Julius shook his head. After his flub with the painting, the last thing he wanted was to keep pushing, but this was too big to ignore. Before he could think of how to phrase his questions, though, Chelsie beat him to the punch.
“It’s a dud,” she said, stepping over the bedroll to open the egg’s glass case. “Sometimes, if she’s very young, a dragoness will lay an egg that doesn’t hatch. The whelp inside is still technically viable, but for whatever reason, the spark of its life’s fire simply didn’t catch. Without its own magic, it can’t break the shell and be born, so it just stays an egg, relying on magic from its mother or somewhere else to keep it alive.”
“And is that what you’re doing?” Julius asked quietly. “Keeping it alive?”
“More or less,” she said, reaching in to gently pet the egg’s glossy surface with her gloved hand. “Supporting eggs takes a lot of power. Bethesda said it was foolish to keep investing that in an egg that would almost certainly never hatch. She told me to throw it away, but I kept it instead. It was a stupid thing to do. If Mother ever finds out I disobeyed, she’ll have my head, but I just thought it was a waste. Eggs are precious. Each one represents a huge investment of dragon magic from both parents. And there’s still a tiny chance this one will hatch someday, so I keep feeding it magic. Just in case.”
She let go of the egg with a sigh and closed the case, looking almost embarrassed when she turned to face Julius again. “At this point, it’s more habit than anything else. If it hasn’t hatched yet, the chances of it ever doing so are effectively zero. But I’ve been feeding any magic I can spare into it for centuries, so…” She trailed off with a shrug. “Seems like a waste to give up now.”
She said this like it was no big deal, but Julius felt as though he’d just seen his sister’s true face for the first time. Not the terrifying dragon all Heartstriker feared, or even the smiling, carefree girl from the painting, but the real Chelsie. The one who never put her siblings into debt because she knew how much it could hurt. The one who couldn’t stand hurting whelps and who’d protected a helpless egg for centuries against her own best interest simply because she couldn’t bear to see it thrown away. The sister who’d protected him over and over again, and never asked for anything in return.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “I swear, Julius, if you don’t stop looking at me with that insipid expression this instant, I’m throwing you back to the wolves upstairs.”
He wasn’t brave enough to call that bluff, but it didn’t stop him from smiling. “Thank you, Chelsie,” he said, letting his feelings fill his voice so she would know he was telling the truth. “For everything.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, turning away, though not before he caught her cheeks flushing ever so slightly red. “Save it for someone who cares.” She nudged his bedroll with her foot. “I know it’s only eight thirty, but you should go to sleep. You’ve been up for two days straight, and it’s obviously making you delirious. I’m going to try and catch some rest while I can, too. Whatever happens, though, do not come in my room. I’m a light sleeper, and I don’t react well to interruptions.”
Looking at the way she gripped her sword, Julius believed her. “I won’t bother you,” he promised. “But Chelsie…”
He paused, waiting for her to look back over her shoulder. When she finally did, he looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m going to get you out of this,” he said solemnly. “Whatever Bethesda’s using to control you, I swear I’ll find it, and I’ll break it.”
For a moment, something behind Chelsie’s eyes flashed only to die again just as quickly as she turned away again. “You can’t,” she said calmly. “Nothing can free me, Julius. Where do you think I learned to hate debts?”
He clenched his fists. “But that doesn’t mean—”
She walked out before he could finish, striding down the hall without looking back. When he heard her bedroom door slam, Julius sank down to the bedroll she’d prepared. Tired as he was, though, he couldn’t sleep. There was too much banging around in his head, too many plots and plans and other very un-Julius things going on for him to possibly settle down. After spending so long as a pawn, having to think like a player was exhausting, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop. So instead, he lay there in the dark, staring at his unknown, unhatched sibling as the schemes and plans whirled in his head.
But no storm can rage forever. After what felt like hours of going in circles, the heaving sea of Julius’s mind finally grew still enough for sleep to find him, and he passed out, curled in a ball beneath the oddly tiny egg sitting quiet and still in its case.
