Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(51)
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Amelia said when he told her as much. “But we’re a species on the decline. A surprising number of us escaped through the portal to this plane, but the attrition since has been brutal. Between the clan wars and the infighting, dragons have been dropping like flies for the last ten centuries, and with the notable exception of Bethesda, we just don’t breed fast enough to keep up.”
“So this is it?” Julius said, looking at the crowd in the cavern, which now seemed pathetically small.
Amelia nodded. “It was a shock for me, too. I’d always suspected most clans were smaller than they pretended, but it wasn’t until I plugged myself into everyone’s fires that I realized just how bad the problem had gotten. Counting Svena’s whelps, there are only five hundred and thirty-two dragons in the world right now, and most of them are already here.”
Julius sucked in a worried breath. When he’d promised Marci they’d keep the Leviathan back, he’d assumed he’d be working with a much bigger force. What they had here didn’t even look like enough to cover the DFZ and Lake St. Clair, let alone the five actual Great Lakes. But just as he was getting worked up, Julius realized he was being an idiot. He wasn’t looking at all the dragons. There was still one major clan missing. One he’d never thought he’d miss.
“Where’s Heartstriker?”
Chapter 8
“Remember,” Fredrick said, clutching his Fang in his hands as he looked around at his gathered brothers and sisters. “We only have one chance at this. Julius is depending on us to bring the clan. Whatever happens, we must uphold that, but we will not return as servants. Agreed?”
The others nodded, their newly revealed golden eyes resolute. It was a sight to behold. Before he’d left, Brohomir had pulled Fredrick aside and handed him an envelope containing step-by-step instructions in Amelia’s hand for how to break Bethesda’s green-eyed curse. It was the same spell the Planeswalker had cast on him, but while Fredrick was no mage, his brother Ferdinand was. He’d cut straight to him, and then they’d cut to each of their siblings in turn, breaking the curse as they went.
Being free of the last vestige of Bethesda’s control over them felt as good as Fredrick had hoped, but he hadn’t expected all his brothers and sisters to share the Qilin’s eyes. In hindsight, though, Fredrick didn’t know how it could have been otherwise. They were the children of the Golden Emperor, the most magical dragon to ever live, with a fire that had been carefully tended for hundreds of thousands of years. Of course his mark would be on all of them, even if his luck was not.
But Fredrick had no need for luck. With his siblings beside him and their real mother’s Fang in his hands, he could make their future himself. This was just the first step, and Fredrick meant to step big, motioning for the others to take position behind him in the sterile, cement-brick underground hallway. When all his family was in place, Fredrick nodded at his sister Frieda, who was standing in front of the heavy steel doors at the hallway’s end.
The moment his head moved, Frieda hauled back and kicked the doors open, knocking both off their hinges and clearing F-clutch’s way into the bunker deep below the Heartstriker compound in the District of Columbia, where all the rest of the clan was waiting.
They were all there, too. Fredrick had known they would be. His new sword knew where every Heartstriker was, but it was still intimidating to see so many green eyes turn to look at him. Every Heartstriker in the family except for Bethesda and Ian—who were still at the mountain—and Julius, Amelia, Chelsie, and Bob—who were already in the DFZ—was packed into the warded bunker hidden below David’s Washington, DC, mansion. Conrad himself was standing on the riser at the front, addressing the army of dragons he’d gathered to fight the Qilin’s invasion.
The moment he had the clan champion in his sights, Fredrick started looking for the second most dangerous target, but the other knight of the Heartstrikers found them first, stepping out from behind the door Frieda had just kicked down with his Fang drawn and his teeth bared.
As always, Justin came out ready to fight. He stopped in surprise when he saw who it was, and then his mouth curled into a dismissive smile. “It’s okay,” he announced, lowering his sword. “It’s just the Fs.” He tilted his head at Fredrick and the others. “Where have you guys been? And what’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Nothing,” Fredrick said calmly as his siblings fanned out to form a wall behind him. “They’ve simply returned to their natural color.”
That should have been the bomb drop of the night, but Justin didn’t even seem to be listening. He was too busy gawking at the Fang of the Heartstriker in Fredrick’s hand. “Where did you get that?” he demanded. “Where’s Julius?”
“He’s fine,” Fredrick said, lifting the blade. “This isn’t his sword. It’s Chelsie’s.”
“I know that,” Justin snapped. “You think I wouldn’t recognize the sword that stabbed me in the back? I want to know why you have it, and why aren’t you at Julius’s side? You’re supposed to be looking out for him! What are you doing here?”
“I would like to know that as well,” Conrad rumbled. He jumped down off the riser, and the rest of the clan parted like water as the giant dragon made his way to the back of the room. “I ordered everyone to gather here two days ago so we could prepare to take our mountain back from the Golden Emperor. You were exempt since you were watching Julius, but the rest of your clutch is still part of the family. Like every Heartstriker, you were all expected to appear when summoned, but only Frieda showed up.” The champion’s hard green eyes narrowed. “If this is rebellion, Fredrick, you picked a bad time. I can’t afford to be lenient when so much is at stake.”