Torrent rapped his claws against Queen Moorhen's door in the Summer Palace. It had been a few weeks since the encounter with Sunscorcher, and the queens were ready to meet again. It was the first day of the meetings, and Moorhen had just arrived. Torrent knew that it was slightly rude of him to bother the MudWing queen on her first day in the palace, but he didn't care. Orca's soul was more important.

The guards let him in without any questions. They were the same ones as last time, and they recognized him. The MudWing queen was pacing around the room inside, with one of her brothers attempting to comfort her. Torrent wasn't sure what had happened, but it wasn't any of his business.

Queen Moorhen looked over at the SeaWing prince, and smiled, her stressed frown fading from her face. "Torrent, is it?"

Torrent nodded. "Yes, your majesty."

Moorhen chuckled jolily. "Good, good. My brother here thinks I'm becoming forgetful in my age, but he's doesn't know what he's talking about." She glanced over to the brother that she was talking too, who evidently didn't find this amusing. He frowned at Torrent and gave him an icy glare.

Torrent awkwardly turned away from the MudWing prince, unsure of the context here. He wondered how old Moorhen was, but didn't bother to ask, not wanting to appear rude. She was one of the oldest queens in Pyrrhia, the oldest if one didn't count the NightWings or RainWings, and no one really knew how old their queens were. Had she known Coral's grandmother? Or even her great-grandmother?

"Ah, yes," Moorhen continued. "You wanted some scrolls on animus dragons, correct? I found a number in our library that might be of interest to you. Unfortunately, we couldn't bring them into the Summer Palace, or else they would have gotten soaked in the tunnels. They're currently being kept on another island. Our royal librarian, Mallard, can bring you there; she's sleeping two caves down the tunnel. Is that alright?"

Torrent was surprised. It sounded like Moorhen had put together a lot of effort for him. He hadn't expected her to do that.

"Oh, one more thing," Moorhen said. "In exchange for sharing some of our scrolls, Mallard wanted to see some of yours. She said that she wanted some particularly on SeaWing chemistry. Does that work for you?"

Torrent nodded. He could ask Orca if she could get some of those from the Deep Palace. Hopefully, Coral or Gill wouldn't mind if she went back quickly, maybe they wouldn't even notice her missing. "Thank you, Your Majesty," he said in gratitude.

"It's no problem," Queen Moorhen replied, waving a claw aside.

Torrent left the room. Maybe, just maybe, this would work, and the scrolls would contain a way to save Orca. He could only hope.

Torrent slowly knocked on the door to Mallard's cave. Orca was behind him, carrying the scrolls Mallard had wanted. "Come in," a voice sounded from inside.

A small, burnt-orange MudWing was inside the room. She wasn't a dragonet, but was just smaller than Torrent. She looked up at the visitors. "What is it?" she demanded.

"Mallard, right?" Torrent asked. Mallard didn't respond, but just continued to look at him expectantly. "Queen Moorhen told us you could take us to the scrolls you had gotten."

Mallard nodded, then caught sight of the scrolls Orca was carrying. She quickly got up, and walked over to the SeaWing princess, then grabbed one of them. She looked it over, dragging her claws along the waterproof film. "Wow," Mallard said, admiring the waxy film as she turned the scroll from side to side, allowing it to reflect in the torchlight. "So that's how you keep them intact down in the Deep Palace? Ingenious."

She opened up the scroll, and the bottom of it hit the floor with a clatter. The MudWing quickly looked down the scroll. "Good, good," she muttered. She looked back at the two patient SeaWings. "You wanted your animus scrolls, right? Let me take you to them."

Mallard led the two SeaWings to the exit of the Summer Palace, where two SeaWing guards waited. One of them offered a blindfold to Mallard, and she took it with a glare and a hiss. "Is this really necessary?" she asked Orca.

"It is," Orca nodded with a bit of a sigh. "You can take it off after we're clear of the palace."

Mallard snorted and wrapped the cloth around her eyes, nestling it up against the back of her snout. "Do you SeaWings really need two secret palaces?"

