AN: Hello, everyone! I'm not sure what you were expecting to see from me next, but it was probably either a chapter of my long fanfiction, Unexpected Places, or a new short story about a Wings of Fire character. This is neither.
I've always intended to write a fanfiction about Orca, but the reason I'm doing it now is because I've been reading another story about the oldest SeaWing princess and realizing how different it is from my own headcanon. Regardless of the many differences, it's thanks to Riokodragon's story Dark Seas that I'm writing this now instead of after I finished Unexpected Places, as I originally intended. After reading their interpretation (which is very well-written and compelling; go check it out if you haven't already!), I found that I could not stop thinking about Orca. For the past few weeks, she's been on my mind almost non-stop, and I realized I couldn't focus on writing anything else until I started this.
For anyone who might be wondering, Orca's Ambition will be shorter than Unexpected Places chapter-wise, with somewhere 10-15 parts. However, each chapter will be considerably longer than my other story's, meaning that the two probably end up pretty close in word length.
WARNINGS:
Spoilers for The Lost Heir and Assassin ahead, so be aware of that if you haven't read those yet.
The story starts off fairly light-hearted, but it will get considerably darker later on. It will never be gory or otherwise graphic, (or as dark as my Albatross story, Twisted Mind, Broken Soul), but if you're sensitive to violent material, please proceed with caution.
Now, without further ado, I present to you Orca's Ambition.
Orca didn't know what to expect from Blister.
She'd heard lots of rumors about the SandWing princess her mother had chosen to ally her tribe with. Some of the gossips said she was the smartest of the dragons vying for the throne, claiming that her scales bore no scars because she manipulated everyone she met into fighting for her while she stayed safely out of the war. Others whispered that she was the most vicious, so skilled a fighter that she had never been seriously injured.
Orca wasn't impressed. Rumors had a way of transforming dragons, turning them from real scales and blood into a caricature of impossible power.
She would know. There were plenty of rumors about her floating around the Kingdom of the Sea, too.
Orca didn't encourage them, per se, but she didn't particularly mind them, either. It could be helpful to have a frightening reputation, however false, follow you around like a giant, imposing shadow.
Not that all of the rumors were false.
I heard that she killed three sharks when she was only two years old.
True. The brutes had been nasty, and Orca had been swarmed after she caught a particularly large fish. The sharks had thought that a very small dragon was no match for them, and they'd nearly been right. She'd been fighting for her life that day.
But no one had to know that. Orca didn't talk about the incident often; unlike her mother, she didn't enjoy boasting. But when dragons had asked about it, she'd told them the story, just never from the most truthful angle.
I heard that she shipwrecked a fleet of scavengers all on her own.
Also true. After growing up hearing about what had happened to Queen Oasis, she hadn't been willing to take any chances. While Coral's council had been dilly-dallying over what they should do about the ships passing through their archipelago, she'd swam out and smashed her tail against the bottom of the scavengers' boats.
The ships had been tiny and had crumpled easily beneath a dragon's attack.
I heard that she slit a dragon's gills open during self-defense class.
Also true. It was a war they were fighting, and the other dragonets needed to see what real bloodshed looked like. The teachers insisted on keeping the classroom a safe environment, so Orca took matters into her own claws.
So what if they called her a savage after that? No one would dare mess with her now. No one would doubt she had the potential to be queen.
Even some of her family members didn't know whether to believe that one. Coral was convinced that her darling Orca didn't have it in her. Gill thought it was an accident. Orca didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise.
I heard she's killed a dragon.
Not true, for better or worse.
Not yet, anyway. The throne had her name on it, and if killing her mother was what she had to do to get it, then so be it. But no matter what anyone said, Orca didn't like the idea of murder when order and intimidation could suffice. She let them all believe that rumor because it benefitted her to have everyone fear and respect her, even though it was false and would stay false for some time now.
The one thing that was worth gossiping about was the secret that no one knew.
No one knew that Orca had the tribe's deadliest weapon in her claws, even when they appeared empty. She had animus magic, talons of power. And as far as she knew, no one in the whole kingdom suspected a thing.
Orca had been not quite two years old when she'd discovered she was an animus. Even then, she knew that it was smarter to keep her powers a secret. Her mother wasn't very subtle in expressing her hope that one of her dragonets would inherit the royal gift in time to end the war in Blister's favor, and Orca wasn't keen on the idea of her powers being anyone's secret weapon but her own.
