Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers) (52 page)

“Do you know what time it is here?”

Estella sighed. Only the Black Reach would call you to complain about the time where he was. “What do you want?”

There was a rain-like sound as the elder seer stretched, his scales clicking together like a cascade of jade beads. “Actually, this is a courtesy call. I promised the last time we spoke that I would say something if I saw you setting foot down an irrevocable path. Of course, if I’d known you were going to do so at seven-thirty in the morning, I would never have agreed.”

“You didn’t foresee that as well?” Estella said. “And here I thought you were supposed to be the greatest of us all?”

“The greatest and the oldest,” he agreed. “And the most patient with overwrought young seers like yourself who don’t stop to think things through.”

“Your concern is noted,” she said briskly. “But my decision is already made. I refuse to live in a world where that tacky whore and her upstart brood become more powerful than us.”

“So I see,” the Black Reach replied, his smooth, deep voice turning serious. “But a promise is a promise, Estella. I swore to warn you, though it’s up to you to listen.”

Estella sighed and sat down in a richly upholstered chair. “Get on with it, then.”

“You’re beginning your fall, little star,” the old dragon said. “For over two thousand years, the Three Sisters have been the unquestioned queens of the dragon world; their magic unmatched, their seer unparalleled. But no queen rules forever. The wheel of fortune turns on all levels, and the old must always make way for the new.”

“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped. “You act as though you’re the only seer in this conversation. I foresaw the Heartstriker’s rise perfectly well. Unlike you, though, I wasn’t content to drink tea and watch the world fall apart around me. I’ve worked tirelessly for decades now to prevent this catastrophe.”

“And lost your favorite sister in the process.”

Estella closed her eyes with a sharp breath, and in the silence that followed, the Black Reach continued. “Brohomir has done his job exceptionally well for one so young. The Heartstriker’s assent cannot be prevented. If you wish to survive, you must adapt.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, looking down at the Kosmolabe shining in her hand. “There is one last way.”

“Perhaps,” the Black Reach said. “But know this, Estella. If you start down this path, you will find the weapon you seek, but it will be your death as well. You have lived longer than any seer in history save myself. Are you sure you’re ready to give that up for a revenge you will not live to enjoy?”

“Of course,” she said at once. “You might see more than any seer, Black Reach, but seeing isn’t the same as understanding. There is more to life than mere survival. It is because I’ve lived so long that I can say without doubt that I would rather die tomorrow with my teeth lodged in the Heartstriker’s throat than live forever in a world where the daughters of gods are forced to bow to Bethesda the Broodmare.”

The phone vibrated against her ear as the Black Reach let out a long, deep sigh. “So be it,” he said. “My warning is delivered. With this, all debts between us are answered, which means I will see you soon.”

“Soon?” Estella repeated, scowling. “Why?”

There was soft click of sharp teeth as the Black Reach smiled. “Because the next time we meet will be the day you die. Have a nice trip, Estella.”

The phone went silent as he hung up, and Estella stared it for a long moment before flinging it away. She was not afraid. She was a seer, the Northern Star, and she had set herself down this path long ago. Death was just another price, and if it could be used to buy the destruction of her enemy, she would count her life well spent indeed. With that thought ringing in her mind and the Kosmolabe as her guide, Estella reached out and tore the world apart.

Her honed magic sliced through the fabric of the universe like claws through cloth, ripping a six-foot-wide hole in the air above the hotel suite’s tasteful Ottoman carpet. On the other side, a black desert stretched out like an endless sea, lit only by a blood-red moon trapped eternally at its zenith by powers so old even Estella could not name them. There was no movement in this world, no howling wind, no water. Only dust and the distant clink of chains from the black mountain at the desert’s center.

For the first time since she’d decided to embark on this journey, Estella hesitated. There was no future on the other side of that hole, no river of possible choices for her to look down. All she could see was what she perceived with her physical eyes, and for the first time in many years, Estella the Northern Star felt a twinge of fear.

Like all her weaknesses, thoough, it was fleeting, because on this side of the portal, she could see just fine. For example, she knew if she looked out the window behind her, she would find shadows moving against the drawn curtains of Svena’s hotel room.
Two
shadows, caught in an embrace…

That horrid thought was all she needed. With a furious snarl, Estella stepped through the portal, casting off her humanity as she went. When her feet landed in black dust of the other world, they were white claws, and they only touched down for an instant before she took flight, her delicate, frost-traced wings moving in powerful beats as she flew up into the still, empty, eternally night sky. By the time the portal sealed behind her, she was following the bright gold beacon of the Kosmolabe straight toward the mountain of chains at the center, the black prison even seers could not foresee, throbbing like a beating heart beneath the light of the blood-red moon.

And back in the hotel room, discarded and forgotten beneath the silk damask couch, her phone began to ring.

And ring.

And ring.

***

Marci crouched in the back seat of Bob’s car, one hand pressing the scarf she’d found at the bottom of her bag against the wound on Julius’s chest, the other pinning Ghost behind her just in case the death spirit got any ideas. On the opposite side of the seat, Katya watched nervously from a safe distance, which actually made Marci like her a great deal better. Julius had warned her that dragons were calculating and manipulative, but anyone who looked so legitimately worried about his welfare couldn’t be all bad. Bob, on the other hand, was no use at all.

