"Freeze," Gazelle commanded quietly, gritting her teeth through the pain. She flicked the end of her tail, now bleeding again, across the dirt. Each of the animuses that had previously been under Erosion's control stiffened up, their breaths becoming shallow, unable to move any more than was required to live.

She turned around towards Stonemover, and pointed a curved talon at him. The metal collar around his neck split into two parts, each falling onto the dirt below. Stonemover's legs shook, and he took a step forward, free.

"Stonemover!" a dragon yelled, one of the few remaining members of the fleeing crowd. Nightreader ran onto the arena towards her brother, and embraced him with her wings in a hug. "Are you hurt?"

Stonemover shook his head. He glanced towards Erosion, still spasming as her body tried to heal herself, then quickly turned back, preventing himself from retching from the smell of burning flesh. "I'm fine," he whispered. "You saved me."

Nightreader snorted. "Of course I did," she laughed, "although I think Gazelle did most of the work."

Gazelle smiled, a slight sadness behind it. "We never would have made it here in time if you hadn't taken us to the Night Kingdom."

"You took them to the Night Kingdom?" Stonemover asked in alarm.

Nightreader nodded. "Don't worry," she soothed him, "everything went fine." Still, it wasn't like this would go unnoticed. There was no way that Morrowseer wouldn't realize what happened. She glanced over at Gazelle. "Still, it would have been a little nice to have known about the plan in advance."

"We made it up after you left for Burn," Torrent said, as he walked towards the group. He looked over at Griffin, still tied up in the net, and extended his claws, ready to help get Griffin get free. "I take it that didn't go so well?"

"It could have gone worse," Nightreader answered. "Anyways, everything worked out, didn't it?"

Nightreader noticed Gazelle, her expression downfallen. Following Gazelle's line-of-sight to Erosion, Nightreader noticed that Erosion had stopped moving, and although huge bags of scale and muscle hung from her skull and throat, resting on the spikes of rock, her flesh was no longer trying to mend itself. She'd seemed to have gone still. The spikes of rock suddenly crumbled, and her broken body fell to the dirt.

Torrent had noticed this too, and looked over towards Gazelle. "I allow the enchantment controlling the animuses to remain," he quickly spoke, realizing they'd be free if he got any closer to her.

"Is she dead?" Stonemover stammered, trying to avoid looking at Erosion's corpse.

"I sure hope so," Torrent muttered. "Whatever hell she just went through, I wouldn't wish on any dragon. I think her healing enchantment nullified when I got too close."

"If you move away, will she come back to life?" Nightreader asked.

Torrent thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't think so. Both the healing and burning enchantments will still work, but according to Erosion herself, animus magic can't bring back the dead, so I think she's dead forever."

"Wait, Erosion said that?" Griffin asked, confused.

"I found an old diary of Magma's back in the Sky Kingdom," Torrent explained. "Erosion had given her a lecture on animus magic, and had mentioned that."

"Is it true?" Griffin asked. "I mean, if animus magic could bring me to life, and if it could give others their own magic, how do we know she was telling the truth?"

"We could test it," Torrent replied, glancing over at Erosion's body.

"Please don't," Gazelle whispered, "she doesn't need to be in any more pain. Let her rest in peace."

Torrent nodded solemnly, respecting Gazelle's wishes. "I suppose it won't ever matter again, will it? These eight and Stonemover are the last animuses in Pyrrhia." Not including the sleeping Darkstalker, of course. Torrent stepped over to Erosion's corpse, holding his breath to avoid the noxious fumes of burned flesh, bringing back the memory of Schist's fight with Magma. With a quick swipe of his dagger, Torrent disenchanted all the curses that had been put on her and her golden bands. He quickly turned back to Griffin, and putting his dagger away in its sheath so not to accidentally use it on his friend, carefully started untangling the netting. They might still need to use it; Griffin was still unable to fly.

"What should we do with them?" Griffin asked. "The other animuses."

"Just make them do the same thing Stonemover did, remove their powers," Nightreader suggested.

Gazelle flicked out her forked tongue. "Some of these dragons have done bad things," she replied, pointing a talon towards the injured Griffin. "Maybe they deserve justice."

