The first rays of the sun peeked through the cave, glancing off Griffin's eyes. He opened them. The cave was cold and had a slight damp feel to it, although it might have just been the early morning humidity. Yesterday had gone bad. That was for certain. Maybe he should apologize. He wasn't sure if it would make a difference. Griffin shut his eyes tight and nestled his beak into his feathers. He was still tired.
Loud pawsteps sounded behind him, and suddenly, webbed paws shook him awake. He peeked up to see Torrent standing over him, anxious. Griffin pushed the SeaWing's cold scales off his feathers.
"Have you seen Crystal?" Torrent asked worriedly. He glanced around the surroundings, as if he was expecting her to be hidden against a wall like a RainWing.
"No," Griffin said with a yawn, "maybe she just went out for an early flight?"
"She took our egg," Torrent pressed in alarm. Griffin frowned. That seemed unusual.
Torrent trotted to the side of the cavern wall, poking through some of the food and supplies they held. Griffin crept to his paws, and peered around the SeaWing. "What are you looking for?" he asked.
"Crystal's stuff," Torrent gulped, "it's missing. Same with my dagger."
Griffin thought for a moment, still a bit zoned out from being asleep. "Wait, she left?" he asked.
"Yes!" Torrent roared angrily. "She left, and I don't know where she went!"
Griffin took a step back, alarmed by Torrent's outburst. "Maybe she went down into the caves again? If she took your dagger, she might be trying to kill Darkstalker." He glanced down to the ledge, leading further down.
Torrent shook his head. "And she took our egg with her? This is all your fault!" he turned to Griffin with a hiss. "You threatened our dragonet, and now she left to keep it safe!"
"I didn't mean it!" Griffin protested defensively, taking another step back. "It was a hypothetical, that was all! I don't kill dragonets, that's what you do."
Torrent curled his webbed claws, and growled. "You should have never come back," he spat. "You were gone for almost a year. You had no right to judge us, and now look what happened!"
"I'm sorry, alright?" Griffin squawked back. His talons shook a little. "I shouldn't have said what I did." He sniffed a little.
Torrent gave him a furious glare, and tensed up. He turned away without replying, and started towards the cave. "I'm going to try and find her," he muttered. "If she didn't leave too long ago, she can't be too far. Maybe she's nearby, and I can clear this whole misunderstanding up."
Griffin started after Torrent, but received a fierce glower from the SeaWing. "I can help find her," Griffin suggested, "please, let me try and fix this."
"No!" Torrent snarled. "This is all your fault. If you had just shut your beak and not threatened us, this wouldn't have happened! You think she'll be glad to see you?"
Griffin sighed, and looked down. This really was his fault, all of it. He let Torrent go, and glanced to the back of the caves. What had he done? Crystal hadn't done anything wrong, and he had started to make baseless accusations against her. He had been an awful friend to Crystal, and an even worse brother to Torrent. Maybe Schist was right for rejecting him.
Torrent stepped out from the cave entrance. It wasn't raining, but the day was gloomy, and a thin layer of fog had fallen. "Crystal!" he roared, hoping she'd respond. Maybe she had just gone to one of the other caves nearby? It was hopeful, but he received no answer. "Crystal!"
Torrent spread his wings wide, and took flight. He flew upwards, alongside the side of the mountain, continuing to call out Crystal's name. He looked around, but even the thin fog made it difficult for him to see far from this point. He continued onwards, flying through the cloud layer beneath the mountain's peak. Droplets of water stuck to his scales and wings as he blindly flew through the clouds, dripping past them and making the SeaWing damp.
He burst through the clouds, seeing Agate Mountain in all its glory. It was cold up here, almost uncomfortably so, and the thin air made it more difficult to breath. He looked around, through the few holes in the clouds beneath. No sign of a flying IceWing. "Crystal!" he roared again, unsure if it would be much use. Where could she have flown? The Rainforest? The Great Five-Tail River? Jade Mountain? The Sand Kingdom?
A cold gust of wind pushed against the SeaWing, the water droplets on his scale freezing into shards of ice. He brushed them off with his frontpaws as he soared in circles above the mountain peak, scanning for anywhere he might have missed, but still no sign of a light-blue IceWing. Wherever Crystal was, it wasn't here.
On the other side of Pyrrhia, an IceWing flew through blasts of snow, almost rendering her blind. She pulled her egg close to her, huddling it against her scales, making sure her hybrid dragonet wouldn't slip into the maelstrom of ice and snow below. It had been weeks of straight flying, and her wings ached, but her end goal was finally within sight. She was in the southern Ice Kingdom, not far from the mines where her father, Boreal, had once stumbled upon the rocks that now formed the Darkstone around her neck.
Crystal touched to the ground, the vicious wind slamming her against the snow. She curled around her and Torrent's egg, using her wings and falling on her back to cushion it. As she got up from the dragon-shaped impression in the snow, quickly being refilled by the blizzard, she held her egg in one paw, and used the other to check the pouch at her side. Inside was the map she had received from her sister so long ago, the small diamond she'd enchanted to heal Schist, and Torrent's dagger, cutting against the side of the pouch, trying to free itself and return to its owner. She lifted it out, and carefully held it. It tugged against her claws.
