The figures of a RainWing and a NightWing flew high over the treetops of the rainforest, casting their shadows on the canopy beneath. A warm, dry wind from the mountains pushed behind them as they traveled into the heart of the rainforest.

"Do you think she'll be alright?" Glory asked, her scales green with worry.

"Sunny?" Deathbringer responded.

Glory nodded. "Yeah. I just don't like the idea of her going off to become queen by herself. It's a dangerous job."

Deathbringer nodded. "It sure is. Do you know how many assassination attempts I've discovered just this week? Three. That's three times I've saved your life right now."

"Really?" Glory snorted. "And how many of those assassination attempts were Jambu accidentally trying to feed me rotten fruit?"

"Only two," Deathbringer responded. "There was also that sloth which almost fell on you, remember? You've gotta watch out for those things."

Glory rolled her eyes. In all seriousness, Deathbringer had been an important help. There were still NightWings who thought they'd be better off with Glory dead, and Glory was fortunate that Deathbringer knew who they were and what they were planning. Fierceteeth and Strongwings, to name a couple. Then there was that whole thing with Silverhorn. Glory dreaded to think of what condition the rainforest would be in had Deathbringer not been there.

"Well, Sunny doesn't have anyone like you to protect her from falling sloths or poisoned fruit," Glory replied, "and whoever was protecting Thorn clearly wasn't too good at their job."

"Maybe, but that's why Clay's going after her, right?" Deathbringer answered. "To help watch her back? And Sunny can probably handle herself. She's a dragonet of destiny, just like you, and look how you've turned out."

"Dragonet of Destiny," Glory muttered. "Yeah, right. Because I'm clearly a SkyWing, and the prophecy was true and not just completely made up." A hint of orange appeared on her scales.

"What would Sunny say right now?" Deathbringer chirped. "You made your own destiny, and ended the war, prophecy or not. Pretty impressive for someone who isn't a SkyWing."

"True," Glory answered, "although that doesn't really sound like Sunny. She liked the prophecy far too much. But not really my thing."

Deathbringer nodded. He wasn't really a fan of prophecies either. He'd been raised believing that they were all false, but since Moon revealed her prophecy two years ago, that entire worldview had been shattered. NightWings could read minds and make prophecies, real prophecies. At the moment, there were only three dragonets other than Moon with powers, two that could read minds, and one that could tell the future. Deathbringer had asked Toxin a few times about the Jade Mountain Prophecy, but she was clueless as to its meaning, or when (if ever) it would come true.

"Speaking of powers and prophecies, the twins are causing trouble again."

Glory groaned. The twins were what they called the two mindreading dragonets. Insight and Hindsight, barely more than a year old each. She wished that one of them had been named 'Foresight' instead, but apparently that you couldn't just 'choose' NightWing names like that. There was a special ceremony and everything for name-choosing, and they got stuck with two dragonets who couldn't stay out of trouble, whether it was spreading secrets of the older dragonets or pulling pranks on Jambu. The scariest thing was that it would only get worse — the NightWing population would start to revive itself, and soon the rainforest would be crowded with dragonets who could read minds and see the future. No one knew how to raise them; there were some old traditions, but it wasn't enough. And there were seven eggs already due to hatch around a full moon, two of them hybrids.

Glory gritted her teeth. "I'm the queen, why is dealing with them my duty?

"Because you're the queen," Deathbringer beamed. "Now, do you want me to tell you what they did or not?"

Glory sighed. He was right, of course, but she didn't like it. "Please don't," she answered. "I'll deal with it later. After we finish this business with Jambu. How's Firefly?"

Deathbringer's eyes lit up. "She's great! She seems to be healthy as ever, although it's a bit difficult to tell. But her eggshell is nice and thick, and you can hear her through it now!"

Glory grinned, swirls of pink and indigo fluttering around her scales. "That's great! Is her eggshell still doing the color thing?"

Deathbringer nodded, causing a small flash of green to move through Glory's scales, stress puncturing the happy colors. Even though she seemed healthy, Glory was still worried about her and Deathbringer's unhatched dragonet. Firefly's eggshell was unusual. Instead of staying a single color, like eggs normally did, the patches of violets and purples on Firefly's eggshell seemed to slowly drift around, changing every few hours. It wasn't normal, but then again, there weren't a lot of hybrids in the rainforest yet. There were six eggs currently, including Firefly's, and three of the very young dragonets were hybrids, but Toxin and Sunflower were the only two who were old enough to really have a conversation about it. Each of them had their own . . . differences from full NightWings or RainWings, but none of their eggs had done the weird swirling thing like Firefly's. So Glory felt like she was rightfully concerned. Still, if Firefly seemed healthy, hopefully it wouldn't be an issue.

