It had been three days since the night Ink and Polar had met, and Jade Mountain was almost within sight. A uncannily warm wind blew from the east, and the sun shined directly overhead. As Ink was lost in thought, thinking about a few strangely-behaved scavengers the two had flown by recently, he heard Polar suddenly let out a cry of pain.

The hybrid turned to the right to see Polar growling and gritting his teeth, his claws clutching around the silver bracelet on his left forearm. He let out another roar of agony, and sent out a blast of cold frostbreath into the distance. His wings started to falter, and Polar slowly started to spiral towards the ground. Ink dove downwards, ready to swoop beneath the IceWing if needed, but he seemed to have enough control to land safely.

Polar flew towards a dry grassy slope on the side of a mountain and quickly tumbled into it, scuffing the scales along his underbelly in his poor landing. He continued to clutch his forearm, whimpering slightly. He glanced over to Ink as the hybrid landed in shame. He was a First Circle IceWing. He couldn't let another dragon, much less one who was half-NightWing see him like this. He yelled out again as a jolt of pain streaked through the nerves in his forearm, travelling up to his neck and wingblade. Polar started to reach towards his sack, but his right forearm tensed up.

Ink, alarmed, walked over to Polar, slightly frantic and unsure what was going on. "Do you need me to get you something?" he quickly asked. Polar winced as Ink looked down towards his sack. The hybrid quickly opened it and spilled out the contents as they fell onto the slope of the mountainside, being caught within the dirt.

For a moment, Polar was worried that they'd roll off the slope, but they stayed put. The IceWing breathed heavily as he reached towards the small diamond that had fallen out, eagerly grasping it in his razor-sharp talons. He quickly brought it up to his left forearm, rubbing the diamond against his ice-blue scales. His breathing started to slow, and the pain began to subside.

"Are you going to be alright?" Ink asked.

Polar waited a moment, catching his breath, before answering. "I'm fine," he grumbled, clearly not fine. He hadn't wanted Ink to see this. Even though Ink had already seen it, he tried to hide the diamond in the palm of his paw from the hybrid.

Polar's hiding motion just made Ink more curious. "Is it animus-touched?" the hybrid asked. "I've seen you holding it while sleeping."

Polar tensed up and winced. The pain was mostly gone by now. That was good. Sometimes it lasted longer than that, especially if he didn't get to the diamond right away. "It's none of your business," he growled, "and I'll kill you if you tell anyone about it."

Ink sighed, a little exasperated with Polar's violent threats and secrecy. "You can trust me. Who is there to tell?"

Polar snorted. "It's not important. It's just an item that heals dragons. I got it from a relative. Haven't you ever seen an enchanted artifact before?"

Ink thought for a moment, carefully. "Once or twice," he responded. It was technically correct, but Ink wasn't quite sure that he'd call him an artifact. It just felt . . . wrong. "Are they common where you come from?"

Polar scoffed proudly, his ego suddenly inflating to the maximum, like he was trying to hide his pain with it. "Yes," he replied. "In the Ice Kingdom, we have enchanted items everywhere. We used to have animus blood running in the royal family, until a certain NightWing abducted our last animus prince. To this day, relics of that great age remain in our kingdom, bringing joy and prosperity to our kingdom."

A relative gave it to him, Ink wondered. He remembered from his vision that Loresearcher had mentioned something about Polar's relatives. They were traitors to Queen Glacier. "If there's no animuses left in the Ice Kingdom, how did your relative get the diamond?"

Polar's eyes shot wide-open in surprise. Clearly, something Ink said had struck a nerve. Maybe the diamond had been stolen? "It's a family heirloom," Polar quickly responded, "it was passed down to me by my aunt."

Ink frowned. He could tell that the IceWing was lying about that. What if it had been enchanted more recently than that? "I don't have any family heirlooms," Ink responded. If he opened up about himself, maybe Polar would too. "I don't know my parents." Ink started to realize that he was still following Loresearcher's orders from the vision. Get Polar to open up, and figure out his plans. It was funny — he was trying to please a brother who didn't even exist. Yet Loresearcher's advice, even if he was long dead, had helped Ink out before.

