The desert was hot and dry, exactly the same as the last time Sunny had been there. The SandWing palace wasn't much better; it didn't do a very good job at keeping out the heat. Sunny didn't particularly like the weather here, even though she felt like she should have. She was a SandWing, the desert was her home. Although, being part NightWing, she supposed it was only half her home. She didn't really belong in the desert, unlike the three SandWing guards that stood at its front.
"Halt," one of the SandWings commanded to Sunny as she approached the entrance to the fort. He looked young, maybe a year older than Sunny herself, and seemed somewhat uncomfortable in this position. "We're not allowing any visitors in right now, sorry."
Sunny sighed, and reached into her small leather satchel to pull out the scroll had sent her. She handed it to the SandWing, who carefully opened it, quickly reading through the contents. His eyes opened in surprise as he realized who he was talking to, and quickly bowed his head. "Your majesty," he stammered, "I'm sorry for delaying your entrance. Armadillo got rid of a lot of the old guards, so we're all new here."
The other two SandWings were unsure for a moment what was going on, then quickly realized that this small, strangely shaped SandWing was to be their new queen. They bowed their necks to Sunny before she could say a word.
Sunny forced a smile. "Don't worry, it's fine," she replied. "And you can all just call me Sunny. Do you know where Armadillo is?"
The SandWing thought for a moment before nodding. "I'd be glad to take you to him, your ma — Sunny."
Sunny nodded. "Thank you. That would be great." She felt like she should ask this SandWing his name, but wasn't quite sure she was in the mood for any sort of casual conversation. At the moment, all she wanted to do was get introductions Armadillo over with. Then maybe find someplace quiet she could just be alone in. She deserved that much.
The SandWing opened the gates into the palace, leading Sunny through the great entrance. As he closed them behind her, she heard one of the other two guards whisper, "Did you see her tail?" before getting shushed by the third. She couldn't bring herself to care. It wasn't important.
Beautiful spirals and patterns were carved into the sandstone walls of the palace, some of them painted in blues and reds. The evening sun shone in through some of the small archways on the sides of the hall, although much of the light came from dim torches. The palace was beautiful, although Sunny had heard that it was so much more magnificent back in the time of Queen Oasis. There used to be tapestries and paintings hung along the walls, and gems and precious metals inlaid in the cracks, but most of that had been either sold or destroyed by Princess Burn during the war, or put into the Sand Kingdom's fragile wealth reserves by Queen Thorn afterwards. At least the weirdling tower and the severed heads on pikes outside the wall were gone now.
Eventually, the SandWing led Sunny into a small room off the main corridor. Sunny peered around it. A large map of the Sand Kingdom was hung up behind an old wooden desk, with scrolls neatly arranged on it. One was rolled open in the middle of the desk, as a SandWing looked down on it with a scowl.
"Er, Armadillo," the guard started to say. The SandWing glanced up from his desk, looking slightly irritated that his work had been interrupted. "The queen is here."
Queen. Sunny didn't like the sound of that. But she didn't really get a choice here, did she? The Eye of Onyx chose her mother as queen, and now it was Sunny's turn. Unless the Eye decided to choose someone else. Maybe that was possible. Maybe Sunny could find a dragon who'd be a better queen than her, and she could just go back to teaching.
Armadillo's snout perked up. He wasn't an old dragon. Maybe a couple of years younger than Thorn was, before her death. Still, the stress in his scales made him look a bit older than he actually was. Clearly, the last week had not been good on him. His scales were a bright orangish-yellow, and his small sail seemed to be stout and flat. Sunny glimpsed his tail curling back and forth beneath the desk, the tip of Armadillo's barb dull and unintimidating. A small golden chain was strung between his two horns, with little bejeweled vials hanging from it that looked like they might contain things like ink or scraps of paper, along with a few keychains. A bracelet made of two intertwined strands of metal, one copper and one gold, wrapped around his left foreleg. Armadillo wasn't quite as small as Sunny, but he was still dwarfed by the SandWing that had led Sunny into the palace. He seemed maybe slightly malnourished — Sunny could see the outline of some of his skull pushing up against his scales. Strange for a dragon that lived in a palace.
Yet, even if Armadillo seemed physically nonthreatening, he had this glimpse of desperation and ambition in his eyes that set Sunny on edge. Sunny wondered why Thorn trusted this dragon so much that he and Six-Claws were the only ones who knew about Stonemover, and therefore Sunny's hybrid heritage. It was even more unusual that Sunny hadn't ever seen him before. Thorn had mentioned him occasionally, but Sunny didn't remember seeing Armadillo with any of the other Outclaws.
