The Fallen Prince (Dark Seas Series)

by Riokodragon

As Orca, Crown Princess of the SeaWings, attempts to hide her powers, her family works to uncover her secrets. In the aftermath, one of her remaining brothers sets out into Pyrrhia to stop animus magic for good, joining a thief with Queen Glacier on her scales, a captive-hatched MudWing, and an enchanted stone gryphon. Fic series containing Dark Seas, Stone Cold, and Rising Flames.

145. RF: Part 3: Chapters 41 to 46

Chapter 41

Skytaker stood as still as the air around them, the winds as dead as the land around the Mausoleum. The hybrid stepped forward, placing a paw up against the two great doors, cold to the touch. A silence crept between the four dragons in the Mausoleum, so quiet Skytaker could hear the pounding of their own heart.

"Ermine," they whispered, turning their head to rub their horns up against the door, trying to hear whatever was going on outside. Nothing. They looked over towards Tiger, only her outline visible in the darkness. "We can't just leave him here."

"Skytaker—" Tiger started to say, knowing the hybrid knew just as well as she did that what they were saying was irrational.

"I promised I'd help him go home!" Skytaker cried out, almost a wail. "I'm the one who convinced you to go into the rainforest in the first place. It's my fault he's stuck!"

Tiger sighed, and gently placed her wing around Skytaker, though it offered little relief from the odd chill inside the Mausoleum. "It's not your fault, and he's not dead. We'll go back for him after we save Pyrrhia, okay? But right now, we don't have time. We need to get away before Glory tries and opens the Mausoleum herself."

Skytaker's claws raked the stone surface of the ground. "You mean if she uses Ermine again," they growled. "You don't think that—"

Skytaker cut off, unwilling to say the final part. Tiger winced, thinking the same thing. Ermine was small and had already lost so much blood when they opened it the first time. If Glory tried to open the doors with him, this time, it might kill him.

"I don't think so," Tiger whispered, glad Skytaker couldn't see her scale colors in the dark. "She wanted us alive, right? She wouldn't kill him. She could get another IceWing."

Skytaker closed their eyes, doubting Tiger's words. Did Glory really want all of them alive? They hoped so. They let out a sigh. At this point, they couldn't turn back. "In that case, we need to get out of here, and defeat the Empress as quickly as possible, so we can rescue him."

Tiger nodded. What else could the four of them do? She turned back towards the Mausoleum, reaching out in the dark until her claws felt scales. "Should we go ahead?"

Skytaker's feeble night-vision helped them make out the outlines of Ecru and Midnight in the dark, and they stepped over towards the two, hunched over the edge of something. Skytaker peered down, stone's crumbling beneath their claws. In the center of the Mausoleum, a faint cold wind seemed to emanate from a huge pit in the floor, like the quiet breath of an IceWing. The sloped ran down into the ground, at an angle such that a dragon could carefully climb down. Beyond that, Skytaker couldn't see, a creeping darkness shrouding their view of beneath.

"What's wrong?" Skytaker asked, lifting their head up. Midnight and Ecru seemed strangely quiet as they perched over the edge of the pit, staring down into it. "That's where we need to go, right?"

"Yeah," Ecru replied, her voice faint. "Down there. Midnight, can you feel it?"

Feel what? Skytaker wondered.

Midnight nodded, her solemn expression starting to turn into a grin. "Yeah!" she answered, her voice suddenly elated. "I think my powers are starting to come back! Maybe I'm able to use magic from here!"

Ecru didn't seem to share the same excitement as her mate, her wings folding in as she grimaced. "Maybe."

"It's really dark," Tiger observed, not able to see much else. Careful not to fall in, she poked her head down into the hole, and stretched out a claw. A quiet ping sounded as she touched it to the side of the slope, and a red crystal suddenly lit up under her claw. Tiger winced and turned away from the bright flash, casting crimson light over the Mausoleum for a few instants, before fading into darkness again.

"Ecru," Tiger replied, opening her eyes once more. "Do you really think this will lead us back to our own world?"

"I don't know," Ecru admitted. "It's just a hunch. But if Midnight can feel her powers returning, I think that means we're getting closer."

"Hey, you think I can use it from in here?" Midnight suggested. "I could make something that would let us get Ecru back, then teleport us all back to wherever we wanted in Pyrrhia."

Ecru squirmed uncomfortably, shifting from side to side. "That might not be a good idea."

"It won't hurt to try," Midnight replied. "I enchan—"

Midnight let out a small mmph in surprise as she felt talons around her snout, Ecru forcibly pushing it close. Midnight glared, leaping back and pushing Ecru's forepaws off her mouth.

"What was that for?" Midnight snarled.

"It would hurt to try," Ecru said quietly, her eyes focused on Midnight as she grabbed one of Midnight's front paws. "Remember? Animuses lose their souls when they do magic?"

"Oh," Midnight replied. She blinked a few times, shaking her head as if to clear smoke around it. "Yeah. You're right. I guess I forgot about that. You're not angry, are you?"

Ecru let out a sigh. "I'm not angry, Midnight. Just worried. That's a weird thing to forget." She turned her head down towards the pit again, staring into it. "You promised you'd talk with me before doing any magic, remember?"

"Yeah," Midnight grimaced. "Sorry. But don't you think it would be useful? We finally have an advantage against the Empress here."

Ecru didn't raise her head, still staring down into the pit. "I think-I think we should try and make it through this without using magic. At least until we get back to Pyrrhia. Okay? Just a hunch."

"Hm," Midnight frowned. "I guess. If you think that's what we need to do." She looked back towards the two dragonets. "Ecru has a good sense for this kind of thing."

With that, Midnight turned around, placing her front claws on the edge of the pit, lowering herself down until her back claws touched the ground. A flurry of red light glimmered as she passed over the crystals, lighting up the tunnel. Midnight slowly started to walk backwards into the pit, until she was just out of sight from Ecru at the top.

"C'mon!" Midnight called up. "It gets flatter down here!"

Ecru continued to stare as Tiger and Skytaker climbed down into the pit, following along Midnight's path so they didn't slip. Once they had gotten down, Ecru stuck a talon into the pit, briefly hesitating.