Chapter 6
What felt like barely ten minutes later, a hand landed on Julius’s shoulder.
“Sir?”
He rolled over with a grunt, dragging the blanket Chelsie had loaned him over his head. He didn’t even know who was talking, but unless the mountain was on fire, he didn’t care. He’d finally gotten to sleep, and he was determined to—
The hand on his shoulder yanked up, taking Julius up with it. For a terrifying moment, he was actually lifted off the ground, and then the hand vanished, leaving him sitting upright in the bedroll, blinking in the sudden glare of the overhead light, which the tall dragon standing over him had just switched on.
“Good morning, sir,” Fredrick said. “I trust you slept well.”
“I was sleeping well,” Julius grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Eight a.m.”
Julius rubbed his hands over his face with a groan. He wasn’t sure when he’d actually gone to bed, but eight in the morning was definitely too early to get out of it. He was sliding back down into the warm blanket when Fredrick yanked it off him completely.
“Hey!”
Fredrick ignored his desperate cry, folding Chelsie’s blanket neatly over one arm instead while handing Julius a small duffel with the other. “I took the liberty of procuring you clean clothes.”
With a final, mournful look at his confiscated blanket, Julius gave up, holding up his hand for the clothes with a resigned sigh. “How did you even get in here?” he asked as he unzipped the bag. “I thought Chelsie’s room was a secret vault.”
“It is,” Fredrick said. “But Chelsie had to leave a few hours ago, so she let me in specifically to assist you. She has always been our protector. All of F-clutch owes her their lives, me especially. She knows none of us would ever betray that trust by digging into her secrets, though it seems she doesn’t feel quite the same way about you yet.”
Given how nosy he’d been last night, Julius couldn’t blame her. “Why did she have to leave?”
“I believe there was an incident between two Es.”
Julius pulled his undershirt over his head. “What kind of incident?”
“I’m not sure,” Fredrick said, taking the old shirt from him before handing him a clean one. “But it must have been quite violent for Chelsie to get involved. She generally doesn’t care about scuffles, but killing or maiming a Heartstriker is strictly forbidden for anyone save for Bethesda or her Shade. Or, at least, it is until the Council changes the rules.”
“‘Don’t kill your siblings’ is not a rule I’m planning on changing,” Julius said grimly. Still, he hated the idea of Chelsie, who’d been just as tired as he was, having to get up out of her warm bed to go police two dragons who couldn’t go one night without trying to murder each other. “Does this kind of thing happen often?”
“I’m not sure,” the dragon said. “Chelsie doesn’t talk about her work, but I don’t think it’s quite this bad normally. There’s a reason Bethesda hasn’t gathered all of her children together in one place for centuries. Dragon egos need room, and with all of Heartstriker crammed into the same mountain, tempers are running short. There’s also the chaos factor. With the clan in turmoil, there are those who see the opportunity to try and get away with schemes they wouldn’t risk otherwise.” He shrugged. “It’s a perfect storm, really, and it’s only going to get worse. I imagine we’ll be seeing a gre
at many more incidents like this as the day goes on.”
And Chelsie will have to deal with them, Julius finished silently, standing up and making his way to the tiny bathroom to wash his face. On the one hand, he was happy that someone as responsible as Chelsie was in charge of stopping the violence. On the other, though, it was impossible to ignore how grossly unfair her situation was. Given what he knew of his sister both in general and from last night, he was positive she hadn’t volunteered to be the clan enforcer, despite how good she was at it. Even if she had asked for the job, it was way too much to ask of any one dragon to police all of Heartstriker by herself. The whole thing was a mess, yet another reason to set her free and get a new system in place as soon as the Council was up and running. And speaking of.
“Why did you wake me up?” he asked, shaking the water off his face. “Because I doubt it was to talk about Chelsie.”