"That's alright," Glory smiled. "Everything will be fine, I'm sure." She glanced down towards the rainforest to see movement beneath the trees. That was about right — the two of them were nearing the RainWing village. Glory tilted her wings down and started to spiral slowly down into the canopy, Deathbringer following closely behind.

As the two gently touched down at a spot on one of the wooden pavilions criss-crossing the forest, Glory noticed that there were dragons waiting for her at the Royal Pavilion in the center of the forest. About twenty RainWings stood around the pavilion, conversing frantically among each other. A few yelled out as they saw Glory land. Glory gulped and turned towards Deathbringer.

"Were you serious about the pinkie coup?" she asked anxiously.

Deathbringer shrugged his forelegs, and Glory turned back to the RainWings. With a burst of flight, she flew towards the pavilion, landing in the middle of the crowd of RainWings, who backed away so not to be hit by her or Deathbringer's wings. She looked around for the dragon she wanted.

"Jambu," she growled, seeing the hot-pink dragon in the center of the crowd. "Stop this right now. I'm not actually banning the color pink, no matter how tacky it is. That was a joke."

Jambu pushed through the crowd, and gave his sister a look of confusion. "Pink?" he frowned. "Oh, no, that's not what we're here about! We can discuss your authoritarian tendencies later."

Glory gulped. That meant there was a real problem. That wasn't good. "What's going on then?"

"I told Deathbringer, I couldn't find one of the rivers, and now they're all gone! Didn't he tell you?"

Glory glanced over at Deathbringer. He did tell her, although she hadn't taken it seriously. Jambu wasn't an easy dragon to take seriously. "Is that's what's happening?" she asked another RainWing.

The RainWing nodded vigorously. "There's no water," she whined. "The riverbeds are dry. What can we drink now?"

"Fruit?" a second RainWing spoke up.

Glory snorted for a moment, thinking that was a silly idea, but then she realized that might actually work. "Yeah, fruit," she answered. "There's a lot of fruits which have a bunch of water in it, right? Can you eat that for now?"

A few of the RainWings murmured to each other, discussing the idea, but the crowd started to disperse, going back to their usual business. They seemed to accept the idea. Glory gave out a sigh of relief. The plan worked for now, but it would only be temporary. If there really wasn't any water left in the streams and rivers, that meant that there was no water for the plants. If this went on too long, the rainforest would stop producing fruit. Still, it gave Glory some time.

"Deathbringer," Glory commanded, "can you go check on Firefly? I'm going to go with Jambu to check out these riverbeds." The pink dragon was still hanging around the pavilion, and his ears perked up happily when he heard Glory mention his name.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Deathbringer answered. "Just in case."

Glory rolled her eyes. "Don't worry," she comforted him, "it's just a trip down to the streams. Jambu can keep me safe."

Jambu puffed out his chest in pride in this, his scales flashing an intense indigo. Deathbringer held back a chuckle. "Alright then," the NightWing responded. "See you soon."

As Deathbringer took off, Glory glanced over to Jambu. "Alright then, lead the way," Glory told him. Jambu eagerly took off into the canopy, quickly flying between the trees as Glory followed behind, almost having trouble keeping up. As her young brother weaved in and out of the tree trucks, Glory caught a glimpse around the rainforest. Maybe it was her imagination, but it did seem . . . drier than normal. The embrace of humidity that normally enveloped the air had weakened, and Glory couldn't see any of the normal trickles of streams. Sure, a lot of the smaller rivulets were inconsistent in their location, but it was strange not to see any at all.

Eventually, Jambu started to head into the undergrowth, landing by a large papaya tree. Glory glanced up. It looked slightly unhealthier than usual, like everything else around it. Even the normal barrage of chirps and squeaks that filled the rainforest had lessened. Uncanny.

Glory followed the bright pink RainWing as he pushed further into the dense undergrowth. Eventually, the two reached a small break in the trees, a large creek that ran through the rainforest. "See?" Jambu pressed, demanding that his sister recognize that he knew what he was talking about. "It's gone."

Glory glanced up and down the creek. Jambu was right. The water level had dropped to practically nothing in the time she was gone, exposing the bare stones of the creek. This wasn't normal. What could have caused something like this?

The rainforest queen stretched a claw into one of the small pools of still water littering the remains of the creek. It was murky, and her claw stirred up muck as it shook the pool around. Glory's talon bumped against something squishy, and she carefully pulled it out. The decaying remains of a fish. She quickly threw it back into the pool in disgust. She'd be smelling that on her claws for a while. She didn't blame the RainWings for being vegetarians, and wasn't surprised a few of the NightWings had joined them.