When Midnight had started to try and make her enchantment, something had caught Ecru's gaze out of the corner of her eye. Movement, like something had creeped up out of the pit, a dark shadow drawn to Midnight, the crystals turned black beneath it.

Ecru sighed. Maybe she was just nervous. Maybe it had just been a trick of the light.

But other than the crystals, what light was there to trick her eyes?

"You coming?" Midnight yelled back up, her voice faint as it echoed through the tunnel. "C'mon, we don't know how long it'll be before Glory manages to get in here!"

Ecru took in a deep breath, and turned around, putting her thoughts behind her as she climbed down into the pit herself, a frigid tingle rising up her tail to her horns.

"Yeah, I'm coming!" Ecru called back as she descended.

The tunnel seemed to burrow down into the ground, winding back and forth like a worm crawling into the mud. Who had built it? Tiger wondered. Or was it natural?

It certainly didn't feel natural to the RainWing. With every step she made, going deeper into whatever was beneath Antigonia, a chill seemed to run up her scales. Red lights from crystals seemed to taunt her, lighting up as she approached as if to guide her further down. The only experience Tiger could think of that was comparable to this was when she'd gone through the tunnel to the Night Kingdom on her scroll-saving mission. A space that shouldn't have existed, torn in the very fabric of reality. Where did it come from? Why is there another world, just like Pyrrhia? Could there be more?

Eventually, the tunnel opened up, enlarging into a cavern. Tiger felt the surface beneath her claws change, becoming slick and smooth. She glanced down, expecting to see ice from what Toxin had told her of the Crystal Caverns. Instead, a black glassy surface spread out beneath her talons, covering the walls of the huge cavern. Obsidian appeared in spikes and waves like the stormy surface of a lake, frozen still in volcanic glass.

Tiger almost jumped in the air as she heard a crunching sound from behind her.

"Eww," Skytaker grimaced from behind Tiger, shaking their paw back and forth. Small fragments of broken bone scattered across the ground. Tiger's eyes followed one fragment before landing on a dragon skeleton, laying eternally still on the obsidian ground.

It wasn't the only one. A few more skeletons remained scattered around the cavern. Tiger shivered, and took a deep breath to try and calm herself.

"Huh," Ecru mused, staring at one of the skeletons as she stepped into the cavern. She prodded a thin wing-bone with her talon. "I wonder which one it is?"

"Which one?" Midnight asked, glancing back.

Ecru nodded. "I'll bet these were some of the dragons that died in the battle carved on the doors. What do you think, Tiger?"

"Me?" Tiger asked, pushing back the specks of green on her scales. "U-um, I don't know. Maybe one is Queen Frost?"

Ecru nodded, quickly stepping around Midnight, walking further into the cavern. Tiger watched as the hybrid nimbly stepped onto a bridge of obsidian, jutting out across a huge pit. Tiger cautiously followed, glancing down into the pit. Sharp spikes of black obsidian filled it, and part of a skeleton caught her eyes at the bottom. She shivered again. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Going to the place where Ink and Polar had died, even if it was its Antigonian counterpart.

Halfway across the obsidian plank, it stretched out into some sort of platform. Ecru stopped there, looking left and right at two skeletons. She squinted as she examined them, poking and prodding the bones of horns.

"A MudWing and an IceWing," Ecru finally decided. "You can tell most easily by their horn and skull shapes. The IceWing is Queen Frost, but who is the MudWing?" She casually picked up the MudWing's skull, squinting as she looked through the eyeholes. Tiger clenched up her claws, half expecting the skeletons to come alive.

"Mica or Calamity," Tiger whispered. "Can we keep going, please? Something about this place really unnerves me. I want to be out of here as soon as possible." She glanced back towards the cavern, Midnight and Skytaker trailing behind them, as red lights danced around the surface.

"Yeah, of course," Ecru replied. She squinted as she stared at the skull, as if deciding whether or not to keep it. Finally, she placed it down. "So, onwards?"

Tiger nodded, and Ecru continued along the bridge. A gaping hole opened up at the other end, more crystals lining the stone. Toxin had mentioned this to her, that beyond the crystal bridge in Pyrrhia, there was a huge hole, descending deeper into the caverns. But Toxin hadn't gone into it, meaning that past this point, Tiger had no idea what to expect. Hopefully, this one would lead to the one on Pyrrhia.

Lights fluttered around as Tiger stepped off the bridge, a hazy glow suddenly obscuring her vision. "Ecru?" she called out, rushing forward towards the hybrid's tail, disappearing in the mist. She grabbed ahold of it, afraid of losing her in the fog.

"I'm still here," Ecru replied, turning around. "We should stay close together. I don't want anyone to get lost."

The two waited a moment for Midnight and Skytaker to catch up, the four huddled together in the mist. All together, they began to walk forward. Red lights seemed to guide their passage, the walls of another tunnel enclosing around them.

"You alright?" Skytaker whispered to Tiger, walking side-by-side with the RainWing.

"Me?" Tiger asked, gulping. "Yes. Of course. Why would you think I'm not alright?"

"Your scales are green," Skytaker pointed out, poking Tiger on her front shoulder. "That only happens when you're scared."

Tiger winced, cursing her scales for giving her emotions away. "Well, we are in a very creepy mist in a tunnel we can barely see. Given that two dragons died the last time someone went into the Pyrrhian version of this place, I'm a bit spooked."

"Hey," Skytaker said, looking straight into Tiger's eyes as they smiled. "It's fine. I'm scared too. This is kinda scary, right? Maybe we can do something like sing songs to help distract us."

"I doubt that will work," Tiger grumbled.

"I'm willing to give it a try," said a voice from behind them.

Tiger let out a yelp as she looked back, to see Midnight looming behind her. She let out a sigh of relief. Maybe she did need a distraction. "Alright, but I don't know how to sing. Someone else can."

"Hey, Midnight?" Ecru interrupted, looking back at her, obscured through the mist. "I just wanted to let you know, I can't feel Antigonia anymore. I'm sure of it."

"You mean we're almost back to Pyrrhia?" Midnight suggested excitedly.

