Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(32)
“My decision to spare Brohomir has indeed created a host of new possibilities,” he said. “Unfortunately, none of them improve our situation. We are still under siege by a Nameless End, a power that acts on a planar level. It’s not something we can simply defeat.”
“But do you have a plan?” Svena said, butting her way forward. “I agree that Brohomir’s idea to lock us all in a static future was unacceptable, but it’s the height of foolishness to shoot down a strategy unless you have an alternative.”
“He has to have something,” Amelia agreed, moving to stand beside her best frenemy. “He’s the guardian of the future, and there’s not much future to guard if we’re all dead.”
Both dragon mages glared at the construct, but where any sensible creature would have cringed before their combined fury, the Black Reach merely looked annoyed. “I have not been idle,” he said irritably. “I saw this coming as Brohomir did and prepared accordingly, but though I am and always shall be the better seer, even I can’t work miracles. Brohomir’s plan was desperate for good reason. There are no good options in this scenario, and while I was not so insane as to court a death of planes”—he shot the pigeon on Bob’s shoulder a nasty look—“I’m not certain you’ll like my solution any better.”
“I knew you had a plan!” Bob blurted out. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged. “I knew he had a plan. What kind of guardian of the future doesn’t plan for the future?”
“If you knew the Black Reach was planning something, why didn’t you go with that instead of messing with our lives?” Marci asked irritably.
“Because I didn’t know what his plan was,” Bob said. “I’m supposed to be dead right now, remember? And I don’t see how you have room to complain. You came out of my plans very well, Miss One-in-a-Million-Chance-Merlin.”
Marci put her hands up in surrender at that one, and the Black Reach sighed. “I would encourage you not to get your hopes up too high. As I said, I did make arrangements for this inevitability, but even I wouldn’t call them salvation.”
“Our options right now are death by Leviathan or spending eternity trapped on Bob’s string,” Chelsie said with a shrug. “What could be worse than that?”
Instead of answering the question, the construct reached into the pocket of his silk jacket and pulled out a golden orb the size of a softball. A very familiar golden orb filled with flecks of golden foil that glittered like tinsel in the glow of the broken porch light.
“Hey!” Marci cried angrily. “That’s my Kosmolabe!”
“A powerful and useful instrument,” the Black Reach agreed, rolling the delicate ball between his fingers until the spellworked gold foil that covered the orb’s interior fluttered like leaves in the wind. “I’ve been angling for this one in particular since I saw Estella bringing it into her plans a decade ago. I would have taken possession of it sooner, but the mage who was most likely to become the First Merlin was quite attached to it. The emotional impact of removing it would have sent inconvenient ripples through a very delicate phase of my plans, so I decided to wait until a more appropriate opportunity presented itself.”
“You mean until you could steal it,” Julius said, unexpectedly angry. “I knew you took Marci’s bag! Did you think about the emotional impact that would have on me?”
“Why did you even want it?” Chelsie asked at the same time.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Amelia growled, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why does anyone ever want a Kosmolabe?” She narrowed her eyes at the construct. “He’s going to run.”
The Black Reach said nothing, but he didn’t have to. Now that Amelia had spelled it out, the plan made perfect sense. Why stay in a world that was about to die if you didn’t have to? There was even a precedent since fleeing through a portal was how dragons had arrived on this plane in the first place. The only thing Julius didn’t understand was why the Black Reach was only doing it now.
“Aren’t you a little late?” he asked. “If you’ve known about the Leviathan for as long as you claim, why didn’t you start evacuating everyone weeks ago? Even with Amelia and Svena here for teleports, there’s no way we can possibly get everyone out before…”
He trailed off. The Black Reach still hadn’t said anything, but again, he didn’t need to. The answer was right there on his face.
“You never planned to save everyone, did you?”
“No,” the Black Reach said quietly, looking down at Bob. “The reason Brohomir’s appeal worked so well on me is because he was right. I was created in our species’ moment of greatest regret. It was only through the absolute destruction of our home that the old clan heads, including your grandfather, the Quetzalcoatl, finally understood the damage their selfishness, greed, and constant war had wrought. In their sorrow, they created my brother to watch over the grave of our old home and myself to make sure nothing like this would ever happen again. You would think that after such a colossal failure, dragons as a species would learn, but it took barely a century before the fleeing clans were right back at each other’s throats.” He shook his head. “I was created to guard our future, but when I looked ahead down the stream of time, all I saw were the same mistakes repeated endlessly. After ten millennia of trying and failing to correct our course, even I, a construct built in hope for a better future, was forced to accept that dragons would always be conniving, selfish, violent beasts incapable of caring about anything but their own self-interest.”