“Of course it is,” she said angrily. “Our mothers are dead.”
“But that’s not the reason,” Sir Myron replied, wiggling his fingers in a way that sent a ripple of magic through the room. “Unlike you, westill have access to the DFZ. Enough to know that, while theheadsof the Three Sisters were placed around Algonquin’s tower—along with the heads of every other dragon unlucky enough to be in the DFZ two nights ago—all thebodiesare yet to be accounted for.”
Julius gaped in horror. He hadn’t even thought of Algonquin’s head display as anything but a macabre show of her power, but the moment the mage drew his attention to the incongruities, the pieces fell into place. If she’d just killed those dragons as he’d assumed, they would all be ash like Estella. But if their heads were still around, that meant their corpses must be, too, along with all the leftover magic contained inside. It was just like the Quetzalcoatl’s feathers! Algonquin must have killed them in a way that preserved their physical bodies and magic, and as someone who, until very recently, had made his living hunting down magical animals in the DFZ and selling the parts to mages for use as reagents to fuel their circles, Julius had a pretty good idea as to why.
“She’s using them,” he said, eyes going wide. “She’s not just killing dragons. She’s junking their bodies for magical power!”
“I wouldn’t have put it quite that way,” Myron said with a distasteful frown. “But yes, that’s our assumption. Having not seen the evidence ourselves, we have no proof, but—”
“You need no proof,” Katya growled, turning to Julius. “You’re right.”
Julius began to sweat. “So you’re saying that Algonquin, the spirit who just declared war on all of us, is using the bodies of the Three Sisters, who were the three most magical dragons alive, as a battery?”
“Not herself,” Myron said. “Algonquin’s a spirit. She has plenty of her own power, but she can’t move magic. That power belongs to humanity alone.”
“Which is why it’s no coincidence that Algonquin also controls the largest standing army of mages in the world,” the general finished. “I’m not a mage myself, but I’m pretty sure that many mages working together would be more than enough to strip the Three Sisters of all their remaining power.”
A week ago, Julius would have said it was impossible. The Three Sisters were dragon legends. No human, not even an army of them, could possibly handle that much magic. But that was before he’d seen Marci draw a quarter-mile-wide circle to drain Vann Jeger. A feat that, though it hadn’t exactly gone as planned, had definitely changed his perception of how much magic a human mage could handle. Now, he found the idea of an army of mages converting what was left of the Three Sisters into magic over the course of a few daysverybelievable, especially since Katya was already nodding her head.
“It’s worse than you think,” she said. “Svena—”
She was cut off as her sister barked something sharp in Russian, prompting Katya to roll her eyes. “What’s the point?” she asked over her shoulder. “They already know. We might as well try to fix things.” She turned back to Julius. “As I was saying, Svena was the first to figure it out. She’d always dreamed of forming her own clan, but Algonquin’s attack forced her to accelerate her plans. Due to the unique way we were born, all of our magic was intimately connected to our mothers. We could feel her draining them, and Svena theorized that if we stayed linked together as part of their clan, there was a chance Algonquin would figure out how to drain us as well.”
“So she cut the tie first,” Julius said, nodding. “But Algonquin still has the Three Sisters. Even dead, how much magic could she get?”
Katya’s already pale face turned white. “A lot,” she said quietly, glancing at the UN team, who were listening patiently. “I came here hoping to find out what they knew about it. Now that we’ve severed the connection to our mothers, we can’t feel how much of their magic Algonquin has stolen. For all we know, she’s already salvaged enough to completely replenish what she used up shooting them down in the first place.”
A cold dread began to creep up Julius’s spine. “So you’re saying her whatever-it-was, the weapon that blasted the Three Sisters out of the sky, could already be up and running again?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” Sir Myron said. “But you’re not far off.”
Julius began to shake. Just yesterday, he’d argued they had plenty of time before Algonquin’s weapon recharged, enough to do things properly. Now, he had no idea. Considering they were up against the combined magic of the Three Sisters, he didn’t even know if Svena would be able to actually protect them as she’d promised. He was still frantically sorting through it all in his head when the general stepped forward.
“This threat is why we’re here,” she said, angling herself so that she faced all the dragons head on. “You’ve been honest with us, so we’ll be honest with you. Algonquin has indeed been using her fallen enemies as magical batteries. We aren’t sure what she’s planning on doing with all that power, but given that she’s already declared war on your kind, I’d say a full-scale attack isn’t outside the realm of possibility. As I’ve already explained, open conflict between the Heartstrikers and Algonquin would threaten all of North America, which makes it our concern as well. To that end, we are here to propose an alliance between the UN and the Heartstriker dragon clan. And yours as well, if you’d like,” she said, nodding to Katya. “It’s my hope that by sharing resources and information about our common enemy, we can come up with a way to avoid conflict completely and spare us all a great deal of pain.”
That struck Julius as uncommonly reasonable. But as much as he wanted to say that of course Heartstriker would work with the humans to stop Algonquin, there was just one problem. “I’d like to help,” he said sadly. “But Heartstriker can’t make an alliance at the moment. As my brother said when we came in, Bethesda has been overthrown, and we’ve decided to put an elected council in her place.”
For the first time since he’d met her, a look of real surprise and excitement crossed the general’s face. “Really?” she said. “A democratically elected council leading a dragon clan? That’s fantastic news!”
“Thank you,” Julius, unexpectedly flattered. Not that it was surprising that an officer of the United Nations would be a fan of democratization, but that was still the most genuinely enthusiastic response he’d ever gotten for his Council idea. Not that the general’s opinion would matter to his siblings, of course, but it still felt good to know that at least someone didn’t think he was crazy.
“Unfortunately,” he went on, “this new arrangement means we’re not in a position to help you directly until our final Council member is elected.”
The general nodded. “And when will that be?”
“I’m not sure,” Julius admitted. “But while we can’t do anything formally just yet, I see no reason why we can’t go ahead and share information while we wait. In fact.” He turned and clapped a hand on Justin’s shoulder. “My brother here is the only dragon who’s ever been inside Algonquin’s Reclamation Land and lived.”
“Don’t tell them that!” Justin roared.
“Why not?” Julius asked. “What are you worried they’re going to do? Beat Algonquin so we don’t have to?” He turned back to the UN team, who were now both staring at Justin like wolves after a piece of meat. “I also have the mage who defeated Algonquin’s dragon hunter, so—”
The undersecretary jumped like he’d been struck. “Wait,” he said, staring at Julius. “Yourmage defeated Vann Jeger? Lord of the Black Narrows, spirit of the Geirangerfjord?” When Julius nodded, he added, “Yourhumanmage?”
Julius nodded again. Proudly, this time. “Marci’s definitely human, but she doesn’t belong to me. She’s my partner, and I couldn’t have done any of this without her.”
Justin huffed at that comment, and Julius ignored him. He would have done so in any case, but right now he was busy watching the UN team exchange a series of significant looks he couldn’t decipher.
“This Marci,” the general said at last. “Is she a young woman? Short black hair? Has bracelets covered in Thaumaturgical spellwork from the Socratic school?”
