Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(26)
“How is that possible?” Julius asked. “You just said that every future where you lived culminated in the end of the world.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Bob said. “It wasn’t possible by everything I could see, but again, I can only see what’s partially likely to happen. There are billions of practically impossible futures I can’t see simply because they’re so unlikely, but she can.” He stroked his pigeon again. “She sees every way time can bend, no matter how impossible. All I had to do was tell her what I wanted, and she found it. The only downside was the cost. As you might imagine, turning impossibility into certainty is ghastly expensive, and with only the futures of Heartstriker to work with, I simply didn’t have enough. I needed more. I needed everyone, every single dragon that exists. There was no way to get all those futures under my control through the usual ways—no dragon has ever united all the clans in the history of our kind—so Amelia and I hatched a plan to do it magically.”
He smiled at his older sister. “As the Spirit of Dragons, Amelia is now intimately connected to every dragon’s fire, and I’m connected to her as her beloved brother.” He swept his hand at the gathered dragons. “The moment she became a spirit, you all became part of my matrix, and your futures became mine to trade.”
Svena began to growl deep in her throat, but Julius was too shocked to pay it any mind. “That’s why you killed Amelia?” he cried. “So she’d be the Spirit of Dragons and give you the ability to sell our futures? What about restoring our race’s connection to the native magic of a plane? What about giving us a home?”
“Oh, well, that was good too,” Bob said. “But eyes on the prize, Julius. Everything I’ve done—hooking you up with the human who would become the Merlin, placing you at the top of our clan, reuniting the Qilin with his old flame and then breaking him to weaken Algonquin before restoring him so Amelia would have the luck she needed at the right time to claim her place as spirit—it was all a play to bring us to this moment. This one particular crossroads in time where every dragon’s future is mine to manipulate, which should be just enough sway to purchase the one future in which we don’t die.” He held his hands up with a flourish. “I will now accept your praise and adoration.”
Silence was his only answer.
“I can see why the Black Reach wants to kill you,” Svena said at last. “You’re worse than Estella. At least she only sold her own future. You’ve sold us all!”
“Considering that every other path led to death, I don’t see how you have cause to complain,” Bob said testily.
“But she has every right,” the Black Reach said, his normally calm voice shaking in fury. “Death is not the only end, Brohomir. You and I would have no quarrel if all you’d done was bring all dragons under your influence to manipulate the species toward a beneficial future. That’s just good seer work. But that’s not what you’ve done. For all your machinations, the future you’ve chosen is still so unlikely as to be functionally impossible. To ensure it, you will have to feed every other potential outcome to the Final Future, which means that even though lives will be saved, they will not be lived. By trimming every branch of the future but one, you will destroy our free will. Dragons will live on, but our choices will mean nothing. No matter what we decide, there will only be one path forward. Yours.”
Silence fell again, harder this time. “Is that true?” Julius asked at last, looking up at his brother.
“It’s not a perfect solution,” Bob said, his confident smile slipping. “But what else was I supposed to do? I’ve spent my entire life looking down millions and millions of futures in my search for a way to beat Algonquin’s Leviathan, and every single one ended in death. My death, your death, the death of my family and friends. Everyone I knew or cared about, including me, had no future past this point unless I did something, so I did.” He looked up at the Black Reach. “I know I’m breaking your rules, but I’m doing it to save the future of the race you were created to protect. That has to count for something.”
The eldest seer shook his head. “Good intentions do not excuse the crime. Every seer I’ve ever killed thought they were doing what had to be done. You are no different.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Bob argued. “I’m not Estella, trading my soul for petty vindictiveness. We’re talking about the end of the world. Our world, right now. The scale alone should—”
“No different,” the Black Reach repeated, pulling himself to his full impressive height. “Selling potential futures was how we destroyed the only true home our race has ever known. It does not matter if you are buying one life or millions, the mistakes of the past must not be repeated.”
“So you would let us die?” Bob snarled. “You would rather let Algonquin’s tantrum destroy us than bend on this one issue? Have you even looked at the future I chose?”
“I have,” the construct said. “And I can admit that it is good. Far better than I expected of you, to be honest. But a lovely prison is still a prison, and yours only saves dragons.”
“Dragons were all I could control,” Bob argued. “Even I couldn’t get my claws in the futures of the entire world.”
“But what are we without the world?” the Black Reach asked. “In your future, we survive, as does Amelia as our spirit, but everything else gets eaten down to the bedrock. Humans, spirits, plants, animals, they’re all gone. We’ll be stranded in a wasteland no bigger than what remains of the dragons’ old home without even the free will to choose how we will rebuild.” He bared his teeth. “Can such a future really be considered better than death?”