It had been several months since the end of the war. It had also been a few months since the Jade Mountain Academy had started. Nysnö had started bouncing around Wolf animatedly, talking about how she was going to help out with the school and would be able to teach dragons to loom. Wolf raised an eyebrow at her and continued to throw his belongings into several bags. "I didn't know you knew how to loom."

"Siren taught me!" Wolf turned to look at his niece and scowled. She swept past him and grabbed a bunch of his jewelry, sniffing haughtily. "Don't give me that look."

"But she's our enemy."

Nysnö threw one of his silver cuff bracelets embedded with indicolite at him, hitting his nose. Wolf yelped slightly and rubbed the spot with one talon, while quickly snatching the cuff with his other one. "She was our enemy," Nysnö corrected. "No, wait. She's not our enemy, she was never mine, and shouldn't be yours."

"You have your mother's temper," Wolf replied, eyeing her movements. "And I'll have you know that when I first met Siren, I killed her commander and almost killed her."

"She mentioned that once. Got into a big rant about it, saying you were an idiot for killing her father but not taking her out as well."

Wolf sharply yanked his rings out of Nysnö's claws as she was admiring her, giving her a pointed glare. "How was I supposed to know she was Hydra's daughter?"

Nysnö shrugged and bounded over to his scrolls, mindlessly unrolling one and reading it lightly. "That's what I told her. Siren eventually calmed down."

"That's good to know," he stated dryly.

"Anyways, my point is, Siren is not your enemy. The war is over, so at least try to be civil."

Wolf threw his talons up as Nysnö started rummaging around his stash of poison. "What are you doing?"

She poked her nose into the gap in his floor. She mumbled something incoherent before pulling herself up to her full height, one of his pouches containing his most dangerous poisons hanging from her mouth. Nysnö glared at him and placed the pouch on his desk. "I', helping you clear out your things. Now, why do you have so much poison."

"I'm an assassin."

"I don't care. There are entirely too many vials."

Wolf walked over to her, pushing his niece back from his desk with one of his wings. "I wasn't planning on taking them with me."

Nysnö snorted in bemusement and threw his rings, cuff bracelets, and his old headscarf into a bag, slinging it over her back, the strap resting against her chest. "Good, now let's get going."

Wolf grabbed one of his stray scrolls and placed it in his other bag and hoisted it onto his back. He grabbed the last bag and nodded to Nysnö, flying out of his room's window, his niece following him. He'd had to smuggle her in when they first arrived, but now that it was well into the night, the two could easily make their way out of the Ice Kingdom without any dragon seeing them.

After two months of deliberation, and an even longer absence from the eyes of most of the dragons within the palace, Wolf had finally decided that he needed to leave his life with his tribe, and decided to go off with Nysnö. Although where she was going to take him, he had no idea.

Nysnö led Wolf into a cavern and called out softly, her voice echoing. "Siren, Dolphin, Tsunami!"

Wolf snarled lightly. Did she bring him to live with a bunch of Seawings? "Nysnö…" he warned her.

She looked back at him and whacked his snout lightly with her tail. Nysnö turned back around and they watched as three Seawings slid out of the water. He recognized the first two and barely the third. Siren's pale turquoise scales and pink webbed membranes stood out to him the most first. Her emerald green eyes bore into his as she eyed him warily. Then, the Seawing beside her with blue-grey scales poked her head over Siren's shoulder and narrowed her eyes at Wolf.

That's when he recognized her name. She had been the other Seawing on the beach the day he killed Hydra. Wolf turned his head away from Dolphin and looked at Tsunami. She was scowling at him a fair bit and he scowled back at her. "This is him?" Wolf's niece nodded. "Your niece was very persuasive when convincing us to get you a job."

"Was she?" Wolf looked at Nysnö bemused before turning back to Tsunami. "And what exactly is my job?"

"Well, Glory and I talked at great lengths, and since she's taken on the Nightwings, she's been in over her head. We decided that perhaps you could help, especially with, er, rehabilitating the assassins."

"That was my idea!" Nysnö chirped, pride flicking across her eyes.

Wolf's right ear twitched slightly but he sighed in defeat. "All right, so long as I don't have to deal with any Icewings."

"That shouldn't be a problem."

The day of the night the plague hit Wolf, he was lounging in a hammock, dozing softly as the sun was beginning to peek through the trees. He couldn't remember the last time he was able to relax as often as he was since arriving in the jungle, so he was taking advantage of the peace he had finally achieved.

