The sun peeked over the tips of the Claws of the Clouds, blinding Griffin's eyes as morning approached. The brisk mountain air entered his airways, whipping around his feathered wings. Far below, Griffin saw tall trees poking up from the valleys between the mountains like twigs. As his eyes raised up the mountain, the trees dwindled off before cutting off at the tree-line. In front of Griffin were the twin peaks of Jade Mountain, fresh sunlight glinting off its snow-topped cap. Not far beyond it was Agate Mountain — long, long ago, the tallest mountain in Pyrrhia, before an earthquake brought it down, rendering Jade Mountain the greatest.
Yet, being second place made it no less formidable. A large portion of the mountain, including what had once been the peak, had slid off during the ancient earthquake, and the wounds were still visible. A huge chunk of the rock appeared to be displaced to the side of the mountain, and what was once the tallest spot in Pyrrhia now reached only halfway up the current Agate Mountain, the new peak just barely covered by wispy clouds. A shear surface stretched from the new peak to the old, covered by a smooth blanket of snow so blindingly white Griffin had to turn away.
A large valley snaked between Agate Mountain and the nearest peaks, twisting between crags and cliffs. Melting snow ran down the sides of Agate Mountain, creating waterfalls that bounced along the mountainside until they hit the valley beneath. Instead of the stark barrenness of the mountain, the valley was filled with stripes and spots of green grasses and tall, narrow trees.
Torrent and Crystal fluttered downwards, and Griffin followed cautiously. The three landed on the edge of a jagged cliff, lower than the tree line and snow, but on the edge of the valley, too far up for the trees to form more than a sparse coating. Rocks jutted out from the cliffside beneath the three, and the valley floor below was covered with a canopy of trees so dense Griffin couldn't make out the ground. Above the three stood the new peak of Agate Mountain, towering above.
When Griffin touched down, it took a moment for him to gain his balance — his claws didn't seem to want to stick to the coating of pebbles and small rocks, crawling between his talons. He stepped over towards Crystal and Torrent, looking up at the two dragons. Crystal gave him a glare of suspicion, and Griffin winced. Maybe he should have gone with Schist.
"The animus has to be here," Torrent growled in annoyance. He held out his map, rolling it open between his front claws while sitting on his haunches. A greyish blotch appeared where Agate Mountain would be, indicating an animus.
"They're probably in a cave somewhere," Crystal suggested, "this place looks like it's dotted with them." She looked around the surroundings. True enough to her word, various crannies were nestled in the mountain. An hiding dragon could be in any one of them.
"Or they could be living in the valley below," Torrent replied, "the forest could easily hide a small hut for a dragon to live in."
"We shouldn't go after them if they're hiding," Griffin mumbled, knowing he wouldn't convince Torrent with it. He just received a cold glare from Crystal in response, and silence from Torrent. Without Schist to back him up, what could Griffin do?
Torrent brought out his dagger and placed a talon on the amethyst. It glowed warm as he pointed it towards Griffin. He rotated it around the area, trying to detect a source of heat other than the obvious ones. Torrent ended up with his dagger pointed up and towards the west, to the slope of the mountain near the old, forgotten peak of Agate Mountain, covered by ice and snow. He couldn't see any caves in that direction, though it was possible that the snow had covered them.
"That way," Torrent stated, already preparing to fly again. After spending a winter in the northernmost steppe of the Claws of the Clouds, a bit of high altitudes and snow was little problem to him, even if SeaWings were designed for the deep depths of the ocean.
Torrent sighed a little, thinking about the depths of the Sea Kingdom, his home. The cold salty water seemed so peaceful, and swimming was so much more comfortable than flying and walking. Above water, he had to exert so much more effort to stay aloft, or even just stand upright, but underwater, he could just float when there wasn't a current. Yet, he didn't know if he'd be able to live there again. Torrent doubted there was any place in the Deep Palace for him anymore. Orca, Rift, and River were all dead. Coral wouldn't care, and Gill might not even want him back.
While the four were flying along the Mud Kingdom border, Torrent had gone into a town and asked for news from the Sea Kingdom, against Crystal's advice of caution. The eggs that Coral had laid before Torrent's departure had been destroyed during the duel with Orca. Angler had supposedly become so reclusive there were rumors he was dead and Queen Coral was just too embarrassed to announce yet another one of her dragonet's deaths. Coral and Gill had effectively lost all their dragonets. But apparently there were new dragonets in the Deep Palace to replace him and his late siblings' places.