As Glory raised her head from the pool, she jumped back from it in alarm as she saw the fangs of another dragon. She caught her breath when she realized who it was. Just Toxin. There weren't that many hybrids in the kingdom, and Sunflower didn't have that unnerving glare that Toxin did. Toxin looked up at her queen not with respect and cheer, but with defiance and spite. Deathbringer had once said that Glory just didn't like Toxin because the hybrid was too much like her. Rebellious, but not mischievous.

The young dragonet had her normal resting scales on. Primarily dark purple and indigo, much like her NightWing father presumably had, with olive-green highlights across her underbelly and horns. In most RainWings, those colors meant ambition and displeasure, but most dragons assumed that was just how her scales rested during her normal mood. Although the two often seemed to be the same. Much like Glory, Toxin was good at not showing her feelings on her scales, but she'd had a bit more trouble with her camouflage than most pure RainWings dragonets, so that could have been part of it. Probably due to her hybrid status — although Sunflower seemed to be the exact opposite. In the literal sense. It had taken a while to realize it, but Sunflower's scales showed the polar opposite of the normal RainWing color corresponding to his emotions. It made for some . . . interesting situations. Glory wondered how Firefly's scales would respond to her emotions when she hatched, whether they'd be closer to Toxin's, Sunflower's, or something completely different. Glory hoped that it wouldn't be too much of a burden on her future dragonet.

Glory meekly smiled, trying to appear glad to see Toxin. "Hello, Toxin," she said. "You shouldn't sneak up on dragons like that. Someone could get startled and accidentally hurt you."

Toxin glared narrowed, although the dragonet's expression seemed about the same as before. "I didn't sneak. You just didn't notice me. Are you surprised by the water disappearing?"

Glory hesitated a moment, not sure how to respond. It felt like the dragonet was goading her into saying something, trying to force her to display weakness.

"I'm not." Toxin answered definitively, even though Glory hadn't responded. "I saw it about a week ago. I would've told you, but you were busy."

Glory frowned. She didn't want to let herself get angry at this dragonet, but it was clear what Toxin was implying — that Glory wasn't being a good queen. Glory wanted to say something snappy back, but that would just be giving in. She smiled, hiding colors of irritation beneath her scales. "Yes. Queen Thorn died. Did you know that was going to happen too?"

Toxin frowned, and thought for a moment. Finally, she shook her head back and forth. Glory held back a smirk. She shouldn't feel good about a four-year old dragonet not knowing something that Glory did, but Glory really couldn't help it. "That makes sense now," Toxin answered.

At least for now, Toxin was the only dragon other than Moonwatcher who could see the future, although Toxin's visions seemed far too vague for them to be of any help. It mainly just annoyed her how Toxin could just claim 'I told you so' after a problem arose, even if Toxin clearly had no idea what the vision meant at the time. She'd told Glory about a vision before the Silverhorn incident, but she'd only spoken about seeing a NightWing wearing fancy jewelry. There were plenty of NightWings with jewelry! How was Glory supposed to know that meant that a NightWing had come across some ancient enchanted artifacts that the Darkstalker had made, and that he was planning on using them to take over her throne? It was ridiculous. At least Moon's prophecy had words, even if no one understood what any of them meant. Well, it wouldn't be much longer before they had future-seeing dragonets flying all around the rainforest. 'One in nine' was what Mastermind had claimed. One in nine NightWings and hybrids would be hatched under at least one full moon, and would be given either mind-reading or future-seeing. More of those was just what Glory needed. At least Moonwatcher behaved, wherever she had gotten off to now. Toxin and the twins could learn a bit from her.

"So you had another vision?" Jambu suddenly asked, curiously watching Toxin. Glory rolled her eyes.

"Yes," Toxin replied, scratching a claw against the dry creekbed. "There was an IceWing in the Sand Kingdom, with an obsidian dagger. A statue of Blaze was behind her, screaming out in terror. It was scary, not like my other visions. I felt something. Like I was being watched."

Glory perked up a little. "You saw Blaze?" she asked. She'd been killed too, but Glory hadn't mentioned that to Toxin. So Toxin was telling the truth, which wasn't that surprising. Toxin's visions usually seemed to come true, they just weren't helpful until afterwards. But, that meant that the assassin was an IceWing. Maybe Queen Glacier was still angry about how the war had ended, and decided to put Sunny in charge? No, that didn't make any sense; she would've put Blaze in charge, and Blaze had been killed along with Thorn. Some other reason? Were there any factions of IceWings that wanted both Thorn and Blaze dead? Maybe the assassin wasn't allied with the IceWings — Queen Scarlet could have done it. But that was still strange; Queen Scarlet wanted Glory dead, not Thorn.

"Blaze was turned to stone?" Jambu suddenly announced, surprise crossed with a hint of fear on his snout. A few of his hot pink scales started to turn a pale green. Both Glory and Toxin looked at him in confusion. He wasn't really the deductive type.