Armadillo smiled gently, causing Sunny to awkwardly cringe a smile back. "Your majesty," he introduced himself, bowing his head slightly, "I don't think we have ever been formally acquainted. I am Armadillo. I was advisor to your mother for over ten years, and have been instructed by her to lead the transition between her rule and yours in the unfortunate event of her death."
Armadillo glanced to the side, and pulled out a small scroll from his carefully arranged stack. He opened it up, and passed it to Sunny. "Can you read?"
"Yes, I can read," Sunny answered, slightly annoyed that Armadillo had assumed she couldn't. "I teach at a school." Armadillo only nodded in approval.
Sunny glanced over the scroll. It was long, and Armadillo pointed a talon blackened from ink marks at a few lines. Sunny recognized her mother's script from a series of letters they had been sending back and forth to each other. It stated almost exactly what Armadillo had said: 'In the event of my death, if not caused through an official royal challenge, my advisor Armadillo will be in charge of the Sand Kingdom as acting queen until my successor has taken my place. If he is unable to perform this role, for whatever reason, Six-Claws will take his place.' Armadillo moved his claw lower down on the scroll. 'My chosen successor (subject to the choice of the Eye of Onyx) will be my only daughter, Princess Sunny.'
"She wanted to make sure there was a clear successor if she didn't die through a challenge," Armadillo explained, "so that nothing like the War of SandWing Succession occurs again." He seemed to be holding his tongue slightly, as if he thought the whole thing was actually his idea instead of Sunny's mother.
Sunny nodded. "Alright," she replied tersely.
Armadillo glanced to the SandWing guard, still awaiting directions. "Creosote, can you leave us? Wait outside the room please."
Creosote nodded, and stepped away from the two.
Armadillo looked at Sunny after Creosote left. "I wanted to give you my condolences," he replied. "Your mother was a great dragon, both as a friend and as a queen. She will be dearly missed by everyone."
Sunny averted her eyes away from Armadillo. She felt her breath speed up slightly, and her wings get tense. She didn't want to talk about this in front of a dragon she barely knew. "Yeah," she whispered.
"Did Six-Claws tell you . . . what happened?" Armadillo asked uncomfortably.
"Assassin," Sunny muttered unhappily. It wasn't anything unusual, she supposed. Just a normal queen thing. Thorn had to have known the risks of the job.
Armadillo grimaced. "Not exactly. There was . . . more. You should probably see for yourself, if you're . . . willing to."
Sunny thought for a moment. Armadillo was offering to show Sunny her mother, or at least what was left of her. She didn't know if she could do it, but this might be the only chance she got. To say goodbye; to see her one last time. "Alright."
"If you're worried about decay," Armadillo muttered, "there's none of that. Her body has been, er, well-preserved."
Well-preserved? Sunny wondered. What was that supposed to mean?
Armadillo got up from his desk, and walked out of the small room. Sunny quickly followed. "Creosote, follow us to the treasury, but stay outside the entrance," Armadillo ordered the young guard. He nodded, and trailed behind the two, carefully glancing around, as if to make sure there weren't any assassins hiding in the walls.
Armadillo led the two of them to one of the treasury rooms. He took off one of the keys from the chain between his horns and inserted it into the lock, quickly fiddling with it as he unlocked the treasury door. "Creosote, stay there, and don't look in," Armadillo demanded. Creosote nodded.
Armadillo pushed the door open a crack, allowing Sunny to enter in it. As she glanced around the almost empty room, she let out a slight gasp as she saw two stone dragons in the center of the room. "No," she whispered.
Sunny stepped towards the corpse of her mother, frozen with her jaws spread wide as she attempted to burn off her own tail. Only a hint of fear remained in her expression. As Sunny walked over her, she suddenly stubbed a claw on the ground. She glanced down. The surface of the sandstone beneath her was warped in a puddle around her. Not far behind Thorn was a similar stone statue of Blaze, though Sunny barely noticed.
"Mom," Sunny whispered, wrapping her wings around Thorn's cold body. A few tears started to slide from her eyes. A small scrape of claws from behind caused her to turn around. Armadillo still stood there uncomfortably. She suddenly realized that if Armadillo wanted to, he could kill Sunny right here, and no one could do anything about it. Creosote had been hired by Armadillo, not Thorn, and would probably do whatever Armadillo asked him to do. So if Armadillo really was the one who had done this to Sunny's mother . . .