Ecru grimaced. "Well, no. I don't feel like this is Pyrrhia either. We're . . . somewhere else."

"Oh," Midnight replied, disappointed. "Well, that's alright. I guess we still need to keep going." She looked down at Skytaker. "You suggested singing songs, so you get to start."

"Sure!" Skytaker grinned. They let out a cough to clear their voice, then raised their horns up high, puffing out their chest. "Oh, the dragonets are coming! They're coming to save the day! They're coming to fight, for they know what's right, the dragonets hooray!"

Tiger gritted her teeth as Skytaker repeated the song over and over, the four continuing through the mists, down the tunnel. As Midnight joined them and the song burrowed itself into her head, Tiger shook it, like she was trying to throw it back out. Skytaker was right, singing had distracted her from the looming mists, but at what cost?

After the two sang that cursed song at least twice as many times as Tiger had claws, Ecru finally came to a stop, and raised a claw to silence the two. Tiger let a groan, cradling her ears in her talons. She wouldn't have been surprised if her scales had turned white at that.

"Is that the only song anyone in Pyrrhia knows?" Tiger asked Skytaker.

"I know a few more!" Skytaker snorted back.

"Quiet!" Ecru pleaded. "I'm trying to figure something out."

As the other three approached Ecru, they realized her dilemma. The path had split in two, and Ecru stood at the fork in the tunnel. They needed to choose which way to go.

Ecru squinted, hard in thought. Tiger saw the hybrid place her talons along the two paths, as if she was trying to feel the stone to figure out which path would lead them home.

"Nope," Ecru finally said. "No idea. I can't feel Pyrrhia in either direction."

"So we don't know which way to go?" Skytaker asked. "Great."

Tiger glanced back at the path behind them, slowly snaking upwards in the mist. "We could leave a marker behind, and go back if one of them leads us in the wrong direction."

Ecru thought about this for a moment, before shaking her head. "Good idea, but I'm not sure it'll work." She pointed a talon up at the path they'd come from. "Look, it's circling down and to the right. We just went down."

"You're saying the path changed while we weren't looking?" Tiger asked in surprise. "It went down, but now it's going the other way?"

Ecru nodded, and Tiger sighed. It looked like this place wasn't so straightforward as she'd hoped.

The RainWing dragonet stepped out into one of the two tunnels, then the other, holding her talons out, as if to sense what Ecru had been feeling. She put a forepaw in each one, then switched them back and forth while the other three stared at her, wondering what she was trying to do.

"This one is warmer," Tiger observed, pointing a talon at the tunnel to her right. "Maybe it's closer to the surface. I think we should go that way."

"It goes down," Midnight pointed out, poking her head in the tunnel.

"The other one changed directions, so I doubt that matters," Tiger replied. "I don't think space works the same way in the caverns as it does normally."

Midnight shrugged her wings, glancing towards Ecru for advice. She found none. "Don't see any better options. To the right it is!"

The four started to descend down the passage to the right, Tiger leading the way this time. By now, her fear had gone, replaced with boredom and annoyance at the repeated verses of the Dragonets are Coming. "I wonder if time works weirdly here too."

"It certainly feels like we've been walking for days," Skytaker grumbled. "What I wouldn't give for some fresh air."

Midnight grinned. "Well, we could always . . . sing another song!"

Tiger let out a groan. "Please, no more Dragonets are Coming."

"Don't worry, I know more," Midnight assured her. "A hundred dragons chained in Queen Scarlet's arena, nervously waiting their turn! One falls down, goes splat on the ground, now there are ninety-nine! Ninety-nine dragons chained in Queen Scarlet's arena, nervously waiting their turn! One falls down, goes splat on the ground, now there are ninety-eight! Ninety-eight dragons chaine—"

Tiger bared her fangs, glaring at Midnight. "Don't make me use my venom."

Midnight rolled her eyes. "Hey, if you want to walk through the creepy mist in silence, fine by me. Just trying to lighten the mood!"

"You did a very good job, sweetie," Ecru smiled.

As the four descended further into the tunnel, Tiger felt the strange chill disappear from her scales, replaced by a blistering heat. Were they getting closer? She hoped so. Maybe warm weather had blown up to the southern Ice Kingdom from the desert. Tiger turned the next bend, before suddenly letting out a yelp and jumping back, spreading out her wings and whacking Midnight in the snout.

"Hey!" Midnight snorted. "What was that for?"

"Look!" Tiger suggested.

Midnight poked her head around the turn, and frowned. The dim light seemed to become bright, and the tunnel dropped off further, an orange glow masking the red of the crystals. Heat burned against Midnight's face as she peered down. The tunnel ran down a bit further, before being completely filled with orange magma.

"Well, guess this is a dead end," Midnight sighed. "Great. Now we have to go all the way back up."

Skytaker crept beneath Midnight's wing, taking a look for themself at the magma. They squinted, staring at the black crusted surface, orange cracks scuttling across it. A small bubble rose up, popping beneath them.

"Hey," they gulped, looking over at the side of the cavern, noticing that the magma was slowly inching up the tunnel walls. "I think it's rising."

Midnight frowned, noticing herself that Skytaker was right. "Well, it looks like it's doing it pretty slowl—"

Midnight let out a yelp as the ground beneath her suddenly started to rumble. She took a quick step back as it shook, pebbles starting to jitter up and down beneath her claws. She looked back towards the magma as a rock fell into it, and it suddenly splashed onto the side of the tunnel. Skytaker leapt back just in time, narrowly missing it.

"Maybe we should leave!" Ecru yelled out, backing up the shaking tunnel. Her scales seemed to jump as she looked back, seeing that the magma was starting to rise up the tube, far more quickly than just a moment ago.

"Don't need to tell me twice!" Midnight responded, already on her way back.

"Run!" Skytaker squealed. Behind them, the magma splashed up, as if it was trying to reach out for the four dragons. Pebbles rolled beneath their claws as they scrambled after Midnight, magma rising.

Tiger's heart started to pump as she climbed back up the tunnel. Didn't it seem less steep on the way down? Magma suddenly sloshed as the cave seemed to lurch to the side, splashing against the wall. Tiger went up, more rubble falling as the four ran up the tunnel, heat pressing against their scales.