"I don't know," Toxin responded, "I just saw the statue. I assumed it was metaphorical." The hybrid frowned. Toxin knew as well as Glory did that Toxin's visions weren't metaphorical. They were almost always literal, but unhelpful even so.

"Is something wrong?" Glory asked Jambu.

Jambu shook his head. "Just remembering something. A couple years before I hatched, one of the RainWings dragonets was turned to stone. Liana said that an IceWing did it, but Simian swore it was a talking bird.

"Like . . . a parrot?" Glory snorted. She was doubting the authenticity of this story already, but at least it was something.

Jambu shrugged his wings up and down. "Dunno. But I haven't trusted parrots since she told me."

Glory tried to piece together what had really happened. So there was an IceWing assassin with a pet parrot, and she killed a RainWing dragonet by turning them to stone? Then decided to kill Queen Thorn and Blaze over a decade later? It made no sense at all. Maybe Jambu just got something wrong, although she might want to ask Liana about it the next time Glory saw her.

Glory turned back to Toxin, who seemed to be frowning, possibly pondering the same issue. "Was that all?" she asked. "Just the IceWing and Blaze?"

Toxin shook her head. "There was more. The IceWing and Blaze disappeared, and I was in the mountains. There was a really tall one with two peaks. Jade Mountain?"

Glory nodded. There weren't many other mountains like that.

"Everything was dry, and I was parched. It was a scorching dry, like the desert. There were an empty riverbed, like this one. Then I looked up, and I saw a RainWing I hadn't seen before falling off a cliff," Toxin continued.

"Falling?" Jambu asked, shocked. "Could they not fly?"

Toxin shook her head. "One of his wings was burning, and there were holes in it. I could smell it. It was awful. Then I saw another dragon. She had blue scales, like the clearest sky you've ever seen, and a iron band around her leg. I think she was a hybrid, like me. She was watching the RainWing fall, her eyes just following him all the way. That was it. The vision ended after that."

Glory frowned. There was one dragon she knew who could set a RainWing on fire like that. Peril. Had Peril attacked a RainWing? "Do you know if this RainWing or the blue dragon had anything to do with the drought?"

Toxin shook her head. "If I knew, I would have told you. I asked Mastermind, but he said he left the scrolls on interpreting visions on the island."

Glory sighed. That was what was really urgent here. The drought. She suddenly frowned. "Wait," she growled, a hint of red appearing in her scales, "you talked to Mastermind about this?"

"Yeah," Toxin defiantly snorted. "Tiger and I visit him occasionally. He's interesting, and he gets lonely. What's it to you?"

Glory quenched her emotions, but noticed Jambu take a step back out of the corner of her eyes. "He's not someone that either you or Tiger should be talking to! He's a horrible influence, and he's being punished for a reason. He kidnapped and tortured RainWings. He's a war criminal!" Mastermind was very lucky he wasn't in the quicksand pit anymore. Starflight and Deathbringer had convinced Glory to put him under house arrest instead, so at the moment he lived in a covered pavilion outside the RainWing village on top of a very tall tree, with his wings bound so that if he tried to escape, he'd fall a couple hundred feet and break his neck. It was nice, not having to remember to pull him out of quicksand every so often, and this way no one had to guard him, just give him a shipment of food and water every week or so.

Toxin shrugged her wingblades, as if she didn't care that she was fraternizing with a murderer. "He's alright," she answered, as if she was just trying to annoy Glory with her answer.

Glory seethed. He was most certainly not alright. Very, very not alright. She didn't care all that much about Toxin, but Tiger was one of the best students at Jade Mountain Academy, and even if Glory didn't know her too well, she was proud of her. Glory would definitely ask Starflight to give Tiger a talking to. Not Tsunami. Asking Tsunami to yell at a dragonet seemed too cruel, especially since Glory was almost certain it was Toxin who had roped Tiger into talking with Mastermind. She would also have a talk with Mastermind. In fact, that wasn't a bad idea, especially if he knew something about interpreting visions. "You know?" Glory grinned. "How about we pay Mastermind a visit. I haven't seen him in a while."

"Sure, I'm willing to join you," Toxin answered. Glory snorted. Glory was the queen. Toxin didn't get a choice here. She was lucky Glory was such a good queen, Queen Scarlet would've had Toxin's head for that, or worse. Toxin glanced towards Jambu. "Just the three of us, visiting Mastermind together? Sound great." Glory easily picked up on the hint of sarcasm in Toxin's voice.

"Yeah!" Jambu answered. "I can give that ugly NightWing a piece of my mind!"

Toxin smirked, and turned back to Glory. Glory held back a groan. She didn't particularly want to bring Jambu along, but once he got started on something, not even Glory could stop him. Glory glanced back at the dry creekbed. Well, it wasn't like she had any better ideas.