Polar grumbled. "You're not alone on that one. Mine abandoned me and fled from the Ice Kingdom when I was a year old. They're probably dead. Good riddance, if you ask me. I've got Queen Glacier now. What happened to yours?" He asked this last question without any hesitation or respect for Ink's privacy.

"Er, they were killed," Ink answered, now starting to get slightly uncomfortable himself. "But I think I have an uncle at Jade Mountain. Maybe he'll give me a family heirloom?"

Polar snorted. A SeaWing and a NightWing. He wondered how that had happened. "Well, were they nice, at least? They had to have been at least a little bit traitorous to have you, but they couldn't have been as bad as my parents."

Ink shuffled his wings. "I didn't know them very well. They died when I was very young." That wasn't completely true. He knew Torrent a bit, at least from his visions. And Griffin had told him about Nightreader as well. "What did your parents do?"

Polar flicked his tongue in and out, slightly unsure whether or not he should reveal it. Among other IceWings, he tried to hide the crimes of his parents as much as possible. Heritage was important, almost as much as rankings. Whenever the topic had come up among other IceWings, he tried to tell them about his mother's parents. A famous researcher and a general, both of humble heritage themselves. But the topic always came back to how Polar's parents had conspired against the Ice Kingdom, siding with the enemies and trying to make them lose the war. It was like every mother and father blamed Polar for their dragonets dying in the war. And then there was his aunt — few dragons but Polar, the Empty Circle, and Queen Glacier herself knew exactly what she had done, but everyone knew about the bounty on her scales. A quarter of the crown's wealth, and marriage into the royal family. The pain Polar was going through now was all because of her.

But Ink was just a hybrid. He didn't know or care about all that. He was born from the blood of traitors too — there was no way the Sea and Night Kingdoms would condone a mating between two of their dragons. "They were part of the Talons of Peace," Polar responded. "Sick, isn't it?"

Ink tapped a webbed talon on the ground, and squinted closer at Polar with his one eye. The light-blue scales started to seem more familiar. How had Loresearcher known? "Clarity?" he suddenly blurted out.

Polar blinked for a moment. "Sorry, what did you just say?" he asked, unsure if he had heard Ink correctly.

"Clarity," Ink gulped, realizing that it might have been a mistake to say the name out-loud. "I've, er, met her and her mate Fracture once or twice. My adopted father knew them." That was a bit of an understatement. The two of them had helped Griffin raise Ink for the first few years of his life; they were practically his aunt and uncle. "You look a little bit like her."

Polar uncomfortably squirmed. His parents were still alive? And apparently, they'd met this dragon. He'd suspected that they'd been killed in the war or something, but no such luck. So they were still out there. Somewhere.

"C'mon, we should get going to Jade Mountain," Polar suggested, changing the subject. He placed the diamond in his left forepaw and lifted his right talons from his arm, revealing the silver bracelet. Ink could see that some of the scales at the edge of it were discolored and fused together. It certainly looked like it hurt; Ink didn't blame Polar for using the healing diamond.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Ink asked. "It looks like you're in pain." Ink having an intimate connection to Polar's family seemed far too unlikely to just be purely coincidence. Although, Ink supposed it wasn't. Loresearcher must have realized it, which was why he asked Ink to investigate the IceWing. And Ink didn't just randomly meet up with Polar out here — he'd hoped that Polar would come across him, since this was the path that he used in Ink's visions.

Polar stiffened up again, realizing Ink could see the injuries beneath the silver armband. "It's fine," he muttered. "We're almost there. Only a few more hours of flying to go."

Ink nodded, and the two took off from the mountainside together, continuing their flight south.

Polar's timing was right; it was in the late afternoon when they spotted the twin peaks of Jade Mountain rising over the Claws of the Clouds. As they flew closer, the landing platform for the academy came into view, the great entrance cave yawning behind it. A small white dragonet perked his head up as the two spiraled down, curiously watching their entrance as if he was looking out for visitors.

Polar groaned as he saw who it was. "Ermine," he sighed, and the dragonet walked up to him with a glare. Ermine looked back and forth between Polar and Ink, who was brushing his wings off.

