He changed course instantly, shooting out of the cloud of smoke that marked his victory and into the clear air beyond to take his first real look at Algonquin’s hidden land. But while his plan was to do a military assessment—noting landmarks, weak points, obvious weapons, and so forth—what was waiting below him blew all such practical thoughts out of his head.
When Justin had first found himself standing in the old-growth forest, the obvious explanation was that it was some kind of illusion, a trick of the mist. Looking down from the sky, though, Justin saw the truth was the other way around. The run down houses and overgrown lots were the illusion. Even the primeval forest where he’d faced Vann Jeger was nothing but a border, a narrow band of green wrapped protectively around a landscape like nothing he’d ever seen.
It was like looking into a child’s illustration of fairy land. Inside the forest’s protective circle, giant mushrooms stood in rings around flowering trees the size of skyscrapers. Wolves as big as buses lounged by perfectly circular pools of cobalt blue water while deer with golden coats and silver antlers grazed in the rolling meadows beside them. Even the grass was different, growing thick as a carpet and too green to possibly be real all the way to where the lake shimmered in the distance.
It was all so strange and beautiful and overwhelming that even Justin, who could never be accused of romanticism, took several heartbeats to realize that he was staring atspirits.Thousands of them in every type he could imagine. But while a spirit refuge actually made a great deal of sense for Algonquin’s Reclamation Land, nothing explained themagic.
Even before he’d actually stepped inside, the power of Algonquin’s Reclamation Land had been overwhelming. Now, flying high over what he could only assume was its heart, the wild magic clung to him like tar, and that set off warning bells. Justin normally prided himself on being willfully ignorant of anything beneath the notice of a proper warrior dragon, but even he could tell that this was more magic than should ever be in one place without actually being part of a spell, and he was hundreds of feet in the air. How strong must the magic be down on the ground, where it originated?
He couldn’t imagine, but one thing was absolutely clear: this much magic in one place could not happen naturally. Whatever the spirits were doing down there, the end result was a massive buildup of magic that, if this section of Reclamation Land was representative of the rest, went on formiles.
He couldn’t begin to guess how much power that added up to in total, or what Algonquin could possibly be planning to do with it all, but he didn’t have to. Magic this big in the hands of their enemy could not be tolerated. But while he couldn’t do anything to stop a magical buildup of this magnitude, just knowing about it before Algonquin played her hand would give whoever had the information a huge advantage.
Justin broke into a sharp-toothed grin. Forget killing the dragon hunter, this was the true prize. Information this valuable would put him at the top of Heartstriker for sure. Even if they didn’t fight the Lady of the Lakes themselves, even if she didn’t use it for a century, just knowing about the magic Algonquin was stockpiling in Reclamation Land would give Bethesda leverage over the other dragon clans for years to come,and she’d have Justin to thank for it.
With that happy thought, he pivoted in the air and started flying as fast as he could for the border. He was gleefully imagining how his mother would react to his news when a shadow passed over his head.
His first thought was that it was a cloud, but then he remembered that he was above the clouds. Confused, Justin swiveled his head up, squinting into the glare of the bright morning sun. Sure enough, something was in the sky above him. It wasn’t a cloud, more like a haze of water vapor shimmering in the sunlight. Shimmers that condensed into a hail of spears right before his eyes.
Justin barely had time to comprehend what he was seeing before the falling spears crashed into him like a wall. The bladed shafts stabbed into him from tail to crest, shredding his wings like paper and punching him out of the sky. For ten terrifying seconds, he tumbled in freefall, and then he crashed into the meadow where he’d seen the golden deer grazing only seconds before, the long spears pinning him to the too-green grass like a bug on a board. He was struggling to rip himself free when the shadow passed over him again, and he looked up to see Vann Jeger standing over him, sitting relaxed on his horse like he’d been here the whole time just waiting for the dragon to fall.
For a second, Justin could only stare in shock, and then rage like he’d never known consumed him whole. “How?” he bellowed, tearing himself against the weapons that held him down. “I destroyed you!I burned you to ash!”
“So you did,” Vann Jeger said, dismounting with a smile that stabbed as deep as his blades. “I admit, you caught me off guard. But while your fire was unexpectedly impressive, you’re a thousand years too young to understand that fire will never be enough.”