"Wolf," a low voice hissed quickly, catching him off guard. Wolf snarled and opened one eye to look at the dragon who had intruded on his silence. A Rainwing with amethyst scales and dots of Indigo stood in front of him. Her eyes were wide and frantic. "Wolf, I need you."

He huffed but raised his head, staring at his friend Amazon. "What could you possibly need me for?"

"Grimreaper is gone. I saw him fly west this morning."

Wolf heaved himself out of the hammock, fully alert. Grimreaper was an ex-assassin that he was trying to help, but the Nightwing was stubborn, and still wanted to fight. "Why didn't you go after him?"

Amazon shifted lightly, her scales turning a light shade of red. "Brightfuture kinda distracted me."

Of course, she did… he thought dryly. Wolf shook his wings out and stared at Amazon, regarding her carefully. Finally, he flicked his tail and motioned for her to follow him. "Come on."

He launched into the sky, Amazon following him quickly. They made it to the Kingdom of Sand by mid-day. When they got there, Wolf landed in the sand. There weren't many places a Nightwing could go, and he was certain Queen Thorn's stronghold wasn't one of them.

Wolf faced Amazon, his expression set in determination. "I need you to conceal yourself and cover the entire Kingdom of Sand. A Nightwing shouldn't be hard to spot, but the desert is big. While you do that, I'll check out the Scorpion Den."

Amazon nodded and quickly camouflaged herself. "Be careful."

"I will." Wolf then turned and flew out to the Scorpion Den, scanning the ground for Grimreaper. By the time he'd arrived, the sun had already set, and merchants were packing up their stands.

A few Sandwings threw him dirty looks, but other than that, he was able to move around in peace. He'd lost count at how many times he'd been here in search of something or someone. The streets were still familiar to him after several years, and he fell back into the familiar routine of slowly searching for his target.

He turned a corner and ran straight into Scorpion. She let out a low hiss and opened her mouth to undoubtedly say something snarky or nasty but fell silent when she saw Wolf. A range of emotions flickered over her face before she settled on mild annoyance. "What are you doing here?"

"No 'hi Wolf, how are you doing? Long time no see' or 'I'm so happy to see you again'? I mean really," he snippily replied.

She snarled softly and pushed past him. "No 'I'm sorry for what happened last time' or 'oh hey, I can explain'?"

Wolf took in a deep breath and started trailing after her. "There is nothing to apologize for or explain. You're the one who overreacted!"

"I did not," she snapped.

Wolf snorted and placed a talon on her tail, mindful of her barb, to stop her. She kept her back to him but stiffened at his touch. "Yes, you did. You know I couldn't say anything to Glacier. And most importantly, you know I do care for you. So why did you overreact?"

"Because maybe you're a confusing dragon and I needed to hear confirmation that you did care for me. And for the record, you could have said something in front of Glacier, but nooooo."

Wolf walked in front of her as everything clicked and fixed Scorpion with a fierce stare, attempting to put her insecurities to rest. "You are so oblivious, you know that? You're also infuriating to no ends. I do care for you, I always have."

Scorpion shrunk under his gaze but nodded. "All right then, good to know. So, why are you here? Other than for me, of course."

Wolf rolled his eyes and snorted softly. "I'm looking for a Nightwing that kind of ran away this morning. He'd quite burly and aggressive, have you seen him?"

"Nope, and you definitely won't." Scorpion looked up at the sky and frowned. "In case you haven't noticed, it's pretty late, and Nightwings have a habit of hiding well in the night. Why don't you stay here for the night and start again in the morning."

Wolf nodded and when he went to thank Scorpion when he started to cough up blood. Scorpion's eyes widened and she barely caught Wolf as he stumbled. He looked up at her worried eyes and felt her shift his body slightly before they began to move to a secluded area, and into a small hut.

"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"

"I wasn't. I'm not."

Scorpion snorted and gently laid Wolf down a rug. "Says the one who's coughing up blood."

Wolf tried to reply but started coughing more blood, pain shooting through his diaphragm. He saw Scorpion move to the other end of the hut out of his peripheral vision then move back to him. "Here, drink this," she instructed before tipping a bowl of liquid into his mouth. Then everything went black and the last thing he heard was a shriek of outrage.

He was a dragonet again, somewhere around the age of five and was sitting in the snow, a taller, more slender Icewing with dark grey scales beside him. A soft snowfall surrounded them, and his sister put her wing around him. Shatter looked up at the darkening sky, and Wolf followed her gaze. "I won't be gone for too long, I promise."

