Sunny ate quietly at the large table in the SandWing Palace, slowly tearing off small pieces from a large lamb's leg. The only other dragon in the room at the moment was a small dragonet, maybe three or four. Sunny glanced over at him with a smile, but he kept his eyes focused down on his food, not wanting to make conversation. She wasn't quite sure of his name, although she thought he was one of the Outclaws who had moved in with Thorn to the palace. She couldn't blame him for being unhappy. None of the few dragons in the palace were, now that Queen Thorn was gone.
It had only been two days since Sunny arrived at the SandWing palace. It was strange, not having so many dragonets bursting with energy constantly around her, like there had been at Jade Mountain Academy. Even if it had only been a few days, less than a week, Sunny missed it. Having friends around, dragons who cared about her; here, she didn't know anyone, and everyone treated her stiffly.
The doors to the dining room suddenly burst open, and the pastel amber snout of Armadillo poked through it. He quickly scanned the room, his gaze focusing on Sunny as he found her. He quickly trotted towards her, looking slightly concerned with his tail twitching back and forth, as if he was constantly expecting an attack from behind him.
Sunny looked up towards him, trying to feign a smile. "Good morning, Armadillo," she greeted him.
"Good morning, your majesty," he answered, too rushed for any small talk. "I need you to look over these." He opened one of his forepaws, dropping a small collection of rolled up papers into Sunny's talons. "I wrote up a few drafts for the speech you're going to make later today."
"Speech?" Sunny asked, surprised. "Today?" She glanced through the papers, reading snippets of sentences as they blurred past her.
Armadillo nodded. "The crowd won't be too big, but other than myself and some of the palace staff I kept, no one else has seen their new queen. They need to know you're alive, safe, and healthy."
Sunny squirmed. She didn't like this. "I can't," she replied. "Look at me. They'll notice that I'm weirdly colored, and too small, and don't have a barb. They won't accept me as a . . . a SandWing queen." She was careful not to say the word 'hybrid,' with the Outclaws dragonet within earshot, even if he didn't seem like he was listening.
Armadillo snorted, almost chuckling in amusement. "Don't worry about that. After your mother decided to let her stay in the palace, Blaze brought some of the best stylists in the Sand Kingdom with her. They can easily make your scales look dustier and your eyes darker. They can probably hide your missing barb with a veil or jewelry. You'll be fine."
Sunny tapped her tail on the floor. She didn't like that. It felt like she was lying. Dragons would realize she wasn't a normal SandWing eventually, wouldn't they? She couldn't hide her lack of barb forever, and if that became public, dragons would start to talk. "Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" Sunny questioned Armadillo. "It would have been nice to have more than a few hours warning."
Armadillo scratched his claws slightly. "I was planning to propose a speech for tomorrow, and was going to talk about it with you today. I figured you deserved a day to rest, with . . . everything. But I got news of something that happened last night in the Ice Kingdom, and things have become urgent."
"The Ice Kingdom?" Sunny asked, surprised.
"Last night, in their palace," Armadillo explained anxiously. "According to the official story that Queen-mother Tundra gave out, Queen Glacier and Princess Snowfall were meeting with a number of important aristocrats, and were attacked by a rogue IceWing without warning. Both Glacier, Snowfall, and the aristocrats were killed, and the killer escaped."
Sunny gulped. Two queens murdered, in such a short timeframe. That couldn't be coincidence, could it? Could the same dragon or group of dragons have killed both Thorn and Glacier? Why? Were they trying to destabilize Pyrrhia, or start another war? "The IceWings," Sunny asked, an idea forming in her head, "did they have anything like the Eye of Onyx?"
Armadillo nodded. "Yes. They have something called the Eye of Diamond, which has a similar purpose and appearance. Both date back to the Scorching, even though our legends of Jerboa seem to have persisted for a few thousand years later. I looked into it a bit after Blister's death, and I want to say an IceWing named Queen Frost was involved in its legends, but I can't say I know more than that. There wasn't any mention of the Eye, or Queen Glacier's specific cause of death, if that's what you're asking."
If the Eye of Diamond was stolen too, that complicated things. Sunny had thought that Aloe had been the one who'd sent someone to kill Sunny's mother, but why would she want to kill Queen Glacier and Princess Snowfall, too? That didn't make sense. "Can you compose a letter for me?"
