Julius couldn’t believe this was happening. “You can’t all refuse! That just leavesme.” Alone. On a council with Bethesda and one other Heartstriker, making decisions that would decide the entire clan’s fate. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not. I’m not doing it.”
“But you have to do it,” Bob said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “This was youridea, Julius. If you refuse, then your council will fizzle before it begins.”
Julius shot a terrified look at Bethesda, who was already eying him like he was a lost lamb. “I’mnotsitting alone on a council with Mother,” he hissed at Bob. “My heart can’t take it.”
“You give your heart too little credit,” Bob said. “Remember, you hold the current family record for standing up to Bethesda. The rest of us were smart and learned our lessons the first time, but you’ve done ittwice! That’s the sort of borderline self-destructive dedication we need if we’re going to make this thing work.”
“You’re not making me feel better,” Julius said, shoulders slumping.
“I wasn’t trying to,” Bob said sternly. “I’m here to tell you the truth, not coddle you, and the truth is that you’re the only one who can do this. We’re about to attempt reforming an entire dragon clan. Changes like that don’t stick with the same-old, same-old in power. If we’rereallygoing to make this thing work, we need a dragon who doesn’t think like a dragon. Someone who can handle Bethesda and the rest of us without resorting to the kind of power games that got us into this mess. Someone who’s seen the consequences of the path we’re on and actually wants to change it. We needyou.” He grinned. “We always have. I keep telling you I didn’t pick you at random. This moment is the result of years of work. You can’t throw all that away now. And besides, it’s not like you’ll be alone with Mother. According to the rules, you’ll have at least one other, non-Fang-holding member of the family to help you along.”
Julius did not consider a random member of his family to be a “help,” especially not one ambitious enough to get chosen as the final member on a three dragon council. But while he was still terrified and more than a little furious about having all of this dumped on him, Bob was right. Thiswashis idea, and he desperately wanted it to work. He’d hated the way dragon clans worked his whole life. He and Katya and Chelsie and Justin and pretty much every dragon he called friend had all suffered in one way or another under the system that let clan heads like Bethesda and Estella be tyrants. Now, he had a chance to change all of that for the Heartstrikers, bloodlessly, with the help and support of the top members of his family. That really was a once in a dragon lifetime opportunity, and certain as Julius was that this was going to suckepicallyfor him for years to come, he couldn’t let that pass him by.
“Okay,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll do it.”
“I knew you would,” Bob replied, producing an old-fashioned inkwell and a suspiciously large, painfully beautiful, peacock blue feather quill from somewhere in his pockets before turning to their mother. “You first.”
Bethesda shot him a dirty look, but she didn’t argue. She just reached up and jabbed one of her sharp nails into the soft flesh of her inner arm, holding it out so Bob could collect the bright red blood in the inkwell. When they had collected enough, Bethesda took the feather, which Julius strongly suspected was one of Bob’s own, and dipped the tip of the quill into the blood, tapping the excess off neatly before leaning down to sign her name in a recalcitrant scrawl.
“There,” she growled, tossing the feather back at Bob. “It’s done. Now,” her murderous glare shifted to Amelia. “Unseal me.”
Amelia’s lips curled into a cruel smile, but before she could say any of the cutting, painfully appropriate comebacks that were clearly on the tip of her tongue, Bob beat her to it.
“We’ll leave that for the council to decide,” he said cheerfully. “We just got it! It’d be a shame not to use it.”
“You would have me stay likethis?” Bethesda roared, gesturing down at the magical seal which Julius—now that his own seal had been broken—could clearly see shimmering over her magic. “Impossible! You might as well hang a sign on my back that says ‘stab here.’” Her eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “Not that that would be a change of pace after tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” Bob said, rubbing his ear. “I couldn’t hear that last bit over all the times we’ve saved your life tonight.”
Bethesda’s glare turned surly, and Brohomir stopped smiling. “You will be unsealed when the council is complete and decides to do so. You’ll have a vote, but you do not give orders here anymore, Bethesda. This is a new era, and as you once said tome,if we’re going to ensure your full participation, we need as much of your skin in this game as possible.”
Julius had never heard his mother say that specifically, but he knew someone’s words being thrown back in their face when he saw it. But though their mother definitely looked killing mad, she didn’t say anything else. She simply drew herself up like the queen she no longer was and left, her high heels clicking angrily on the cracked stone as she stormed down the dais steps and into her apartments, slamming the door with an echoingbam.
“She’s going to claw her way back to power the first chance she gets,” Chelsie said quietly.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Bob said with a bright smile. “Welcome to the new Heartstriker!”
His sister glared at him, but Bob was too busy nicking his hand on his sword to notice, using the welling blood to sign his own name on the contract as a witness before turning to offer the paper—and the bloody quill—to Julius.
***
After that, it was all over surprisingly quickly. Despite the inherent queasiness involved with signing his first blood contract, Julius managed to get it done without making a fool of himself. They still needed the signature of whichever Heartstriker became the third vote on the council before they could actually do anything, but with Bethesda’s name already down, she was no longer Queen of Heartstriker. It also meant Julius was now officially one of the three voices running the biggest dragon clan in the world, which, now that his siblings had gone to inform the rest of the clan of the new way of things, was actually making him feel a little ill.
“I still can’t believe you talked them into a council,” Katya said, shaking her head. “The other clans will go insane when they hear.”