He scowled and nudged her side sharply. "I don't care, I want to be with you."

Shatter laughed brightly, smiling brightly. She always used to smile when they were dragonets. What would happen when she went off into the war for the first time? "You will be in two years."

Wolf just huffed and stood up, shaking the snow off of his wings and tail. He bounded out of Shatter's reach, sticking his tongue out at her. She narrowed her eyes affectionately and leapt after him, chasing her younger brother through the snow. He looked behind him and kicked some snow into Shatter's face.

When he made it to the edge of the shore, where the ocean and shore met, he skidded to a halt and looked behind him. Shatter was nowhere to be seen and Wolf suddenly became on edge. He turned in a slow circle and yelped as there was an explosion of snow before he was pushed into the water.

Wolf snapped his wings open and shot out of the ocean quickly, throwing water as he rose quickly into the air. Below him was Shatter, laughing hard, eyes dancing with mirth.

Three years later, Wolf stood on a rocky outpost, Shatter beside him. Her face was set in a hard line, her tail twitching lightly. Wolf pulled his wings back a bit and started to paw at the sand beneath him, picking up the scent of some prey.

Shatter looked at him with barely concealed disdain as she watched her brother dig in the sand, chasing a lizard. She rolled her eyes and clamped a talon down on his tail, digging her claws in sharply. He went to lunge after the lizard but instead flopped unceremoniously on the sand. He raised his head, sneezing as sand got into his nose, and gave Shatter a withering glare. She just held herself rigidly and swept past him.

Over the years, ever since she'd gone off to war, Shatter had changed drastically. Wolf saw her go from playful and warm to cold and almost hostile. He still loved her, but some days, like today, he couldn't help but regard her with a calm sadness.

He still remembered the day she'd come back after a month-long mission, covered in blood, with a large burn on her left side. He'd watched her throw down the decapitated head of an infamous Mudwing who'd been causing trouble for Icewing troops for months in front of Queen Glacier, breathing heavily. Glacier just stared at the head calmly, while several other Icewings, Wolf included, stared at the head with varying degrees of disgust or horror.

Shatter had then left silently, locking herself in her room. When Wolf came to her later that night, hoping she'd still confide in him like she used to do when they were younger, she just slammed the room's doors in his face, leaving him to drag himself back to his room.

He had no idea what Shatter had been through or seen while away, but she'd changed so much in such a short time. It wasn't until he had flown out with her almost half a year later that he understood her change in character.

They were out flying with Niege and Wendigo, two well-beloved generals in Glacier's army. The four of them were supposed to make their way through the rainforest and take a small gathering of Mudwing and Skywing Commanders by surprise. Wendigo was leading the group since he knew the rainforest's layout the best, while Niege knew where to find the gathering due to a double agent.

Unfortunately, before they could reach the towering trees of the Rain Kingdom, several Sandwings burst up from the sand, breathing fire at the Icewings. Wolf swerved just in time, and as he looked up he saw Shatter collide with Wendigo and get hit with the fire on the membrane of her left wing. She let out a loud scream before falling downwards. He let out a shout and dove after her, while Wendigo and Niege wheeled around, flying straight at the Sandwings.

When Wolf reached Shatter, smoke was rising up from her wing, and she was groaning lowly. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," she grit out. She raised her head with some trouble, her eyes widening. "Behind you!"

Wolf whipped around and saw one of the Sandwings heading straight for him, spear pointed at his chest. Before he could attack the soldier, a yellow-brown blur sped past him, knocking into the soldier. He blinked in surprise before hissing as Shatter dug her back claws into his tail sharply, dragging him back to his senses.

In the end, they had managed to fight off the Sandwings but not without great sacrifices. Shatter was unable to fly, Niege had lost an eye, and Wendigo was impaled on a sharp rock. Wolf was the only one left unharmed, but now he finally understood why Shatter had become so distant these past few months. No one in their right mind would want to talk about what they'd seen or been through.

When Wolf came back to the present, the first thing he noticed was glaring heat. The second thing he noticed was a slight prick of pain in his left ear. He groaned and sat up before yelping when he felt Scorpion tackle him into a hug. "You're alive," she sniffled.

"Yeah, no thanks to you. What in the three moons did you give me?"

"She had to keep you knocked out. It was for the safest considering we had no idea what was happening," a new voice replied. Wolf looked over at Amazon and shot her a grateful smile. "Thankfully a dragonet named Qibli managed to come up with a plan to stop the Icewings from dying."

Wolf scrunched up his snout and dragged a talon across his face. "Right, so what do we do now?"