The tunnel seemed to twist away from them as they tried to escape it, turning and steepening at every move, as it shook. Green fear covered Tiger's scales as she felt the warmth of the magma right behind her, leaping up to get away from it. Red lights seemed to flash on and off, pulsing angrily. Was the tunnel trying to kill them?

Suddenly, Tiger felt the ground slip beneath her talons. She let out a yell as rocks rolled down beneath her, and she fell flat on her underbelly. She clambered to get up, only feeling more of the ground give way beneath her. She looked back, breath quickened, to see the magma rising up after her, splashing and sloshing around the tunnel as it climbed up, ready to engulf her.

"Tiger!" Midnight squealed, turning back as she saw the RainWing fall. Her eyes went wide as she saw the orange glow appear, the magma about to eat the RainWing dragonet. She stared. What could she do? She felt her mind go numb as a quiet hum seemed to break through her skull, a static buzz filling it. She opened her mouth as an enchantment seemed to come to her mind, something that would stop the magma and save Tiger.

Midnight suddenly felt herself shoved to the side, Ecru running down past her. Ecru scooped her neck down as the tunnel around rumbled angrily. She bit onto the RainWing dragonet's scruff, scales cracking as she grabbed ahold of Tiger, pulling her out from the cracked and slippery ground. With a leap, Ecru spread out her wings, using them to propel her back up the tunnel, a wide-eyed Tiger hanging from her jaws, tail curled up. Magma splashed up, Ecru letting out a shrill scream as droplets splattered against her out-stretched tail, burning scale and flesh.

Ecru threw Tiger back onto the solid ground, wincing as she tucked in her tail. Tiger and Ecru immediately went running, no time for them to deal with the burn as the magma kept rising. Midnight let out a sigh of relief, clambering up behind them.

Midnight didn't look back until the four had reached the fork in the tunnel, panting and out of breath. Her heart raced as she glanced behind her. The heat had faded, and the orange glow was once again only red. There was no more hint of rising magma.

Skytaker collapsed on the ground, as Midnight turned towards Ecru, wincing as she saw her tail.

"Are you alright?" Midnight asked, examining the burns.

Ecru nodded, looking back at them herself. "Just small ones," she smiled. "Nothing to worry about. We can keep going; I'll be fine."

"That's good," Midnight said in relief, letting out an exhausted breath. She turned back at the passage again, just to make sure the magma hadn't followed them. Still, nothing. She looked back at the two tunnels leading away from the fork. "So, should we go down the other one, then? I wanna get out of here before the lava catches up to us."

"Magma," Tiger quietly corrected. She frowned as she scanned around the fork in the tunnels. "It doesn't look like the intersection we were at before. Do you think it's the same one?"

"Huh?" Skytaker asked. "You think it changed?"

Tiger nodded. "We saw it before. I wonder if the intersections between tunnels move around and split, or it's just the distances and angles between them that change."

Skytaker considered this for a moment. "I think we should assume the intersections stay the same. Otherwise, there's not really much point in trying to find our way around. Let's go down the one to the left this time," they replied, pointing to the tunnel they thought they hadn't gone down yet. "It's cooler, so maybe no magma."

Tiger peered into the tunnel. "It goes downwards," she frowned. "What if the magma rises up to the fork? Then we won't be able to get back out."

"The other one is also going down now," Midnight pointed out. "So there's not much we can do about that. But if we want to figure the way out, I could try using my magic."

"Don't use it for this," Ecru grimaced, shifting uncomfortably. "We still have this tunnel, and it could lead out."

"Or it could lead us to another death-trap," Midnight grumbled. This would all be so much easier if Ecru would just let her enchant something.

"C'mon," Skytaker said, already walking down the tunnel. "We should go."

The colors of the crystals seemed to change as they walked down this path, a gradient ranging from red to violet as they went further and further along the tunnel. Tiger flitted her wings as they walked, the gemstones blinking at her touch. The color-change had to be a good thing, right? That meant they were going somewhere.

The air seemed to stiffen up as they walked, the scents becoming stale and dusty, like a decrypt library. Tiger felt a shiver run along her spine. At least it wasn't warm, like the other tunnel. The RainWing's claws ached as she kept her pace in tune with the others, the tunnel long and monotonous, seeming like it would never end.

But eventually, it did. The tunnel opened up into a huge cavern, the stone walkway turning into a bridge of crystalline glass. Tiger carefully looked down and back behind her as she began to cross it. Like a clear reflection of the cavern they'd seen beneath Antigonia, glittering spikes rose up from down beneath the bridge, sharp and glistening.

"This one isn't obsidian," Tiger pointed out, trying to remember the details of what Toxin had told her about the interior of the Mausoleum. "Maybe we're getting close to home. Our own world."

"Maybe," Ecru replied, bending her head down to sniff the bridge beneath her paws. "I'm not sure. It feels closer than Antigonia did."

"So Pyrrhia might be just up the tunnel!" Skytaker grinned, fangs glistening. "It feels like it's been forever."

"Mhm," Tiger said, as the four crossed the bridge into a cavern with glassy crystal across its walls like ice. The RainWing's own reflection peered back at her as she stared, goading her own.

Tiger frowned. If they were really in their own world, what had happened to Crystal, and Ink, and Polar? There were no stone corpses or bones to be seen, and Toxin had said no one had been willing to go back into the Mausoleum to remove them. Shouldn't they be here, too?

The four slowly walked around slabs and spikes of crystal, reaching from the roof of the cavern to the floor. Soon, it began to contract, once more forming a tunnel, this time, leading clearly up. Hopefully, back to the surface. Another chill ran across Tiger's scales as she began to climb the tunnel. What was it? The temperature? Her own fear? A premonition of things to come? No, unlike Toxin, she had no NightWing blood inside of her.

The group let out a collective sigh of relief as they climbed up into firm ground, their own world's version of the interior of the Mausoleum. Tiger glanced over to the left as the outline of something rectangular pierced her vision, a faint light the color of a winter sky illuminating her view. Her claws ran across smooth ice, and she let out a yelp as she saw cold black eyes staring back at her from within.