Polar wasn't a fan of Ermine. Ermine was a small, cowardly dragonet who was at the bottom of the Second Circle. The only reason he'd been chosen to go to Jade Mountain was because his parents were high-ranked nobles in the First Circle, and they'd insisted to Queen Glacier that Ermine be sent. They believed that the school would help give their dragonet the skills he needed to make it into First Circle before his seventh birthday, but all it had done was keep his ranking stagnant for the past three years he was at the academy. He was five now, and only had a year left at the academy before he was sent back to the Ice Kingdom. Honestly, Polar believed that Queen Glacier just sent Ermine away so that she wouldn't have to deal with him in the palace.

"Polar?" Ermine questioned, glaring at his superior. "What are you doing here? Who said that you could come? The school year has already started, it's too late for you to join."

"Can't say," Polar quipped, twitching his ears. "I'm on a secret mission from Queen Glacier, you see. Hush-hush, Third Circle IceWings aren't allowed to know." One of the nice things about having a First Circle position was that he didn't have to pretend he was a nice dragon to those beneath him, which just happened to be most IceWings. It didn't make him many friends, but he didn't need those. Everyone else seemed to hate him because of his parents, so why would he care about being nice back? As long as he remained polite to those above him, Queen Glacier, the rest of the royal family, and the Empty Circle in particular, he didn't have to take any of the caribou-dung-laced words any other dragon gave him.

"Third Circle?" Ermine asked, his eyes suddenly filled with worry. Polar thought he might have even seen tears form in the dragonet's eyes. Third Circle meant that when he reached seven, he'd be removed from Queen Glacier's palace. Polar saw Ermine stare up at the silver ring that Polar wore around his neck, taunting the dragonet — his own ranking, First Circle. As soon as he had gotten the necklace, at seven, Polar had worn it wherever he went within the Ice Kingdom. To remind everyone else that no matter how much they despised him, he was better than the rest of them. He'd been so happy when he'd seen Vortex's shocked expression.

Ermine glanced up towards Polar's eyes, and gave him a frown. "You're lying," he said, "I was still in Second Circle when we got updated on our rankings last. I had actually gone up one."

Polar shrugged his wings up and down. "You're right, it hasn't happened yet, but Queen Glacier might be changing it soon. She just saw the most recent report from the headmasters here. She knows what you did."

Ermine squirmed uncomfortably. Polar didn't get to read the report, so he wasn't actually sure if Ermine had done anything bad at the academy and if so, what it was, but he was bound to have done at least something wrong. He was a dragonet, and Ermine could be was rude and defiant, at least from how Polar remembered him. "Anyways, you should make sure to be on your best behavior. I plan on giving a full report to Queen Glacier when I get back."

"Unfair," Ermine muttered as Ink lugged his watersack over towards the entrance, passing the young IceWing. Ermine stared at the hybrid. "What are you?"

"I'm Ink!" Ink gleefully answered.

"You're ugly," Ermine grumbled. "You're a hybrid, aren't you. Like Skytaker."

Ink perked up for a moment. Skytaker. He thought he recognized the name from his vision. So there was a hybrid here. That was good to know, he might want to meet them.

"You're not really one to talk, Ermine," Polar snorted, flicking the spines of his tail in front of Ermine's snout, making sure they didn't actually touch the dragonet.

Ermine growled grouchily. "Are you hanging out with him? You're not supposed to hang out with dragons from other tribes, especially not hybrids. What are you doing, talking to him? I'll bet Queen Glacier would be angry if she found out."

Polar gave Ermine a glare. "I'm not talking with him. We just arrived at Jade Mountain together, and now we're gonna have nothing else to do with each other." He wasn't particularly scared of Ermine ratting him out. Queen Glacier had invested far too much in him already, and if he succeeded in his mission, there was virtually nothing that would keep him from being placed at the top of the First Circle, even talking with Ink. He could make Ink his mate and join the Talons of Peace, Great Ice Dragon forbid, and his name would still be cheered from every balcony of the palace. "Anyways, you should be getting to sleep," Polar told Ermine, "isn't it getting a little late for little dragonets to be up?" It was only early evening, but it still worked.

"I'm not a little dragonet!" Ermine growled. "Stop it!"

Polar rolled his eyes, and suddenly noticed soft clawsteps coming out from the cave leading further into Jade Mountain. A small NightWing walked out quietly, burn scars over his unfocused eyes. "Ermine, what's going on?" he asked.

