A Dragon of a Different Color (Heartstrikers, #4)

by Rachel Aaron

I come. The promise slipped like smoke through the emptiness, but Algonquin was no longer there to hear it. She was gone, an empty vessel forced into a deathlike nothingness that mortals ten centuries later would arrogantly call sleep. But though she couldn’t answer, the promise was made, and far away, beyond the walls of the planes, something turned in the emptiness between worlds and began to move.

“I’ve vowed to serve you and your interests, but in the brief time I’ve known you, you’ve displayed a near-suicidal level of disinterest in your own well-being. Therefore, since you are clearly a terrible judge of your own best interests, I will be ignoring any orders I feel are not in your actual service.”

“What you call politics is nothing but apes dancing in front of fires, marveling at the shadows they cast.

“You don’t make humanity stronger by making everyone else weak. That’s not power. That’s just shooting everyone in the foot because you happen to be better at limping than the other guys.

“We mellow with age,” Amelia replied with a sniff. “Just look at me. My play to become the god of dragons was all wrapped up in the greater good. I’m practically a saint.”