She'd first heard about the magic that her bloodline possessed from a dragonet in her class named Whirlpool, who was fascinated by it and talked about it with anyone who was willing to listen. He hadn't been talking to Orca, but she'd seen his stripes flash the phrase Talons of Power Ceremony and, intrigued, watched the rest of the conversation out of the corner of one sapphire blue eye.
Apparently, Queen Coral had decided to start the test up again, now that the war had dragged on for nearly eight years. At Blister's suggestion, she was looking for an animus whose powers could end it decisively in the SandWing's favor.
Maybe Orca or one of her brothers have inherited animus powers, the little green dragonet said in Aquatic, his scales flashing the stripes which indicated a hopeful tone.
Orca had always been fond of Whirlpool and his fawning over her.
She'd also rather liked the idea that she might have magic in her claws, so when she'd gotten home from school that day, she read an extensive scroll on the subject and, figuring out that the magic worked by command of voice or thought, tried out a tiny spell, turning the pearls on her favorite bracelet from pink to black.
And it had actually worked.
She'd been delighted, and then worried. Worried for two reasons.
One, she had to somehow trick the upcoming Talons of Power ceremony.
Two, the scroll had warned that using animus magic made a dragon go crazy.
Her own ancestor, Prince Albatross, had apparently been an animus too, and he'd ultimately snapped at a welcoming party for SkyWing diplomats. It had turned into a massacre, a bloodbath, in which he'd killed his entire family save for three survivors—his grandchildren. Queen Pearl, Prince Current, and Prince Fathom.
Fathom, also an animus, had evaded the insanity which had overtaken his mentor, but only by refusing to use his magic ever again.
Well, that's disappointing, Orca thought as she read the passage on the nervous-looking green dragon. He never did anything great with his powers?
Well, I won't waste mine, she decided. I'll carefully think about any spell I want to cast and make sure it'll be worth the damage to my soul.
The second spell Orca had cast was the one she'd used to conceal her magic during the Talons of Power ceremony.
She'd removed the black pearl bracelet and held it between her claws. She spent a long time just looking at it, thinking of the proper phrasing. The scroll she'd read warned her that vagueness of spells led to unsatisfactory results.
I enchant this bracelet to contain my animus powers so that I can no longer use them after this spell, she said at last, in Aquatic. However, I also enchant it to return my powers to me when I put it back on, as if I never cast this spell at all.
Orca hoped that would work. It certainly felt like it had—a faint tingling sensation in her talons that she'd never really noticed before had suddenly disappeared.
She just also hoped she hadn't just given away her powers for good, mere moments after discovering them.
She put the bracelet down on her desk and reached next for a blank scroll. She needed to test whether the enchantment had actually worked. Orca started to light up her scales and then stopped, drumming her claws on the desk. If it hadn't worked, she didn't want to waste this next spell on a pointless test.
I enchant this scroll, she flashed in Aquatic, once she'd decided what she wanted, to write in black ink, revealing the names of any animus dragons, including myself, who are currently living in Pyrrhia.
Nothing happened.
She had successfully removed her powers.
Orca fought the sudden urge to put her enchanted bracelet back on and ascertain that her magic wasn't gone forever. But first, she had to fail the Talons of Power test.
"I enchant this coconut," she said dutifully a few weeks later, alongside the three brothers from her hatching, "to float in the air and then return to my claws."
She faked disappointment as, alongside theirs, her coconut did nothing. Inside, she was half-triumphant, half-worried. As soon as the dragonets had been dismissed, she swam back to her room in the Deep Palace as quickly as her wings would carry her and shoved the pearl bracelet back onto her wrist.
The tingling in her claws resumed, and Orca gave a shaky sigh of relief, sending a small cloud bubbles out of her gills. Her spell had worked. She had her powers back.
She promised herself she would never get rid of them again.
But ever since then, Orca had been careful.
Because it had been a good idea, she'd cast the animus-revealing spell again, for real this time, modifying it to appear to be a copy of one of her mother's poems to anyone else who looked at it and to add or subtract any new animus dragons who hatched or died. However, she hadn't cast another spell since then.
The Talons of Power ceremony had happened on her second hatching day.
She was four and a half now, as she sat next to Queen Coral, waiting for Blister to arrive. Her brothers sat on her other side. The four dragonets had finally been deemed mature enough to meet the SandWing princess.