"What is it?" Skytaker asked, turning their head to peer over Tiger's wings. "Oh, cool!" The hybrid snuck up closer to the coffin of ice, examining the preserved body of Queen Frost within. White scales glistened as they moved their head, though Queen Frost made no movements, dead long ago.

Tiger let out a sigh of relief, even as she cautiously glanced over to the coffin. This day, or whatever length of time they'd been down there, had already been weird enough. She didn't want to be caught unaware by an ancient queen suddenly returning from the dead. Still, Toxin had mentioned Queen Frost's final resting place in her account of the Mausoleum. It being here was a good sign.

"Huh, that's weird," Ecru tsked, swishing her tail as she moved her claws up to the doors of the Mausoleum. Tiger turned away from Frost, immediately seeing what Ecru was talking about. The SandWing-MudWing hybrid's talons ran along a cracked line in the ice and stone, crumbling as she touched it. The line straddled back and forth as it climbed up the two huge doors, like an earthquake had damaged the structure. Toxin hadn't mentioned that, though Tiger wondered why she would. It was an ancient building, of course there was some damage. That was only natural.

"Well, I'm glad to be back," Midnight grinned, lifting her forepaws up and pushing into the two doors. For a moment, they didn't budge, and Tiger was afraid that they'd been trapped within. Then . . .

CRACK

Midnight let out a squeal as one of the doors gave way, sending her hurtling forward as stone and ice crashed down, rubble sent up through the cold air in a burst. Tiger coughed as the tiny particulates of dust entered her snout.

"Midnight!" Ecru yelled, leaping forward into the cloud. "Midnight, are you alright?"

Another cough echoed through the Mausoleum, and Tiger heard a stone roll down. Midnight carefully got back to her paws, her shadow visible in the cloud of dust.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Midnight grimaced, pebbles rolling off her scales. "A little dirty, that's all. Remind me again, how did this thing stay up for five-thousand years?"

"Magic, I thought," Skytaker pointed out. "Hmm, you probably shouldn't have done that."

"I didn't think it was gonna fall," Midnight snapped back. "Well, maybe once we've stopped the Empress, we can hire a repair team. C'mon, let's go. I'm ready to stretch out my wings and get some good old Pyrrhian air beneath them."

Midnight stepped out of the Mausoleum, the pale light from inside the Mausoleum glinting off her wings as they reached from side to side. Tiger squinted as she walked forward, fainter and fainter as the Mauseolum's glow faded and she went into the night.

"It's dark," Skytaker grumbled as they followed Ecru, Tiger behind them. "I guess none of the moons are up yet."

"Yeah," Tiger replied in agreement, looking around the Mausoleum. Though the ground was cold, she wasn't stepping into any of the snow she'd expected around the Mausoleum. Beyond the seven pillars in a semi-circle around the entrance, the glow faded, and she couldn't even see the walls of the valley around the structure. A half-broken body of a MudWing statue stared up at her, fallen down from her perch. Tiger glanced up to see where it had fallen down from, only for her blood to run cold, her scales turning a barely visible pale green as she saw the sky. Her claws started to shake, the feeling of dread quickly returning. Her voice came out in a whisper. "N-nor the stars . . ."

"What do you mean?" Skytaker snorted. "There are always stars." They looked up at the night sky, only to see exactly what Tiger had described. Where the sky after dusk would normally be dotted with wide swathes of light from the stars, moons, and galaxies, here it was . . . empty. Just a plain black, like someone had spilt ink over the heavens, drowning the world out in darkness.

Tiger almost jumped as she heard a crunch from in front of her. Midnight had stepped out from beyond the circle of pillars, her paw landing on something. Tiger's eyes focused as Midnight picked it up, a white cylindrical shape cracked where she'd stepped on it.

"It's a bone," Midnight gulped, holding it out behind her to see it better in the light of the Mausoleum. Her tail whipped around her, and she shivered as she felt the smooth porous texture of more bones run across her scales, rolling across each other.

"A dragon's wing bone," Ecru unhelpfully added. "Maybe . . . maybe there was a battle here recently? With Queen Blackice?"

Midnight shook her head, her stretched out wings drooping with her expression. "I don't think so," she replied, her exhale like a long, quiet, sigh. "I th-I think we were too late. The Empress. She must have gotten the Wishstone. And thi-this is what's left of Pyrrhia."

A long silence ensued between the four, as they reflected on Midnight's words. Tiger stared, shaking. The Empress had destroyed Pyrrhia. Everyone Tiger had ever known, back at the rainforest, at Jade Mountain. All were dead, just bones beneath a starless sky. Other than these three, every dragon Tiger had met, every one that Tiger hadn't met, was gone forever. Four dragons was all that remained of their entire world.

Tiger began to cry. Skytaker placed a wing around her as tears ran down her scales, the RainWing as blue as the sea. The sea. Was there even an ocean, now? Were there still fish, or was her world now just shadows and bones? Was the rainforest just ash and dust? If Tiger dug through the bones long enough, would she find dragons she knew? Toxin? Sepia? Both had to be dead, by now. Through her blurred vision, Midnight and Ecru held each other. They were the last dragons on Pyrrhia.

A warmth spread up against Tiger's scales, curing her momentarily of the cold, the external chill at least. She looked to see a column of flame rising up from Skytaker's mouth, into the sky like a beacon. Her eyes followed it into the sky, illuminating a perfectly jagged shape like a building, above the horizon. A building, that far up?

"Skytaker, do that again," Tiger asked, wiping tears from her snout. "Point away from the Mausoleum.

"A-alright," Skytaker glumly responded, unsure how that would help. They opened their jaws, more flame brushing over the wingtips of one of the statues. Tiger followed it, able to see for an instant into the darkness beyond the Mausoleum. Bones of dragons scattered across dead, cracked ground, but there was more. A strange black stone lined a path away from the Mausoleum, and Tiger saw a glimpse of oddly uniform structures, rising into the sky many times the height of a dragon like giant rectangles. Ecru and Midnight followed her gaze.