Orca didn't answer, and pushed Mallard into the water. Currently, renovations were underway to make the swim more accessible to dragons who couldn't breath underwater, particularly for Princess Blister. When SandWings wanted to go into the palace, they needed to bring a large sack of air with them in order to swim the entire length without drowning. To fix this issue, holes were being made in the tunnel roof so that a bubble of air could be placed there, allowing dragons to surface, but the air would have to be continuously replaced, which might prove troublesome. Fortunately for Mallard and the rest of the MudWings, they could easily hold their breaths long enough to make it through the tunnel without surfacing.

The flight to the island was long, and Mallard's company only made it feel longer. For a librarian, Mallard was talkative. She clambered on and on about the libraries in the Mud Kingdom, and how good they were compared to the SeaWing libraries. Orca tried to get her to switch subjects to animus dragons once, hoping Mallard could tell her something useful, but the librarian quickly turned back to bragging about her scroll collection.

A few MudWings were waiting at the island expectantly when the three arrived. As soon as Mallard, Orca, and Torrent touched down, they were given a large pile of scrolls. "You better read these quickly," Mallard commented, "this might be your only chance to see them."

Orca nodded. She had known that she would be unable to take them back to the Summer Palace, and had brought a long, blank scratchable scroll so that she and Torrent could take notes. While they started reading through their own scrolls, Mallard and the other MudWings read through the ones Orca had brought, copying them down as fast as possible.

By the time the two were done with the scrolls, the sun had almost set beneath the horizon. They had found nothing. Some interesting legends they hadn't heard before, and a fair amount of completely useless information on the animus Queen Fen, but nothing telling them how to stop an animus from losing their soul. Hopeless. Orca glared at the scroll that she and Torrent had been taking notes on. She wanted to tear it up in anger.

Torrent looked at Orca as if his eyes were trying to tell her that he was sorry. "Maybe there are more scrolls in the Sand Kingdom?" he asked, trying to inspire some hope.

Orca hissed at her brother. "There aren't," she hissed. "This was a stupid plan, and just a waste of time. Sunscorcher was right, there's no way to stop it." Orca threw the scroll of notes onto the sand, then dove into the ocean. Within a few minutes, she was gone.

Torrent watched his sister leave, and packed the scroll of notes into the scrollcase Orca had brought with her, the one where the map they had used to find Sunscorcher was kept. Orca was right, this had all been a waste of time. He should have known that it was too much to hope for. He had been useless.

"Your sister left?" Mallard asked Torrent. He turned around in surprise. He hadn't realized she was still there. Had she heard anything they'd just said?

Mallard glanced at the setting sun. "It's about time," she continued. "I'm done with my scrolls. Hope you're finished with yours, 'cause we're heading back to your palace now."

Torrent nodded, and with the MudWing librarian flying behind him, took flight, just as the sun had dipped below the horizon, and dusk had finally begun.

Blister walked into the Summer Palace, two SeaWings and two SandWings behind her. She was a day early, just as she had planned. A few SeaWings wading in the large lake in the palace center stared at the SandWing in shock. The whole palace grew quiet.

"Bring me Coral," Blister hissed at an unsuspecting SeaWing. The SeaWing, unsure what to do, froze in place as Blister glared.

Fortunately for the SeaWing, she was soon let off the hook. Queen Coral flew down from one of the great pavilions, landing in front of Blister. Gill followed closely behind her.

"Queen Blister, what is it?" Coral asked.

"I came here as fast as I could," Blister said, her head held low. Coral looked with concern. "It's RIft," Blister continued. "One of Scarlet's generals attacked him, and slit his throat in the fight."

"What?" a voice yelled. "Rift is dead? Rift?" Angler flew down to the dragons standing there, shaking in anger.

Blister nodded gravely. "My condolences."

"How?" Angler hissed, staring at Blister as if he wanted to rip her throat out.

