As a small and unimportant cog in the Heartstriker machine, Julius had heard of his mother’s legendary ability to multitask, but this was the first time he’d witnessed it himself. At least now he understood how one dragon managed to keep a hold on so many plots, though it did make him wonder just how many other family members she’d had on hold all the times she’d called to threaten him.
Since Bethesda seemed to have temporarily forgotten he existed, Julius took the opportunity to message Marci, both to let her know he’d be gone for a while and to apologize for what had happened earlier. Seconds after he hit send, though, the text bounced back with an error message that the number he was trying to reach was not receiving calls. He tried again, just in case, but again, the text bounced back, making it clear this was not a technical failure. Marci’s phone was getting his messages just fine. She just didn’t want to talk. At least, not to him.
This realization sent Julius slumping down into the overstuffed leather sofa that passed for a rear seat on Bethesda’s mansion of a plane. Really, though, he had no one to blame for this situation but himself. He should have seen this coming, should have been prepared, but no. He’d stupidly let himself believe he was free, that a few weeks of no dragons somehow meant he’d escaped them forever. What a joke. His mother had swept into his house in the DFZ just as easily as she used to barge into his room back at Heartstriker Mountain. His victories last month might have won him a bit of leeway, but when push came to shove, nothing had really changed. He was still a pawn, a tool, and unless he was willing to stand up to Bethesda and challenge that (and accept the swift death that would follow), he might as well get used to it.
It shouldn’t have been hard. After all, until last month, his whole life had revolved around keeping his mouth shut, his head down, and his opinions to himself. But for a failure who’d had a sweet taste of freedom, going back was proving to be a surprisingly bitter pill to swallow. Fortunately for him, his survival instincts were picking up the slack, burying his simmering anger under a self-protective mask of meek submission as the plane began its final descent into the arid wastes of the New Mexico desert.
In hindsight, their destination should have been obvious. There was only one place in the world a dragon with as many enemies as Bethesda could safely attend a party, and that was in her own territory. But knowing they were going home only made Julius’s sense of impending doom worse, especially when Heartstriker Mountain itself came into view on the horizon.
Tall enough to blot out the setting sun, Bethesda’s fortress rose from the flat desert like a dragon fang. Once a petrified seabed, most of the natural rock had been dug out ages ago to make way for the numerous expansions needed to house a clan as large as Heartstriker. But while the base of the mountain looked like a military base with its air strip, helipad, and human town crouching in its shadow like a feudal village around a castle, the thorn-like peak was every inch the classic dragon mount with a rugged, natural surface and numerous dragon-sized caves open to the night air for easy landings. At the moment, it even had a full flight of rainbow-feathered serpents circling in the sky above it, their green eyes keeping constant watch on the surrounding desert. Julius was pressing his face against the window to try and see who was on patrol when his mother abruptly hung up all her calls and turned her own green gaze on him.
“I expect you to be on your absolute best behavior,” she said, tapping her nails on the leather arm of her massive, throne-like chair. “It’s not often a dragon like you gets to mix with a crowd like this. Fortunately, tonight should be a very simple visit for you. Just keep your mouth shut and try not to look so nice.”
Julius glanced down at the shabby clothes she hadn’t given him a chance to change out of. “But you said—
“Not that,” Bethesda snapped irritably. “This.” She smiled wide, her eyes growing distant and happy in a way that made her look totally different, almost kind, before her face went back to its usual cruel, dangerous beauty. “Nice.”
“Got it,” Julius said with a sigh.
“Good,” she said, pulling a compact mirror out of her gold-beaded clutch purse to check her still flawless makeup. “If things go the way I expect, I won’t even need you, but you can still mess things up if you act too Julius-y, so don’t.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised. “Though it’d probably be easier if you just told me what I’m not supposed to act like myself for.”
His mother flashed him a knife-sharp glare. “Don’t get cute. You might have wiggled your way off my To Kill list for the time being, but that can change at a moment’s notice.”
He dropped his head at once. “Yes, Mother.”
“That’s better,” Bethesda said, closing her mirror with a snap. “And, as you’d already know if you paid any attention to current events, tonight’s the night we cement our new friendly relations with the Daughters of the Three Sisters.”
Julius nearly choked. He managed to hide it under a cough at his mother’s dirty look, but still… friendly relations? With the Daughters of the Three Sisters?
That couldn’t be right. The Three Sisters had been their clan’s greatest enemies since forever. Estella had been openly trying to murder them all just last month. He’d heard from Katya that Ian and Svena were doing well, but there was no way a few weeks of progress could overturn centuries of hatred.
“I can hear you thinking,” his mother said, her voice a teasing sing-song. “Have you finally figured out why you’re here, then?”
He flinched at being put on the spot, and Bethesda rolled her eyes. “Come on, Julius,” she said, snapping her fingers impatiently in front of his face. “For all your other failings, you’ve never been stupid. Do you think I brought you along tonight for the pleasure of your company?”
“No,” he started. “But—”
“Then use your brain,” she growled. “Why would I burden myself with you? What is the one thing you have that I could possibly want?”
