Frigid Straits

by magmagon

Stuck at the bottom of the rankings, Auster has always believed discipline and hard work would be her savior to attaining her rightful position at the top of IceWing palace society. When a sudden opportunity presents itself, she takes it eagerly in hopes of a promotion. However, what appeared to be an easy path to the top turns into an exploration of her true self.

13. Auster's Fury

Update! I can't say much except OOOOOOOO mysteries, and that something bad may or may not happen soon... Hope y'all enjoy this 6000 word long chapter (the second longest chapter so far) and the latest installment in 'Walrus still not being helpful.' -MAG

Soon enough, we had crested the mountains and trudged over the rolling hills as they transitioned to the frozen desert just south of the Ice Kingdom. As the meadows gave way to arid sand, I could make out a faint outline ahead. When we flew closer, the blurry image revealed itself to be Blaze's fortress, still proudly waving its flags and emitting a cheerful fire into the brisk breeze. The sun had just set over the horizon and the only illumination came from two dim crescent moons.

"Auster," Bering called out to me, "Let's rest at Blaze's fortress. It's too dark to continue flying, I can barely see."

"A little night flying never hurt anyone, the stars are out, we can guide our way home using the stars," I retorted. Though I omitted the part about how I could feel the darkness slowly closing in around me and squashing my vision to the point I could hardly tell which way was north.

"IceWings aren't built for the night, we can't see well like-"

"Like NightWings," I interrupted. "Makes sense that such a shady tribe would feel at home in utter darkness. Matches their attitudes."

"I was going to say SeaWings," Bering finished, "But sure, NightWings too. It's not safe to continue in these lighting conditions."

"Fine. First thing tomorrow morning we are leaving. The fortress is crawling with insufferable sand lizards."

"That's not a nice way to describe princess Blaze."

"I wasn't talking about Blaze. The princess is more of a sand bag rather than a sand lizard," I joked, hoping to elicit a humorous response.

"Hm." Bering glided to a stop in front of the monochrome fortress. The insufficient lighting meant that the smooth unfurnished exterior appeared more foreboding and stony than my previous visit. Bering gave the front gates a loud knock and sat back on his haunches, awaiting the guards inside. I stood beside him, hoping fervently that it wouldn't be the annoying blockhead answering the door.

And of course it was aggravating blockhead who heaved the gate open while brandishing a large spear that he immediately lowered when his joyful gaze fell upon two scowling IceWings. Well, I was scowling anyways.

"Hello!" he greeted us with a massive grin. "Welcome to our humble abode IceWing, and Auster." Horizon winked at me and held the gate open for us to enter.

Once we cleared the doorway, the SandWing bounded forward to assault us with his overwhelming hospitality. "What brings you two here? Some top secret business with currant juice?"

"We're here to stay the night if you don't mind. We are on our way back from a mission and it is too dark to continue flying," Bering stated, saving me the effort of explaining the situation.

"I see," Horizon pondered. "Must be some really important mission to have you returning so late. The compensation must be amazing. As much as I would love to hear your story about your fascinating adventure, I'm quite busy you see."

"Busy with what?" I asked snidely.

"I have a very important mission to raid the cabinets for delicious snacks," Horizon declared. "So as soon as I get you two comfortable in the main room, I am off to fulfill my duty. If either of you want something from the kitchen, just say so and I will make it happen."

"And if we don't want anything?" I inquired coldly.

"Well then it would be much more difficult to justify to Ocotillo why all the cactus candies have gone missing."

"Cactus candies?" Bering considered. "Aren't cactus rather prickly? They certainly look unappetizing to me."

"Once you burn off the outer skin and remove the spines, the insides are absolutely delectable. Sweet and succulent, you'll absolutely love them. Head into the main room and make yourselves at home, I'll get some candies for you" the SandWing promised, slithering off to plunder the food stores, his barbed tail waving gleefully as it slipped around the corner.

"This place is really warm," Bering complained as he stepped into the main chamber.

"They're SandWings, they live for the heat," I retorted, pointing to the roaring fireplace that crackled away in the corner. A trio of SandWings were huddled next to the inferno maximizing warmth absorption.