"There are dragons here," Ermine muttered. "A mean IceWing and a weird hybrid."

"I'm not weird," Ink growled quietly.

Even though he couldn't see him, Starflight instinctively turned his head towards Ink. "Who are you?" he asked uncertainly. "You're not with Queen Scarlet, right? Why are you here? Do you need water?"

"We're not with Queen Scarlet," Ink quickly replied, "definitely not. And we have water, so we're good on that for now."

"I was sent by Queen Glacier. You must be Starflight," Polar suddenly interrupted, causing Starflight to turn towards him. "I am here to report on her students."

"Are the reports we send not good enough?" Starflight asked, concerned that something had happened to harm their relationship with the Ice Kingdom even more than already.

Polar shook his head, even though the NightWing couldn't see it. "The reports are fine, we just wanted to provide our own evaluations. This wasn't part of our original plan, but because of the drought that arose on my flight here, Queen Glacier will also want to make sure that there are plans to keep her students hydrated in place. If not, we might have to temporarily bring them back to the Ice Kingdom."

Starflight thought for a moment. "At the moment, we've been using fruit from the rainforest for water and melting snow from the mountaintop. I think one of the students suggested importing more blubbery animals like seals and whales here, but that's a little difficult to do. Is that good enough?"

"I think so," Polar responded. There was a lot of water supply in the snow, and as long as there were fire-breathers in the academy, that would hopefully be enough. Still, food supplies would definitely be impacted by the drought, so the solution wouldn't be permanent. Hopefully, the drought was just a freak fluke in Pyrrhia's weather, and there'd be rain and water again in a few weeks. Where had all the water gone?

"Can we stay for a while and use your library?" Ink suddenly asked. Polar glanced over at him, slightly surprised. That was exactly what he was planning to ask Starflight, and was the primary reason why Queen Glacier had sent him down here. He was pretty sure that the hybrid couldn't read minds, but still . . .

Starflight thought for a moment, slightly concerned. "We don't normally have visitors up here, but our library is supposed to be a source of knowledge for all dragons. You're welcome to it, and as long as you don't interfere with normal school business, you can stay in our guest room for now."

"Thank you so much!" Ink answered. "I'm Ink by the way, and my friend here is Polar."

"I'm not his friend," Polar quickly said, giving Ermine a glare.

Starflight nodded gently. "I'm Starflight, our librarian. Please follow me." He walked into the caverns slowly, but knew where he needed to go even without looking. Polar and Ink followed him, leaving Ermine behind at the entrance of the school. Dragonets crowded around the entrance hall, many staring at Ink as he walked by. He barely paid them any attention, looking around the cavern walls. It was just like he'd seen it in his vision.

Eventually, the three reached the library, just the same as when Ink had last seen it. As Starflight walked over towards his desk, Polar followed behind him. Ink walked closer.

"Starflight," Polar stated, hiding his disdain for the NightWing in his voice. He lowered his voice just slightly. "Do you have any scrolls on animus dragons?"

Starflight thought for a moment, and nodded. "A couple. We actually got a couple new ones just recently; they were salvaged from some of the old libraries on the NightWing island." He pointed a talon over in the direction of a scrollshelf. "That's our shelf on legends. A good amount of them have animus magic involved in them, but the one we have that would probably be the most help is called The Animus Histories, which is a comprehensive history of various animus-touched objects and their creators. It has three spirals and a circle on its wooden end piece. The other two should be easily identified from their ages. One is part of an antique reference set called The Black Scrolls, and is specifically on animus magic from a NightWing perspective. Another is called A Guide to Animus Magic, and is much more recent. Fatespeaker read me part of it not too long ago; it was written by an animus named Vine as a sort of 'instruction guide' for young animi. Might I ask why you're looking into animus magic?"

"Queen Glacier told me to when she sent me down here," Polar replied quickly, fidgeting his left foreclaws. "It's not my place to ask her why. One of our gifts is probably acting strange."

Starflight frowned slightly, and tapped his claws on his desk. Polar gulped quietly, hoping the NightWing couldn't hear. Queen Glacier would be very angry if the truth got out too soon, and Polar could be in a lot of danger. The NightWing finally finished thinking, and gave Polar a toothy smile. "Alright," he said, "best of luck in your research. If you take them out from the library, please make sure to return them. We don't have a stamp for guests."