"Some of that might only be because they've lost parts of their souls from using their magic," Griffin advocated, "and we don't know their histories. They could have been forced to use their powers by others. Erosion, for example." Even for the three dragons that had attacked, Griffin wasn't quite sure wanted to think of them as deserving punishment. Had Orca not died, that would have meant she'd have had to answer for crimes, even if what she'd done was caused by losing her soul after all. And while Griffin wasn't quite sure how it worked in the Sea Kingdom with princesses killing princesses. For killing River outside of a royal challenge, Orca could have been executed.

"The important thing is that they don't keep their powers," Torrent said. "They'll be able to live out the rest of their lives without being able to use them to hurt others. If their queens want to inflict justice, they can do so."

Nightreader looked towards her brother with a smile, then over in the distance, where Burn's army's camp was. She could see Smolder and a few other SandWings tending to Burn's wounds. Smolder suddenly lifted up his head, and looked back towards her. They locked gazes for a few moments, before he turned back to his sister.

"You need to decide what you're going to do quickly," Nightreader told Gazelle, "I think Smolder will let us go, but I can't say the same for Burn."

"I'm personally not a fan of being stuffed and put in her weirdling tower," Griffin added urgently.
Gazelle nodded, and thought for a moment before turning towards the eight animuses. She twitched her barbed tail, wincing in pain. "Each of you, enchant yourselves so that you are no longer an animus, all enchantments on you no longer function, and none of the enchantments you've made work anymore."

In unison, each of the eight dragons spoke the enchantment, their mouths stiff and clenched. As Torrent finished freeing Griffin, he pulled out the enchanted map, and rolled it open. It had worked. Unlike Stonemover's blotch, each of the other animuses seemed to have disappeared on it. Maybe because Gazelle had made them enchant themselves to be no longer be animuses, as opposed to just being unable to use their powers anymore.

Gazelle looked back to the other three dragons and Griffin. "You should go."

"Wait, what about you?" Griffin asked. "Are you coming with us?"

Gazelle smiled, and looked over towards the town in the distance. "I don't think so. My wings are tired and old. I think I might just settle down here, as just another SandWing. This way, I can free the animuses after you leave. If I try while you're around, they'll kill you, powers or not."

"What?" Griffin protested. "They'll do the same for you!"

She shook her head. "I will wait until some of the SandWing guards are around and can decide what to do with them. Smolder is in debt to me, and he, along with all of the SandWings here, are more likely to listen to a SandWing than a SeaWing, NightWings, or a gryphon. I'll be fine, don't worry."

Griffin glanced nervously towards Smolder, then back to Gazelle. "Alright," he conceded. "I guess this is goodbye, then?"

Gazelle chuckled. "Maybe, maybe not. Who knows what the future holds?"

Griffin grinned back, trying to curl the sides of his beak. "I hope Crosswinds treats you well, then!" He leaned over towards Stonemover and Nightreader. "Should we say goodbye to the two of you too?"

Nightreader gave Stonemover a quick look, then turned back to Griffin. "I don't think so," she replied. "It's not like we have anywhere to go, so we might as well just stick with you for now." She turned to Torrent, and gave him a smile. "Plus, there's still the Obsidian Mirror to worry about."

"That's good," Griffin replied, "it can get a bit boring only having Torrent around to talk to."

Nightreader gave a small nod in agreement.

Torrent snorted. "I'm quite interesting," he pouted, before his expression turned to a grin. "So, if that's all settled, it's time to go?"

Nightreader, Griffin, and Stonemover all nodded in succession. Torrent reached into his satchel, and pulled out the three makeshift harnesses he'd stored, and attached them to the net. As Gazelle helped to fit one around Stonemover, Nightreader and Torrent put their own on, and helped tie Griffin onto the net. The three dragons pulling it taught, they each spread their wings, and with a burst of wind, lifted off in succession.

As the three started to rise into the air, Griffin looked back towards Gazelle as she waved a paw at them. He smiled, and waved his own talons back to her.

"So, where are we going?" Stonemover asked nervously, noticing that they were flying south.

"Somewhere the NightWings can't find us, or hurt us ever again," Nightreader responded. She looked forward. Towards the edge of the horizon, the flatlands turned into hills, and the hills turned into snow-capped peaks. "How about Jade Mountain?"