"What do you think she's really like?" asked Gyre, who was sitting beside Orca. His gray eyes were wide and serious, and his blue scales were a shade paler than usual, though he tried his best to look stoic. He was the biggest and stockiest of the royal dragonets, but was more of a thinker than a fighter. "Do you think she's really as scary as they say?"
"You know me," she told him. "I don't think anyone is scary."
"That doesn't help," Gyre sighed.
Orca squeezed his blue talons reassuringly in her dark green ones. "If she tries to intimidate you, I'll sneak a live crab into her dinner so it'll bite her tongue off and she can't hiss another word. Is that better?"
"No," Gyre said, his stripes flashing the pattern for high anxiety. "That's worse!"
Orca laughed. "I was kidding. Mostly."
"Orca!" her brother protested, but she wasn't listening anymore. She had turned her full attention to Coral, who was giving them a disapproving look.
"What are you two muttering about?" the queen asked.
"Nothing important, Mother," Orca responded, with the sweetest smile she could muster. The frown lines between Coral's brows softened exactly as she'd hoped.
"Goody two-claws," Teal muttered, from further down the line-up.
Orca stuck out her tongue at him, but she did it good-naturedly.
The dragonet on the end of the row, Brine, rolled his eyes at the exchange. As the first-hatched, he considered himself as the most mature of the bunch, and above playful antics like the ones the other three participated in.
But despite their frequent squabbles, the dragonets had always been close. It had always been the four of them against the world, ever since they were little, when they'd slowly become aware of the horrors of the war they'd been hatched into and promised to always look after each other.
Their father, Gill, should have been standing on the other side of Coral. But he wasn't with them right now, busy doing some last-minute strategizing with the generals to come up with a decisive plan to present to Blister.
I don't see why he and Mother go out of their way to please Blister, Orca thought, frowning. She didn't know the full details about the alliance, but it always seemed to her that Coral wasn't assertive enough in dealing with the SandWing princess. She let Blister, who had far less leadership experience, have the final say in just about everything. She needs my parents far more than they need her.
The pool at the entrance to the Summer Palace rippled, and a gray-green dragonet a few years older than Orca surfaced. Her pale eyes lit up as they landed on the queen.
"Hello, Moray," Coral said, smiling at her niece.
Moray glowed at the attention, bowing so low that her snout almost touched the ground. Her wings were spread dramatically out to either side. "Your Majesty, my father sent me to inform you that Blister has arrived and will be joining you shortly."
"Thank you, darling," Orca's mother said, patting Moray's talons. "Please let Gill know as well, so he can meet us in the dining hall."
Orca met Teal's gaze, and he wrinkled his snout the way she wanted to. Neither of them was very fond of their cousin, who always seemed to practically worship Coral.
Moray straightened up and, after dipping her head respectfully, flew off toward the caves where the king was conversing with his generals. They had been visited by some MudWing generals a few days ago, and would be meeting with SandWing commanders accompanying Blister when she arrived.
Out of the corner of her eye, Orca saw Brine straighten his stance in anticipation of Princess Blister's arrival, his etiquette as perfect as always. Gyre glanced sideways as well, and did his best to copy their brother's posture. Neither Orca nor Teal adjusted their stances. If anything, Teal slouched a little more.
Orca bit back a smile at that small sign of defiance. Teal might not be as clever as Orca herself, but their shared stubbornness left no doubt that they were related.
A few moments later, their uncle Shark rose out of the water, several SandWings surfacing beside him. Their pale scales, in varying shades of brown and yellow, all stood out from the blue and green hues Orca was used to seeing on dragons, but there was one among them who was clearly more important than the others.
Her scales were white-gold, with black diamond patterns running the length of her spine. Water dripped from her crest and a faint curl of smoke rose from her nostrils in displeasure, but she shook it off and quickly became all charm.
"It's lovely to see you again, Coral," she said, her words as smooth as a placid lake as she climbed gracefully onto dry land. Fathomless dark eyes slid from the queen down the row of dragonets. "I see I'm finally going to meet your young children. And Shark tells me that you have a clutch of eggs hatching in only a few weeks. Congratulations."
"Thank you, Blister," Coral said, looking pleased.
The white-gold dragon dipped her head in acknowledgement, her scales glittering softly in the green-tinged light streaming through the canopy.
Even standing a few feet away from the imposing SandWing, Orca could feel the warmth emanating from her wings as she shook them dry.