"It was a sneak attack in the middle of the night," Blister replied, grimacing. "They set our camp on fire. The SkyWing general came straight for me, but Rift bravely flew in the way, and faced the general one on one. Your brother fought bravely, but the SkyWing won. I made sure that his death was well avenged, but the attack order came from a higher-up, Queen Scarlet herself, certainly. Those SkyWings are far too cowardly to face us on a fair battlefield." At this point, Blister's grimace had transformed to an almost angry growl, just on the verge of showing emotion.

Gill was still in shock. Rift had been killed? His son, Rift, was gone?

"We're leaving the war," Gill said suddenly. "You can fight this awful travesty with the MudWings, alone."

Blister frowned. "Leaving?" she asked. The SandWing princess turned to Coral for an answer.

Coral thought for a moment, then turned to her mate. "We really shouldn't be too hasty," she said. "You know as well as I do that leaving the war at this point could have serious consequences for all of Pyrrhia, not just our own kingdom."

"What?" Gill roared, slapping his tail on the ground in anger. The SeaWings in the pool started to form a small crowd around the royalty. "Do you just not care that Rift died? How many others will lose their children in the war if we continue? Who do you think will be next? Tempest? Shark? Orca? Me?"

"If we continue," Blister interrupted, talking directly to Coral, "Rift's death won't be in vain. We will make the SkyWings pay dearly for his life; I'll order a hundred of our prisoners executed for him, and we'll drop their heads on Scarlet's ghoulish arena, with your son's name written upon their skulls in blood. Every one of us they kill, we'll kill ten more of theirs." Blister slowly swished her barbed tail back and forth.

"Quiet!" Queen Coral hissed at the SandWing princess, moving her jaws so close to Blister's that Coral could bite off Blister's snout if she so wish. The SandWing princess scuttled back in alarm, and just barely managed to avoid instinctively twisting her tail into an attacking position.

"I don't care for your petty revenge on the SkyWings, Blister," Queen Coral continued, leaving off the royal title Blister preferred. "Don't think I'm so stupid that I can't tell what you're trying to do." Blister looked at the SeaWing queen, feigning confusion.

Queen Coral turned to her mate. "And I do care that Rift died, but I'm the queen to my tribe before a mother and mate. It's too late for us to leave the war now: all we can hope is that it will end quickly, and in our favor. If you want another son, we can make one, or two, or fifty more for all I care."

Gill stood, trembling in a furious anger. For a moment, it looked like he was going to lash out at Coral, but he did not. "Angler, we're leaving," he hissed. He turned around, and along with his eldest son, dove into the lake. The other SeaWings kept far away as the two swam past.

A whisper of a smirk appeared on Blister's snout, just before Queen Coral's claws swept it away, leaving behind a trail of blood. The two SandWing guards quickly readied their barbed tails, and ran towards their queen, attempting to wade through the water. In return, around ten SeaWings, maybe more, surrounded them, jumping out of the artificial pool and blocking their paths. More SeaWings moved between Blister and Queen Coral, ready to lay down their lives in order to protect their queen from any incoming attacks by Blister's barb.

Blister glared at the SeaWing queen in anger, but motioned her guards down. They lowered their barbs, and Blister made sure to keep hers tucked away and non-threatening. She placed her talons against her bleeding face, wiping away the blood. Her honor might have been offended, but Blister knew that any attempts to restore it through physical threats would end very, very poorly for her and her alliance. Hearing the commotion, Queen Moorhen poked a head out of her cave, but quickly tucked it back inside after seeing the scene.

"Do not think that just because my troops are fighting with yours, to help you get your throne, that I will forgive you for what happened to my son, and that you will not pay for allowing it to happen. I am not the easily manipulated fool that you would like to think I am. Leave the Summer Palace, and return to whatever barren, sandy wasteland you came from. We will discuss war-plans at a later date."

Blister nodded with a straight face, keeping her pride as locked away as her barb. Grief was a powerful force, and could tear down even the strongest of queens. Queen Coral might have won this battle, but Blister would still yet win this war, and the next.