“The curse can’t be broken,” she said bitterly. “Or, at least, I’ve never heard of anyone breaking a Sword of Damocles, and I don’t want to gamble your life on my being the first.” She shook her head with a bitter sigh. “You need to leave.”
Julius shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”
“This isn’t open to discussion,” she said firmly. “I screwed up, okay? I know that, but there’s no reason both of us should have to pay for my mistakes.”
“Your mistakes?” he cried. “Marci, you were captured by a dragon hunter. Last I checked, you aren’t a dragon. How can this possibly be your fault?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, banishing his words with an angry stab of her hand. “And we’re wasting time arguing. I already wasted too much ditching my car.”
“Your car?” he said, confused. “So that truck outside isn’t an illusion?”
“My sedan was too compromised,” she explained quickly. “Same for my phone and bag and everything else. If I didn’t want to lead Vann Jeger right back here, my only option was to dump everything. I couldn’t replace my phone, obviously, but I stole a new ride—”
He gasped. “You stole a car?”
“That’s what you’re upset about?” she cried. “Like Grand Theft Auto matters next to the freaking murder charge!”
“Sorry,” he said with a wince. “You’re right. I was just surprised.”
“Well, fat lot of good it did in the end,” she grumbled. “I might have stopped Vann Jeger from following me home, but you and your brother still need to leave. Right now.”
“No.” Julius said.
Marci scowled. “But—”
“No,” he said again. “No buts. I don’t care what’s happening, I am never going to run away and leave you to die. Ever. Under any circumstances.”
He kept his voice calm and firm, trying his best to prove to her that he was deadly seriously about this. Rather than looking reassured, though, Marci looked more upset than ever. “Can’t you stop it for one second?”
Julius frowned. “Stop what?”
She looked down at the ground. “Being so nice.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but Marci wouldn’t even look at him.
“Do you know how hard it was for me to accept this?” she said quietly. “It’s not like I want to die, but unless I can figure out how to break an unbreakable curse in the next few hours, it’s a done deal. Those aren’t odds I’d bet my own life on, and I’m definitely not betting yours. You’re the only reason I have a life to lose to begin with. If you hadn’t saved me last month, I’d be a trophy on Bixby’s wall.”
“That’s not true,” he said quickly. “I—”
“It is true,” she said stubbornly. “I’d made peace with the fact that it was time for me to return the favor, but now you’re here being understanding and saying we can make it and getting my hopes up and…” She cut off with a ragged breath. “It’s not fair, Julius! I’m trying do the right thing here and take responsibility for my mistakes, and you’re making it harder.”
“Good!” he cried angrily. “It should be impossible.”
She glowered and opened her mouth to argue, but Julius didn’t give her a chance. “I don’t want you to be responsible and do the right thing. I want you to stay alive. I don’t even care why any of this happened. All that matters to me is how we’re going to get out of it, the both of us. Because I’m never going to leave you to deal with something like this on your own. Not to save my life. Not for any reason. Okay?”
He set his jaw as he finished, ready to take on her next argument the moment it came, but Marci just sighed. “Okay.”
Julius blinked in surprise. “Really?”
She nodded, cheeks flushing. “I know I should put up more of a fight after all that, but…I really don’t want to die.”
“That makes two of us,” he said, smiling as he helped her up. “Honestly, though, I’m still getting over the relief of having you home in one piece.”
Her eyes went wide. “You were worried about me?”
“Of course I worried about you,” he said, confused how this could even be a question. “I…”
She nodded, waiting, but Julius couldn’t continue. He didn’t even know if there was language to describe how painfully happy he was that Marci was back safely, or how much what she’d done tonight meant to him. After a lifetime of being a failure, the shame of the Heartstrikers, the most worthless piece on the board, the idea that she, a human, had stood against something like Vann Jeger to protect him—him, the very worst dragon—was more than Julius could articulate. Just thinking about it did things to his insides, shifting priorities and assumptions around like landmasses in an earthquake, and when it was over, the world looked very different.
The closet, for example. When she’d first pulled him in, he’d been too worried to think about anything but what was going on. Now, the thing that struck him most was how small the space was. Even standing on opposite sides, he and Marci were almost chest to chest. He could actually feel the heat of her body radiating across the inches that separated them, tempting him to lean even closer.
This afternoon, that exact temptation had been enough to send him into his usual lecture about how this was all a Very Bad Idea. Now, though, Julius was having a hard time seeing the point. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about their friendship anymore—he cared more than ever—but the future was no longer something he could take for granted. There were no guaranteed years of partnership waiting to be irrevocably ruined by a single impulsive moment. There was only now, and now was very short. Short and precious, the sort of thing that shouldn’t be squandered.
With that, his heart started hammering harder than ever. This time, though, Julius didn’t try to calm it. Slowly, carefully, giving her plenty of time to back out, he reached down to rest his hands on Marci’s shoulders.
