"Jade Mountain," Torrent commented, looking up at the twin-peaked mountain from the forest below. "Beautiful, ain't it?"
"Yeah, it's pretty . . . large," Slate replied. When he'd first come to the Claws of the Clouds, he'd been amazed by the stunning beauty of the mountains, but it was already starting to wear off. Even so, Jade Mountain stood out among the rest — snow completely covered the top, and it dwarfed the nearby mountains in size. Partway down the peak, Slate saw a large landing platform, with the entrance to a large cave behind it. That had to be the entrance to Jade Mountain Academy. He could just barely see a small IceWing on the platform, as if keeping guard.
"Brings back memories," Torrent snorted. The SeaWing brought out his enchanted map, and laid it out in front of himself and Slate. It looked much the same as it did when they'd left Crosswinds. Seven blotches — seven animuses.
Slate peered over, engrossed in the magical map. "So, do you know who all these dragons are?" he asked.
Torrent shook his head. "Not yet, although I have a few hunches. Midnight's obviously the one in Crosswinds, and the Darkstalker is under Agate Mountain, which isn't too far from here."
"The Darkstalker?" Slate asked, frowning. "You mentioned them before. What's that?"
Torrent sighed. "An ancient animus in NightWing and IceWing legends. Evil, of course. Probably lost his soul. Killed a bunch of dragons. His own magic was used to put him in an eternal slumber, sealed beneath Agate Mountain. I confirmed it myself — I was young and stupid, and thought I could kill him myself. There's a magical cave system beneath Agate and Jade Mountain that hides him. Crystal and I went down there years ago. We thought were going to die down there, and well . . . we escaped only at his mercy."
Slate tried to quickly take in what Torrent was telling him. What did he mean about Crystal? Wasn't she the one he was trying to kill?
"Back to the map," Torrent continued. "Of the five in Jade Mountain, I know the pewter one is Stonemover, Midnight's uncle. I remember seeing the green one years ago near the Deep Palace, so I suspect that's one of my many brothers, another one of Midnight's uncles. I have no idea about the pink and white ones, but the blue one is the one I'm most worried about."
"What's the blue one?"
"Each of the blotches matches up somewhat with the dragon's scales," Torrent explained. "Orca didn't enchant the map explicitly to do that, but I guess that's how the magic interpreted her. The blue color is somewhat unique — too light to be a SeaWing, and too dark for an IceWing. There's one dragon I know who fits that, and may be an animus. Her name is Aurora. She's a hybrid, SeaWing-IceWing. If you see her, don't provoke her, and don't try and hurt her. She's dangerous."
Slate could hear the conflict in Torrent's voice as he spoke of Aurora, the SeaWing becoming solemn. "Aurora," the young MudWing asked, an realization dawning over him, "is she . . . ?"
"Mine and Crystal's daughter," Torrent grumbled unhappily.
"What happened?" Slate said, worried that might be too personal a question. Another hybrid? "If you don't mind me asking, of course."
Torrent shook his head. "No, it's fine. I've dragged you into this, you should know. Back during the war Crystal and I travelled together for some time across Pyrrhia, along with your father, and another . . . ex-friend. The group split after Crystal and I made a bad choice together that your father didn't agree with. He left us, and we haven't talked since. Maybe after this is over, I'll go and find him. After that, Crystal and I spent some time together. Trying to hunt down and kill the Darkstalker took a while. It was a mistake. One of multiple that we made. Fear and loneliness can make two dragons do . . . strange things. Eventually, we gave up on our hunt, and for a while, we were happy. I thought. But she left, and took Aurora's egg with her. I still don't know why. For a while, I blamed Griffin. Then I blamed myself. I thought she'd left for the same reason Schist did. But instead, years later, she returned as a monster. She destroyed everything I had. She killed our family."
The SeaWing sighed glumly. Even after seven years, he still grieved. There was so much he'd done wrong. Where could he start?
"If Crystal's here, and you see her again, what will you do?" Slate asked.
Torrent gritted his teeth. "I'll kill her without hesitation. But Aurora . . . I think Crystal corrupted her. Forced Aurora to work with her. She's still my daughter — as stupid as it might be, I somehow still love her. I want to at least try to change her. Are there any other questions you wanted to ask?"
Slate shook his head. He didn't really feel the need to pry too much more into Torrent's personal life. He got the jist of it. The whole MudWing sib system was really starting to become more appealing to him.
"Great," Torrent grumbled. "It's getting late. We'll make camp out here. Tomorrow, I want you to investigate inside of the academy while I search outside of the mountain for some of our blotches."
"Why me?" Schist asked. "I have no idea what Crystal and Aurora look like, and I can't detect animus magic."
"You're the right age to be a student," Torrent explained. "You'll be less visible than an old scarred SeaWing, and neither Crystal nor Aurora know who you are. They'll recognize me instantly, and some of the other animuses might've heard about me from my old animus hunting days. I might go catch up with Stonemover, too." Torrent winced slightly. Conversations with Stonemover were always a bit awkward, so they'd only talked a couple times in the last seven years. He looked a bit too much like his deceased sister, and it didn't help that Torrent had to walk past Nightreader's stone corpse. Reminding him of everything he'd lost. "If you see anything suspicious or notice any of the animuses, make sure to find me as soon as possible. You're a prophecy dragon. I don't want you getting hurt."
Slate agreed, and looked back up towards Jade Mountain. The peaks were covered in snow, but he could tell that it was melting; the snowline had receded from its usual extent. How much longer before it was all gone? He thought back to his mother, still in the Mud Kingdom with its dried up rivers. Don't worry, he thought to himself, I'll be back soon.