Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(15)
“Okay, okay,” Amelia said at last, awkwardly patting Svena’s shaking shoulders. “I know egg-laying makes dragons emotional, but—”
She cut off with a gulp as Svena’s hands wrapped around her throat.
“But perhaps I didn’t go about this in the best way,” she finished, eying Svena’s sharp claws nervously despite her much vaunted new immortality. “I’m back now, though, so everything’s cool. All’s well that ends well, right?”
“All is not well,” Svena snarled, sitting up with a glare. “You hurt me deeply, and I want an apology. A real one, right now, or I will never speak to you again.”
“Oh, come on!” Amelia cried. “What are we? Five?”
Svena set her jaw stubbornly, and Amelia clonked her head back down on the floor with a groan. “Fine,” she muttered, rubbing her hands over her face. “I’m sorry.”
The white dragon did not look satisfied. “Promise you’ll make it up to me,” she demanded. “A life debt good for one favor of my choosing.”
“No way!” Amelia shouted. “I’ve already admitted I was slightly in the wrong here, but you’re crazy if you think that means I’m giving you an open-ended favor.”
It did seem like overkill, but Svena wasn’t budging. She just sat stubbornly on Amelia’s chest, glaring down at her as the silence grew colder and colder until, at last, the new Spirit of Dragons sighed. “All right,” she growled, lifting up her hand. “If it will make you stop, then I swear a life debt to make this up to you with a favor of your choosing.”
“Done,” Svena said immediately, grabbing Amelia’s offered hand. The moment their fingers touched, dragon magic slammed down on the room like a falling guillotine. One favor was relatively small for a life debt, but Amelia’s new status must have given the spell extra bite, because Julius wasn’t even tangentially involved in the agreement, and the magical spillover was still strong enough to make him gasp. Even Marci looked uncomfortable, rubbing her own hands together as if they hurt. Svena, however, looked deeply satisfied, her lips curling into a smug smile.
“Apology accepted,” she said as she rose gracefully to her feet. “You always did grovel beautifully.”
“Shut up,” Amelia growled.
“Why should I?” Svena replied, looking down at her with a superior smirk. “I just put myself back on top.”
“What?” Amelia shrieked, shooting to her feet. “That did not count!”
“It absolutely counts,” Svena said with a toss of her hair. “Everyone just heard a self-proclaimed god apologize and agree to grant me a boon in exchange for the mercy of my forgiveness. Including the Golden Emperor, apparently.” She arched an eyebrow at the Qilin, who was standing behind Julius in the hallway. “I think we’ve all just seen who has the real power here.”
“You little faker,” Amelia growled, her face furious. “That was extortion!”
“I faked nothing,” Svena said angrily. “I was legitimately wronged! If you’d told me ahead of time it was a ploy for power, I would have understood, but did you do me even that small courtesy? No! You let me think you were dead.”
“She held a beautiful funeral for you,” Katya said sadly. “Full honors at sea, same as she’d do for one of our sisters.”
Svena nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “You hurt me truly, Planeswalker. A life debt is the least I could demand for the loss of my greatest rival. Not that you deserve my forgiveness after rubbing my pain in my face.” She turned up her nose. “I should have let you dangle. See how you like being left alone.”
To Julius’s amazement, Amelia laughed at that. “Like you could,” she said with a smile. “I admit it, you played me good, but I should have known you were bluffing. ‘Never talk to me again,’ my tail. You couldn’t even wait for the magic to settle before you came running.” She nodded at the baby dragons still clinging to Katya and Marci. “You even brought your poofballs.”
“I couldn’t leave them behind,” Svena said haughtily. “I know how little you Heartstrikers understand proper parenting, but a responsible dragoness doesn’t leave her whelps alone for a moment during the first month.”
“Are you sure they’re whelps?” Amelia asked, stepping out of the wreckage of the couch to get a better look at the little dragon on Marci’s shoulder. “They look more like feather dusters to me. But if you’re back to insulting my mother, all must be forgiven. And speaking of forgiveness, you owe Julius a new sofa. And a lot of new doors.”
“They do not look like cleaning implements!” Svena cried. “They are an entirely new sort of dragon! A hybrid of my clan’s shape and snow-white coloration with the Heartstriker’s feathers.” She held out her arms to the little dragon perching on Marci, and the whelp almost knocked the mage over leaping back to its mother, much to Svena’s delight. “They will be unspeakably beautiful,” she said proudly, cradling the fluffy white whelp in her arms. “And my eldest daughter here, the first born after Estella’s death, will be the next seer.”
She said that so proudly, Julius had to look away. The Empress Mother wasn’t the most trustworthy source, but unless Bob had stolen Chelsie’s egg and then waited around for half a day before hatching it, he was pretty sure that his new niece was older than Svena’s babies by at least a few hours. That meant Chelsie and the Qilin’s daughter, not Svena’s, would be the next seer. Not that he was going to tell Svena that. Chelsie had clearly had the same thought, because she motioned for Fredrick to scoot her currently human-shaped child back into the kitchen, out of the white dragon’s sight.