Dragons throughout the Summer Palace glanced over and then away, clearly trying not to stare. It was almost unheard of for a dragon of another tribe to visit the queen's hidden castle. But it wasn't only that; Blister had an almost magnetic aura about her. She drew stares, drew whispers, drew allies—all without even trying.
Orca was quickly starting to understand how her mother had been bent to this dragon's wishes so easily. Even she, for all her efforts to make an impression, didn't have such a powerful, charismatic influence.
She's dangerous, the SeaWing princess thought, narrowing her eyes. I'd better be careful around her.
"Come," Coral said, beckoning with a flick of her tail. "We can talk more and you can meet my dragonets once we go to the pavilion."
She led the way on jewelry-covered wings, her children shifting automatically into a flight formation behind her. Blister followed them, Shark bringing up the rear. It was a respectful escort, but at the same time, the glint in Shark's pale eyes made it clear that he was watching the SandWing for anything suspicious.
At the top of the Summer Palace, a table had been set for the royal family to dine with their guest. The other SandWings had waited behind at the palace's entrance, where Gill would collect them to join the royals later.
Coral took the seat at the head of the table, the perfect picture of royal authority. Orca and her siblings sat a few seats down, leaving the chairs on either side of their mother's empty for their father and Blister.
"You must be Orca," Blister said as she sat down between Coral and the dark green dragonet. Her voice was polite, persuasive—asking for a friendly relationship.
"Yes," Orca replied shortly, giving nothing away.
"I'm glad to see that my ally has such a confident-looking daughter as her future successor," the snake-like SandWing went on, smiling. Her voice was matter-of-fact, with the slightest hint of flattery woven in. "Although I hope, of course, that your succession remains a distant occasion. I take it you know that's nothing personal."
"Naturally," Orca responded, smiling back. "I understand completely."
Internally, she wasn't nearly as friendly.
It'll take more than a few compliments to win me over, SandWing, she thought, putting her defenses up. My mother might not see what you're up to, but I do.
Blister turned to Gyre, who was sitting across from Orca, next. He responded to her attempts to befriend him with a shortness that seemed similar to his sister's, but Orca knew that her brother's tendency towards silence came from nerves instead of craftiness. After a while, though, he relaxed and became more willing to speak.
He shifted in his seat as the subject of their conversation approached the war, and Orca fought back an affectionate smile. She knew what was coming next.
Gyre's voice held a quietly polite but firm tone as he leaned forward. "Fighting is an unfortunate necessity in determining the future of your kingdom—and by extension, all of Pyrrhia—but it can be easy for us as the ruling class to become distant and forget how much our subjects suffer in battle."
"Hmm," Blister responded, narrowing her eyes.
"It's important to minimize our losses," the prince went on earnestly. "That's what I want to focus on when I become a general in the SeaWing army."
The SandWing kept her expression polite, and nodded as if she agreed, but Orca could tell that she wasn't really interested in his input. The royal dragonets were only four years old, and no one took their opinions very seriously yet.
Except for mine, she thought, feeling a pang of satisfaction. I have the power to take over the Kingdom of the Sea one day, and that makes me a threat to Blister's plans.
After discussing Gyre's opinions as minimally as she could, the SandWing princess shifted her attention to Brine. He had none of Gyre's initial reservations, and her subtle flattery worked like a charm on him. Soon, he was chatting away.
"I would be honored to take part in your campaign, Your Majesty," the oldest of the royal dragonets said, his chest puffed out self-importantly. "And once I turn seven, I believe I would make an excellent diplomat to your tribe, if I do so say so myself."
He's so full of himself, Orca thought, rolling her eyes.
Teal, sitting next to her, noticed the gesture and nodded in agreement.
Blister turned to the blue-green dragonet next, her dark eyes expectant. A look of displeasure flickered across his face, but it was gone before the SandWing could notice it. As far as Orca could tell, she was the only one who saw.
"What about you?" Blister asked. "Do you have any insight to share?"
Though her tone was pleasant, her voice seemed to have a constant hiss behind it. The effect would be rather intimidating to a lesser dragon, Orca decided; it made Blister seem like a giant, venomous snake. The "giant" and "venomous" parts were certainly true. While Blister was lean and wiry in her build rather than hefty and muscular like Grye (or her sister Burn, Orca had heard), she was very tall, towering over even Coral.
"No," Teal replied, his gaze sliding away from Blister's in disinterest.
She paused, waiting, perfectly still apart from her barbed tail coiling and uncoiling. Teal glanced back to her, noticed her watching him, and yawned.