"To whom?" Armadillo asked, slightly surprised.
"Queen Glory, in the rainforest," Sunny answered. "If someone is going around, assassinating queens, we need to warn her. She could be in danger."
Armadillo flicked his forked tongue in and out, frowning. "Are you sure that's wise? Maybe you were friends as dragonets, but now you're both queens of rival kingdoms. You should be more wary of her, and how your relationship appears to the rest of Pyrrhia."
Sunny glared at Armadillo. "What do you mean, 'be more wary of her?' She's not just a friend, she's practically my sister. Just because we're both queens of separate kingdoms now doesn't mean that will change." Maybe you're the one I should be wary of. For all I know, you helped plot my mother's death.
Armadillo still seemed slightly uncertain. "I don't doubt that she's a good and trustworthy dragon, but your subjects might think you're too close to her, and it won't help with Aloe. Eventually, you might fly into a situation where you might have to choose between her and what's best for your kingdom.
Sunny winced. How could Armadillo think that it was a bad thing for Sunny to be friends with Glory, the RainWings, and the NightWings? That was the whole point of Jade Mountain Academy: to be able to have dragons, no matter what kingdom they hailed from, be able to put aside their differences and communicate peacefully with each other. To prevent the next war before it started.
"My relationship with Glory is fine," Sunny snarled, "and if something comes up between us, we'll make sure to work it out peacefully, and do what is best for all dragons, not just SandWings. That's final." Sunny would give her life for Glory, and she knew Glory would do the same for her. "Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?"
Her advisor looked a little worried, but didn't press the matter. "Do you understand the situation in the IceWing throne?"
Sunny thought for a moment. Since no one had actually challenged Queen Glacier, if there wasn't a clear successor to the throne, that might be bad. Sunny didn't think that it could turn into a worldwide war like the War of SandWing Succession, since it wasn't like the other kingdoms could send armies into IceWing territories, but any war at all would be bad. "No. Queen Glacier had multiple daughters, right?"
Armadillo nodded. "Two. Princess Snowfall, who was killed, and Ex-Princess Blackice."
"Ex-Princess Blackice?" Sunny asked, confused. "What does that mean? She's not a princess anymore?"
"She was disowned by Queen Glacier for an incident that happened early on during the War of SandWing Succession. Glacier sent out a proclamation that Blackice was unsuitable to be queen, and revoked Blackice's royal challenge privileges."
"Revoking royal challenge privileges? Are queens allowed to do that?" Sunny asked.
Armadillo shrugged his wings. "There isn't anything but traditions that says queens can't. After it was done, there was a bit of debate in the Ice Kingdom about whether queens could just ban daughters from royal challenges, but the controversy wasn't really about exiling Blackice in particular, just the worry that future queens would take this as precedent to prevent their own family members from challenging them and abuse it. Not like that's that much worse that Queen Oasis and her predecessors assassinating their sisters and daughters for the same reason."
"So, if Blackice can't be queen, who is?"
"The next IceWing in line for the throne would be Queen Glacier's niece, Icicle, who is currently in control. Hence her mother Tundra sending out the news of Glacier and Snowfall's deaths."
"Icicle?" Sunny asked in alarm. "That can't be right. She can't be queen. I knew her, she was a student at Jade Mountain Academy. She tried to murder Starflight. Why didn't Queen Glacier ban her from being queen?"
"Presumably, Glacier didn't feel like what she did was bad enough to deserve the same punishment as Blackice," Armadillo answered. "Still, I don't think she's going to be popular. She was placed in the Seventh Circle after what happened two years ago, and was only able to work back to Fourth Circle before she turned seven, so she wasn't even allowed to live in the palace until now. From what it sounds like, her mother Tundra is trying to keep Icicle under her paw and reassure the kingdom that she won't let Icicle do anything rash."
Sunny recalled being told a bit about the IceWing ranking system by a few of the students at Jade Mountain. It sounded terrible, pitting all of their dragonets against one another. It certainly explained a lot of the behavioral problems she'd had to deal with at the academy. "Where is Blackice in the Circle Rankings?"
"I believe she's second-last in the Seventh Circle," Armadillo replied. "It's where the worst traitors to the kingdom go, and most of those at the bottom of the adult rankings are imprisoned or exiled somewhere. Just because of how the Gift of Order works, the queen isn't technically allowed to remove their names until they die."
