Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(94)
“But—”
“The decision is made,” the construct said. “And we have very little time left. Now stand back. I will make you a path.”
The words weren’t out of his mouth before the Black Reach began to change, his human body fading as it had when he’d threatened Bob. This time, though, it wasn’t just a claw that emerged from the shadows, but an entire dragon. The biggest Julius had ever seen.
“Whoa,” he said, stumbling back.
He’d known for a long time now that Dragon Sees Eternity was big. He’d seen his brother, after all. Despite Amelia’s all-clan roundup, Dragon Sees the Beginning was still the largest dragon Julius had seen by several orders of magnitude. At least, he had been until now. Julius wasn’t sure if the twin constructs had started out unequal, or if ten thousand years of being the only thing keeping a plane from collapsing had shrunken Dragon Sees the Beginning, but as huge as the bone-white construct of the past had been, he was nothing compared to the dragon that appeared now.
Dragon Sees Eternity was as long as his name. Like his twin, his overlapping scales looked more like stone than anything organic, and each one was marked with a symbol in the ancient magical language of dragons that only experts like Svena could still read. But where Dragon Sees the Beginning had been white, Dragon Sees Eternity was as black as the void, his snaking body so enormous, Julius could no longer see the Leviathan behind him. He was trying to make sense of how something that big could even be alive when Marci ran up and grabbed his neck.
“Oh man,” she said, clutching Ghost to her chest as she clambered onto Julius’s back. “This is going to be epic!”
“I just hope it’s fast,” Amelia said, clinging to Bob’s arm as the two of them walked over. “I don’t know if you looked up during that enlightening conversation, Julius, but things are starting to get extra apocalyptic.”
It was getting rather dark. “Are we the only ones going?” Julius asked, looking at Marci on his back.
“Yes,” Bob said. “Or rather, there are plenty who would come, including me, but you’re the only ones who should. You’re going to Algonquin with a human Merlin, a dragon, and a Mortal Spirit. That’s already a combo pack of her least favorite things. Let’s not make it worse by piling on.”
“I really wanted to go,” Amelia said grumpily. “When else am I going to get a chance to see inside a Nameless End? But Bob convinced me that a Mortal Spirit who was also a dragon would be a bridge way too far, so I’m taking one for the team.”
“Good call, Amelia,” Marci said. “I’ll tell you how it is.”
“Make sure you take notes,” the dragon spirit pleaded. “If we survive, I’ll need a full report.”
Marci crossed her heart and crouched down low on Julius’s back, Ghost tucked safely under her arms. “Ready when you are.”
“I’m ready,” Julius said, looking up at the giant dragon floating above them. “But what do I do? Do I just fly up?”
“I have no idea,” Bob confessed. “There are so many ways this goes wrong, we’re down to picking the least bad. Whatever you choose, though, I’m sure it will be fine.”
Julius swallowed. “That doesn’t sound very seer-like.”
“It’s not,” Bob agreed. “But I’m still confident, because it’s you.” He looked at Julius, his green eyes surprisingly serious. “You’ve only known me a short while, but I’ve known you almost my entire life. I’ve watched these last few months unfold in a million permutations, and in all those potential outcomes, even the tragic ones, you’ve never done less than your best. That’s all I could ever ask of my cornerstone piece, and it’s why I believe in you now. I know you, Julius. I don’t have to see the future to know that so long as there’s the tiniest chance of making this work, you’ll find it. And if you don’t, we’ll all be dead, so I’ll never know I was wrong. It’s called being an optimist.”
Julius would have called it crazy, but he never got to say so because Bob had already stepped back. “Time to go,” he said, lifting his Magician’s Fang. “Good luck!”
The seer hauled back as he finished, swinging his sword like a bat. The flat of the blade whacked Julius right across the middle, knocking the much smaller dragon high into the air just as the giant construct above them took a deep breath. The magic was so thick now, Julius could feel his feathers curling as the heat built and built and built. Finally, just when it seemed the air itself was about to combust, the construct of the future opened his mouth to release a gout of flame so huge and bright, it whited out the sky.
Julius went still so fast, he nearly fell out of the sky. The Black Reach’s fire was the most beautiful he’d ever seen. It was burning hot, but in that heat were more colors than he’d known existed, including the Quetzalcoatl’s famous green. If he hadn’t been in danger of melting, he could have happily watched it forever, but the lovely plume of deadly fire was already flying away, arcing like a solar flare to crash into the black underbelly of the Nameless End.
“NOW, HEARTSTRIKER,” Dragon Sees Eternity roared, his mouth dripping fire. “GO WITH THE FIRE NOW!”
Julius obeyed, pressing his wings tight to protect Marci as he shot into the geyser of fire like an arrow. As his vision went white, Julius closed his eyes, certain they were about to be burned to a crisp. There was just no way anything could survive fire this hot, and yet the magic didn’t consume him. It lifted him, carrying his snaking body like a leaf in a stream up to the Leviathan and through, past the melting wall of black congealed magic and into a deeper dark.