Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(31)
“No, no, no,” Bob said quickly, waving his hands. “I am the epitome of humility. But…”
He trailed off, fighting so hard to hide his grin, Julius was surprised he didn’t pull a muscle. “I knew it would work! I knew it. Every seer tries to avoid their death. We all have the vision, and then we all drive ourselves crazy trying to beat the Black Reach at his own game. I spent a good century making the same mistake before I finally figured it out: you can’t beat him. He’s a construct, a magical supercomputer. No born dragon can ever hope to match that. For a while, I was convinced the whole situation was hopeless, but then I realized that didn’t matter. I didn’t need to beat him at his own game. I just had to make sure that, when the time came, my solution would be so good, so in line with his own desires, the Black Reach wouldn’t be able to bring himself to kill me. I knew I couldn’t stop his sword, so I focused on removing his will to swing instead, and it worked! It worked, Julius! I’m still alive, and it’s all because of you!”
He hugged Julius again, his chest heaving with what could have been laughter or sobs or both. “I knew I was right to choose you,” he said, his voice rough. “I knew you’d pull it all together in the end!”
It certainly had come together, but Julius still wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done.
“Wait,” he said, pushing his brother back to arm’s length. “So all that stuff you set up—overthrowing our mother, changing the Heartstriker clan, making Amelia a spirit, freeing Chelsie and F-clutch—wasn’t actually to help the clan or make a better world. It was so you wouldn’t die to the Black Reach?”
Bob snorted. “Is there a nobler cause? He was going to kill me. Of course I did everything I could to prevent it! All those other things were just positive externalities… which I’d always planned from the start,” he added quickly at the Black Reach’s cutting look. “I’m sure a better dragon would have put the world peace stuff first, but as I keep telling you, Julius, I’m not a better dragon. You’re the nice one, which is why you—not me—had to be the lynchpin. No one else would do, because no one else would be foolish enough to spare Bethesda, or to form a council when he could have taken the Heartstriker clan for himself. No one else in our family would have worked with Katya instead of bringing her in, or won the trust of a human mage dedicated enough to become the First Merlin.”
He reached out to pinch Julius’s cheeks. “That was all you, you darling boy, which is why I never told you to be anything but yourself. You were already the Nice Dragon I needed you to be. The only problem was you were too nice to use your power. If I hadn’t been constantly applying pressure, you would’ve happily run a magical pest control company in the DFZ until Algonquin’s purge caught you. But I knew you had the potential to be a lever large enough to move the world. Once I’d tested your conviction to be sure you wouldn’t break, I got you into position and used you exactly as you needed to be used, and just look how marvelously it all turned out!” He hugged Julius again, almost crushing his ribs. “I am a genius!”
“So much for the epitome of humility,” Chelsie said, reaching down to save Julius from Bob’s stranglehold.
“I’m the epitome of many things,” the seer replied, releasing Julius reluctantly. “So,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “What do we do now?”
Everyone gaped at him.
“You mean you don’t know?” Julius cried.
Bob shrugged. “I am unquestionably brilliant, but no seer can see past their own death. All my visions of the future ended thirty seconds ago.”
“What about your plan to keep us alive?” Svena demanded. “You owe me my survival at least after I so benevolently spared you.”
Amelia snorted at her. “Benevolent my tail. You couldn’t bring yourself to kill Julius any more than the rest of us.”
“For your information, I was going to go around him,” Svena snapped back. “I am perfectly capable of stabbing Brohomir full of ice without putting a scratch on Julius Heartstriker. However, Katya’s words make me consider the larger picture, and I decided killing your cut-rate seer was no longer worth my time.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Amelia said, shaking her head at Svena before turning back to Bob. “But seriously, what are we going to do? I don’t like the sound of a single future with no free will, but I’ll take it if that’s the only choice. I didn’t fight my way out of death just to get killed again the very next day.”
“My original plan is still an option,” Bob said, lips curling into a smile. “But it might no longer be the only option.”
“What do you mean?” Marci asked, glancing up at the Leviathan, who looked exactly the same. “What changed?”
Brohomir turned to grin at the Black Reach. “He did. By making a decision he never would have made before I intervened, the Black Reach kicked off a cascade of shiny new futures. There are so many possibilities in front of us now, I don’t even know where to start, so unless you want me to sit here for a few days while I follow each new path to its conclusion, you’d do better to ask him.” He nodded at Dragon Sees Eternity. “He’s the seer supercomputer.”
That was the best thing Bob had said yet, but when Julius turned hopefully to the Black Reach, the construct’s face was dour.