"What did she do to deserve that?" Sunny replied, shocked. Maybe she preferred Icicle as queen to Blackice.
"It was before you hatched," he explained. "Not too long into the War of SandWing Succession, there was a decisive battle on the northern border of the IceWing kingdom between Blaze and Burn's forces, the Battle of Devil's Eye. Princess Blackice, as she was known as the time, was in charge of one of the IceWing legions, which was supported by one of Blaze's legions, led by General Vicuña, a SandWing known both for having strong morals and being a brilliant military strategizer. The two of them faced a much larger force of Burn's, led by an over-confident general of hers, General Mesa. Though lacking numbers, General Vicuña was able to outsmart Mesa, and engineered the SandWing and IceWing armies into an advantageous position. Had he won the battle, he would have been able to take the SandWing stronghold from Burn, and possibly remove her from the war. The war might have been over in only a few years, with Blaze and Queeen Glacier's victory almost assured.
"But just as it seemed certain Vicuña was going to be victorious, Princess Blackice gave her troops the inconceivable order to attack and kill all SandWings, regardless of whether they were friends or foes. Although it's thought that she had become jealous of Vicuña's success, it's still unknown what her intentions were for the order, and it could have been argued to be an unfortunate miscommunication. Perhaps, but the next part couldn't have been misunderstood. When General Vicuña questioned Blackice about what what happened, she attacked him and stabbed him through the throat with his own barb, in front of all his subordinates. They tried to capture her in response, but a group of IceWings directly loyal to her killed them. On the field, the battle was a slaughterhouse, with allies turning on each other. The advantage was lost, and General Mesa crushed both armies, forcing the IceWings to retreat north while Vicuña's army fell apart.
"When Blackice returned to the Ice Kingdom, she attempted to cover up the incident, claiming that Vicuña was killed by a SandWing from Mesa's army, and adding in that she would have won the battle had Vicuña not been killed. But after listening to a number of soldiers who had seen the whole thing and obtaining the correct information from some of Blackice's lackeys, Queen Glacier realized the truth behind the defeat. Blaze, her remaining generals, and other higher-ups wanted justice, and Glacier was more than willing to deal it out. Blackice was stripped of her royal title and demoted to the bottom of the Seventh Circle. Queen Glacier placed an edict ordering that Blackice was unable to participate in royal challenges and unable to become queen, then exiled her and the dragons who'd fought with to an abandoned rock far north of the Ice Kingdom, where she's remained to this day.
"Of course, she still had her allies. After her banishment, a small group of IceWings still loyal to Blackice arose, with the occasional treasonous communication back and forth to her. A cult known as the 'Black Princes.' They pushed for Queen Glacier to overturn the order and allow Blackice to challenge her, but had no success. I suspect that they will take Glacier and Snowfall's deaths as a chance to bring Blackice to power. I don't know if Blackice has enough supporters for there to be all-out war, but I don't doubt that she will try and kill Icicle somehow."
Sunny thought about this. She didn't like Icicle as queen, but Blackice sounded worse. Even if she hated it, Sunny could at least understand why Icicle had done what she had. In a sense, she was a victim; she'd been blackmailed by Queen Scarlet with her brother's life on the line. But Blackice had killed her allies, and for what?
Still, Sunny didn't want to get involved. Other kingdoms sticking their snouts into succession crises was what had lead to the War of SandWing Succession, and Sunny would do anything to avoid another one of those. "If there's civil war between the IceWings, I don't want to take a side," Sunny announced. "We have enough to deal with with Aloe right now, and whoever the IceWings chose is their business. I'm not going to endorse either of them until this is over."
Armadillo tapped his barb from side to side, pondering Sunny's decision. "That might be for the best," he replied, "although it might make Queen Icicle a bit more receptive if she knows you support her from the start. But if Blackice ends up taking control, you could be her first target because you supported her opponent."
"I know," Sunny stated. "Have we found out anything more about Aloe? If she's actually Blister's daughter, and how large her army is?"
"We know a little," Armadillo said. "She's planning to visit Crosswinds tomorrow, a small city on the Great Five-Tail River in neutral territory. According to some posters that were put up, announcing her visit, she has the black diamond pattern that her supposed mother did, and I have spies keeping a lookout to try and figure out of it's just scale-paint, or if she's the real thing. We don't know how many dragons she has behind her, but it can't be that many, or else we would have gotten more reports."
