Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(106)
It might have been Marci’s imagination, but she would have sworn Bob shuddered in relief. “Good choice,” he said when he’d recovered, though not nearly as casually as he’d probably meant. “Saw things my way, did you?”
“No,” the Black Reach said, and then the enormous dragon faded away, leaving only the tall Chinese man wearing the same black silk robe he’d worn every time Marci had seen him.
“The decision is strictly practical,” the now human—and very tired-looking—construct continued. “Right now, your magic is the only thing keeping Julius Heartstriker’s fire burning. If I kill you, he will die as well, and I didn’t just spend half my fire protecting his futures to lose them now. Even if I wait until he’s stable to kill you, though, doing so will burn through too much of my remaining power, and I simply don’t have the fire to spare. Already, my flames are critically low. I need to rest and regroup what little remains if I am to survive. That demands several quiet decades, and I’m sure those will be much easier to obtain if I’m only dealing with one new seer instead of two.” He reached out to tap Bob on the snout. “Right now, the male incarnation of the dragon seers is still locked up in you, even if you can’t use it. If I kill you, that power will be reborn into a new fire, which means I’ll have to scramble all over again, and I just don’t have that sort of energy.”
“Now you really do sound like an old man,” Bob said with a chuckle. “A venerable and wise one, who sees the world clearly through his lens of vast experience.”
The construct rolled his eyes at the fawning recovery and stepped closer still, looking up at Bob’s dripping dragon with the stoic finality of a judge pronouncing a verdict. “Brohomir of the Heartstrikers, consider yourself lucky. You are still sentenced to death, but for practical reasons, including the fact that you are currently not a risk to the futures of dragonkind, your execution is commuted until I recover. Or until you annoy me too much.”
Bob’s face split into a triumphant grin. “Nonsense. You’d get bored without me.”
The Black Reach’s eyes narrowed, and Bob quickly backed down. “Thank you for your mercy, great construct,” he said meekly. “I should probably take Julius to Amelia now.”
“That would be best,” the Black Reach agreed, glancing at the dragons watching from the shore. “Any more coincidences I should know about before I go?”
“No,” Bob said, looking worriedly at the tiny flame in his claws. “But if you could spare a teensy, tiny bit more of that fantastic fire, I think we might need it. Julius was always small, but this is a terrifyingly dim fire, even for a runt.”
The Black Reach’s scowl softened at that.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Chapter 16
Death was a gentler experience than Julius expected.
Growing up with daily threats, he’d always expected his end would be quick, brutal, and messy. But while being ripped apart from the inside had been all that and more, the actual dying part hadn’t been so bad. Peaceful, almost, which was why Julius was very confused when he woke up to find himself lying in a hospital bed.
He jolted, his whole body going stiff just in time for him to realize it was his human body, which only made everything even weirder. He was positive he’d died as a dragon. Inside a Nameless End, no less. If he was going to wake up anywhere, it should be inside his own death, as Marci had described. He knew he wouldn’t be lucky enough to get their house, as she had, but he’d certainly expected better than a human hospital, complete with mint-green walls and scratchy sheets.
At least it smelled nice. The whole room smelled of Marci’s magic. Tons of it, actually, as though he were inside one of her casting circles. Not that he minded, of course, but it was still odd. Why was there so much magic? And why was his chest so heavy? Like there was a weight lying right in the middle of his—
Julius froze, eyes growing wide. Marci was sleeping on his chest. The real Marci, unless ghosts came with dark circles under their eyes and hospital scrubs. That did explain the overwhelming scent of magic, though. Everything around him—the sheets, the bed rails, the hospital’s monitoring equipment, the walls, the door, the window—was covered in spellwork written in Marci’s precise hand. From the overlapping marker stains on her fingers, she must have been at it for days, but Julius had no idea what it was all for. He was arguing with himself about whether he should wake her and ask or let her sleep since she looked so tired when he realized the two of them were not alone.
On the far side of the room, sprawled across a plastic hospital chair like he’d been dropped there from orbit, was Bob. He looked absolutely terrible. His face was gaunt, as though he’d been starving for weeks, and his skin looked like it hadn’t seen the sun in months. But while his dark circles were even larger than Marci’s, the seer’s eyes were open, the bright-green glowing in the soft light from the window as he smiled at Julius.
“Welcome back.”
That felt needlessly cryptic, but Julius was too worried about the state of his brother to mind. “What happened to you?” he whispered frantically.
“You did,” Bob replied, hauling himself up in his chair. “You gave us quite the scare. I must have poured five hundred years of fire into you before your flame caught, and who knows how much Amelia used. Even after we got you going, your fire was so weak we had to have someone with you at all times to keep it from snuffing out. We eventually set up a rotation. That’s what the spellwork was for. Marci and the other human, Myron, I think his name is, they figured out how to construct a system that would send concentrated dragon magic straight into you. Sort of like an IV, except for fire. Anyway, everyone’s been through to take their turn—Chelsie, Justin, Conrad, Fredrick, Svena, Katya, the Qilin.” He grinned. “You’ve got so many different magics in you, you’re practically the draconic average at this point. Even Mother dropped in to do her share.”