"Can I have a moment by myself?" Sunny croaked, fear pulsing through her.
"Of course," Armadillo replied, relieved that he could leave. He quickly scuttled out of the room, leaving Sunny with Thorn and Blaze.
Sunny continued sobbing for a bit, just holding the stone figure of her mother close to her, even knowing that Thorn was entirely gone from it by now. "I'm sorry," Sunny whimpered, "I'm so sorry." She knew there was nothing she could have done, but still. Why hadn't she gotten to know her mother better? Spent more time with her? In her time growing up with the other dragonets, all of them had dreamt of having a parent like Thorn they could be with. And now she was gone. Sunny had wasted the last three years when she could have been here in the palace, getting to know her mother.
She quickly resolved to herself that she would spend more time with Stonemover from now on. Even if her father was cold and distant, she needed to know him better. For Thorn's sake. More tears slipped from the young hybrid's eyes, staining the floor beneath her. As her claws scraped against Thorn's stone scales, the scratching sound caused Sunny to shiver. That combined with already having her father on her mind reminded Sunny of something. Stonemover's scales had a similar sheen and texture to whatever had happened to Thorn. What if it was the same curse? Stonemover said that he'd started to turn his scales to stone to prevent himself from losing his soul . . . what if he'd done this to Thorn?
Sunny shook her head. No, that was impossible. She scolded herself just for considering the idea. Stonemover would never do something like this. He didn't use magic anymore, so his soul had to be intact. More importantly, he had loved Thorn. He'd be devastated to hear of what happened, maybe even more than Sunny herself. Still, it was a lead. Maybe Sunny would send him a letter about it. Then the two of them could bring whoever had done this to justice.
Sunny started sobbing again. It was too early for her to think about avenging her mother's death. She continued like this for a while, just holding her mother's body within her wings, unsure what else she could do. Even if she was dead, maybe there was something left of Thorn within her stone husk.
After some time, when Sunny had no more tears to cry, she pulled her wings away from her mother. That was enough. Thorn wouldn't have wanted Sunny to be sad like this. Thorn would have told Sunny that she was stronger than this, and that she needed to face her new duties to the Sand Kingdom. Sunny turned around, and dragging her tail, went to the doors of the treasury. She made sure not to look back.
Sunny opened the doors to see Armadillo and Creosote, patiently waiting outside. Creosote avoided making eye contact with Sunny whereas Armadillo quickly turned to her, only paying the tears still on her wet snout a short glance. "Are you good?" Armadillo asked.
"I'm fine," Sunny grumbled. She glanced down at Armadillo's paws, and noticed that he held a small envelope in his claws.
Armadillo followed Sunny's eyes, and held the envelope open. Sunny saw a small red glob of wax on the parchment, holding it closed. A seal, and from the crown on it, a royal one. "It's for you, if you want it," Armadillo responded, not yet handing it to Sunny.
"Why is it already opened?" Sunny asked, noticing that someone had already clawed apart the top of the envelope.
"There could have been poison," Armadillo answered matter-of-factly.
Sunny frowned. "Have you read it already?"
Armadillo tilted his head. "Yes," he honestly replied, "as acting queen, it is my duty to fulfil all the roles the queen would do, such as reading royally sealed letters."
"As acting queen?" Sunny said, slightly irritated. She didn't know this dragon, and still didn't like him taking charge of the kingdom so quickly after Thorn's death. Even if he didn't kill Sunny when he had the chance, she wasn't sure she trusted him yet. "I'm here. I thought I was queen now?"
"That depends," Armadillo steadily answered, "on whether or not you accept the position."
Sunny considered it for a moment. "You're saying that I have a choice? So I can choose not to become queen?" She'd thought about it. Maybe the Eye of Onyx could choose someone else. "Who would be queen if I didn't want to?"
Armadillo glanced down, his mood becoming suddenly much more dour. "Read the letter," he muttered, passing the piece of scrollpaper to Sunny.
To the Honorable Sunny,
I am sorry to hear of your mother's loss. Even if her rule was illegitimate, the Honorable Thorn's reign over the Sand Kingdom was beneficial to the kingdom and my subjects, and I have no quarrel with either you or her for the death of my mother, the late Princess Blister. I only ask that you relinquish your hold on the throne immediately to its rightful owner, myself. If you comply, I offer full immunity and forgiveness to yourself and any dragons who took part in the Honorable Thorn's short regime. If not, I have loyal SandWings that will be utilized to secure the throne by force. You have until we reach the eastern border of the Sand Kingdom to abdicate.