But why would she be marching against the Sand Kingdom if she knows she's going to lose? Sunny wondered. It didn't make sense. She glanced over to the Outclaws dragonet. He had finished his meal, and was getting up to leave the dining room. She waved a paw goodbye, but he didn't respond.
Sunny turned back to Armadillo. "Could Aloe have more dragons hidden somewhere?" she asked.
"In the Sand Kingdom?" Armadillo responded. "Probably not. There are some old tunnels in the mountains southwest of the kingdom, but they're all abandoned. We would know if there was a secret army there."
She needs troops if she wants to take the throne, but where would she get them? Maybe the other kingdoms, but Sunny wasn't sure that anyone else would want another war over the SandWing crown so soon, even Queen Scarlet. But what if a direct attack wasn't her goal?
"Could she be trying to plan an uprising or revolution against me?" Sunny asked.
Armadillo considered that for a moment. "That certainly seems possible. Maybe she'll skirt around the Sand Kingdom for a while, hoping to grow her numbers. It might be why she's passing through Crosswinds. A lot of dragons unhappy with Queen Thorn's rule moved there."
"Then what can we do?"
"Your mother was very popular, especially after the war," Armadillo explained, "so as long as you're able to appear strong, confident, and kind as she was, then I don't think Aloe will be effective. Hence the speech."
Sunny grimaced. Appear as strong, confident, and kind as Thorn? She wasn't sure she could do that. Kind, maybe, but she wasn't strong. She was Sunny. To the other dragonets, she was cheerful and caring. She'd never exuded power and confidence to them. She didn't know if she could do what her mother did. To be able to kill dragons, like how Thorn had killed Preyhunter.
Yet, Sunny was the one who had ended the war. She'd gotten the three SandWing princesses to meet up. Sure, it hadn't gone exactly as planned, but Sunny was the one who found the Eye of Onyx, and had made Thorn queen of the SandWings. She'd fulfilled the prophecy. If she could do that, why couldn't she be queen? At least until she found someone else better than her to do it.
"Alright," Sunny replied, "I can try."
Armadillo smiled, then reached a paw to a small pouch hanging on the chain between his horns. "I think you should have this," he said, bringing out a round black stone, with two golden wings attached to it, hanging from a thin chain.
Sunny's eyes opened wide. "The Eye of Onyx?" she whispered, surprised. "How—"
"It's not real," Armadillo quickly explained, "it's the fake I mentioned earlier. A replica that your mother had made to be put on display, so that if an ambitious dragon came in and tried to steal it, they wouldn't suffer Blister's fate. We still haven't been able to find the actual one. Sorry."
"Oh," Sunny answered glumly, "thank you anyways." She took the stone. It seemed practically indistinguishable from the real one, except without the ethereal tingle of magic.
"Put it on," Armadillo suggested, "Queen Thorn always wore hers, and if you wear it, everyone will believe that you're the rightful queen."
Sunny folded her wings in. She didn't like the idea of that. It sounded too much like lying. "Won't Aloe realize it's fake, if she stole the real one?"
"Maybe, but as far as we know, she doesn't have the real one. This way, we might even find out whether or not she actually sent the assassin and stole the Eye. Until we figure out what happened to the actual Eye of Onyx, you should keep it with you."
Sunny looked down at the fake, examining it closer. "She'll have the power of wings of fire," Sunny whispered, gently tracing a talon along one of the golden wings. Even from close up, it was convincing, although squinting at it, she could tell that it wasn't perfect. The stone itself wasn't as perfectly round as the original, but one couldn't see the slightly oblong shape unless they had their eyes practically pressed up against it. Now that she thought about it, it was amazing that the original makers had gotten the gem so perfect. Maybe it was magically carved?
"What did you say?" asked Armadillo, interrupting Sunny's thoughts.
"Oh," Sunny replied, "'She'll have the power of wings of fire.' It's a line from the Dragonet Prophecy."
Armadillo snorted, almost amused. "I know where it's from. There's not a dragon in Pyrrhia who doesn't. But why did you say it?"
"Well . . . did my mother ever tell you about the prophecy?" She didn't want to tell him about the fake prophecy if she had to; that was supposed to be kept a secret.
"That it was fake? Of course she did, she told me everything."
