Griffin stepped over towards Schist, shaking. He looked down at the young MudWing, half of his scales melted into his flesh. He was still alive, his gnarled chest slowly expanding and contracting, but Griffin doesn't know for how much longer.

Torrent turned his gaze towards Griffin, and attempted to get up and walk over to him. Torrent managed to hoist his body up, but fell again, the pain of the raw seared flesh too much. "What's wrong?" he asked Griffin, unable to see Schist's body. "Where's Schist?"
"Over here," Griffin murmured, holding back tears. "He ran into the SkyWing in order to save you, but got horribly burnt. He's not going to make it."

Torrent was silent for a moment. "No, no, he's got to make it. It can't be that bad, right? We can turn ourselves over to the SkyWings in exchange for medical care, three moons, I'm a prince, they won't refuse us."

Griffin shook his head. "I don't think he could make it outside of the cave, much less to Queen Scarlet's palace."

Torrent roared in frustration, and attempted to lift himself up again, but failed. "This is all my fault," he groaned. "I shouldn't have brought him with us, I shouldn't have gone after the moon-damned SkyWing, I should have just told Glen that he needed to stay with her, and now he's dead, all because of me." He put his claws over his face in shame.

"STOP MAKING EVERYTHING ALL ABOUT YOU!" Griffin squawked in anger, his breathing fast. "Schist is the one who's dying, not you!"

Crystal walked over to Schist, and looked down at him, frowning. She rubbed the Darkstone around her neck between her claws. "I might be able to save him," Crystal whispered.

"What?" asked Griffin in surprise, whipping his head around to Crystal. "If you plan on using your frostbreath on him, that's just going to make things worse. It's hopeless."

She shook her head, and dangled the Darkstone from her talons. The dark purple stone swayed back and forth. "I might have lied a little when I told you when Queen Glacier had taken this from my sister. My father, a scientist named Boreal, created it in our laboratories."

"A rock?" Torrent hissed. "It's not enchanted, I've already checked. What are you going to do, pray to your 'Great Ice Dragon' with it for Schist to be 'miraculously' healed?"

Crystal glared at Torrent. "No. The IceWings used to have animus magic, many, many years ago, passed down through the royal family. In order to make sure our ani — "

"You're worse than Whirlpool," Torrent growled, "We know the history, I've read the scrolls. Prince Arctic was kidnapped, Darkstalker killed him, and you ran out of your precious magical monsters."

Crystal remained calm. "Yes. And for the last two millennia, the IceWing queens have attempted, to no success, to get animus magic, until Boreal, then a simple miner, found an unusual mineral after a cave-in that he hadn't ever seen before. While trapped down there, waiting for help, he did a few tests, and discovered that it killed insects."

Torrent seethed. "So it's a pesticide? You want to save Schist's life by killing a few bugs?"

"Let me finish," Crystal hissed. "When Boreal was eventually rescued, he was able to isolate what caused the mineral to act as a pesticide, a small speck of what we call 'Darkstone,' distributed throughout the mineral. Not only that, but he discovered that it . . . changes IceWing flesh, and presumably the flesh of other dragons. It allowed the flesh to gain a . . . quality that we believe is the cause of animus powers." There was a much more technical explanation of how it caused rapid demethylation, but Crystal didn't have enough time to explain, and she doubted anyone else would be interested.

"Over the last five years, we've been able to isolate and purify enough of the Darkstone to create what I have in my talons," Crystal continued. "If it works as it's supposed to, I might have falsetto animus powers. I could enchant something to heal Schist."

Torrent hesitated for a moment. More animus magic? "No!" he exclaimed. "If it works like real animus magic, it means that you'll lose your soul. You see that SkyWing?" He pointed a talon to the SkyWing, encased in stone. "That's who you'll be like, even if it works."

"What?" Griffin hissed at Torrent. "Orca certainly used more than a healing spell, and we don't even know if she lost her soul. Same with Adobe, and Sunscorcher, and the SkyWing; you saw all those gold coins, I'm sure they all used their magic to the maximum. It's just one spell, to save Schist's life, and then she can destroy it."

"Animus magic is pure evil, and she needs to destroy that thing as soon as possible," Torrent hissed. "I'm not letting her use it."

"Pure evil?" Griffin screeched. "Then what does that make me? You don't get a say in the matter, anyways, it's Crystal's choice. I say Crystal does it." He looked towards Crystal in hope.

Crystal nodded. "I'll try," she said. She looked down at the pile of gold and gemstone covering the SkyWing's cave, and dragged her talons through a small collection of diamonds. She picked up a small clear diamond next to an octahedral shaped green one. She eyed it for a moment in apprehension. While she had mentioned what Darkstone could do in theory, at least from her work in the lab, there had been some nasty . . . side effects on animal test subjects, radiation burns and tissue destabilization among them. She put those thoughts out of her mind.

Holding the Darkstone in one talon, and the diamond in the other. Torrent tried to get up to stop her, but fall back over, clutching his neck in agony. Crystal took in a deep breath. "I enchant this diamond to heal anyone it touches."

Suddenly, a wave of nausea and fatigue washed over Crystal. All her muscles seemed to loosen up, unable to keep herself on four legs. Her head went dizzy, and she fell to the ground, her skull hitting the rocks below with a hard bump. Torrent's heart slowed to a stop as he saw her fall. This was like what happened when Orca had enchanted Griffin.

Griffin walked over to Crystal's unconscious body, stepping carefully around her wings. He picked up the diamond, which had fallen from her claws onto the stone floor. After staring at it for a moment, he walked over to Schist, climbing over the piles of gold to get to the young MudWing.

Griffin closed his eyes, and hoped for the best. He placed the diamond on the mess of Schist's melted flesh and scales, and waited.