Bering trudged to the opposite corner, as far away from the blaze as possible and breathed a small plume of frostbreath onto the sandstone floor before slumping down on it, closing his eyes in exhaustion.

"Wow, how rude," blurted Horizon as he returned with his cheeks stuffed and talons clutching a small woven box. "Didn't even stay awake long enough to try the cactus candies. Well, that means more for me! Unless you wanted one?" He wiggled his eyebrow, which made me feel like slapping him and I told him so.

"It really does have a marvelous taste, you ought to try it before dismissing it," Horizon insisted, his grin becoming wider than a crescent moon.

"If you pester me again, I will take a real cactus and shove it up your nostril," I hissed, before stalking off over to Bering and flopping down beside him. "Now go away and leave us alone. Go stuff your snout or do something more productive."

"More productive…" the SandWing pondered. "Well I've got a mystery that I could use your help solving."

"What, where all the camel spit cactus roast went? Because the answer to that is in your fat belly."

"No," Horizon replied, his voice taking on a serious tone. "There have been these cryptic warnings plastered all over the fortress exterior. Someone keeps putting up posters and creepy messages at night and while nothing has happened so far, I would like to know who is doing this and why. Seems like a harmless prank but who would go through so much effort to do this?"

"You want me to help with your wild goose chase," I corrected for him, yawning and curling my tail over my talons. "I'm going to sleep and tomorrow you can get Bering to follow to look at your dumb drawings," I mumbled as the sweet release of darkness swallowed my consciousness.

It was quite a shock when I opened my eyes just a few short moments later to find myself in a small, ornate room. Outside the small window I could see a massive mountain range and thousands of flitting orange dots. Stream sat upon a small dais wearing her customary gold chain armor and a sullen expression on her snout.

"Is this," I gestured outside, "the Sky kingdom?"

"Yes. You are standing inside the Sky palace. My abode."

Of course, Stream was some sort of noble dragon, it made sense that she would reside in a fancy decorated part of Queen Scarlet's palace. I found the inlaid gold talon marks on the floor and the set gems in the walls a bit gaudy, but then again Scarlet was known to be vain and boastful about her wealth.

"Why don't you and I take a walk? Hm? We have a rather important topic to discuss." Stream lifted herself off her seat and swung one of the heavy wooden doors open, inviting me outside into the airy hallway.

We settled in step as Stream showed me around the various passageways in the lofty palace. The glamor and affluence gleamed and flashed as I tread upon the polished marble floors. If I weren't so biased, perhaps I could consider the Sky palace to be a magnificent feat of construction, though obviously inferior to the animus carved Ice palace. Stream led me to an outcrop overlooking a depression in the hills. There appeared to be some circular structure made of stone in the center.

"That's the new stadium," Stream declared. "The old one was too small so a new one was commissioned. I expect that this new arena will see a lot of activity. But that's not important to you, I wanted to talk about your tribe's recent attack in the mountains."

"Put quite the dent in Burn's plan didn't it," I said smugly.

"Very much so. I wanted to be the first to congratulate your tribe on this victory. I have a feeling that you were involved in it?"

"Queen Glacier made her decision based on my input. I was the deciding factor in this assault," I boasted.

Stream's lip curled up at the edge in a slight grimace. "Wonderful, it is good news indeed that the IceWing queen appreciates your crucial judgement. Indeed, twenty battalions wiped out will delay Burn quite a while and perhaps she may turn her attention from attacking Blaze." The SkyWing noble fluttered her wings slightly.

"Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?"

Stream contemplated her gold bracelets for a while, before asking, "Do you trust me?"

"What?"

The SkyWing turned her intense gaze on me, pinning me down with her fierce stare. "I have helped you a great ordeal. There is one more bit of 'advice' I can offer you, but only if I can truly confide in you. I cannot afford to have this leak, it would jeopardize my relatively comfortable situation."

"Sure," I responded, not quite sure why the regal SkyWing noble had shifted her tone so suddenly.

"'Sure' is not powerful enough," Stream puffed, a thin tendril of smoke rising from the side of her snout. "It's fine if you can't promise me completely. I understand your allegiances are to queen Glacier and not to me. Sadly, that means I must withhold the valuable information I have learned."