Placing her egg down between her hind legs, she used one of her forepaws to hold the dagger, and placed three talons of her other forepaw around the small black pearl inlaid in the hilt. The one which would turn animus dragons to stone. Her memory harked back to the NightWing hybrid who had told her fortune. A statue of me, in a room of clear ice.
She now thought she knew what the room of clear ice was, she had seen it in her dreams. It was where Calamity resided. She had last seen him two months ago, where he had warned her that Griffin would be a threat to her. She hadn't listened at the time, but now, she was sure. The pearl on Torrent's dagger could turn animus dragons into stone, and if Griffin was right, and she was somewhat of an animus now, or would be, that meant her. That was what the hybrid had seen, her corpse, turned to stone. Well, that wouldn't happen. Her fate wouldn't be set in stone.
Crystal twisted her talons hard, pressing into the hilt of the dagger. For a moment, she thought her claws would break first, but suddenly, the pearl came out with a pop. She clutched it, letting the dagger fall to the ground. It started to move on its own, returning to its SeaWing owner. She let it go. She didn't need it.
The IceWing dropped the pearl into her pouch, and picked up her egg, brushing off the snow. She continued forward, into the storm. The winds tried to throw her to the side, but she stood strong, not relenting from her path.
Suddenly, she saw a figure in the distance, a spherical black eye watching her, but within seconds, it receded into the storm. "Hello?" she called. She received no answer. She extended her talons, but still continued forward.
Eventually, she reached her target. Seven stone pillars rose above her, with a large building, coated in ice, behind them. Here, the storm seemed to recede, unable to penetrate around the building. A sculpture of a dragon stood atop each pillar, greeting Crystal as she walked between them. She continued up to the doors of the mausoleum, unable to read the script, but able to see the scene of battle on the door. A MudWing with a missing wing, bleeding out from her belly, tore out the throat of a burning SkyWing. A crowned IceWing let out a blast of frostbreath at a NightWing. A second SkyWing plunged his talons through the scales of his own chest, and his blood dripped onto the ground beneath.
The Mausoleum of Queen Frost. Another gust of wind hit against Crystal, as if trying to push her closer to the doors, into the building. Crystal dragged a talon along the outline of the IceWing in the carving, encircling her. She saw little resemblance to the modern-day Queen Glacier, but hundreds of generations between them could do that.
Crystal moved her talon to the area between the doors, a faint indentation between the two gates running vertically up and down. As she drew her claw along it, it was clear that there was no open space between the solid slabs of ice-covered metal, not even a crack. The two "doors" were actually fused together. There was no entrance. She took a step back, and sighed. The wind roared in her ears, as if telling her to persevere.
Placing her egg in the thin snow to the side, Crystal took a claw on her right forepaw, and scratched her left forepaw, cutting through the scales in her palm. A trickle of blue blood started to dribble down it. The IceWing lifted her paw, and placed it on the line between the two gates, on top of the thin layer of ice. Just like the MudWing in her dreams said it would, her blue blood started to spread from where her paw, moving up and down until it reached the top and bottom of the doors, staying on the line between the doors. Crystal started to feel a little light-headed, but stood up and maintained her concentration.
There was a saying in the Ice Kingdom about blood. Crystal struggled to remember it exactly in her swoon, but it was something about how the Great Ice Dragon had granted the IceWings the first three gifts — magic, frostbreath, and blue blood. Of course, Crystal didn't know the truth of it herself. She had never believed in the old legends much, even being surrounded by animus magic all her life. Yet, the blue blood was one of the things that distinguished the IceWings from other dragons; it made sense that an IceWing queen's mausoleum would be enchanted to only open from it.
The blood continued to spread in the indentations in the ice as Crystal got more dizzy. It split at the top and bottom, and turned to the left and right, then continued to move around the corners until the strands met at the edges of the gates, forming a blue outline to the doors. As Crystal stumbled backwards, using her wings to catch herself, her blood glew a bright blue, and the ice started to melt away. As the glow of the blood faded, the vertical line between the two great stone doors deepened, the doors unfusing.
Crystal, still a little woozy, picked up her egg, and pushed against the doors, slowly moving the huge chunks of stone open. The wind viciously hit against her, as if trying to assist her entry. Eventually, she was able to get the two doors open enough that she could step through them. The IceWing took a deep breath, and looked back at the blizzard behind her. For a moment, she thought she saw a figure within it, watching, but it was only a glimpse.
As Crystal walked across the boundary, and the great gates started to close behind her, a shock rose up through her scales, causing them to clench and contract. She held her egg against her scales, trying to protect it. While Crystal's eyes adjusted to the light, an otherworldly wind wrapped around her, drawing the IceWing and her dragonet further within.
End Part 3