"Cover your mouth when you yawn," Coral told him, frowning in disapproval. "It's rude to put all your teeth on display. Queen Blister, I'm sorry about my youngest son. He never seems to respond to any amount of discipline."
The tiniest spark of wicked satisfaction lit his pale green eyes.
"It's quite alright," Blister said, though her gaze glittered maliciously as it lingered on Teal's serene, unrepentant facial expression. "It isn't your fault, Coral."
Orca, sitting between Blister and her brother, watched the SandWing intently out of the corner of one slit-pupiled blue eye.
She'd known that Blister was her mother's closest ally and therefore inherently her own enemy, but she had been content to merely observe for now. However, if Blister harmed a single scale on Teal's body, Orca wouldn't hold back from ripping her to pieces. Blister might be bigger and stronger, but Orca didn't care—she had magic.
Don't even think about it, she growled silently.
Blister glanced sideways at her, met her gaze, and smiled coldly.
Coral was about to redirect the conversation when Moray and Gill arrived, along with a group of generals, most of whom were some of Orca's distant cousins. The desert dragons who'd accompanied Blister to the Summer Palace were there, too, as well as a few of the MudWings whom Queen Moorhen had brought during her last visit. They had remained behind when their queen left so that they could coordinate strategies with the SeaWings and now the SandWings.
"Blister, it's nice to see you again," Gill said, nodding politely.
"Likewise," replied the SandWing, her voice still reverberating with that soft hiss.
The king of the SeaWings sat down across from Blister, while the generals of the various tribes settled down at the other end of the table. Gill managed a faint smile, but his eyes were tired-looking. He was always tired-looking these days.
Orca studied his face, concerned. Even though Coral was the one responsible for approving military plans, Gill was constantly working with their generals, planning and listening to their input as often as possible. It seemed he was starting to overwork himself again; whenever he got like this, he needed lots of prodding and a little spoiled-daughter wheedling before he would finally agree to take a break.
Are you okay, Daddy? she asked in Aquatic.
Orca had never allowed herself to become close to Coral, keeping her distant even when it came to what she called her. Mother. The word held nothing even remotely like endearment. But Gill was different; he would always be Daddy to her.
I'm fine, dearest, he replied. But thank you for caring.
Always.
Blister glanced at the exchange of luminescent patterns. Her dark gaze was puzzled and perhaps a little irritated. It was clear that she knew they were communicating in some way, but didn't understand the underwater language. Dragons outside the SeaWing tribe were never very knowledgeable about it; most didn't even know it existed.
Gyre, noticing the SandWing's suspicion, intervened by starting up a pleasant conversation with her. He was always unfailingly polite. Everyone who met him was at least a little fond of him, and Orca didn't doubt that he could win over even Blister given enough time to speak with her.
She felt a surge of gratitude toward her brother. Despite everything, it was always the four siblings against the world, and Gyre never forgot that. He helped the others out even in the smallest ways whenever he could.
The rest of the meal went by quickly. Gill took over the conversation, forwarding some of the new battle strategies his generals had come up with to Blister. The SandWing was an excellent listener, keeping up with even the most complex theories and unfailingly catching even the slightest holes in each plan.
She's very smart, Orca thought, feeling new respect for the other princess.
At the end of the meal, the dragonets were excused, while Coral, Gill, Blister, and their generals withdrew to a more private room to plan a more specific course of action to take over the next few months.
"It was lovely to meet all of you," Blister said to the dragonets as she stood to leave, her gaze sweeping slowly over the group. Orca smiled thinly at her in response, while Gyre nodded politely, Brine bowed, and Teal only glanced away.
Again, Blister seemed displeased by the youngest dragonet's behavior, but she said nothing more before walking off to join Coral and Gill.
As they were leaving the Summer Palace, Gyre paused. He nudged Teal with one wing to get his attention and said in Aquatic, Let's go talk somewhere.
It was unclear whether he was talking to just his brother or the group of siblings at large. Orca and Brine exchanged a glance and silently agreed to follow.
Gyre led the way out of the Summer Palace. The siblings ignored the evenly spaced holes where the SandWings surfaced; they could breathe underwater, so there was no reason to stop. Orca followed the cerulean shape of her brother as he caught the currents beneath his wings, veering off towards one of the nearby islands in the Sea Kingdom's archipelago. Brine and Teal weren't far behind.