"Well, you will definitely not take that earring off or else you'll get sick again."

Wolf felt along his left ear and found an earring there. Although, now as he felt closer, it was not placed in the hole he had previously made for his own earrings and he scowled. "Which one of you just stabbed my ear without using the hole that was already there?"

Scorpion scowled at him and shoved him in the chest. "We didn't have time to find the hole, and we saved your life. You're welcome."

Wolf smiled sarcastically and stood, aching to get out. "Right, still doesn't answer my question. What do we do now?"

Amazon shifted uncomfortably and wrapped her tail around his front leg. "There's something you should know…" He gave her a pointed stare. "I-I found Grimreaper. And uh, well… He's kind of joined Darkstalker's army and is preparing to fight against your tribe."

"There's another war?" Amazon and Scorpion nodded. That was all Wolf needed to know and he snarled, launching into the sky. "Where?"

"At the Jade Mountain Academy."

Wolf started flying in that direction quickly but only made it two wing flaps out of the Scorpion Den before Scorpion tackled him out of the air. He roared and twisted under her, spraying sand everywhere as he thrashed.

"Do not!" Scorpion shouted.

"Do not what?"

"Don't go there. Don't get yourself involved in another war. We just got out of one."

Wolf lashed his tail and he narrowed his eyes at her. "My tribe almost died and now an ancient monster is leading a war against us. I have to fight."

Scorpion backed up and bared her teeth, her tail poised threateningly. "You could die."

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," he stated before turning and flying in the direction of Jade Mountain.

When Wolf arrived at the mountain, ready to join the army, he saw Snowfall at the lead with Glacier nowhere in sight. His heart stopped as he realized she must have died during the sickness, which gave him a newfound fury. I just hope Snowfall knows what she's doing and doesn't kill us all.

As he hit the battlefield, a large Nightwing flew straight at him. He immediately recognized the dragon as Grimreaper and Wolf dove at him, talons outstretched and eyes blazing with anger. When they collided, Grimreaper immediately went for Wolf's throat while Wolf sunk his claws into the Nightwing's right eye. Grimreaper roared in pain and swung one of his talons, connecting with Wolf's old scar, reopening it, and knocking him to the side.

Wolf took a minute to right himself in the air but when he did, a low, animalistic growl ripped from his throat and he hit Grimreaper in the throat and chest with his frostbreath. Without a second look at him, Wolf shot towards another Nightwing who was fighting another Icewing.

He had no idea how long the tribes had been fighting, but when he saw the lithe form of his brother Husky, Wolf felt a wave of relief wash over him. He glided over to his brother, ready to take on as many Nightwings as they needed to. When he reached Husky, he noticed Mammoth was there as well. The latter shot Wolf a playful wink. "Look who it is!"

Husky twisted in mid-air and grinned, eyes dancing with mischief. "Brother, you finally decided to join us."

"I would have sooner, but…" he grunted as he pushed a Nightwing off of him, swiping at her underbelly. "I got caught up."

Mammoth let out a low chuckle, hitting a bunch of Nightwings in a wide arc of frostbreath. "What do you say we show these Nightwings what happens when you cross three brothers?"

"Works for me. Husky?"

"Let's do it!"

The three formed a mini circle and began to tear into any Nightwings who came to close. They were so busy fighting that they didn't see the dragon coming from above. Wolf and Husky's heads whipped in Mammoth's direction as he roared and they saw Mammoth get kicked into the ground, colliding sharply with several rocks, a loud crack sounding.

Wolf surged upwards gripping the Nightwing by the neck while Husky flew in from the side. Husky dug his serrated claws into the Nightwing's ribs and Wolf practically ripped her throat out. As they watched the body plummet to the ground, a savage gust of wind whipped from the north, scattering dragons.

The sky darkened and Wolf looked up at the giant clouds, thunder and lightning threatening to split the earth. He struggled to stay in the air as the wind pushed violently into his side and rain started to fall. Then suddenly, the storm started to die and he felt a jolt of fear run through his body.

All around him, dragons were gradually stilling their movements. He looked at the Nightwing in front of him and felt the worry his foe was feeling for her mother and little sister. He backed up and silence fell. The dragons all looked around and then they all vanished, and Wolf now found himself in the Icewing palace, beside Husky.

Frantic whispers started up and the two brothers shared a look, knowing they'd have to go back for Mammoth. But for now, they needed to figure out what happened, and why they were transported back to the Ice Kingdom, and what they were going to do next.