“Better to finish this here than have her hounding us,” Amelia said, marching past her beach chair to the edge of the surf. “And it’s not like you can run.”
With those words, Marci became perilously aware of her position. Thanks to the curse, she couldn’t follow Amelia through the portal, and Estella was blocking her only way out.
“I see you finally comprehend your position.”
The whisper washed over her like ice water, and Marci whirled around to see Estella standing right beside her.
“Hands off, Snow Queen!” Amelia yelled from the beach. “That one is mine!”
“I would never stoop to using mortals as hostages,” Estella replied, looking down on Marci like she was a bumbling puppy. “Unlike your clan,westill have our honor.”
Amelia’s snort eloquently expressed what she thought ofthat. “Honor must be all you have, then, because if you still had your foresight, you’d know better than to bring your sister to her death.”
Estella laughed. “I see the Heartstriker’s arrogance bred true, at least.”
“It’s not arrogance to speak the truth,” Amelia said, glaring at Svena, who had yet to say a word as she stepped through the portal to take up position opposite the Heartstriker heir on the beach. “But if you need another lesson in the dangers of challenging those greater than yourself, I’ll be happy to be your teacher.”
“AndIwill be happy to finally see that smug mouth silenced,” Estella said, turning to her sister. “When you’re ready.”
At this point, Marci was torn as to what to do. On the one hand, Svena and Amelia seemed to be getting ready for a straight up brawl. But while seeing a battle between two ancient dragon mages was definitely an item on her bucket list, this was a little closer to the action than she was comfortable being. Also, she might not know Svena personally, but they didn’t have to be best friends for Marci to notice that the dragon was actingreallyweird. Put those two together, and a call for outside assistance wasdefinitelyin order. She was scrambling to think how she could manage that with no phone and Ghost still dead asleep when a cold, hard hand grabbed her hair.
“You,” Estella said, ignoring Marci’s gasp of pain as she yanked her off her feet, lifting her up into the air until she was at eye level with the much taller dragon. “You’re one of Brohomir’s little pawns, aren’t you?”
Before Marci could recover enough to answer, Estella set her back down again, but she didn’t release her grip. “Watch,” she ordered, yanking Marci’s head back around to the beach where Svena and Amelia were faced off like gunmen at high noon. “Be his eyes so that he can see when my White Witch tears his beloved sister apart.”
“Not going to happen,” Marci choked out, blinking back tears from the painful pressure on her scalp. “Amelia is the oldest Heartstriker. She’ll make dragon sushi out of both of you.”
There was a pause, and then Estella burst into laughter. Not maniacal villain cackling either, but honestI-can’t-believe-you-just-said-thatgiggling. If Marci hadn’t been sure Estella was laughing ather, it would almost have been endearing.
“You really believe that?” the seer gasped, wiping her eyes. “Foolish mortal. Svena was a legend before the Heartstriker wasborn. Her daughter is nothing, just another of Bethesda’s prodigies. But then, that’s why the Broodmare breeds so much. She’s playing the odds. Lay enough eggs and a few are guaranteed to hatch into winners. In the end, though, poor breeding will always show. The Planeswalker might be good for a Heartstriker, but Svena is the daughter ofgods.”
She knotted her fingers tighter in Marci’s short hair, locking her head in place. “Watch,” she ordered again. “We wouldn’t want the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers to miss a moment of this, would we?”
Marci didn’t bother to answer. One, reasoning with the dragon was clearly impossible, and two, she was too busy staring.
The whole time Estella was talking to her, Amelia and Svena had been standing on opposite sides of the beach, sizing each other up. Then, like the first shot in a fight, Svena changed.
Marci had seen a dragon change twice before: once when Justin had reached the end of his patience and literally exploded into a giant, fire-breathing dragon, and again this morning when Katya had changed back into her human shape. Svena’s transformation was different from either. One second, she was standing on the beach at sunset in her white gown like she was modeling for a perfume ad. The next, she was engulfed in a pillar of blue-white fire so bright it whited out every other light, and so cold Marci could feel it from here. The flare lasted only a second, though it took several more before Marci could blink the glare out of her eyes. When she could see again, Svena was gone, and in her place was a white dragon.