"It's a city," Tiger said. "Those buildings definitely aren't natural. But it's huge. It's not Possibility, is it?"

Ecru shook her head. "There hasn't been a city near the Mausoleum in many thousands of years," she said. "And I've never heard of anything this . . . tall. Even the greatest of palaces don't begin to compare."

A small smile spread over Tiger's snout as her tears stopped to drip. "There's nothing like it on Pyrrhia. Which means . . ."

"We're not on Pyrrhia!" Skytaker finished gleefully. "This isn't Pyrrhia! It's somewhere else!"

"That's why we didn't see any stone corpses on the way up," Tiger grinned. "We're in a different world."

"Which means we're back where we started," Midnight sighed, pessimistically. She shook her head from side to side, scratching at her ear as if a bug had been caught within it. "Somewhere else that's not Pyrrhia."

"Better than Pyrrhia being destroyed," Ecru smiled, prodding Midnight with her snout. She stepped out into the black stone path leading towards the city, brushing away a femur. "So there's not just two worlds, but three." She frowned. "Makes me wonder what happened to this one."

"Whatever happened, I think it happened long ago," Tiger replied, taking a deep breath as she tried to regain her normal composure. "The Mausoleum being so cracked proves that. Maybe there was a war, or a huge earthquake that rattled the world until everyone died."

"I'm just glad it's not Pyrrhia," Midnight admitted. "Better this world than ours."

Skytaker unwrapped their wing from around Tiger, and walked forward, up to the edge of the darkness, poking their head into it. "We could investigate," they suggested. "I'll bet there are some clues of whatever happened to this world around."

Tiger curled her tail, shrinking back. This world seemed so dark, and something felt off. Though, it was either this or going back into the tunnels, which weren't much better. "I don't know," she murmured, her voice echoing into the distance.

"C'mon!" Skytaker grinned. "If we can figure out what happened here, maybe we'll be able to save Pyrrhia from the same fate."

Tiger frowned. That was a concerning prospect. If this really was a world parallel to theirs, did that mean Pyrrhia would end up like this, one day? She didn't like it.

"Alright," Tiger sighed in agreement, her worry and curiosity getting the best of her. "I guess."

"Great!" Skytaker smiled, walking out along the path, bones crunching beneath their claws occasionally. They let out another burst of flame, lighting the pathway up. "Ecru, switch off with me in using flame so we can see!"

"Me?" Ecru asked, turning towards Midnight. Exploring this place didn't seem like a good idea, but Skytaker had already gone off. She sighed and shook her head as she saw that Midnight was following along. "Well, if you insist."

Hard stone poked against Tiger's talons as the four continued along the path, her claws already sore from walking so long in the tunnels. She looked left and right, but there wasn't much she could see beyond the limited range of visibility Skytaker and Ecru's flames offered, darkness quickly dowsing them out. Slowly, the city got closer, geometric shapes growing up on either side of the road, huge flat planes reaching up to the side forming the walls of buildings. In many places, the smoothness of stone had been broken by the collapse of rubble, metal beams warped from the passage of time and the weight of collapse. The street quickly joined with others, though many of the paths had been blocked by behemoths of fallen buildings, slowly crumbling to dust.

Something glittering stuck out towards Tiger, buried against the side of the ground. She slowly climbed over a huge slab of concrete towards it, flame lighting her path. She frowned as she reached a shining metal hull, twice the height of a dragon. Something smelled strange about it. It reminded her a little bit of the scent of the NightWing island, the smell of smoke and sulfur. Had dragons made this? As another light revealed more of its structure to her, she noticed another piece of the same metal, that looked like it had been ripped off of the larger hull at one point, this one long, flat, and triangular. Her gaze caught on her own wing. Had whatever civilization lived here made some sort of machine that could fly, like a metal dragon? It seemed ridiculous, but if the dragons here had made buildings so tall, why couldn't they create flying metal? If there were still remnants of the technology of this civilization here, how much could Pyrrhia learn from it? Would it help them prevent this world's fate? Or would it cause their own demise . . .

"Tiger, c'mon!" Skytaker yelled. "You're falling behind!"

Tiger twisted her attention away from the metal hull, climbing back over an array of small poles to reach Skytaker. More bones littered the path. Whatever had killed these dragons, they hadn't had much time to react to it before they died.

"Hey, do you hear that?" Midnight asked, lifting up her head. "I think there's some sort of weird buzz, like bees, but I haven't seen anything, you know, alive since we got here."

Ecru opened her mouth to say something, but Tiger responded first.

"I'll bet it's electrical," the RainWing explained. "Mastermind told me about a bunch of the experiments he was doing with it. Sometimes it causes weird buzzing like that. He'd be so excited to hear that this civilization was using it." She paused. "Oh, don't touch it. It might kill you."

"Great," Midnight grumbled, looking around nervously. "Will do."

"Maybe we should go back," Ecru suggested. "I don't want us to get lost in the dark here, and I don't think this will help us get back to Pyrrhia."

"Every second we spend here is another second the Empress is free on Pyrrhia to find the Wishstone," Midnight added, nodding in agreement.

Skytaker twitched their tail, as the light of their flame went out, and the four were plunged in to darkness. "Are you sure? We kinda explored all the tunnel passageways down there, at least as far as I could tell. What if there just . . . isn't a way back to Pyrrhia?"

Skytaker winced as they said what all four were thinking. Sure, Ecru and Tiger might have been right about the caverns leading to the caverns in another world, but what if they weren't connected to Pyrrhia? Then, all this, Ermine and Darkstalker's capture by Glory, the descent through the caverns, had been for nothing. Pyrrhia wouldn't be warned in time to stop the Empress.

"There might be another way back," Tiger quickly added. If Skytaker lost hope, then things weren't looking good. "This world has a lot of weird technology, things I couldn't have even dreamed of. Maybe there's something that can help take us back to Pyrrhia, if we can just find it." Truth be told, Tiger didn't want to leave so soon. There was much knowledge here in the ruins of this dead world. How could she just leave it all behind?