Polar walked over to the cubby that Starflight had pointed out, Ink following behind him. He quickly found The Animus Histories from the description Starflight had given of the end piece, and the volume of The Black Scrolls was instantly given away by the peculiar black paper it had been written on. It took him a little longer to find the Guide; this one was small and old, but it didn't seem to have much use. It also didn't have a carved endpiece on it yet, just a normal flat piece of wood. After grabbing all three, the IceWing moved towards a small rocky ledge that looked like it could be a nice reading space. He opened The Animus Histories, the paper crinkling as it rolled open.

The scroll opened to the last place it had been read. A short section on Fathom, with a large question mark in the space where an illustration should have been. Polar quickly glanced down across the section.

Grandson of Albatross, the perpetrator of the Royal SeaWing Massacre [see: Albatross]. Fathom was so traumatized by his family's murder that he swore an oath to his sister, Pearl, the new SeaWing queen, that he would never use his animus magic.

Fathom was sent to the Night Kingdom to befriend and guide a young animus dragon named Darksta—

Polar stopped reading, seeing Ink's dark snout peering over him. He glanced up with a sigh, and closed the scroll. He didn't want the hybrid getting too curious about why he was looking at animus magic. Why hadn't Ink just gone off somewhere else? Didn't he have better stuff to do than stick around Polar like a bear cub on its mother?

"I didn't know you liked to read," Ink grinned.

Polar rolled his eyes. Hopefully the hybrid wouldn't force Polar to read his stories now. "What do you want?" he asked, exasperated. "I'm busy, and don't have time to talk right now."

Ink's eyes lit up happily, confusing Polar. "Nothing," he laughed. He glanced closer at the scroll. "What are you reading? Is it interesting? If not, I bet we could go find some interesting scrolls together. I'm sure Starflight could help."

"It's alright, but not the best," Polar grumbled. "I'm not reading for fun anyways. It's stuff that's assigned to me by Queen Glacier."

"Can I see?" Ink asked quickly.

Polar opened his mouth, about to give Ink a clear 'no,' but the hybrid was too fast. Ink pulled the scroll towards him, and opened it up to the section about Fathom.

"The Animus Histories," Ink spoke. "Oooh, this part is on Fathom. This sounds cool. I like animus stories, even if I know not all of them are really based in truth. I've written a few myself, all fiction of course. They're pretty simple. The archetypal plot of an animus legend is that of tragedy, whereby a dragon with originally noble intentions is corrupted by power, leading to their eventual downfall at the end of a 'hero,' a dragon who usually embodies the moral standards that the animus is unable to live up to, but isn't actually the main character. The moral of the story usually tends to be along the lines of 'don't be tempted to take easy solutions to hard problems' or occasionally the slightly subversive 'power should be in the talons of many rather than that of one.' There are definitely outliers, but a lot of legends follow this animus and hero archetype: Queen Fen and Calamity, in the SkyWings, Vulture and Princess Ametrine. And of course, Darkstalker and Fathom." Ink suddenly frowned as a sudden sense of deja vu passed over him. That was almost exactly what he'd said in his vision, right?

Polar tapped a claw on the scroll, pulling it back towards him. This dragon seemed naive and clueless, half NightWing or not. It was nice to see a dragon so laid-back and comfortable, but he wouldn't last a day in the Ice Kingdom. It was a shame.

"You know, I'm apparently related to some animuses myself," Ink suddenly blurted out, "I don't have any magic, of course, and the relations are a bit distant, but I think it's pretty cool."

Polar glanced at Ink curiously. Related to an animus. Depending on how distant the relative was, it could even mean that with the right choice of mate, Ink would be likely to have an animus dragonet. That would be powerful. Especially in the Ice Kingdom. More than anything, Queen Glacier wanted to bring back animus magic to the royal family. That was why Polar was going through all this. Almost instinctively, Polar tapped a talon to the dark-purple stone on his silver bracelet, feeling the tender pressure against his scared scales beneath it, a trickle of blue blood leaking out.

If Project Darkstone was successful, the Ice Kingdom would be restored to its rightful wealth and glory. The Royal Family would once again possess the greatest gift of all. The Gift of Magic.