Even if Gill accepted him back, Torrent only had one working gill, and hadn't yet tried any sort of deep swimming. Still, his injuries from Magma's were nothing compared to Schist's. Torrent glanced backwards quickly, expecting the MudWing to be there. He wasn't, of course. Schist was gone, and what Torrent had done was irreversible. At the moment, he would be returning back to the Mud Kingdom, probably back to his sister Glen, his one remaining sib.
Torrent took off towards the old peak, Crystal and Griffin trailing behind him. A brisk wind pushed against him as he gained altitude, snow flying into his snout, but he continued on, anxious to find his quarry. As Torrent prepared to land, a sudden gust flung the SeaWing into the snow beneath, causing a dragon-sized indentation to crumple beneath him. He climbed out as Crystal and Griffin landed, making light imprints with their claws and talons. The tips of Crystal's tail spikes dragged along the snow as she walked up to him.
"I don't see anything," she observed, "maybe the animus's cave got buried beneath the snow, and they got trapped inside."
"No," Torrent grumbled, shaking snow from his wings, "that's unlikely. They could have used their magic to dig their way out."
"What if they don't use their magic?" Griffin proposed.
Torrent shook his head again. "They probably would have starved by now if they didn't."
"The animus could be an IceWing or SandWing, we don't have to eat as often as you SeaWings," Crystal pointed out. Still, Crystal doubted her own words, IceWings hadn't had an animus in thousands of years. It was why Queen Glacier wanted the Darkstone so much. She supposed it was possible that animus magic could've been bred in from another tribe, or a line of animus IceWings had just evaded the queens' eyes.
"Maybe," Torrent murmured uncertainty. Using his dagger to sense the location of the magic again, he ended up pointing it into the snow. After resheathing it, the SeaWing spread open his webbed paws, and planted his wings and hind-legs firmly into the ground, using his thick tail for balance. He made a sort of swimming motion with his paws, and started digging into the snow, flinging a chunk behind him, narrowly missing Crystal.
"You're digging?" Crystal asked. It seemed futile. Maybe if there was a cave beneath that had been open to the air recently, it could just be packed snow they had to get through. But if there wasn't, and this snow was more permanent, it could just be ice and glacier, and she didn't think they'd be able to dig through that so easily. But it wasn't like a SeaWing would know much about that.
Even with her doubts, Crystal stepped around Torrent, and did the same, grabbing hunks of snow with her talons. Within a few moments, they'd created a small hole. More snow started to fall from the wall, causing the walls of the pit continuously collapsed inwards.
Torrent gave a quick glance back to Griffin, who was quietly watching the two. The snow was falling on his feathers. He shook his wings, causing a white dusting to fall from him.
"Are you going to help?" Torrent asked, trying not to sound too demanding.
"I'm too small," Griffin cautiously replied, "I'd just get in the way." The hidden meaning of Griffin's words easily passed between the two unsibs. He didn't want to help Torrent after what happened with Schist and the RainWing dragonet.
Torrent accepted the answer with a grunt, turning back to the pit in the snow he and Crystal were creating. They continued their attempt at digging while the snow started to let up, and the clouds cleared. As the sun traveled across the sky, the crescent of a small moon trailing behind it, the SeaWing and IceWing continued. Towards the end of the day, when the sun was partway to its descent on the horizon, the two had carved out a large hole within the snow, but still just a blemish on the side of the mountain. By this point, the snow was packed, and each stroke downwards had gotten more difficult.
"I don't think we're going to dig our way through this," Crystal finally conceded, climbing out of the pit.
"It can't be much further," Torrent protested, still trying to dig into the snow.
Crystal shook her head. "No, I mean I don't think we can. It's almost summertime. This snow must be here year-round, and if it is, it'll be too packed beneath to dig through it. If there's an animus trapped beneath, we can't get to them this way."
Torrent sighed in frustration. He stopped digging, and stepped out of the pit, his webbing acting like snowshoes. Stupid snow.
"If they're in a cave, there might be other caves that connect inside of the mountain. We should look for another entrance," Crystal suggested.
"It's getting late anyways," Griffin yawned. He had been playing with the snow as Crystal and Torrent were digging, and had built a few misshapen sculptures from it. Torrent noticed a group of four winged snow piles, one of them smaller than the rest. Squinting at them, it looked a bit like Griffin had made resemblances of Torrent, Crystal, Schist, and himself.