By the time she finished, Julius was sweating bullets. Fortunately, when she put it like that, the answer was pretty obvious. “Katya of the Three Sisters owes me a life debt?”
Bethesda smiled, making his chest heave in relief. “See?” she said. “Was that so hard?” She leaned back in her throne-like lounge, smiling out the port-hole window at the setting sun. “This is the night of our victory, Julius. With the Northern Star run off to lick her wounds in another plane of existence and the Three Old Hags still asleep, we’ve never had a better chance to bring the remaining ice snakes to heel. Svena and her baby sister have already been invited. All you have to do is stand around and be a reminder of what they owe us.”
She said this like she was doing him a favor, but his mother’s words left a sinking feeling in Julius’s stomach. He had no idea how she was actually planning to leverage Katya’s life debt, but he didn’t like the idea one bit. He doubted Katya would return the sentiment, but in his mind at least, she was his friend, and friends didn’t use each other. Not that Bethesda would care. She’d just ripped Julius out of his home and walked all over his mage just so he could serve as a sign post. Fortunately for him, his mother seemed to be overlooking a vital point.
“You’ve invited them,” he said nervously. “But will they accept? The Three Sisters have hated us since before the Heartstrikers were a clan. I know we’ve got a life debt now, and I’m sure Ian’s been working on her, but I can’t imagine Svena would be trusting enough to accept a party invitation from her ancient enemy at our home fortress?”
“Of course she’s not,” Bethesda said sweetly. “That’s why I made sure the invitations she and Katya received came from you.”
Julius blinked. “Me?”
His mother grinned wide, showing a line of sharp, blindingly white teeth. “Brilliant, isn’t it? The White Witch has always been a suspicious snake. She’d never accept an invitation from me, but who could suspect our very own Nice Dragon of laying traps?” She chuckled. “Of course, once they accepted, I had
to go out of my way to make sure you’d actually be here, but that’s a minor inconvenience. Putting up with you for a few hours is a small price to pay for such a victory, don’t you think?”
The plane touched down as she finished, letting Julius hide his horror under the guise of bracing against the landing bump. If he hadn’t been so terrified for them, he would have been flattered that Svena and Katya trusted him enough to be lured into something like this. But while part of him couldn’t believe his mother would use his good name like that, the rest of him wondered why he was surprised by anything his mother did anymore. Bethesda had never met a circumstance she couldn’t exploit to her advantage, and now she’d pulled him into it, too.
Just the thought made him sick. He spent the rest of the landing desperately trying to think of some way he could warn Katya and her sister without it being blatant treason against his clan. He was still working on it when the plane finally rolled to a stop, and his mother rose gracefully to her feet.
“Don’t look like that, darling,” she scolded as Conrad hopped up to open the exterior door. “This is the most use you’ve been to me in years. You should be happy, especially since you don’t actually have to do anything. In fact, if you behave yourself tonight and this all works out like it should, I might just be happy enough to unseal you. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
She paused there, waiting for his answer, but Julius said nothing. What was there to say? If he agreed, he’d condone the use of his good reputation to trap those who trusted him. If he didn’t, she’d accuse him of being ungrateful, revoke the offer, and use him anyway. That was how his mother worked: by leaving you no option but to dance to her tune and thank her for the opportunity.
When he didn’t answer, Bethesda’s smile fell. “You truly are a miserable excuse for a dragon,” she said, turning away. “I give you opportunity after opportunity, but do you take it?”
He took a breath to defend himself, but his mother cut him off. “Do yourself a favor, Julius,” she said as she started down the stairs the human crew had just finished rolling into position. “Keep that mouth shut. When we get to the party, find a corner and stand in it until I tell you to do otherwise. Can you manage that?”
“Yes, Mother,” he said quietly, following her down the stairs to the tarmac where Frieda, the Heartstriker who served as his mother’s secretary, was already waiting to walk them into the mountain.
Given how much he’d hated living here, Julius didn’t even want to look at the place again. Before he could think of dragging his feet, though, a voice behind him growled, “Move.”
Julius looked up with a start to see Conrad standing on the stairs behind him, his massive arms crossed over his inhumanly wide chest. He looked pointedly at the doors on the other side of the airstrip, and Julius got the hint, scurrying after his mother like a mouse. His terrifying brother followed right on his heels, bringing up the rear as they left the jet to the human crew and stepped through the automatic, sound-proofed doors into the massive complex that was Heartstriker Mountain.
It looked the same as always. Julius wasn’t sure what else he’d expected. He’d only been gone a month. Given how much his life had changed in the last four weeks, though, coming back to the same spotless green carpet, overly ornate gold light fixtures, and arched stone hallway full of human servants all scrambling to bow to Bethesda as she passed felt oddly surreal. The fortress didn’t even feel like home anymore, an uncomfortable realization given that, up until a few weeks ago, this was the only home he’d ever known. He was still trying to decide how to feel about that when his mother marched them past the multiple elevators leading to the various family floors and into the special, gilded elevator at the far end that connected the public base of the mountain with her private lair at the peak.