It was heartbreakingly beautiful, a white dragon with scales like new snow and wings as delicate as frost-covered glass. She was alsoenormous, easily three times as big as Justin had been, and that wasn’t even counting the trailing, feather-like tendrils of frost decorating the end of her long tail. Her curved talons were large enough to easily encircle a car, and her white fangs were as long as Marci was tall. Of course, given how old Svena supposedly was, that made sense. From the hints she’d picked up from Julius, Marci didn’t think dragons ever stopped growing, and since they made their own magic, this meant they only got larger and more powerful with age.
This was bad news for Amelia, who was still standing in her human form at the edge of the surf with her neck craned back to look up at the enormous white dragon towering over her. But when Svena spread her glittering wings to block out the light of the setting sun and throw the beach into shadow, the Planeswalker smirked.
“This is all you’ve managed?” she called, looking Svena up and down. “You’ve barely grown a foot since the last time we fought. I have little brothers bigger than—”
A blast of blue-white fire cut her off. Svena opened her mouth to bathe the beach in freezing flames that turned the surf behind Amelia to ice mid-wave. But the unnatural fire only blazed for a moment before another flame, this one orange and bright as a summer sunset, burst through, melting everything again as Amelia emerged from the attack with smoke pouring from her human mouth.
“That’s how you want it, eh?” she yelled, eyes flashing in fury. “No finesse, no challenge, just a brawl?” She spat on the ground, causing the sand at her feet to start smoking. “Fine.” Her eyes flicked to Estella, still standing with Marci on the other side of the portal. “You wanted to see the difference between us, Northern Star? Study closely, because it will be the last thing either of you ever see.”
The air around her shimmered as she spoke, and then the beach exploded in fire. Orange flames washed over the sand, turning the surf to vapor and blackening the green foliage at the forest’s edge. Even Svena was forced into the air to avoid the blast, flapping up a dozen feet on her frosted wings. By the time she set down again, the entire beach was smoking, the sand hardened into a burned glass landing zone for the biggest dragon Marci had ever seen.
Oddly enough, Marci’s very first thought was how much she looked like a Heartstriker. This dragon had the same feathered wings, serpentine body, scaly clawed feet, and crested triangular head as Justin. But where Justin’s plumage had been a tropical mix of greens and blues, Amelia’s feathers were pure, uninterrupted crimson. Likewise, her brown eyes were now the color of molten gold. Her scales, where they were visible, were black as volcanic glass, and her claws were even darker, like they’d been tempered in fire. But the most telling difference of all was her size.
It was actually difficult for Marci to comprehend how large Amelia was. She was so big, she made the island trees look like models, so huge that Marci couldn’t actually see all of her through the portal. Even Svena, who’d looked enormous up to this point, suddenly looked like a kitten. The white dragon knew it, too, and for the first time since she’d appeared, her eyes widened in fear.
Above her, the red dragon chuckled. “Now you see,” she said in a deep, terrible voice that Marci only recognized as Amelia’s because she’d seen her change. “Nowyou understand the difference between us.” She laughed again, landing on the beach with enough force to topple the nearby trees. “Foolish, Svena. While you wasted your time in this magicless plane, bowing and scraping for sisters too hide-bound to abandon their lands even as they became worthless, I knew better. I alone was brave enough to go to planes where magic still lived, and as you see—” she lifted her massive head, throwing the entire beach into shadow, “—I’ve reaped the rewards.”
She stopped there, waiting for Svena to reply. As always, though, the white dragon remained silent, and Amelia bared her teeth in disgust. “Look at you,” she snarled “Look what you’ve let yourself become. But while you and your sisters were content to merely be the daughters of gods,Ihave hunted and eaten them. Now look at you. You’re nothing but shadows, arrogance without ambition.” Her amber eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “You do not deserve to be called dragons.”