He’d slowed down when they hit the skyways, but he was still driving like a maniac, watching his phone instead of the road despite the fact that he was driving a manually operated antique. He’d finished his conversation with whoever Chelsie was a few minutes ago, and now he just seemed to be dialing the same number over and over again. With no luck, apparently.

“What’s wrong?” Marci asked.

“There’s been a great disturbance in the Force,” Bob said gravely. “As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

Her eyes widened. “Really?”

“No,” Bob said, dialing the number again with an irritated growl. “How’s our fainting flower doing? Still breathing?”

Marci’s jaw clenched, but things were much too serious to bother with a comeback, so she let it go and just answered the question. “Shallowly,” she reported, pressing makeshift bandage harder against the deep wounds that were still sluggishly bleeding. “Is he going to be okay?”

“Outlook hazy,” Bob replied. “Try again tomorrow.”

Now it was Marci’s turn to growl. “How can you be so flippant about this? Your brother might be dying. Who are you calling, anyway?”

“An old girlfriend,” he said, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Do you always ask so many questions?”

“Are you always so cryptic and annoying?” Marci snapped back, earning her a gasp from Katya.

“Mortal,” she warned softly, casting a nervous eye at the front seat. “Perhaps you are unaware, but the dragon you are addressing is Brohomir, the Great Seer of the Heartstrikers. You should not speak to him like that. You are making Julius look bad.”

“Oh, Julius does that all on his own,” Bob said, dropping the phone on the seat beside him with a sound of defeat. Hands now free, he grabbed the wheel and turned the car hard, flinging Marci against the door as he took them around a corner on two wheels. She righted herself with an annoyed sigh, but she’d already learned it was pointless to try to correct Bob’s driving, so she decided to focus on making sure Julius didn’t get any worse.

He already looked awful. The sun had sunk while they’d been down in the pit, but there was still plenty of light up here on the skyways, enough to see that the amount of blood in the car was staggering. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was still breathing, Marci would have sworn Julius was already dead.

“Don’t worry. He’s a dragon.”

Marci’s head snapped up to find Katya watching her with a little smile on her face.

“He won’t die from this,” she said. “It’s only one bullet.”

The gentle words made Marci want to wring the dragoness’s lovely neck. “It’s not just the bullet. He also got bitten by the magic eaters,
and
he’s sealed. He shouldn’t have been in there at all!”

She hadn’t meant for that last part to come out quite so hysterical, but to her surprise, Katya was nodding. “I know this was my family’s doing,” she said. “I smelled my eldest sister while the humans were putting the chain on me. I’m not sure what sort of play she was making with this—I could never claim to know the workings of a seer—but your clan was hurt in the process, and I would offer amends.” She straightened up, looking Marci dead in the eye. “I offer your master a life debt in payment for my rescue and to make things even between our clans.”

Marci blinked. “Master?”

“You are his human, are you not?” Katya said, nodding at Julius. “I’d offer it to him directly, but he’s not exactly in a position to make a decision at the moment, and I would like this settled quickly.”

Marci bit her lip, brain racing. For the sake of accuracy, she felt she should own up to her own part in the Bixby/Kosmolabe fiasco. On the other hand, if Katya wanted to blame her sister and give Julius a life debt to settle the score, who was Marci to screw that up? There was only one problem; Julius hated debts. If Marci accepted one on his behalf, he’d probably be really upset. Then again, it
did
sound like a pretty sweet offer.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t think Julius would—”

“Nonsense,” Bob interrupted, making her jump. When she looked up, he was staring straight at her through the rear view mirror. “A life debt between dragons is a power that can balance clans. It is not tendered often and should never be squandered. Julius, of course, is too young and too nice to understand this because he would never dream of going to war. But he’s indisposed at present, so the question is, how nice are
you
, Marcivale Novalli?”

“Not
that
nice,” she said, turning back to Katya. “We accept the debt.”

With remarkable lightness for someone who’d just given up something of such vaunted value, Katya smiled and offered her hand. After cleaning the blood off her own, Marci took it, but the bite of icy magic she felt through the dragon’s fingers almost made her let go again. She had pride to maintain, though, so she held her ground, gritting her teeth as the magic swelled and burst, falling over all of them like snow before Katya finally let go.

“There,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “That’s settled.”

“And just in time, too,” Bob said, whipping the car around another corner and down a ramp into a parking deck set into the skyway itself. “Fancy that.”

Marci looked up in alarm. With everything that was going on, she hadn’t been paying attention to where they were driving. Judging by how nice the parking deck was, though, she could only imagine it was somewhere very expensive—a hypothesis that was further supported by the pair of armed and augmented security guards who tried to stop Bob when he parked his car directly in front of their elevator.

The guards had barely taken their first menacing step forward before Bob hopped out with a huge, friendly smile. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said warmly. “No cause for that. We’re expected. Just call up to apartment fifty-three and tell Jessica that her brother Bob is here to see her.”

The guards looked skeptical, but they obeyed, the bigger one hanging back to keep an eye on Bob while his partner made the call on his headset. Whatever answer this Jessica person sent, though, it must have been a doozy, because by the time Marci got Julius to the edge of the seat, the guards were falling all over themselves to help. One even offered to drive Bob’s car around to a more secure location that wasn’t in the middle of a loading zone. Bob’s reply was to smile sweetly and announce that anyone who touched his baby would lose a hand. This threat was further reinforced by Ghost, who chose that moment to hop up into Crown Victoria’s back window and splay his fluffy, transparent body out in the shadows like normal cat would in a sunbeam.