"But I, how do you expect-"

Stream continued to speak right over me. "What a shame, this could mean the difference between winning or losing the war, or having it drag out impossibly long, countless dragons dying every day."

"Tell me what it is!" I demanded, planting myself squarely in front of Stream and fixating my steely eyes on her. Stream plodded forward, passing through me without hesitation, her form shifting slightly to wisps and reforming on the other side.

"All it would take is a simple pledge, a promise even. As you can tell, I am quite willing and have great desire to share this information with you. But alas, it is with great pain that I keep such a crucial intelligence to myself."

"Arghh," I groaned in frustration. There was a rising tide of anger and irritation that would inevitably lead to bad decisions, but in the heat of the moment, it was more than my puny mind could think about. "Fine! I promise I won't tell anyone else! I pledge my allegiance!" I practically spat out the last word.

Stream stopped blabbering and peered at me warily. "That was fast. Is the promise of this secret information so tempting that you are willing to subvert your own allegiances?"

Through gritted teeth, I hissed, "We will see."

"Well, I suppose there is no harm in telling you then, even if you fail, I still come out on top. So it makes no difference to me actually."

"What are you talking about?"

Stream pulled out a map, very similar to the one I had found in the desert, although this one had a large red cross in the mountain valley where Queen Glacier had directed the previous attack.

"You see this here?" she pointed her talon at a marsh half way between the Claws of the Sky mountains and the arid desert. "In this meadow, Queen Scarlet is going to hold an assembly with her ally Burn in one moon cycle. This is meant to reinvigorate the army and affirm the alliances after the devastating loss of the MudWing troops."

"And? Wherever Scarlet goes, she's always heavily defended."

"That's Queen Scarlet to you, and yes, the event will most definitely contain plentiful security. However, the SkyWings still have to fly there, and it is then that they are most vulnerable. Queen Scarlet believes the best path is to go through where you IceWings ravaged the MudWing army. Of course I think that is complete idiocy, but her logic is that nobody will bother checking the battlefield after the battle has already been fought."

"So you're saying that the IceWings should set up camp in that same valley and ambush Scarlet and her posse when they fly through."

"I am not saying anything. I am providing you with key information, what you do with it is not my business. Remember your confidentiality promise."

"Right," I replied half-heartedly, my mind already whizzing away, thinking about how I would convince the council that this was the perfect chance to pounce and potentially bring the war to a very short conclusion.

Stream sighed and looked away towards the misty hills. "That is all the time I have for you today, and besides my goal here is done. You have been informed, that was my primary task. I must leave you now. Goodbye."

The world faded to black and then I was awake.

Bering had already awoken and was busy fiddling with one of his contraptions when I lifted my head up. He held some sort of thin tube filled with a green fluid. Squinting, I could tell that it was the green quack from his laboratory. But what could he be doing with that sleep inducing substance here? And was he not worried that any of the SandWings would get too curious?

I slunk close the ground, crawling silently towards the unsuspecting IceWing until I was practically breathing down his back. "Good morning Bering."

"Yahhh!" Bering yelped and thrusted the vial back into his satchel. He turned around and put on an unconvincing smile. "Uh, hi Auster. You're awake."

"What are you doing with the green quack?" I demanded to know.

"It's actually called solution H, but I needed to test its effects. For scientific reasons."

"I know what it does, it puts dragons to sleep," I said, pinning the smaller IceWing down with my stare. "Why do you have it here?"

"See, that's where you are wrong," Bering replied nervously. "It doesn't just induce unconsciousness, this upgraded solution can also remove memories. Or at least that's what it is supposed to do, I haven't tested it yet."

"Remove memories? But how?" I asked, now more curious than annoyed.

"I can't say. Manta probably knows but she wouldn't give me those leaves."

"So that's why you wanted to visit Manta, to obtain a special ingredient for your memory erasing potion." Now it was starting to make sense, of all the places to retreat to on a battlefield, Manta and Caspian's hut was not high on the list. But if there were a covert reason to, maybe queen Glacier had sent him on a mission, then the motive may had been justified.

"Sure," Bering said, cleaning up his setup. "Let's get back to the Ice palace. We, or I have plenty of testing left to do."

"We," I stated firmly. I wanted to keep a close eye on this suspect character.