"Or," Midnight stated, stepping forward as she rubbed the side of her skull with a paw, whacking at her ear, "there's a far easier way back. This world hasn't had animus magic removed from it."

Ecru tossed Midnight a concerned look as another flame from Skytaker lit up the city for a moment.

Midnight shook her head back and forth, like she was trying to get water out from her ears. "We could be back in Pyrrhia instantly. All I have to say is 'I enchan—'"

As the words seemed to pour from Midnight's mouth, Tiger felt her scales clench up, gritting her teeth as her heart started to pound without any knowledge of why. Her breath started to quicken as an ice-cold chill wormed its way up her spine. Her talons shook from left to right as she felt something looming over her, like a dark cloud of fog descending over an island, ready to swallow it whole. She let out a quiet whimper as the ethereal terror gripped her neck, talons slithering through it and into her skull.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one of the four who felt the presence.

"MIDNIGHT NO!" Ecru screamed out, the words leaving her jaws as her hindlegs propelled her forward. As the darkness surrounded them, Ecru blindly barrelled into Midnight, her talons grasping ahold of her mate's scales.

Midnight toppled over onto the ground, Ecru landing on top of her. As Midnight turned, Ecru reached out towards where she thought Midnight's snout was, grasping ahold of it with both of her foreclaws, tightly holding it closed. Midnight twisted around, trying to throw Ecru off her as they rolled against rubble, rusted nails scraping against their scales as Ecru tried to keep her grip.

Midnight let out a suppressed roar as she rolled over on top of Ecru, still holding onto her snout. Midnight talons swiped down as they tore into the side of Ecru's neck, causing Ecru to let out a squeal of pain as claws ripped into scale, blood running along Midnight's unstained talons.

"Midnight, stop!" Ecru cried out, as Midnight tore her snout from Ecru's claws. For a moment, cold eyes stared down at the hybrid, brown scales tinted green in an uncanny light.

Midnight blinked for a moment, standing still, as her breath started to quicken. She stared down at her talons, taking them from Ecru's neck, shaking as crimson blood dripped from their tips.

"Three moons," Midnight whispered, looking down at Ecru's wounds. "Three moons - what did I—" She took a few steps back, staring at Ecru, hurt by her own talons.

Ecru slowly got back up to her paws, wiping blood and tears away.

Ḧ̴̡̻̖͇̪̊̓͘͢͞ė̶͉̮͕̜̠̣̞̉͐̄̑̎͊͐͟͞͠l̶͈̣̦͈͙̤̥̝͌̌͛́͋̇̀̅͢͝p̸̛̩̲̲͖̗͍͎͆̇͐̊̂̃͘̕.̴͖̞̺̪̗̥̖̪͖͗̅̏̅̈́̀͢͠

"Are you okay?" Midnight gulped, taking a step towards Ecru. Ecru involuntarily flinched at the movement, moving back. "You're hurt. I'm so, so, sorry. I don't know—"

Ecru shook her head. "It's fine," she winced, wiping the blood away from one of her tattoos. "Just some scratches. It wasn't your fault. I jumped on you."

Midnight shook her head, ashamed. "No, no. I shouldn't have started to enchant something. I didn't realize it, the words just . . . came out. And then I hurt you, and for a moment, I didn't know, I just—"

"It wasn't you," Ecru whispered. "I know. It wasn't you, it was something else." A chill ran across her scales, as she looked at Midnight. A sudden realization hit her. "I can see you."

Ecru frowned as she turned to Skytaker, their mouth closed. If Skytaker wasn't using their fire to make light, and Ecru herself certainly wasn't, then who . . .

A speck of color caught Ecru's gaze out of the top of her field of vision. She looked up, the other three dragons following her line of sight. The sky was no longer a uniform black. Colored specks of light had appeared across the dome above them, like shining stars slowly moving through the air, twisting and turning as they seemed to converge on the four, multicolored glows passing around their scales.

P̸̡̢͓̩̦͔̮̎́̀̄͘͞ͅl̡̥͎͓͙͙̃̔̓̅̄͛e̛͚̟̠͓̪̹͈͙͚̊́̈́͊̓̿͊̐̎͟á̢̙̱̤̝̎̀͆͊̋̓̐̃s̵̨̛̩͙͉̝̙̺̺̝͑̔̏̐̋̂e̩̰͈̖̣͎͚̿̀͞͞͝ͅ s̛̩͎͉͓̗̟̥̗̯̓̉́̈̑a̶̡̫̤̪̟̺̯̠͛̀̈́̄̿͝͝v̧̲̺̣̻̖̑̄͌̋͋̉̚ȩ̢̢̖͓͉͉̯̲͌͗̇̽̽̀̐̆̕͢ ų̢̡̯͉̫̳̭͍͉̉̎̃̈͘͝ş̛̛̪͇͔̮̰̱͈͒́̔͋͌͒͝.̵̺̺̪͍̐̈͂̌̏͟

"It's here," Ecru quietly said, the blood on her neck running down her side.

"What's here?" Tiger asked, looking around at the encroaching lights. She scratched at the side of her head. There was a weird noise there, some sort of hum. The electrical wire that Midnight had heard?

As a million lights danced around the sky, blinking and forming like watching eyes, Tiger felt her blood run cold. Something was very, very wrong here, and in this world. She took a step closer to Ecru and Midnight across the rubble, Skytaker following as the four huddled together, staring at the enticing lights piercing the darkness.

"Your magic Midnight, I think it called it," Ecru gulped.

W̴͎̙̲̯͚͔̃́͛̂̽̀̋͡h̝̹̳̼̰͍̅̔͋̂̈́͑͐̃̕͝y̜͉̤̰̺̬̣͛͑͒̑͐͠͝͠ ã̹̹͈̟̻͉̯̋̿͘͡r̩̖͉̹̲̱͕̜̣̓͗̋̏̓͘͘̚͠ę̷̻͖̣̠͕͎̱͋̎̐̈́̎̚͠͠͠ y̴̩̜̻͕̪̍̊̈́̇̕͟͜͠͡ȯ̵͉̞̠̦͈̌͂̽̉ṷ̶̧̡͇̟̫͑͗̀͒̆ ḩ͕̳̩̟̯͚̈̀͂̕͢͝ě̴̢̳̼̻͙̲̼̋̈̎̑͢r̶̼͓͓͖̃̌͂̅̚͜ę̷̢̩͚͖͖̰̱̲̄͂́̀̈͂̎̌̉͢͝?̢͈̳̟͎͋̈͌͂̍͜

"Me?" Midnight replied. "How could I—"

"What did she call?" Skytaker stammered, turning back and forth. Their gaze landed on a building, only a short distance away from the four. Would the walls provide any shelter? If they could just get to it . . .

