Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(21)

“Amelia’s the only one who could have done it safely,” Chelsie agreed, tightening her grip on Julius. “Now that she’s locked down, our chances of stopping Svena are nil to zero. Even if we could win, though, I wouldn’t get involved. Bob brought this on himself. He always knew she’d never get her seer, but he let her think she’d won for his own benefit.” Her eyes narrowed. “He deserves everything he gets.”

Julius couldn’t argue with that logic, but just because Bob deserved it didn’t mean it was right. “He’s still our brother!”

“And I was his sister!” Chelsie snarled, her voice shaking with old anger. “But that didn’t stop him from letting Bethesda make me a slave, did it? He put us all on the block, and for what?” She looked over her shoulder at the Black Reach. “His stupid plan didn’t even work.”

“Only because he didn’t get a chance to finish!” Julius said frantically, turning to look her in the eyes. “Are you really going to stand here and let him die?”

“He’s a thousand-year-old dragon,” Chelsie said with a shrug. “Let’s see him act like one for once. He picked this fight. He can finish it.”

Something was definitely going to be finished in the next few seconds. Svena had already hopped up onto the rim of the broken cement crater Bob had made when she’d kicked him, standing over him with painfully cold magic pouring off her like a fountain. The frost on the ground was arctic-thick now, transforming the drab dirt and dingy concrete of Julius and Marci’s hideaway into a pristine blanket of white save for the places where Bob’s blood had stained it bright red. There was an awful lot of red, actually, and Svena reveled in it, leaning down to scoop up a handful as she gloated over her fallen enemy.

“What’s the matter, fortune teller?” she asked, tossing the bloody snow in his face. “Forgot how to dodge now that I’m no longer handicapped by pregnancy and your horrible desert?”

“What is it with your family and grudges?” Bob muttered, his face tight with pain as he finally managed to sit up. “But surely you must see that this is ridiculous. I had the advantage last time. There’s no shame in—”

“This won’t be like last time,” Svena hissed as her ice climbed the broken ramp behind him. “I’ve cold and water in plenty here, while you have nothing. Even your pigeon has abandoned you.”

She was right. After the first chunk of ice had hit Bob, his pigeon had fluttered to safety. She was now perched on a tilting piece of the house’s roof, which was only still standing because Ghost was holding it up. Julius held his breath as he watched her, waiting for something to happen, but the pigeon just sat there cleaning her feathers as if she really was the dumb bird she’d always appeared to be. He’d always assumed Bob’s pigeon was special, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe his brother really was just crazy.

Either way, in that moment, two things became painfully clear: Svena was going to kill Bob, and no one was going to stop her. Svena’s grievance was running the hottest right now, but every dragon here, and most of the mortals as well, was someone Bob had used terribly. Even the Qilin had been played, ramped up by Bob and his mother and then broken to weaken Algonquin and empower Amelia. As for Julius, he’d been a pawn too many times to count. From the moment Bethesda had kicked him out of his room, he’d danced on Bob’s string. He’d been a tool, a puppet, a domino Bob had knocked down and set back up over and over and over. He should have hated his brother for that. For using all of them with no care for whom he hurt. And yet…

And yet…

“Here it comes,” Chelsie said as frost began to gather in Svena’s raised hand. “Look away, Julius. This is going to be—”

But Julius was already gone.

He’d never been a particularly strong dragon, but he was a fast one. Julius used that now, darting out of Chelsie’s hold before she realized what was going on and sliding across the thick sheet of ice to throw himself in front of Bob, flinging his arms around his brother seconds before the avalanche of razor-sharp dragon magic crashed down. He squeezed his eyes shut, clinging to Bob as he braced for the death that never came. Instead, the freezing air went still, falling into a silence as deep as midwinter before Svena’s frustrated voice growled, “What are you doing?”

Julius’s heart was pounding so hard, it took him several seconds to form the words. “Saving my brother.”

Without releasing his hold on Bob, he cracked his eyes open to see Svena staring down at them through a haze of frosted magic with a look that was half fury, half utter disbelief. “Are you out of your mind?” she cried, grabbing Julius with a hand so cold it burned. “Get out of my way!”

The order was laced with magic that hurt even more than her grip, but Julius bore the pain and clutched Bob more tightly, looking her right in the eyes.

“No.”

Svena’s lips curled in a frigid sneer. “If you think I am soft like my sister, you are fatally mistaken. I have no problem going through you if that’s what it takes.” She lifted her hand again, and the magic above them sharpened to a deadly point. “Last warning, little Heartstriker. Move.”

Julius had been threatened by enough dragons to know that wasn’t a bluff, but he still didn’t let go. He just sat there, kneeling on the ice with his arms around his brother’s neck and his eyes on Svena. It was a pointless resistance. His body wouldn’t even slow the ice before it crushed them, but that didn’t matter, because this wasn’t about winning. It was about Julius and the fact that no matter what Bob had done, he couldn’t stand by and watch his brother die.