Her breaths stopped when he touched her, but she didn’t push away like she’d done before. She moved closer, stepping in until their bodies were touching and Julius could feel her heart racing as fast as his own as he leaned down. Marci rose up on her toes at the same time, lifting up to meet him halfway. She didn’t have far to go, Julius wasn’t that tall, but it still seemed to take forever. And then, just when he could feel her soft breath against his lips and the kiss he’d wanted for so long finally seemed on the verge of being inevitable, the closet door behind him flew open.
For a baffled moment, Julius just stood there, frozen by the sudden blaze of light and roar of returning sound, and then a hard hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him backwards. The next second was spent flailing in free fall before his training finally kicked in, spinning him around into a crouch right in front of his scowling brother.
“This is what you made me wait for?”
“Justin!” Julius shouted, his face burning. “What are you doing?”
“You said five minutes,” Justin growled. “I normally give people in closets seven, but I’m not in a giving mood tonight. Now.” He turned and fixed Marci with a killing stare. “Start explaining.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you!” she shouted, her cheeks flushed with embarrassed fury. “Why are you even here?”
“I invited him to stay with us,” Julius explained quickly.
“Not that a dragon needs a mortal’s permission to do anything,” Justin added, giving Marci a superior look
She flashed him a killing glare of her own, and Julius sighed. Marci barely tolerated his brother under the best of circumstances, which definitely did not include right now. It didn’t help that Justin seemed to be going out of his way to be even more of an arrogant jerk than usual. Clearly, if Julius wanted any peace tonight, he was going to have to make it himself.
“Justin, back down,” he said calmly. “We have an emergency.”
The dragon rolled his eyes. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Would you lay off?” Marci yelled
. “Do you even know what kind of day I’ve had?”
“No!” Justin shouted back. “That’s what I’m trying to find out!”
“Guys,” Julius said, stepping into the middle before either of them did something he’d regret. When no one tried to punch or shoot a fireball past him, he turned to Justin. “Marci was late because she was captured by Vann Jeger.”
He paused there, because that was what you did after a bomb drop, but his brother didn’t look scared at all. Quite the opposite. He looked delighted, his eyes flashing with excitement as he motioned for Julius to continue.
With a sinking feeling, Julius obliged, quickly repeating the parts of the story he knew and encouraging Marci to fill in what he didn’t. Since she clearly didn’t want to share any of this with Justin, it was a struggle, but Marci had always been a stickler for accuracy. In the end, she told him the whole thing plus some extra bits that hadn’t made it into the version she’d given Julius, like how Vann Jeger was specifically hunting the dragon from the Pit.
Hearing that made Julius more nervous than ever. Justin, however, looked like a kid who’d just woken up to an unexpected Christmas morning. “So let me get this straight. You,” he pointed at Marci, “are going to be short one head unless you bring Vann Jeger a dragon by sundown tomorrow, which, since we’re now well into the AMs, actually means tonight, right?”
“Yes,” Marci said after taking a moment to work her way through that convoluted sentence. She tapped the bandage over her mark. “The mage wrote the exact time as seven-thirty-eight p.m. on Saturday, September the sixteenth.”
Julius paled as he checked his phone. “That’s only seventeen hours away.”
“So it is,” Justin agreed. “Where’s the problem, again?”
Julius stared at him. “Is that a joke?”
“You’re a joke if you think so,” Justin said, grinning. “Didn’t you hear your human? She just said the curse compels her to bring a dragon to Vann Jeger, but she didn’t say anything about that dragon having to do anything. Sounds to me like all we have to do is show up and the thing’s broken.”
“Technically, maybe,” Marci admitted. “But I don’t think Vann Jeger’s going to let us just walk up, wave, and leave.”
“Of course not,” Justin scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest with a look of absolute superiority. “That’s why you two lightweights are going to focus on getting in and getting out while I take on the dragon hunter.”
Stunned silence followed that pronouncement. Then, because someone had to, Julius asked the obvious question.
“Are you insane?”
“Are you?” Justin snapped. “Because I’m offering to solve your problem, here. For free, I might add.”
“Have you been listening to anything we’ve said?” Julius cried. “We’re talking about Vann Jeger, the Death of Dragons. He didn’t give himself that name, you know! I’m pretty sure he’s killed three of our siblings already.”
“Four,” Justin corrected. “But I’m not afraid of Vann Jeger.”
Julius had already had this conversation with his brother once tonight without success, but this was too important to let slide. “I’m not trying to downplay your battle prowess,” he said diplomatically. “But let’s be realistic here. Vann Jeger is the spirit of a fjord that was formed over multiple ice ages. He also leads a private army of anti-dragon equipped humans with Algonquin herself on call for backup. Bethesda herself couldn’t win a fight like that.”
Justin scoffed. “You clearly don’t know what our mother is capable of.”
“But I do know you,” Julius said. “If you had your Fang, maybe you’d have a chance, but without it—”
“But I won’t get my Fang back if I don’t do this!” Justin cried. “Don’t you see? This is my chance. Forget sneaking into Reclamation Land. If I can take Vann Jeger’s head, I’ll be famous! They’ll have to give me my sword back.”
He finished with a grin, clearly waiting for someone to congratulate him on his daring, but Julius was speechless. “That’s what this is about?” he ground out at last. “Your stupid sword?”
