His sister scoffed. “Who said anything about going inside? I’m just going to try and burn a hole in his belly. I bet that would slow the tentacle production rate.” She grinned. “No way to know except to try.”
The idea of getting any closer to the Leviathan than they already were made Julius’s skin crawl. Even this close, he could already feel how alien it was. How hungry. But when he turned to tell his sister that he really didn’t think this was a good idea, Amelia beat her wings, blasting him away.
The wind rolling off her flaming feathers was hot as a furnace and strong as a hurricane, and it got stronger with every flap. All of her was looking bigger, actually. Julius didn’t know if she’d been hiding her true size this whole time or if she was simply whatever size she wanted to be now, but Amelia’s fiery body was already twice as large as Justin’s, her fiery wings spreading until they lit up the entire DFZ. With one flap, she rose a hundred feet, bringing her flaming body directly below the Leviathan’s as she opened her mouth to unleash the brightest gout of dragon fire Julius had ever seen.
He almost turned away too late. Even after he closed his eyes, the blast left him blind, lighting up the dark city like an atomic noon. Amelia’s fire was so powerful, the heat of it curled his feathers and made it hard to breathe even a hundred feet away. He couldn’t see what it was doing to the Leviathan, but it seemed impossible that so much fire would have no effect. Then, just as his hopes were starting to rise, the light snuffed out, and his sister vanished, her fiery form going dark as dozens of black tentacles shot through the air where she’d been.
“Amelia!” Julius cried, dodging frantically as one of the spears shot past him. “Amelia!”
Don’t be dramatic, scolded the voice in his fire. His sister reappeared beside him a few moments later, though in a much smaller form. Her feathers hadn’t even finished firming up when Svena swept in.
“What was that?” the white dragon panted, lowering the temperature several degrees with her frosty breaths. “And did it work?”
“Testing the Leviathan’s resistance,” Amelia replied, her own breaths worryingly short. “And no.” She glanced up at the Leviathan’s black shell, which, despite her incredible display of firepower, looked just as glossy and impenetrable as it had before.
“I don’t understand,” Svena said, pushing back one of the whelps who’d crawled too far up her neck. “I felt that blast all the way to my core. You hit him with the combined force of all dragon fire. Nothing should be immune to that.”
“I don’t think he’s immune,” Amelia said. “I saw my attack do a little damage before he tried to spear me, but not nearly as much as I’d hoped, and I’m afraid that’s kind of my fault.”
“How do you figure that?” Julius asked.
“Being made of sentient magic, spirits aren’t usually bothered by physical weapons,” his sister explained. “For example, you couldn’t hurt Algonquin with a sword. No matter how hard you hit, your blade would just go right through her while she laughed. The reason dragons have never had a problem with this particular defense is because we’re magic too. We’re fighting fire with fire, so to speak, except our fire is from a different plane. That’s why spirits have always seen us as such an enormous threat despite our relatively small numbers. We have a weapon they can’t easily counter: our dragon fire. Unfortunately, when I became the Spirit of Dragons and tied our fire into the magic of this plane, I might have… broken that.”
“What?” Svena shrieked. “I noticed the tentacles were taking longer to burn than they should, but I thought that was just the Nameless End’s influence. I didn’t realize you’d broken our fundamental advantage!”
“Not on purpose!” Amelia cried. “And if I hadn’t tied us all into the magic, we wouldn’t be here to fight at all!”
“We might as well not be,” Svena snapped, jerking her long claws back at the dragons flaming all around them. “Look at how slow everyone’s going! We’re all going to die up here because you neutered our fire!”
Julius didn’t think the assault was going slowly at all. Maybe it wasn’t up to Svena’s standards, but tentacles were still turning to ash at a perfectly acceptable rate, and in any case, “It doesn’t matter,” he said, shoving his body between the two dragonesses, who were both getting dangerously smoky. “We were never planning to assault the Leviathan directly, and we can still burn the part that matters.”
He pointed across the city at the bursts of light where Conrad was burning entire clusters of the Leviathan’s tentacles. “Our only job is to stall that thing long enough for Marci to banish it, and our fire still works fine for that.” He turned back to Svena. “We’re still on target, so please go back to your sisters and help protect Lake Erie. Also,” his voice grew pleading, “please put your children down somewhere safe. I know bringing whelps into battle is an ancient dragon tradition, but it’s terrifying to watch.”
“Terrifying for a weak dragon like you, perhaps,” Svena said with a sniff. “But my children are strong. When we survive, they will treasure this memory. Anyway, there’s nowhere else to put them. The ground is just as dangerous, so they might as well be with me.”
Julius wasn’t sure about that. Now that the attacks had started, the Leviathan was sending down more tentacles than ever, except this time, not all of them were going for the water. Several were aimed at the dragons, including one that was flying right at Svena’s back. Before he could warn her, a blast of fire scorched the incoming attack out of the sky, and then Ian swooped down beside them.
At least, it smelled like Ian. Julius had never seen his brother’s dragon, which was oddly dark with deep reddish-brown feathers like a falcon’s. But there was no other Heartstriker with eyes that rich brown color, and if that wasn’t a big enough tip-off, the angry, possessive way he was staring at Svena banished all doubt.
For several moments, Svena looked just as shocked as Julius felt. Then her eyes narrowed. “I don’t recall asking for your help,” she said icily.
“You didn’t need it,” Ian agreed, his voice as cold as hers. “But they did.” He nodded at the whelps on Svena’s back, who were staring at him with huge blue eyes. “You can easily survive a direct hit. They cannot. Therefore, considering the number of tentacles in the sky, I think the best tactical move would be to divide them between us. That way, if one of us goes down, all of our children won’t be lost.”
“How very practical,” Svena said.
“Our entire relationship has been practical,” Ian reminded her. “That’s why I treasured you. I thought we understood each other. You were the one who changed.”