Her Highness,
Princess Aloe of the SandWings
Armadillo grimaced. "It came yesterday, exchanged through a series of unknowing couriers. I haven't been able to any information on who Aloe is, and whether or not she's actually Blister's daughter, but the royal seal is legitimate. It's not impossible that Blister had dragonets. But a letter from one of our diplomats in the Mud Kingdom came this morning verifying that she has dragons loyal to her. They were spotted on the southern border of the Mud Kingdom, but we're not sure how many there are. No final decisions have been made, but it looks like Queen Moorhen isn't going to send out troops against them, since they're not technically trespassing, and the sudden drought conditions have made a potential rebellion in the north an issue for her."
Blister's daughter. Sunny remembered Blister more than she would have liked to. Black diamonds on her scales and a conniving grin of ruthless evil. She'd been the one who Morrowseer had chosen and tried to force the dragonets to support, and she was the one who had killed Kestrel. Eventually, Blister had met her end when she'd tried to take the Eye of Onyx from Thorn. She'd been deemed unworthy of being queen, and had been zapped into oblivion by it.
"We can't let Aloe be queen," Sunny grimaced. "Not if she's Blister's daughter. Why don't we just invite Aloe here, and make her hold the Eye of Onyx? Everyone knows now that's what deemed Thorn's reign legitimate. She can't expect to be accepted as queen unless she does it." Still, Sunny was worried. She knew she herself was from from being as bad a dragon as Blister was, but what if the Eye of Onyx didn't accept her as queen? Was she really worthy?
"Maybe," Armadillo answered skeptically, "but if she's anything like her mother, assuming she's not lying about that, then she probably has some plan to get around it. And slightly more importantly . . ." Armadillo winced slightly as he said this "the Eye of Onyx was stolen."
"Stolen?" Sunny exclaimed. "No," she replied, shaking her head. "It can't be stolen. Wouldn't whoever stole it just end up like Blister?"
"That's what I thought, but it's gone. Thorn usually wore it around her neck, but we had a fake made, just in case an unaware dragon tried to steal it. The fake is still there, but the real one is gone. It wasn't on Thorn when we found her."
Sunny gulped. Did that mean whoever took it was worthy to be queen? "Maybe they wrapped it in cloth, and it didn't kill them because of that? How did the scavengers get away with it in the first place?"
"Maybe," Armadillo pondered, "that's what I was thinking. Aloe must have sent the assassin to kill Thorn and Blaze, then steal the Eye of Onyx somehow so that it wouldn't get in her way."
Sunny nodded. That story seemed to add up. But still, something didn't make sense — there was clearly animus magic involved here. How did the assassin turn Thorn to stone? Maybe Aloe's assassin had some sort of magical artifact.
"So," Armadillo said, almost pleadingly, "what do you plan to do? Are you going to accept the throne?"
Sunny gulped. She didn't want to answer this question. She still wasn't sure if she was worthy to be queen of the Sand Kingdom. But there was one thing she knew. "I don't know. But we can't let Aloe be queen. Not if she killed Thorn. I need time, please."
Armadillo solemnly nodded. He turned towards Creosote. "Can you take Sunny to her quarters?"
Creosote nodded. "This way, your majesty."
He walked further into the palace and Sunny followed, leaving Armadillo behind. The two went up a curved of stairs and down a hallway before Creosote stopped. "This is the queen's room, I think," he announced.
Sunny turned to see two large doors in front of her. She put her claws around the handles, and quickly opened them. They were unlocked. She glanced towards Creosote.
He shifted from side to side, uncomfortable in his probable queen's gaze. "I'll ask Armadillo to get you keys as soon as possible."
Sunny nodded, and pushed the doors open. The room inside was more bare than she had expected, but it was obvious that her mother had been sleeping in here up until recently. Sunny's heart sunk. There was a small dresser by the bed, with two scrolls on it, along with a piece of jewelry that Sunny instantly recognized, the moonstone pendant that Thorn had always worn. She knew that Stonemover had given Thorn it, and she'd kept it all those years, hoping he'd return to her.
"Please go," Sunny whispered back to Creosote, who quickly complied. She walked up to the dresser, and looked down at the piece of jewelry, stroking it with her claws like it was as fragile as glass. She was gone, and Sunny had to take her place.