Everything? Maybe Armadillo could tell her a bit more about Thorn sometime. All the things that Sunny had missed out on. That would be nice.
Sunny sniffled. "The Eye of Onyx reminded Thorn and I of that line. If you flash it in the sunlight, the golden wings look a little like wings of fire. And the prophecy — it did sort of come true after all, didn't it? Two did die, and I guess Blaze learnt something. Maybe Morrowseer really did have the gift of prophecy. A least a little bit." Now that Sunny knew prophecy powers were real, it didn't seem that impossible. Moon had mentioned that Fatespeaker had a little prophecy powers, even if they were extremely weak. Could Morrowseer have been right? Could the prophecy have been real?
"That was just coincidence, wasn't it?" Armadillo asked skeptically. "Glory wasn't the wings of sky, was she?"
"I know, I know, it's just," Sunny continued, trying to hold back her tears, "if the prophecy was fake, that means that all that time I spent away from my mother was for nothing."
"Nothing? You ca—"
"No, I mean, that's not what I meant," Sunny interrupted, not wanting to mislead Armadillo. "It wasn't for nothing, I met the rest of the Dragonets, my brothers and sisters, and we stopped the war. That was worth it. I just wish I could go back and know her better."
Armadillo didn't have a response for that. A long silence ensued. Eventually, Sunny broke it. "I'll read over the speeches you gave me and prepare."
"Great," Armadillo responded, averting his eyes from the new queen, "I'll see you in a few hours, and introduce you Blaze's stylists. Get your rest."
Queen Sunny stepped out onto the balcony, bright light hitting her eyes. She was blinded for a moment as her eyes adjusted to her surroundings. Standing beneath the platform was a decently-sized crowd of SandWings, maybe a few dozen. They looked up at her impatiently, and it felt like they were all examining her, as if making sure she was as queenly as her mother. I wasn't expecting so many, Sunny thought anxiously. She took in a deep breath.
"Hello, fellow SandWings," Sunny announced to the crowd, knowing that was only half-true. She tried to force a smile. "I'm Sunny — I mean, Queen Sunny, your new queen." She tried not to wince. This was going poorly already. She glanced down at the papers Armadillo had given her, and scanned across them quickly. His script was messy and it was hard to make out. Even more, there were so many different ideas on them, so many things she could say. He really was a meticulous dragon. She'd picked out a few which made the most sense here.
"I think some of you know me a little already," she continued, "there are some Outclaws in the crowd who know me as my mother's daughter, and others who remember me as one of the Dragonets of Destiny, from the False Brightest Night. Some of you might know me as a founder of Jade Mountain Academy. I'm sure many of you have heard things about me and my friends.
"I know some of you are excited to have me as your queen, and I hope to not just live up to, but to exceed your expectations. But not all of you are like that. I'm sure some of you are worried. Some of you might even dislike me already. And for those of you in the crowd, I hope that I'm able to ease your worries.
"As I'm sure all of you already know, I've ascended to queenhood unexpectedly, not through a royal challenge, following my mother — Queen Thorn's — untimely death." Sunny choked up slightly as she said this. Keep calm. Keep smiling. "My mother didn't only help end the war, she spent the past three years trying to heal the wounds twenty years of bloodshed and civil war created. She helped the less fortunate, and saved the lives of dragonets which would starve and die of thirst otherwise. She was a very good queen who did her best to unite our splintered kingdom, and as her daughter, I will try my hardest to live up to her legacy."
Suddenly, a flash of brown in the crowd caught Sunny's eyes. She squinted, trying to get a glimpse of the dragon. Clay? she wondered. Why would he be here? She quickly came back to focus, just as dragons started murmuring, wondering why their queen had stopped talking.
"I first want to assure everyone that I will keep my mother's post-war reforms in place. I also plan on raising the available aid to veterans of the war, and to the dragonets and mates of the deceased. Three years isn't enough time to heal the gaps in our hearts of those who were killed during the war, and as queen, I give my word that as long as I live, our kingdom will never again suffer such a tragedy."
Sunny glanced down at the papers Armadillo had given her, glancing for the next section of the speech. As she looked back to the crowd, ready to start speaking again, an ear-splitting screech suddenly came from an older SandWing in the front. Sunny barely had time to turn her head as the thick paws of a dragon slammed her thin body against the wall of the balcony, and the razor-sharp barb of a SandWing hovered over her eyes.