“We have a situation,” Fredrick said, handing him a towel. “A special envoy from the United Nations arrived early this morning and requested an audience with the Heartstriker. Normally, we’d just tell them to make an appointment like everyone else, but one of the visitors is the undersecretary of magic, and considering the current situation with Algonquin, Frieda and I concluded it would be unwise to put him off.”
“Probably a smart decision,” Julius agreed, drying his face. “But why come get me? I’m not the Heartstriker, I suck at magic, and I don’t know anything about our relations with the UN.”
“Technically, as part of the Council, you are one third of the Heartstriker,” Fredrick reminded him. “And the Great Bethesda doesn’t rise before noon.”
Julius stared at him. “So you woke me up on my second day as a Council member to go to a meeting I know nothing about just so Mother could sleep in?”
“Yes,” Fredrick said without missing a beat. “The Great Bethesda is…difficult in the mornings. And your inexperience actually works in our favor. Heartstriker relations with the UN have been strained since the incident with the last envoy. A fresh face might be just what we need to defuse any lingering tension.”
His stomach sank. “What happened to the last envoy?”
“There was a disagreement over terms, and the Great Bethesda was already in a bad mood, so, well…she ate him.”
“She ate the envoy from the UN?”
Fredrick nodded. “He arrived early, too.”
“I don’t believe this,” Julius muttered, running his fingers through his tangled hair before Fredrick smacked them away, stepping in with a comb instead.
“I’m sure you will do just fine, sir,” he said as he began ruthlessly combing Julius’s hair. “You have a reputation for being good with humans, and until the Council vote is concluded, the clan can’t make any formal alliances anyway, so you won’t even have to cut a deal. Just find out what the undersecretary wants and delay him.”
That was easy for Fredrick to say. He wasn’t the one going to a formal meeting with the human who set the international magical policy for most of the world. Julius didn’t know how to begin to talk to someone like that. He wasn’t even certain which famous mage was undersecretary at the moment, but he knew who would know.
“Hang on,” he said as Fredrick finished his hair. “I’m going to call in some backup.”
Fredrick stared after him in confusion, but when he saw Julius moving down the hall toward the room where Marci was sleeping, his green eyes went wide. “Stop!” he hissed, lurching forward to grab Julius’s arm. “You can’t bring your human to an official clan function!”
“Why not?” Julius asked. “They’re human, too.” And unlike him, Marci might actually have a clue as to what was going on.
Fredrick pulled himself up to his full height, which had his head brushing Chelsie’s low ceiling. “It’s not proper. You are the Heartstriker. She is—”
“My partner,” Julius said pointedly. “And my trusted ally who probably knows a lot more about this than I do.” He kept walking. “Relax, it’ll be fine.”
Fredrick looked the opposite of relaxed, but he didn’t say anything else as Julius turned the corner to the library where he could smell Marci sleeping. She was right where he’d left her, too, splayed out on Chelsie’s old couch. But when he smiled and stepped over to gently touch her shoulder, his fingers hit something freezing cold.
Stop.
Julius froze, shaking his head to clear the icy word from his mind. When he looked again, Ghost was sitting protectively on Marci’s shoulder, his glowing eyes bright and disapproving.
She is mortal, the spirit said, the words scraping through Julius’s mind like little cat claws. Mortals need sleep. Do not wake her.
“I don’t think she’d agree in this case,” Julius said quietly. “She’d never forgive me if I went to meet the undersecretary of magic without—”
Do not wake her.
The order hit Julius with surprising force and an even more curiously familiar bite. It almost felt like dragon magic, but the freezing burn was pure Ghost. It was the same grave-like cold he’d felt in the wind that had risen around Vann Jeger, and now as then, it chilled him to the bone.
She is mine, the spirit said, lashing his tail. I protect what is mine. She needs rest and recovery, not more of your problems. He turned up his nose. Go away, dragon.
