“Getting you another chance,” Julius said, or tried to say. The black threads twisting down his throat hurt far more than he’d anticipated. Even with Marci screaming at him, he couldn’t make a sound. Thankfully, everything else seemed to be working perfectly.
As cold and magical as she tasted, Algonquin’s water flowed down his throat just like any other liquid. He could actually feel her spreading through his blood as she was absorbed into his body, the chill of her touch spidering through his brain as she panicked, which made him sad. He hadn’t wanted to scare her, but if he’d explained what he intended to do before he did it, he’d have risked tipping the Leviathan off. He’d hoped to tell her the truth now, but eating the Leviathan’s tendrils had hurt so much more than he’d expected. More than anything ever had, including the beating he’d gotten from Gregory. Painful as it was, though, he had to say something, because if Algonquin didn’t understand what he was doing, it was all for nothing.
“I’m a dragon,” he choked out at last. “Mostly water, like any other animal. But I’m also an outsider. A creature from another plane.” He broke off, catching a few rapid breaths before forcing himself to continue. “The Black Reach’s magic is still the pure fire of my ancestors. It’s what’s been keeping the Leviathan from eating us all this whole time. I figured if the fire could stop him from eating Marci and me, it could keep him from eating you too.”
But he already ate me! Algonquin’s voice cried in his mind. Now he’s in both of us!
Julius grinned a bloody grin. “But you can leave me. The Leviathan can’t get through the Black Reach’s magic or he would have done it by now, but you’re water. You can move through anything, and I’ve seen you use dragon blood before.”
There was quite a lot of blood now. The smell of Marci had long since been overwhelmed by the rich, salty flush of dragon blood dripping down his teeth as the Leviathan’s tendrils screamed and ripped him apart from the inside.
“Take it,” Julius gasped, collapsing on the ground in the middle of the new pool that was forming on the ground. His pool, made of his blood. “I’m giving it to you.”
The spirit in his head collapsed into stunned silence. Then, in a quiet, broken voice, she whispered, Why?
“Because I can,” he whispered back, coughing. “There was never much chance of me getting out of this alive, but now you have a shot. Flow out through my blood, take Marci, and escape. I know you can move between any of your waters, and there should still be a few drops left in your lakes to run to.”
“No!” Marci screamed in his ear, grabbing his head in her frantic hands. “Don’t you dare, Julius!”
“I’ll hold him here as long as I can,” Julius went on, desperate to get the words out while he still could. “Go, Algonquin. I’ve bought you a second chance. Choose again. Choose differently.” He smiled. “Choose us.”
A coughing fit forced his eyes closed after that. When he got them open again, he was staring into the puddle of his blood, its surface shimmering in the reflected radiance of the Black Reach’s fire. Inside his stomach, the bit of the Leviathan he’d swallowed was fighting harder than ever, ripping him to shreds from the inside as it fought to get back to Algonquin, but it was too late. The cold presence of the lake spirit had already flowed out of him, dripping into the red pool along with the rest of his blood. The liquid churned as she took hold of it, and then the shimmering liquid rose up, turning to look at him with a perfect reflection of his own face. A clear reflection, free of the tendrils that were desperately trying to eat through his body to get to her.
If he’d been any good with his fire, he might have been able to backdraft his flames down his throat and force the Leviathan’s tendrils down again and buy more time, but Julius had always been rubbish at that sort of thing. Justin had always said his lack of ability in anything resembling dragon combat would get him killed one day. Too bad Julius wouldn’t have a chance to tell his brother he’d been right.
He didn’t want his last thought to be Justin’s “I told you so,” so Julius looked at Marci instead. It was easy since she was in front of him now, and looking angrier than he’d ever seen her as she screamed at him that he couldn’t die. That she wouldn’t let him. But as terrible as he felt doing this to her, a small, selfish, draconic part of Julius treasured that she cared enough to be so furious. He wanted to gather that love-driven anger up and hoard it like the precious gem it was, but he was so tired. He couldn’t even lift his head anymore.
Marci started to cry then, which hurt even more than the Leviathan. Julius wanted to tell her he was sorry, that this was the only way he’d known to save things, but it was too late. Even a dragon’s ability to heal wasn’t enough to keep up with the thousands of cuts the Leviathan was making inside him. The best he could manage was to wheeze Marci’s name before Algonquin rose from the now very large pool of his blood and yanked the mage into it, dragging them both down through the blood and hopefully into the safety of her lakes.
It would have to be hopefully, because Julius had no way to know for sure. The Leviathan had finally ground a hole in the Black Reach’s protective fire. As the light faded, tendrils started coming at him from the outside as well, stabbing into his body like jagged knives from all directions. The bigger tentacles were just starting to appear when his heart finally stuttered to a stop, and Julius Heartstriker, youngest son of Bethesda, Founder of the Heartstriker Clan Council, Diplomat’s Fang, and all-around Nice Dragon, finally did what most of his family had been telling him to do for the last twenty-five years.
He died.
Chapter 15
Marci was drowning in bloody water, and she didn’t even care. She fought the current dragging her down with everything she had, kicking and screaming out all the air in her lungs as she lunged for the dragon she could still barely see silhouetted by the fiery glow above her. She was still reaching for him when the fire vanished, and she burst gasping from a puddle of freezing water hidden in the wreckage by the base of Algonquin’s Tower.
She immediately tried to dive again, screaming at Julius that she was coming back, and he’d better not be dead when she got there. She was throwing her body at the shallow water when a cold hand grabbed her wrist.
“Enough, mortal.”
Marci’s head shot up to see Algonquin standing over her. Her watery body was clear again, as blue and deep as her lake with no trace of the precious blood she’d taken them through to get here.
“Take me back!” Marci demanded, grabbing the spirit with both hands. “I have to save Julius!”
“You can’t,” Algonquin said, flowing around Marci’s grip. “He’s dead.” Her voice began to quiver. “A dragon died for me.”
She spoke the words in wonder, but Marci refused to hear them. The Lady of the Lakes was wrong. Julius couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible. She’d just gotten him back. Nothing was that unfair.