The quartet surfaced near the island and swam to the shore. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sun beat down relentlessly on their scales, which were completely dry within moments of leaving the water.
After gliding through smooth, cool ocean, the sand felt unnaturally rough and hot beneath Orca's talons. Brine grumbled in annoyance as they walked toward the tree line, and Teal shook clumps of sand off his talons after every few steps.
Orca dug her claws into the sand as they came to a stop, burying them in the slightly cooler dirt beneath the scorching surface.
"What were you thinking?" Gyre asked, after making sure there was no one else in earshot. His gaze cut towards his youngest brother.
Teal didn't respond, his eyes flicking slowly this way and that along the sparkling waves on the horizon as if he was watching something only he could see. He didn't seem to be listening, or even register that his brother had said anything at all.
"Teal?" Gyre prompted, shifting his weight uncomfortably. After spending most of their time underwater, none of the SeaWings were really used to being on dry land.
"Are you talking to me?" Teal asked, looking surprised.
"Yes, I'm talking to you," the biggest dragonet said dryly. "I didn't see anyone else making enemies with the next SandWing queen."
Teal's gaze slid to Orca. Of course he'd noticed the unspoken tension between her and Blister; Teal noticed everything. But when Orca shook her head ever-so-slightly, he turned his eyes back to Gyre without commenting.
"I didn't like her," he said simply.
Orca could tell Gyre was trying to be patient.
"Liking or disliking her has nothing to do with it," he said slowly. "You still have to be polite regardless, or you'll make enemies of everyone you meet."
"So?" Teal looked thoroughly unbothered.
"So, it's your fault everyone's been treating us like we're still in our eggs when it comes to politics," growled Brine, looking irritated. "Your idiotic behavior is making us all look immature when in reality it's only you."
"Hey," Orca said sharply. "Don't be like that."
Brine only spared her an annoyed glance. "You shouldn't be so stubborn," he went on, glaring at their last-hatched brother. "Why did you come meet Blister at all if you'd already decided beforehand that you didn't like her?"
"I hadn't already decided anything," Teal responded calmly. "But I could tell what she was like as soon as I saw her. And I don't like her."
"You can't decide that based only on first impressions," Gyre told him.
"Maybe you can't," was his only reply.
Gyre sighed, rubbing the bridge of his snout with one set of webbed claws.
"Well, I liked her," Brine said, with an air of superiority. When he talked like that, his chin raised pretentiously, he looked like a smaller, male version of Coral, only with pale blue eyes instead of green.
"Me too," Orca decided.
"You did?" Teal tilted his head to one side.
Orca nodded. She doubted she and Blister would ever get along, but that didn't mean she couldn't respect the SandWing's cunning. "She reminds me of myself."
Teal shook his head in a sweeping motion, side-to-side. Orca waited for him to say something, but he didn't. If it had been anyone else, she would have thought the gesture was one of exasperation, but with her brother, it seemed more like denial.
"Well, that's how I see it, anyway," she said.
"I can't decide right away," Gyre said. "She's certainly very formidable, but I don't know if she respects Mother as much as she should. It's hard to say just from meeting her once whether she'll honor whatever agreement she made with our tribe."
Especially if I become queen in the middle of the war, Orca realized. She could argue that whatever she promised she promised to Coral, not to me. If the war's still not over by the time I take the throne, I'll have to forge a new alliance with her. Or perhaps I'll pull my tribe out of the war entirely, or at least threaten to. With only the MudWings on her side, Blister may not have enough force in numbers to win.
Right now, the three sides of the war seemed about evenly matched. Blister had the MudWings and SeaWings on her side, while Blaze had the IceWings and most of her own tribe. Burn only had the SkyWings and about a quarter of the SandWings, but the sky dragons' mercenary strength made her side a formidable army nevertheless.
I could use that balance against Blister, Orca mused. I could probably get away with asking her for a lot more than whatever my mother bargained for...
All of the tribes had good generals. But it seemed that whenever one was starting to win decisive victories, they would lose the dragon behind those strategies. Just a few weeks ago, a SandWing spy among Blaze's troops had reported to Coral that the IceWings had lost one of their best dragons, who appeared to have been assassinated.
Hearing about the mysterious deaths made Orca's thoughts jump automatically to animus magic. A spell to eliminate any dragon who became too powerful was definitely a shrewd idea. But it was happening to all three sides. Whoever had cast the curse, if that was what it was, must be outside the war.
