“Which one?” Bethesda growled. “This is the problem with letting you bat for two teams. I’m never sure where you stand.”
“I stand where I always have,” Ian said, tugging his silk tie straight. “With my own self-interest, and that’s very well served by Julius’s plan.” His brown eyes flicked to his brother. “Shall we go in?”
“Any time,” Julius said. “We’re just waiting on Amelia.”
Bethesda rolled her eyes. “No point in that. This is her first big meeting as the Spirit of Dragons. She’s not going to make a normal entrance through the door. Just go in. It never pays to make dragons wait.”
That was a good point, so Julius motioned for Justin to lead the way. Proud as an armored peacock, the knight shoved the doors open, letting the Heartstriker delegation into the elegant ballroom where the rest of dragonkind was already waiting.
After greeting nearly every dragon in the world as they’d come through Svena’s portal, Julius hadn’t been too worried about seeing them all again now. As they walked to Heartstriker’s table at the front, though, he realized he’d drastically underestimated the situation. It was one thing to face all the clan heads when the world was about to end, but it was quite another to stand in front of them now. Back then, they’d had no choice but to listen. Now, things were far less certain.
Thankfully, he was saved by Amelia. As Bethesda had predicted, the Spirit of Dragons had been waiting to make her entrance. The moment the Heartstriker delegation was in place behind their table, completing the circle of the clans, she appeared behind the podium at the circle’s apex with a swirl of fire. There was quite a lot of fire, actually. The normal dress she’d been wearing just a few minutes ago had been replaced with a gown of living flames, and a crown of fire in the shape of a dragon crouched on top of her head. Even her shoes were made of fire, scorching the elegant hotel carpet and all but ensuring they wouldn’t be getting the deposit back.
She stood there for a moment, looking haughtily around the room as she waited for shocked silence to become reverent awe. When she was satisfied everyone was suitably impressed, Amelia began.
“Welcome,” she said in a voice as sharp as fangs. “As you know, but I never get tired of saying, I am Amelia the Planeswalker, Spirit of Dragons and your benevolent god. These talks were not my idea, but I heartily approve of them and thus have agreed to bless you with the gift of my presence. Since I could swat any of you like flies, I will not take sides since that would be king making, and I’m not looking to be one of those micromanaging deities. I will not interfere with any decisions for the same reason. You’re all free to act in your own best interests, as dragons should. However, since these are peace talks, I will incinerate anyone who attempts to break the truce. Those are the rules. Don’t break them. Now that we’re all on the same page, I’ll pass the stand to my brother, Julius Heartstriker, who surprisingly didn’t arrange this meeting today but has somehow managed to end up leading it. Take it away, Julius!”
She threw out a fire-wreathed hand toward him, and Julius winced as every dragon in the room turned to stare.
“Thank you, Amelia,” he said awkwardly, hobbling to the podium as fast as he could. He paused when he got there, looking around the room as his sister stepped aside to give him space. What he saw wasn’t very reassuring. When he’d arrived this afternoon, he’d thought the ballroom his mother had booked in one of the nicest hotels on the just-restored riverfront was ridiculously huge for their purposes. Now, he was wishing she’d gotten a bigger one. Even in their elegantly dressed human forms, the circle of dragons filled the room. He couldn’t even see Marci, Myron, and their spirits standing in the back through all the calculating scowls and measuring glances, but he knew they were there, and that gave him the courage he needed to begin.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said, lifting his voice since no dragon would ever respect someone who needed a microphone. “The world has changed a great deal in the last three weeks. The human governments are in disarray from the influx of magic and the rise of Mortal Spirits. We have also changed, our fires bound to the magic of this plane by our own Spirit of Dragons. Thanks to her actions, we finally have a true home again, and now more than ever, we need to work together to cement our future here.”
He tightened his fingers on his cane. Here it went.
“For too long, we have acted like barbarians, fighting and brawling over land. That savagery has taken its toll. There are fewer dragons alive now than there have ever been, and that is our fault. No human hunter or vengeful spirit, even Algonquin, has hurt dragons more than we’ve hurt ourselves through our greed and shortsightedness. That is why, if we wish to live long enough to enjoy the new life expectancy my oldest sister’s work has bought us, we dragons have to change. We proved we could work together when we defended the Great Lakes from Algonquin’s Leviathan. Now, for our long-term survival, we have to do it again. If we don’t wish to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors who destroyed their old home plane, we must come together as a species, if not in peace, then in alliance. It is my hope that, through these talks and the ones that will surely follow, the dragon clans of this world can surpass all who came before us by finding a way to coexist nonviolently for our mutual benefit.”
He paused there, holding his breath, but to his amazement, most of the room was nodding. Some, like Fading Smoke, looked disgusted by the idea of stopping the killing, but the vast majority of the faces looking back at him were relieved. They were all tired, he realized. Tired of death, tired of dwindling numbers and fading power. That wasn’t enough to bury all the centuries-old grudges, but it was enough to start, and Julius decided to push ahead.
“With this in mind,” he went on, “as the first act of this all-clan meeting, I am taking the opportunity to formally claim the DFZ as my personal territory, effective immediately.”
The room exploded.
“What?” cried Fading Smoke, almost knocking over his table as he surged to his feet. “You think Heartstriker can claim the richest prize in the world without a fight?”
Other clans were yelling similar things, then yelling at each other as the whole ballroom fell into one giant argument over who most deserved Algonquin’s city. The noise of it was so loud, Julius couldn’t hear himself think, but he made no move to calm things down, because that wasn’t his place. It was hers.
“SILENCE!” the spirit of the DFZ roared, making the whole building shake.