Justin looked insulted. “The Fifth Fang of the Heartstriker is not a stupid—”
“We’re not playing around here, Justin!” Julius yelled. “Marci could die if we screw this up! I could die, you could die. This isn’t the sort of thing you can joke about!”
“Who’s joking?” Justin growled, stabbing his finger into Julius’s chest. “I came here because you needed protection from the Three Sisters, not because I was giving up on my sword! Nothing is going to stop me from reclaiming what is mine. Now I’ve found a way to do just that and save your human at the same time, and all you can do is complain? This is a win-win situation for us, Julius! Aren’t those the ones you like?”
“Not if you die!” Julius cried.
“I’m not going to die!” his brother yelled back. “I’ve been a Knight of the Heartstrikers for seven years. I know what I’m doing, and I’m telling you, I can beat Vann Jeger, because even though he’s everything you just said, he’s also a spirit who’s thousands of miles from home. Since you spent our tactics classes reading your dumb Fantasy novels, you probably don’t know what that means. Lucky for you, I remember that spirits get weaker the farther they get from their source of power.” He lifted his chin with a cocky grin. “Vann Jeger might be the big fish back home in Norway, but out here, he’s just another sack of water.”
“That is true,” Marci said skeptically. “But if he’s so easy to beat, why hasn’t anyone else killed him? And how are you even going to take his head if he’s made of water?”
“I don’t know,” Justin growled. “But you’re pretty mouthy for a mortal who had to come running to us for protection, so why don’t you show some respect and shut your—”
“Enough!” Julius snarled, baring his teeth. “That’s enough, Justin.”
Justin didn’t look like he’d had anywhere near enough. Neither did Marci, whose bracelets were shining in a way that never meant anything good. Clearly, tempers were running way too high to get anything done at the moment. It was time to defuse the situation, and the quickest way to defuse anything was to get Justin out of it.
“We’ve all had a long night,” he said, keeping his voice down and his posture submissive as he turned to face his brother. “If we’re going to battle an ancient spirit, we all need our rest. Justin, why don’t you take my room? Down the hall, first door on your left. Meanwhile, I’ll stay up and work on the curse angle with Marci.”
His brother shot him a poisonous look. But while he clearly knew that he was being managed, Justin never had been able to resist a surrender. “This isn’t over,” he said, glaring at both of them. “When I wake up, we’re going to make a plan of attack. A real one, so you’d better bring your A-game. I don’t want to hear some stupid nonsense about how we should talk to Vann Jeger or anything like that. Understood?”
“Understood,” Julius said dutifully. “Goodnight, Justin.”
His brother lifted his head proudly and stomped out into the hall. A few seconds later, Julius heard his bedroom door slam, followed by the tell-tale clunks and crashes of someone angrily getting undressed. But while Julius wasn’t optimistic about the fate of his bedroom furniture, at least it didn’t look like his brother was going to be rushing off to his death immediately. He was taking comfort in small mercies when Marci walked to her bedroom door and closed it with a frown.
“I’ll be honest,” she said, turning to face him again. “I only followed about half of that. What happened to Justin’s sword?”
Julius sighed. “Chelsie took it away because of what happened in the Pit. He lost his position as a knight, too, so you could say he’s sore about it.”
“More like throwing a tantrum.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Julius replied tiredly, reaching up to rub his aching head. “I know he doesn’t deserve sympathy with the way he’s behaving, but if you could cut him some slack,
I’d really appreciate it. He’s had some big falls since you last saw him.”
He’d hoped that explanation would help smooth down any ruffled feathers, but Marci’s frown only deepened. “Not to meddle in your family business, but I don’t think you’re doing him any favors thinking like that. I know being compassionate is, like, your thing, but it is possible to be too nice. Justin’s a grown man. Well, grown dragon, but he still has to face reality, and the reality is that if he goes up against Vann Jeger, he’s going to die.”
“I know,” Julius said with a frustrated sigh. “But he won’t listen tonight.”
“He won’t listen tomorrow, either.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” he snapped. “I can’t stop him.”
“So call someone who can,” she said. “Chelsie can clearly manage him.”
Julius shook his head so fast it hurt. “He’d never forgive me if I called Chelsie.”
“Then what about your mother?” Marci asked. “He’s her favorite, right? Doesn’t she care that he’ll die?”
“He’s her favorite precisely because he does stuff like this,” Julius said bitterly. “Mother values audacity and ambition over everything else. I swear, sometimes I think she’d rather he die doing something stupidly dramatic than live to see his hundredth birthday.”
And now that he thought about it, that made him angrier than anything. Justin was so strong and fierce, it was easy to forget that they were the same age. Like him, Justin was only twenty-four, a baby by dragon standards, and painfully desperate to prove himself. Marci was right about him needing to live in reality, but how could he do that when everyone else, especially his mother, acted like he was a dragon twenty times his age? The only one who didn’t was Chelsie, and Justin hated her for it. He’d probably hate Julius, too, if he knew what he was thinking, but for once, Julius didn’t care.