Is it you, Darkstalker? she'd wondered, trailing her claws thoughtfully over the list of animus dragons on her enchanted scroll. Or Stonemover? Or even Jerboa?
Orca hadn't known what a jerboa was until she'd researched the last animus's name and discovered that she was named for a small, desert-dwelling rodent. Apparently, the SandWings had an animus, though Orca wasn't sure whether she was allied with any of the potential queens. She'd thought it pretty safe to rule out Blister, who had been hoping to find one among the SeaWings, and Orca was willing to guess that if Burn had her own animus, she'd be using the magic aggressively rather than cunningly. Blaze probably wouldn't have a clue what animus magic was capable of, if she was as dumb as the scrolls made her out to be, though Glacier could be the brains behind it.
It seemed more likely that Jerboa was staying out of any particular side, especially if she'd been the one to cast the curse, though why anyone would want to prolong the war was a concept that Orca couldn't fully understand.
There must be a reason, she'd thought, pushing the idea to the back of her mind, where her subconscious might be able to work it out.
But the animus who had cast the curse wasn't necessarily Jerboa, who might be staying out of the war and saving her powers the same way Orca had. That left Darkstalker and Stonemover, whose names clearly marked them as NightWings.
She'd never met any of the others, but she felt like she knew them. They all had the same power she did, and likely similar craftiness. After skimming a scroll on animus dragons in recent history, she hadn't found any of their names. She guessed that all of them kept their powers a well-guarded secret.
The last recorded animus had lived several hundred years ago.
She had been one of Orca's ancestors, a dragon called Queen Algae. According to the scroll, she had been extremely careful with her magic, following the IceWing practice of using her magic only once in her lifetime to avoid losing her soul. Algae had enchanted a necklace which warned her about potential dangers to herself and to her tribe and had been perfectly fine. Not only sane, in fact, but a good queen.
Orca wasn't content with just one enchantment. She would push her limits a bit farther than that, but she would stop the moment she felt something start to change. In the meantime, she would cast each spell carefully and thoughtfully.
She wondered if the NightWings had enchanted their entire kingdom to remain hidden and if that was why no one had ever been able to find it. With two animus dragons, who could do literally anything with their magic, it certainly seemed possible. The only limit their powers had, it seemed from all the history scrolls Orca had studied, was how much imagination the animus had and how far they were willing to go.
But Orca wasn't sure she would want to try a spell that large herself. As much as she cared about her tribe, she would use her magic for her own benefit first, theirs second. There was a limit to how much she was willing to do for her fellow SeaWings, and throwing away her soul was definitely on the other side of that line.
Besides, the SeaWings already had their Summer Palace in a secret location; they didn't need a hidden kingdom like the one the NightWings had.
In any case, any potential motive the NightWings' could have to drag out the war was just as elusive as one Jerboa might have. Orca knew that if she ever did something about the war, it would definitely not be casting an enchantment that dragged it out.
It was definitely a puzzle.
And she couldn't forget that it might not even be an animus curse at all.
She could always use magic to answer her myriad questions, but Orca didn't think that was necessary. She would never waste a spell on something that she could work out on her own. Sure, it would make life easier now, but it would eventually backfire later on down the currents, if her soul began fraying to the extent that it affected her mind.
Orca wasn't totally sure she believed dragons really had souls, per se, but there was definitely something that animus dragons lost, and she didn't want to find out what. The closest thing she had been able to equate the state of having lost one's soul to was going insane, and Orca had always relied far too much on her mind to risk losing it. More even than her magic, her brains were what set her apart from everyone else.
Orca dragged her mind back to the present.
"You're right," she said to Gyre, "and being cautious. That's smart."
Reluctantly, Brine nodded in agreement. However thoroughly convinced of his own self-importance he could be sometimes, he wasn't stupid. Even when flattered, he knew better than to trust blindly, especially a dragon as clever as Blister.
Teal shrugged. He'd already made up his mind, and there was no changing it either way. Orca supposed it was better he dislike Blister than make the mistake of trusting her.
"We might disagree about this," she said slowly, glancing around at all of them. They'd automatically gathered in their usual way, Gyre and Brine forming a triangle with Orca while Teal hung a little further back. "But we're still in this together, right?"
Teal nodded vigorously, while Brine gave a single sharp nod, and Gyre just blinked evenly in response. On this, they were agreed.
It had always been the four of them against the world, and it always would be.