Chapter Ten

Cactusflower

Cactusflower was surprised. They had recently discovered that Monsoon's fire had prophetic powers, and that Queen Glacier was going to have an assassination attempt at noon, in two hours. Well, it was more like one, now. They had been flapping as hard as they could for the past hour, but you can't change the laws of time.

"It appears that we have reached the Ice Kingdom!" Cactusflower called over the howling wind. "Why don't we stop for direction to Queen Glacier's palace from this point?"

"All right!" A voice cried back. She thought it was Kraken's, but in this weather, she couldn't be sure. The group veered down, down, down, landing in the middle of a very planned out and organized Icewing village. It was surprisingly empty. They approached a solitary dragon, the only one in sight. The Icewing directed his gaze to Blizzard skeptically. Kraken cleared his throat.

"We are the dragons from the Pyrrhia Prophecy, and we have come to save your queen. Could you kindly direct us towards the castle?" The Icewing snorted.

"You're the dragons from the prophecy? Funny, because a group just came through here claiming to be the dragons from the prophecy as well. I guess neither of you are very smart, because you both somehow managed to miss that." He gestured with a talon at a huge castle looming in the distance, entirely made out of ice. "A little less than a half hour away, but when I told the others that they were gone like that. Which I suppose…" The Icewing trailed off, probably due to the fact that the dragons he had been talking to were already flying as fast as they could towards the Ice Castle.

"We have to hurry!" Cactusflower shouted. "When we get there, we'll only have half an hour to get in and save the queen!" Flapping furiously yet again, the seven dragons soared quickly, arriving at the castle just scant minutes after their impersonators. Of course, they didn't know that.

There were Icewing gaurds posted heavily around the doors to the palace. They all appeared very firm, like they weren't going to let anybody pass, not even the supposed dragons from the prophecy.

"Well, it doesn't look like we'll be getting in that way." Mumbled Blizzard. Cactusflower agreed.

"Guess we'll have to sneak around back. Monsoon, can you maybe melt a hole in the wall with my and Darkmystic's help?" Tempest was the only other dragon with fire that he could always summon, but Cactusflower doubted that he would want to help.

"Or we can just kill all the gaurds." The Skywing grumbled. Cactusflower shot him an alarmed look. Yeah. Definitely not a dragon who was going to want to help others. Monsoon nodded eagerly. He had a habit of agreeing to everything that Cactusflower said. She had no problem with that, though. Kraken nodded his consent to that plan. Everyone knew he was the unspoken leader, and he was a good one, too. He silently slithered around the castle, cutting behind snowdrifts and huge icy rocks for cover. Cactusflower followed stealthily, leading the way for Monsoon to follow her. Eventually the entire band, Tempest included, reached the back wall. On the count of three, they burned a dripping hole in the wall, just wide enough for the biggest of them to slip through.

"Now to find the throne room." Cactusflower declared, thinking Oh boy. This should be fun. As her sarcastic mental tones implied, it wasn't.