"Fine," Torrent agreed, "let's fly around the mountain and look for entrances."
The first cave on Agate Mountain didn't seem to hold anything for the three. It was a small indentation in the side of the mountain, running in a diagonal, and it was already occupied by a young grizzly bear. Griffin gulped a little when he saw it. It wasn't that much smaller than himself, and it had the anger and ferocity of a wild creature. He wouldn't want to run into one of those by himself.
Fortunately, Crystal had gained plenty of experience with bears in the Ice Kingdom, and dwarfed the ursine. She roared at it and flared her wings in defense, causing it to quickly scamper off. It was smart enough to know that it would certainly lose a fight against a dragon almost twice its standing height.
"Just open your wings wide and roar if you see one," Crystal explained to Torrent, "unless it has cubs, it'll run off. They taste alright, too, if you're hungry, but can be a hassle to take down."
Torrent nodded, and poked his head into the cave. It was barely large enough for him to fit into, and didn't look like it led anywhere. Just a crevasse in the mountainside. He snorted in annoyance, and the three continued on.
After a few more dead ends, the sun was setting low in the sky. The three had reached a larger cave, this one reaching far enough into the mountain that the three could comfortably fit on the sloped surface, but with still no luck. Griffin glanced up at the sky. The sun was on the horizon, with the crescent moon above it hidden by a cloud. Another moon was starting to peak over the east. "We should sleep now," he yawned.
"I'm good," Torrent growled, pacing back and forth around the back of the cave, "I've got nightvision, I can see in the dark. Maybe that's what happens! The animus only comes out in the dark, so I could catch them while it's night."
Griffin closed his eyes, exhausted. "Fine," he grumbled, "suit yourself."
Crystal rolled her eyes. Her wings and claws were sore from the flying and digging she had done. "You need to sleep," she ordered Torrent, dragging her tail on the ground, "we've been up since long before dawn. The animus can wait, they're not going to end the world just because we waited another day."
Torrent opened his mouth to protest, but decided better. He was tired, and his vision was getting blurry. He needed to sleep, maybe a clear head would help him find the animus better tomorrow. "Okay," he yawned. He glanced around the cave. The surface was sloped, so it wouldn't be comfortable, but it would do.
The SeaWing stepped to one edge of the cave and lied down, putting his head at the top of the slope and letting his tail stretch out to the other side. He stretched his wings out, and placed his dagger sheath to the side. Crystal did the same, lying next to Torrent, on the opposite side as Griffin. Gentle moonlight from one of the full moons poked through the cave entrance, casting a silver glow over the three sleeping, glinting off the Darkstone around Crystal's neck.
Griffin woke to a damp gust of air from the cave entrance. Frigid water brushed against his feathers. He opened an eye, and looked out the entrance. Rain was falling outside, causing the sky to take on a dark-grey tone. Further up on the mountain, where the three had spent the previous day, it would be cold enough to snow. A hint of the sun peeked through the cloud cover, showing Griffin that it was close to midday already.
"You're awake," Crystal commented, her voice cold as dripping icicles.
Griffin turned around. Crystal was on her haunches, tearing at a piece of meat from their packs. The Darkstone swung back and forth from the silver chain around her neck. She didn't look well-rested, and her eyes were sunken. Torrent was nowhere to be seen, his dagger gone with him.
"He left early this morning, before dawn," Crystal grumbled, seeing Griffin looking at the empty space where the SeaWing had slept. "Woke me up, too." She didn't seem to happy about it.
"Why didn't you stop him?" Griffin exclaimed in worry. Torrent could be anywhere right now! Maybe he was flying south to Jade Mountain? Or east again, to the Sea Kingdom? Or maybe he'd gone into the desert, Griffin thought he remembered seeing a few more blotches there.
"Why would I stop him?" Crystal snorted, confused. She thought for a moment, then laughed. "He's just checking the mountain for more caves or crevasses. Might as well start early, there are plenty of them to search. SeaWings don't seem to mind the rain much either."
Griffin gave her a glare, then turned back to the cave entrance. Another gust of wind splattered against his feathers, lifting them up. He turned back at the IceWing, meeting her eyes in an intense staredown. A few moments passed.
"What?" Crystal exclaimed in frustration. "You want to talk? Fine, let's talk." She swished her tail back and forth, the spikes on it scratching the rock.