Bering packed away his vials and ignored my previous statement, marching over to the SandWings milling about aimlessly. "Your Majesty," he bowed to a particularly vain naïve SandWing. "My partner and I are very grateful that you were willing to provide hospitality last night. However we must leave now."

"Awwww," cried the dopey princess. "Our party was just about to start. We have camel, and cactus tarts, and fried scorpions, and stuffed rabbit, and agave syrup, and-"

"I am sure those are all wonderfully delectable dishes, Your Majesty," Bering agreed, "but Queen Glacier requests our presence immediately."

"Oh, how sad. Wait, what does delcetetaleable mean again?"

"It's "delectable," Blaze, it means yummy," explained an older, dignified SandWing. I recognized him as Ocotillo, the serious and formal assistant, who also participated in pillow fights for some reason. He turned his noble gaze to me. "We are happy that you found our hospitality sufficient. On your journey back, please be careful. Someone has been leaving cryptic threats on our doorstep. There haven't been any attempts so far, but they all seem to be either assassination threats against Blaze or random IceWings."

So Horizon hadn't been kidding, there was some jokester who found it funny to intimidate innocent dragons. Innocent from my point of view of course. The only tribe that would be so sneaky and conniving would be the NightWings, but they wouldn't target Blaze. They thought of themselves as too important and powerful to get involved in petty throne squabbles. Or they were too scared that the IceWings were involved and they were all hiding away cowering in fear. I thought of the two black dragons at the assault on the MudWings. Surely I was mistaken, they couldn't had been NightWings.

Ocotillo barked an order down the hallway, and Horizon pranced back holding a box full of paper. "These are the threats we have received," he said, displaying several gruesome posters. One read: Soon, every IceWing will regret that they had ever been hatched. Another one warned urgently: Blaze is a false queen, all those who support her will meet a painful end.

"Unfortunately, we have never been able to catch the culprit in the act," Ocotillo disclosed, "our guards just never see it." He made a pointed glare at Horizon who cheerfully sauntered off to his post. "I don't think there's any real danger, but all the same, it's best we take caution in these troublesome times."

"Right," I concurred, "we will be cautious and keep an eye out for any meddlesome miscreants."

"Thank you," replied the stately SandWing, directing us towards the exit. "It's very strange, that's all."

The sun beat down mercilessly on the endless semi-frozen sand dunes that demarked the border between sand and ice. If there were any mystery dragons sneaking about now, it wouldn't be difficult to spot. A few minutes after we lifted into the air, Bering suddenly stopped in mid air and fumbled around in his satchel, plucking a tube out and holding it up to his eye.

"NightWings," he hissed. "Two of them, can you see them? They're flying really close to the ground. They see us! And now they are, fleeing?"

I squinted in the direction he was looking at, back towards the sand fortress. There were two faint black dots wriggling in the distance, and fading. "Quick," I called out, "We have to catch them, before they escape!" Without waiting for his response, I whirled around and flapped my wings as fast as I could, gaining on the devious NightWings with ease. Behind me I heard Bering shout out, but whatever he said was lost to the rush of the wind.

It only took a few wingbeats to bring myself closer to the offensive subjects which revealed themselves to be genuine NightWings, fleeing the scene as the cowards they were. No matter, a couple wingbeats more and I had almost caught up. There were indeed two NightWings, a larger one who donned a cape and a smaller minute replica, which upon further scrutiny I decided was probably a dragonet. I was about to lunge forward with an extra powerful push with my wings when the smaller one suddenly dove down while the older NightWing made a sharp left turn and I overshot the pair.

Furious, I flared up my wings and shot upwards in an arc. The IceWing training never included such maneuvers because they were messy and crude and apparently resembled a SkyWing too much but I had used it once to catch a particularly annoying ptarmigan that had just slipped through my talons. The head of guard grumbled about form but I had a nice bird dinner.

The two NightWings had split up and fled in opposite directions. So disloyal that they didn't even stick together, the adult leaving the dragonet to fend for itself. I swerved left to follow the larger dragon, because she was the bigger threat, and I assumed that Bering would pursue the dragonet that was more suitable for his size.

