Page 1 of Saving the Last Heir
1
JACKSON
Sighing in frustration, I slammed the book shut. Clouds of dust flew up, the tiny particles spinning in the late-afternoon sunlight drifting through the windows. I sat back in my chair and shook my head, dejected and exhausted. This was supposed to be one of our best chances, and it was a dead end.
Months of chasing down leads and searching had led me to this small estate on the banks of a frigid river in Canada, where the legendary hermit scholar Ayumundi resided.
“Some fucking scholar,” I growled as I rose and strode to the window.
Outside, the forest and river looked more like an illustration than real life, like I’d somehow found myself trapped in a nature scene painted by a grandmaster. As I gazed at the world outside, I wondered what my next move would be.
I crossed back to the desk. A dozen books were scattered across it. Again, I flipped one open, only to find the pages covered in the same unreadable nonsense I’d found in all the others.The inscrutable encoding system of ciphers was used to protect ancient magics and spells from being read by the wrong people. The issue was, you couldn’t read the damned thing unless you had the key the writer had created.
All the rumors about the man had described him in the same way: gruff, strange, eccentric, and a pain in the ass to deal with. It was part of why he’d been so hard to find. He’d spent decades living alone away from others. Still, he had been known as the greatest historian and scholar in all of the shifter world—not limited to simply dragon shifters, butallshifters. I’d never assumed his reputation for being difficult would extend all the way to his goddamned notebooks and writing habit as well.
“If you were here right now, I’d kick your ass,” I called out to the silent house.
A chill crept up my spine at the hush that greeted my words. It didn’t matter if he reallywashere, though. If he gave me the key right now, there was probably nothing in these books that could lead us to a cure. If the great scholar Ayumundi had also succumbed to The Vanishing, then nothing in these books would help us. From the looks of the house, that wasexactlywhat had happened.
When I’d arrived late the night before, I’d discovered the home still and untouched, as if pulled from a time capsule. Dust coated everything. A dinner plate of food and a glass of wine sat on the dining table. They’d sat there long enough that the wine in the glass had evaporated to a red stain, and the food had gone through all the stages of decay. All that remained were a pile of bones and the dried-out husks of what I assumed were potatoes. Ayumundi had vanished like the others. So many were gone, and God only knew how long it would be before the few that remained were gone too.
With a sigh, I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed my mother. It was a call I had hoped would be joyous. Instead, it would be melancholy.
“Jackson?” Her voice verged on panic. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, Mom,” I said, my voice weary even to my own ears.
At my tone, she whimpered. “Nothing? You still haven’t found him? When you called the other day, you said you thought you were close.”
“No, I found him all right,” I said. “Well… I found his house. He’s vanished, Mom. Like the others.”
“Dear God,” she whispered.
For forty years, a plague known as The Vanishing had been running rampant through the ranks of dragon kind. Nearly a half century ago, a few elder dragons had tried to give the winged dragons even more power, some of which came in the form of spells and enchantments that would allow us to cloak ourselves, so others could never find us unless we allowed it. They’d tried to make us like gods among the other subsets of our species. Hubris caused them to think that we could bring the drakes and wyrms to heel. Whatever they’d done had backfired with devastating consequences.
“Don’t touch anything, Jackson,” she hissed into the phone. “You don’t want to contaminate yourself.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Mom, and you know it,” I said.
The Vanishing began like a normal illness. Fatigue and fevers, followed by the inability to shift, and then, finally, disappearance. Not death—at least not that we knew of. As the name implied, the victim simply vanished, as if erased fromexistence. Honestly, it was more terrifying. At least a dead body could be buried, mourned, and understood. What we were experiencing was beyond all that. Now, the drakes were the dominant subset of dragons. After millennia of the skies being filled with the beating wings of our kind, only a dozen of us remained. As the last alpha, I’d taken it upon myself to try and find a cure. This hunt for Ayumundi had been my last best chance at finding that. Now, all I had was dusty books filled with useless knowledge.
“I’m coming home,” I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose to stave off the forming headache. “How’s everyone else?”
“They’re fine,” she said. “They miss you. It’s not the same without an alpha around all the time.”
“I can imagine,” I muttered. Guilt pulsed in my chest like bitter acid. “I’ll be home soon.” I glanced back at the office-cum-library, and eyed a huge stack of books I’d set aside. “I do have a few things we can go through. I don’t know if it will help, but we can try.”
“All right. We’ll see you soon. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mom,” I said.
I stared at the huge stack of books. I’d skimmed the few thatweren’twritten in the strange mad ciphers and saw nothing pertaining to The Vanishing, but there were other things in those pages that mightbe of use. Perhaps spells to increase the fertility of dragons, or even increase our already extended lifespans.Anythingthat might stave off what was looking to be an inevitable extinction would be helpful.
After finding a sturdy chest in a closet, I stuffed the pile of books into it and hauled it outside, setting it down on the grass. Takinga deep breath of the cool afternoon air, I looked back at the house. It was a modest-sized home, but nothing compared to the house I’d grown up in. Ayumundi had spent his last days here in seclusion, doing his best to find a cure for our kind.
“Good try, old man,” I muttered, and then, despite myself, I went back to the door and made sure it was locked. The place was in the middle of nowhere, but it seemed the polite thing to do.
My phone buzzed with a text from a vice president of one of the many businesses my family owned. He wanted to schedule a video call for the next day to discuss some issue with the union at one of our factories. A quick browse showed I had nine unread emails from an HR director, an accountant, one of our lawyers, and a few others. I sighed, exhausted and irritated. Not only did I have to worry about taking care of my family, my friends, and my entire race, but I still had typical day-to-day business issues to contend with as well. I spent a few minutes firing off texts and replying to emails before jamming the phone back in my pocket.