He held out his hand as he spoke, and an executioner’s ax formed in his palm, its half-moon blade glinting in the sunlight. “You dragons think of yourselves as conquerors,” he said solemnly, positioning the blade over Justin’s neck. “But no matter how fast you breed or how big you grow, you will never win, because we are the will of the land itself. We are undefeatable as the sea, indestructible as the wind. We are the life of this world, and when my Lady’s work here is done, we shall be its sole rulers once more.”
“Never,” Justin snarled, baring his fangs. “You are nothing but prey!”
The spirit chuckled. “Arrogant to the end. How typical.” He planted his boot on Justin’s head, stomping him down into the bloody grass. “It really is a pity. You had promise. In another few centuries, you might even have been a challenge. Now, though,” he lifted the blade, “all you are is dead.”
Justin narrowed his eyes, watching the ax rise over him. If he’d had fire left, he would have melted it to slag before Vann Jeger could swing, but he had nothing. He’d already exhausted his magic on what he’d thought would be his final attack, and with the spears bleeding him dry, he didn’t have the strength left to even snap at the spirit’s boots. He was about to try anyway, if only so he could die with his teeth in his enemy as a dragon should, when the ground beneath him rumbled.
Considering all the other weirdness going on inside Reclamation Land, Justin didn’t think much of it. Vann Jeger, however, looked up like someone had shouted his name. “No,” he growled, lips peeling back in a snarl. “This ismyhunt.”
With Vann Jeger’s boot on his forehead, Justin couldn’t turn to see who the spirit was talking to. He didn’t smell another presence, but with magic this thick, he didn’t trust his nose like he usually did. He was about to ignore whatever it was and just focus on biting off whatever part of Vann Jeger he could reach when the ground rumbled again. This time, though, the vibrations had a tonality to them. It was almost like whale song, but miles deeper, the notes so low they were more feeling than sound. But though Justin still couldn’t make heads or tails of what that meant, he knew a command when he heard one.
“No!” Vann Jeger shouted again, removing his boot from Justin’s head so he could turn and face whatever it was properly. “So long as I guard the city, I am free to hunt when and what I choose.Thatwas our oath, or is Algonquin going back on her word?”
Now that the spirit’s weight was off his head, Justin could move. He’d intended to use this unexpected freedom to bite off Vann Jeger’s leg, but he’d always had an excellent sense for danger, and at this point, his instincts were certain that the fjord spirit was no longer the greatest threat. So, though it went against years of training, Justin turned away from his enemy and looked up.
And up.
And up.
Well, at least there was nothing wrong with his instincts.
Like everyone on the planet who’d paid any attention to the news in the last decade, Justin knew what Algonquin’s leviathan looked like. He didn’t know where it came from or what it was, no one did, but he could recognize it when he saw it. But even though his brain technically had a name for what his eyes were seeing, comprehension did not follow. There simply weren’t words big enough for the shadow towering over the meadow like a small mountain.
Funny enough, his first thought was that the whale song comparison had been unexpectedly accurate. The giant shapedidlook kind of like a bizarre, deep-water fish. Its skin was mottled brown and black, like an eel’s, and it crawled on tentacles like an octopus. If it had a mouth or eyes, Justin couldn’t find them, but though it looked like it belonged in some deep, dark place, it didn’t seem to mind the sunlight or the dry land. It actually seemed to be floating over the grass with a grace that belied its bulk, its tentacles waving in a mesmerizing dance, like a cobra shifting before it struck its prey. Even Justin, who should have known better, was transfixed, staring up at the leviathan in horrified wonder when the strange, alien song came rumbling through the ground again, and Vann Jeger threw down his ax with a snarl.
“It seems you have received a temporary stay of execution,” he said, reaching out to yank the myriad spears out of Justin’s body with a violent jerk. “It will not be a long one, I promise.”
“I don’t know about that,” Justin said, grinning through the pain at his enemy’s discomfort. “Looks like you’ve just been put in your place, water spirit.”
Vann Jeger’s only answer to that was a sneer as he pulled the last of the spears out of Justin’s body. Before the dragon could even try to slip away, though, Vann Jeger scooped up his discarded ax and swung it like a golf club, slamming the blunt side of the shaft down on Justin’s skull. Magic followed the strike like a lungful of cold seawater, and Justin’s mind went blank.
And a mile away, on the edge of Reclamation Land, as close as she could get to the fence without alerting their enemy, Chelsie drew her sword with a vile curse, cutting a hole through the world back to Heartstriker Mountain to deliver the bad news to her mother.