The NightWing I was pursuing glanced over her shoulder as I gained on her, and when I nearly closed my talons around her tail a second time, she stopped abruptly and landed, causing me to overshoot her a second time, though this time I was more prepared and about faced and landed as well, facing the NightWing who was almost begging to have her face raked with my talons.

"NightWing," I spat. "You are in IceWing territory. Why?"

"Because I wanted to see the lovely sights," the NightWing responded sarcastically. "Keep your fat snout out of my business."

"You want me to stay out of your business, while you are the one trespassing?" I replied incredulously. "You misread your situation completely."

"Oh do I?" The NightWing yawned, itching her neck. Perhaps I was too careless, or her bag was camouflaged too well, but with a blur of her talons and her surprisingly lithe movements, she had pinned to my neck a cold sharp blade. "Yell for help, IceWing, and you will bleed to death."

I could only glare furiously at my assailant. From the corner of my eye, Bering had arrived a distance away, probably to avoid drawing attention and he snuck his way closer while holding something in his jaw, though at this distance it was indistinguishable.

The NightWing must've noticed something was off and released me with a firm look that told me if I tried anything funny the blade would end up lodged in my throat. "You brought a friend didn't you?" she asked, though with a concerned tone rather than taunting.

I scowled at her, sealing my mouth shut.

"I should kill you right now," the NightWing continued, "but then your companion would report this event and that certainly won't do. My mission isn't to kill you, and to be honest, I would prefer to avoid inter-tribe drama."

"Aren't all NightWings supposed to be a mind reading, future telling, powerful tribe?" I jeered. "Why not just use your powers and see what will happen?"

The NightWing seemed to take offense to my questioning. "Our powers are not to be wasted on such trivial tasks. If my apprentice is worth his salt, he will have captured your partner by now."

My partner, instead of getting captured, had instead been inching agonizingly closer to this strange dragon, being cautious to not let his talons crunch on the frozen sand below.

My attacker stood up and for a moment, I thought she had spotted Bering, but to my relief, she took a step closer to me. Even though I stood a full head taller than her, the black dragon had a composed and ominous aura that made my knees weak, not that I showed that. She inspected me from horns to talons, and made special care to linger on my eyes.

"You're looking at something, you're distracted, you seem to be trying to focus your gaze on me, but your eyeballs dart around constantly," she noted. "But what in this frigid wasteland would draw your interest, unless it was?" The NightWing spun around, prepared to deal with the incoming threat, and Bering panicked and dropped the object he had been holding in his jaw in surprise.

"Oh, what a coincidence," she said. "Bering, the very dragon I was looking for."

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

"Nothing. But it has come to my attention that you have made major contributions to the IceWing tribe in the past year, giving Blaze's side and unprecedented advantage. I hope you don't take this personally, but removing you from an influential position is necessary to maintain balance." She began to stalk forward, reaching for her blades.

Bering's expression paled, and he took a step back nervously. "You're not going to-"

"I am afraid I must," the NightWing interrupted, while continuing to move forward, stepping past the object Bering dropped. "You are my current target, I will make this quick and painless."

With the assassin's attention fully concentrated on Bering, I examined the object. It was the vial of green quack, but there was a sharp end on one side and a button, that when pressed, squeezed several drops of the green liquid out the needle end. It astonished me that Bering had wanted to face the NightWing with this bizarre contraption. Did he plan to stab the NightWing? Because it wouldn't do much damage compared to the knife. I suppose it was worth a try though.

The NightWing had gotten closer to Bering, who was continually backpedaling, trying to reason with his soon to be killer. I would only have once chance at this, while the attacker had her attention completely engrossed on a different subject. I picked up the vial contraption and in a single long leap, I landed next to the NightWing's tail, and as she swung her head around in confusion, stabbed the vial as deep as it would go into the tough scales. I pushed as hard as it would go, but instead of sinking further into the flesh, the little handle at the top of the vial sunk into the vial itself, injecting the entire contents of the vial, all of the green quack, directly into the NightWing's tail.

My target yelped and spun around, but the entire vial had already been deposited below her scales. She tried to swipe at me but her talons missed and the momentum knocked her onto her side. As I watched, her struggles turned sluggish and eventually she stopped moving at all and collapsed, her snout twitching occasionally.