Julius gritted his teeth. He really didn’t want to do this without Marci, but he didn’t want to push Ghost, either, especially since the spirit was probably right. Between the fight in the throne room, getting hurt, and an afternoon spent drinking with Amelia, Marci probably wasn’t up for an early-morning diplomatic meeting with anyone. Heck, Julius was barely up for it himself, and he was a dragon. Marci, on the other hand, was mortal. Painfully so at the moment, too, with the deep circles under her closed eyes. She’d never been a particularly sound sleeper, but Julius was standing right next to her, and she hadn’t even stirred, which was enough to make him back off with a sigh.
“Okay,” he whispered, pulling out his phone. “I’ll let her sleep. Just let me send her a message so she knows what—”
No phone, the spirit hissed, glaring harder than ever. Hers is in her pocket. The buzzing will wake her. He bared his little cat fangs in disgust. Nasty, always buzzing thing.
Julius understood where Ghost was coming from, but there was no way he was leaving Marci alone in a strange place without at least telling her where he’d be. He was about to say screw it and text her anyway when he spotted a small, neat pile of scrap paper on the bookshelf right next to an ancient cup of ballpoint pens.
“Here,” he said, grabbing a paper off the top. “I’m going to write her a note telling her where I am and that she’s welcome to join me any time. When she wakes up, will you make sure she gets it?”
Ghost’s answer to that was a slow blink of his glowing eyes, which Julius decided to take as a yes. He still took care to make sure he wrote out exactly what had just happened before placing the paper prominently in the center of the battered blanket-trunk-turned-coffee-table. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, putting up his hands as he backed out of the room. “Don’t forget to tell her.”
Again, the spirit didn’t answer, but his glowing eyes stayed locked on Julius the whole way down the hall as he returned to Fredrick. “Change of plans,” he said, grabbing the blindingly white Oxford shirt the dragon held out. “We’re going alone.”
“Excellent choice, sir,” the dragon replied, smiling as he held up the rest of the stupidly-expensive looking suit. “Shall I help you dress?”
“I think I got it,” Julius said awkwardly, taking the offered suit and hurrying back into the room where he’d slept to finish getting ready.
The moment his back was turned, Ghost whacked the note with his paw, sending the little scrap of paper wafting under the couch before resuming his watchful perch on Marci.
***
Ten minutes later, Julius and Fredrick were halfway up the mountain, stepping out of the service stairs (which was appar
ently how the Fs went everywhere) into the elegant atrium of Heartstriker Mountain’s diplomatic floor.
For Julius, at least, this was a new experience. As the world’s largest dragon clan, the Heartstrikers were always hosting some important dignitary or another. Since he hadn’t been part of the decision-making core of his family before yesterday, though, Julius had never actually set foot in the part of the mountain Bethesda kept set aside for human guests who needed to be impressed but weren’t actually important enough for the throne room.
Like every other part of the mountain designed with humans in mind, the diplomatic floor was beautiful in an expensive, corporate-chic kind of way with oversized, marble-tiled halls, multiple potted plants, and artistically arranged glass lighting installations hanging from the high ceiling at regular intervals. It was also uncharacteristically empty of dragons, save for one notable exception.
“There you are.”
The angry growl made Julius jump right before Justin, who must have been waiting directly outside the stairwell door, pounced on him. Literally.
“What part of bodyguard do you not understand?” he snarled, grabbing his brother and yanking him up by his lapels. “I’ve been looking for you for hours! I only knew you’d be here because your pet F had the decency to call me.”
“You’re welcome,” Fredrick said stiffly, giving Justin a sour look, which the other dragon ignored.
“I didn’t know you were waiting on me,” Julius said apologetically. “I thought you were fighting a duel.”
“Not all night. There were only four of them, and the idiots didn’t even put on a good show. The whole thing took me an hour, tops. I called Chelsie right after to let her know I was good to take over again, but she didn’t answer, and you were nowhere to be found. I looked all over the mountain! I couldn’t even smell you, and you know how good my nose is.” His eyes narrowed. “Where were you, anyway?”
Julius almost said “With Chelsie” before he remembered his promise to keep his sister’s lair a secret. “Safe,” he said instead. “And, up until fifteen minutes ago, asleep. But you’ve found me now, so—”