Griffin hissed, the feathers on the back of his neck fluffing up slightly. "The dragonet. You told Torrent to kill him in the rainforest."
"So?" Crystal asked. "He's the one who made the choice to do it! I didn't force him to do anything."
"So what?" Griffin snapped, his talons clenching. "You put the idea in his head, you turned my friend into a monster."
"A monster?" Crystal snorted. "Please. He killed a dragonet. That's hardly worthy of being a monster. Princess Burn practically eats dragonets for breakfast."
"And you think that makes it right?" Griffin squawked. "Burn is possibly the worst dragon alive today!"
"Well, I'm sorry," Crystal spat. She took a deep breath, calming herself a tad. "Really, I am. Maybe killing a dragonet wasn't the right thing to do, but it's done, and Pyrrhia has one less dangerous animus for it."
"Do you really believe that?" Griffin exclaimed. "That a dragon should be murdered for some powers they were born with? Or do you have some ulterior motive?"
"What?" Crystal protested, her claws clenching up. She pushed aside the thought of Calamity, and how she'd met with him the last three nights. She wanted to tell Griffin, to make him understand why they had to have killed the dragonet, but would he even have believed her at this point? And Calamity had explicitly told her not to tell Griffin.
"I don't!" Crystal claimed. "I've been completely honest with you about the Darkstone!"
"Really?" Griffin asked. "I remember what you told us about it when we first found you. I trusted you!"
"That was different. Do you really think I would tell two random dragons and a gryphon I just met about a potential superweapon?" she defended. "Why did you come with Torrent and I anyways? You should have gone after Schist!"
"Maybe I should have!" Griffin snapped. "But I'm not letting you exert your influence on Torrent!"
Crystal huffing in frustration. "You think that's what this is about? You think I'm trying to make Torrent evil so we can go around Pyrrhia murdering dragonets? I'm trying to help him save Pyrrhia." She gritted her teeth, and snorted. "I don't need this."
She stormed to the entrance of the cave, forcing Griffin to step out of the way so to avoid being trampled. The IceWing stepped into the downpour, droplets of rain beating down on her, and spread her wings, quickly taking off in the storm. Griffin glared after her, his enchanted heart beating. This wouldn't be the last of this.
Wind and snow circled around Torrent as he tried to cover his head beneath his wings. Even still, the snowstorm beat down on him, particles of frozen water being flinging into his snout. He could barely see through the snow as he climbed up the old peak of Agate Mountain. Somewhere further away, too far for him to see in the blinding snow, was the new peak, exposed after the earthquake thousands of years ago and the old peak slid off the mountain.
An appropriate place for an animus to live, Torrent thought. According to some legends, Agate Mountain had been brought down by the animus Darkstalker himself in his rage. Apparently the IceWings called it Darkstalker's Talon for that reason. Or was it Darkstalker's Fang? Torrent couldn't remember. Once the largest mountain in Pyrrhia, Agate Mountain now served as a stark symbol of the power of an animus. A single dragon could level an entire mountain just by an utterance. The right spell could reshape all of Pyrrhia, or even destroy it.
Torrent stepped to a cap, trying to make sense of his surroundings. There was no place higher up for him to step to, and he thought that he hadn't landed far from the old peak, so maybe this was the place. The roaring wind whipped around him, pushing him too and fro. His snow-covered webbed paws were freezing. He shook the snow off one, and pulled his dagger from its sheath.
As snow and wind slammed into the SeaWing, Torrent placed a talon on the amethyst. The winds screamed, almost as if in protest. He made the now familiar motion, moving the dagger around in a circle. He felt the presence of Griffin and his map in the distance, a faint heat from the gem, but that wasn't what he was looking for. He continued to rotate it around, but couldn't seem to find anything else.
Torrent roared in frustration, bringing his paw down. As his webbed paw dropped, the dagger went with it, accidentally scratching between his scales. He gritted his teeth in pain. It had made a small nik, and droplets of red blood stained the snow, though it was quickly torn away with the wind and replaced with new, clean snow.
As the dagger pointed downwards, the amethyst got slightly warmer. Torrent's eyes perked up, and the SeaWing kept moving it until it reached its nadir. The dagger pointed directly down, straight into the heart of the old mountain. The amethyst was warm. He closed his eyes in frustration. The animus he was looking for had probably hid themselves beneath the old peak, where Torrent could never get to them. But what could he do but try?