Bering approached the motionless figure slowly, poking the dark scales a few times before asking me to see the vial. "You injected the whole thing?"

I nodded.

"That's very unfortunate for this NightWing, she will be here for a long time."

"So let's kill her and get out of here then."

Bering blanched at the mention of the word 'kill.' "I don't think this NightWing will be bothering anyone any time soon, let's just leave. Besides, I want to see what happens, this is a new concoction after all."

"Fine, then let's find that little twerp that was following her around and give them the same treatment."

"Yeah," Bering agreed, "that's a much better plan." He lifted up into the air and scanned the area for any errant dragonets.

I scanned with him, circling the region in ever widening circles until I spotted a dot on the horizon. "There," I pointed. "He's spotted us and now he's running." Indeed, the dragonet was running, but towards us rather than away. As he got closer I could tell that he had a worried expression on his snout and didn't appear to be a threat, not that I lowered my guard. These were NightWings after all.

The little pipsqueak piped up once we were in hearing distance, with a smug self-assuredness that I found grating and displeasing. "Hello," he said with a confident smile, "hello IceWings, how do you do?" The dragonet couldn't have been more than a few years old, but already had the characteristically offensive charisma of all NightWings.

I stepped in front of the little dragonet puffing up my chest to appear formidable and growled, "Your accomplice was not cooperative, and she has paid the price for trespassing. Now tell me why you are here or else I'll end your miserable life."

Bering interrupted, "Wait, we're not actually going to kill a dragonet right?"

I saw a flash of hesitation in the NightWing dragonet's eyes, or was it a shudder? Either way, the dragonet didn't seem like he would run away or lie when he opened his mouth. "It's a mission. My mother and I were sent here to interview a certain IceWing."

"By interview, you mean assassinate," I corrected for him.

The dragonet winced. "Yes, that is true. But it's to maintain balance between the different tribes," he insisted.

"And why would you want to interfere with the business of other tribes?"

"That I cannot say," the dragonet said, "I truly don't know. My mother knows but she won't tell me."

Too bad his mother was currently in a coma. And I didn't believe that this little runt didn't know, he was lying, like all NightWings did. I brandished my razor sharp talons and snarled, "Tell me the truth, NightWing."

Bering pushed me aside gently. "Let's try this a different way. Hello little one, my name is Bering, who are you?"

The dragonet perked up at the mention of Bering's name. "Bering? You're the one that my mother mentions constantly. Our target, that we were going to interview. And, well, you know the rest."

"Don't worry about that right now. And Auster, stop glaring at this poor dragonet like he stole your seal, you're overreacting."

I was most definitely not overreacting to this incredible threat. If anything Bering was being too casual. Poor dragonet? This was a slimy NightWing that wouldn't hesitate to betray your trust at the soonest opportunity.

The NightWing tried his best to ignore me as I ground my teeth as a warning. "I'm Deathbringer."

Of course it was.

-That's an interesting name.

I bet his mother's name is Superdragon.

-Hah. Good one.

"Well hello, Deathbringer," said Bering. "I am not going to harm you, and neither is my friend here Auster." He gave me a pointed glare, to which I glared straight back. Bering continued, "I suggest you remove yourself from IceWing territory however, because other IceWings may not be as accommodating as we are."

The NightWing dragonet mulled over his choices before mustering as charming as smile as he could. "Thank you for the rather generous offer. Unfortunately, my elders do not tolerate failure, and as such, I must continue my mission. I am very sorry about this, Bering, but my name is Deathbringer for a reason." Faster than I could blink, the dragonet pounced on the unsuspecting all too trusting Bering and pinning him down, his talon held over his throat. "I will be sure to remember your hospitality. Any last words?"

"NOOO!" I roared, and as Bering struggled ineffectually underneath the stranglehold of the NightWing, I invoked any shred of power from my core. The worms began to tingle, rippling with strength under my scales, but this time they were angry, raging and boiling, rising in pitch and intensity until I directed the bitter hatred and fury at this backstabbing weasel of a dragon. Deathbringer's talon sliced cleanly across Bering's throat right when I unleashed this enmity which pummeled into the NightWing. I snapped my jaws wide open for frostbreath but instead out came a bright blue bolt of flame which enveloped the dragonet, violently ripping him from his position and flinging him far away, out of sight.