Julius stopped with a gulp. He’d lived his whole life in Heartstriker Mountain, but he’d only taken this elevator a handful of times, and only when he was in deep, deep trouble. There was no other reason a dragon like him would be invited up to Bethesda’s throne room or treasury. Considering clan parties were always thrown in the grand ballroom on the first floor, he was surprised they were going there now. Perhaps Bethesda was just going up to her rooms to change? If so, then he might be able to duck back down to his old room to grab something as well. He was sure he had something that could pass as formal wear in his old closet. Assuming, of course, Bob had been kidding when he’d said he’d sold everything.
When he mentioned going back to his room to his mother, though, Bethesda just scoffed. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, yanking him into the elevator without looking up from the tablet Frieda was holding for her to read. “This is an intimate gathering of the Heartstriker elite, not a cattle call. The ballroom is for the masses. We’re going to the throne room.” Her reflection in the elevator’s golden mirrored doors smirked at him. “Now do you understand what an honor it is to be included?”
Julius muttered something about it being an honor, indeed, but inside he was fighting down panic. Any party hosted by his mother was a terrifying ordeal, but the Heartstriker gatherings he’d been forced to attend growing up had always been big enough for him to count on hiding in the crowd. A small, elite party was another matter entirely. Julius didn’t even have a strategy for something like that, and there was no time to think of one. The swift, silent elevator had already rushed them to the mountain’s peak, the great doors opening to reveal a stone hallway big enough to drive a tank down.
As the home of a young, modern clan who’d come into their power during the magical drought, most of Heartstriker Mountain had been designed to a human scale. Here, though, in the place that was the top of Heartstriker in all ways, things were built for dragons. Just stepping out of the elevator made Julius feel like an insignificant speck, but, as always when entering his mother’s lair, what really got him were the heads.
The giant stone tunnel that ran from the elevator to the throne room’s enormous double doors a hundred feet away was lined with severed dragon heads. They hung in a grid from floor to ceiling, each one a grisly trophy from the clans the Heartstriker had destroyed during her rapid rise to power, mounted on a custom mahogany plaque the size of a car. Since Bethesda’s first conquests had been in the Americas, most of the skulls were feathered, including those from her two older brothers, but there were plenty of scaled heads from the European clans, fish-like heads from the Sea Serpents who ruled the Pacific, even two narrow, snake-like skulls from the Asian clans, and these were just the intact ones she liked to show off. Bethesda had even more trophies stored in her treasury, but the entry hall was reserved for the most impressive specimens, the defeated dragons big and famous enough to serve as a proper reminder of just who lived here, and what she was capable of.
Julius hated walking down this hall. Even knowing the severed heads were stuffed and their eyes were glass, he swore he could feel the dead dragons watching him and plotting revenge. His mother, on the other hand, loved it. She’d rushed them all the way from the plane to the elevator. Now, though, she took her time, smiling up at each head like she was greeting old friends. But creepy as it was to stroll through a postmortem gallery of your enemies, Julius was actually grateful for the slow pace. It gave him time to adjust to the growing scent of dragons coming from the doors at the end.
Since his mother had come to pick him up herself, Julius had hoped he’d have some time to prepare himself before the others arrived, but leave it to Bethesda to be fashionably late to her own party. He didn’t have the experience needed to separate all the individual scents floating down the hall, but there were definitely a lot of dragons already waiting on the other side of the doors at the end of the hall. Nothing like the massive gatherings of Heartstrikers that showed up for his mother’s annual birthday celebration, of course, but still more than Julius wanted to deal with in an enclosed space.
Just thinking about standing in that predatory crowd made him twitchy, but it was way too late to run. Conrad had already wal
ked ahead of them to grab both of the massive door handles, looking over his shoulder at their mother for a signal. After taking a moment to pull herself to her maximum height, Bethesda nodded, and Conrad pushed the heavy, dragon-sized wooden doors open with a single shove to reveal Bethesda’s enormous, gilded throne room, which was packed nearly to the walls with the most terrifying crowd Julius had ever seen.
When he was a young dragon, his sister Flora, who’d been in charge of the new Heartstriker’s education, had shown J-clutch a scale model of the solar system. Years later, Julius could still remember how tiny and insignificant he’d felt coming face to face with the reality of interstellar distance, and it was the same feeling he had now. Even with his mother standing between him and the throne room, Julius could feel the force of the crowd’s attention like a pressure zone as every dragon in the room turned to look at Bethesda’s grand entrance.
Apparently, “small, elite gathering” was a relative term. There were so many deadly, beautiful faces turned toward them, Julius couldn’t begin to count them all, but one glance was enough for him to know to his bones that he was the smallest thing in this room by a power of ten. Bethesda, of course, took their notice as her due. Regal as a queen, she lifted her chin, surveying the well-dressed crowd like she was trying to decide if it met her minimum requirements.
Like all her displays of power, it went on forever. Since Julius was trapped up there at her side, this meant he had to stand and be stared at forever, which was rapidly becoming a problem. Being the focus of this much draconic attention would have been the stuff of nightmares under any circumstances, but for some reason, the fear was hitting him even harder than he’d anticipated, weakening his knees even as it jacked up his body with the desperate need to flee.