I rushed over to Bering, where he lay gasping for breath, bright blue blood spurting out of his neck artery. "Auster," he choked, "Did you just breathe-"

I cut him off halfway through his question. "No time to worry about what I did, we need to seal your artery. I gathered up the tingling feeling, concentrated and poured it into the slice. The scales and flesh underneath wiggled slightly and knit themselves together, stemming the flow of blood until barely a scar remained. Exhausted, I sat back and let Bering rise to his feet.

Bering scrutinized me like I had walruses flying out of my ears, touched the scar covering his recently healed injury tenderly. "Thank you," he said, and he left it at that, though his eyes betrayed the fact that he had a million questions to ask.

-Auster! Are you ok?

I am fine. What in the three moons was that?

-A very strange and ancient power. I would give you more details, but I think you should recover first.

Do I have animus power? It felt like all my scales were going to march off and attack that NightWing.

-You are not an animus. At least right now.

What does that even mean? Can you periodically have magic? That's not what the ice pads said about animus power. You either have it or don't.

-Try enchanting something when you're fully rested.

You give me more questions than answers.

-Just do what I said.

Fine. Not like I had the energy to do any enchanting today. Bering watched me with concern as I hobbled upright. "Are you sure you can fly?" he asked.

"Yes," I grunted, a little more hostile than I intended. "We should get out of here." Tiredly, I took a running start and spread my wings, catching the wind and letting the air currents do the majority of the work.

Bering did not bother me with any questions on the way home, opting to leave me in peace. I wanted him to ask though, to help me come up with theories, to pass the time instead of allowing me to fester in my own mind.

"Bering," I piped up.

"What is it?"

"That vial that I injected into the other NightWing, the one with the green quack, what exactly does it do?"

"For starters, the actual name of the drug is sopornum, and it causes drowsiness in the recipient. It's very potent, which is why you only need a little to induce sleep."

"How much was in that vial?"

"Enough doses to send ten dragons to dreamland. Supposedly too much will slow your heartbeat down to the point that your blood just simply stops flowing fast enough, and you of oxygen deprivation. However, that's just rumors, we have never had a confirmed incident, only reports from the marketplace about someone who's had a bit too much of sopornum. We cannot do experiments with this drug, so all we have is anecdotal evidence."

"So that NightWing is your 'experiment?'"

"You could put it that way. But I'm never going to see them again, so I can't collect any useful data. My hunch is that the NightWing is going to enjoy a lovely two day nap and wake up with no memory of anything that happened in the last moon cycle."

"That could be useful. Why don't you tell Alpine or queen Glacier? Imagine using that instead of spears. Just send the entire opposing army to sleep!"

"There's a problem, sopornum is incredibly difficult to obtain. That vial was my entire supply. The little critters that make sopornum do not tolerate coldness of any degree. Even with my little ice contraption focusing sunlight on them, they only produce miniscule amounts of the substance. And once I gather the substance, I have to refine it with a really hot flame. Speaking of flame, did you-"

"We are not talking about that right now." I massaged my jaw, wondering if the flame earlier was just a hallucination.

"All right. Basically the process to make this stuff is super slow and I could never make enough of it."

"But the market vendor I saw had some." In fact, that exact same vial was still in my room, but I did not mention that. "How is this stuff so secretive if everyone knows about it?"

"Well, that's because 'green quack' is just the casual name for the drug. It contains trace amounts of sopornum, but it is not the same thing. The green quack you find at the market is diluted with a million other things. Seal blubber, water, dirt, leaves, pine sap. It's not a pure mixture, and the added ingredients are all low quality."

I thought back to the vial in my room. It had some swirling streaks in it, maybe those were the impurities.

"Auster," said Bering gently, "Tomorrow I'll show you the process. And we'll try to come up with an explanation for what happened earlier. You've done enough today, you saved my life."

As much as I wanted to pester Bering with a more satisfactory explanation, to tell me his secrets and demonstrate the process now. As much as I wanted to know what the worms were, what that strange ancient power Walrus was referring to, and so many other confusing things, those would have to wait for later as the IceWing palace crept into view on the horizon.