Y̴̡̪͉͚̠̘̠̍̓̔̐̓͟͝ọ̶̙͚̬͉̭̟̙̀̀̑̀̒͞͞ͅu̢̧̦͉̱̹̘͑̆̌͂͆̄͜'̷̲̲͖͕̮̳̒͐͆͡͞r̸̨̖̫̯̼̮̟̃̾̈́̍͛̐̏̿̄e̢̞̞̖̱̩̗̦̿͊̈̊̎͊͢ ģ̶̨͉̰̦̣̪̹̳̑̓͊̆̊̾̒͐͘o̖̘̭͉͓̟̙͙̙̽͊́͗͌͊̇̈͠ì̷̢̜̞̺̿͒̉̾͆̊͂͢n̨͚̺͔̖̗̪̊̏͗̿̋̽̈́̉͊̕͢g̴̛̜̪̯̪̩͉̬̑̑̃͞ t͚̰̟̲̠͕̹̘̾̀̉̓͆͜o̸̙̤͍̱̺̽͒̈́̐̇̾̃̋͡ ḑ͎͈̭̱̲͙͖̿̐̐̌͊͡i̶̢̨̛̛͚̤̠̣͌̑̿̐̋͂ȩ̬͙̮̲̖͍̲͊̆͂̉̐̿͘ͅ ẗ̖͖͙͖̓̅̚͘͢͝ō̶̢̢̬̖̦͚͚̙̈́͐͆̓͐͘̚͠ǒ̸̧̼̪̠͔̘͕́͆̔̓̚,̴̡̤̯̮͍̣̄́͒͂̓̃́ i̴̡̡̥̩̟̤͛̐̽̇̔̽̐̊͒̆͟ͅf̨̧͇̫͎̖̥̻̀͌̊͊̿͗̚ ỵ̶̧̛̭̙̝̊͒͊̇́̏́́͛͜ò̲͔͚̤̖̤̤̫͔̓͊̎̓̂̃̂̉͢ǔ̸͕͚̤̞̲͆̔̃͆̑͑̽͠ ḍ̵̲̙̯͔̯̥̈̔̄͗̇̏ǫ̮͖̦̲̖̽̆̔̽̂̂̀͘̚͟͡n̝̪͙̫̫̩͗̃̉̿́́̊ͅ'̵̼̝͖̻̉͛̓͐͌̈̃͢͢͝t̬͍͓̞͇͔͔̦̯͛̂̏̇̈͊͠ l̷̩̗̯̔̈́̄̔̔͟͠͝ͅe̛̛̙̭̞͔̜͍̙̹̊̽̎͊͟a̢̟͉͔̔͛͆̀̽̄͜v̫͇͔͇͛͋͋͌͛̈́̕͢͠͞͝ȩ̫̺͕̤̑͆̅̊͒͝.̴̨͉̟̰͉̳͎͑̀̽́̎̀̄̑͘͞

Tiger suddenly let out a scream as motion grabbed at her eyesight. Swirling black ooze began to rose from the ground a few tail-lengths from them, forming a pillar of darkness. Many-colored lights rose up and down within it like bubbles, flashing and speaking as they moved. For a second, Tiger was frozen in place, captivated as smaller tendrils seemed to leap and reform from the ooze, a vibrating tentacle, constantly moving, with no fully defined shape or size. As it swelled and swayed, a second rose up from its side, then a third, though with no true boundaries, Tiger had little way to distinguish which was which, or if they were all just part of the huge mass surrounding them, coating the sky with the glowing bubbles trapped within its body.

Ẁ̡̝̗̝̲͙͉͛͑̿̔̿̓̊͋̀͢h̡̡̥̦͙̦̬́̎̉͆͐͆̽̕ỹ̸̗̥̯̺̻́̃̂̀̏́̇͘ a̶̼̟͙̐̑̀̍̈̒́̂͗̋͜͢r̶̛͕̯̭̫͖̰͖͓̋̆̃̈͘ȩ̵͚̱̠̟̙̦̹̫̰͋̀̑̒̂͠͝ ẏ̨̪͔̱̮̖̍͊̇͜͢͞ō̠̥̲̦͖̜̝̰̜͔̌̾̓͡ų̴͕̳͎̱̇̾̈͂̉̐͑͛̚ ĵ̷̢̨͖̥͓̑̅͆̈́͒̄̚͡ů̶͖̪̯̹̝̈́̓̉̀͊̊̇ş̵̛̜͚̟̜̘̦̇̾̇̌t̵̤̥̬̰̩̞͖̍̆̏̑̆̇͢͢͞ s̨̭̲͍̤̪̙̐̽̋̄̚͘͢͟t̢̡͚͖͎͚̮̞̤͉̀͐̄̓́̕ą̢̣̞̘̗̥͉̉̈́̂̔̽̽͟n͔̜̙͔̳̜̰̗̏́̿̀͛̐̊͐̕͝ͅd̟̝̱̜̜͊̓͒̑̍̊͋̑́i̸̭̪͇̫̮̖͋͛́̈́͞͝n̢̢̳̘̞̰͕̯̟̪͊́͊̉͌̀̓͗̓̕g̵̢̜̪͕͎̳̤̹͍͖̀̍̉͠͡͝ t̬̙̞͙̥̪̣͍͈͈̾̿̅̂̏͌́̂̌͝ḩ̢̜̤͕̜̠̗͊͋͒̑͂͢͡͞e̷̙̝͖̳͂̑̈͘͟͠r̵̛̥̖̟͙̩͍͓̰̓̑͒̈́́͌̕͟͡e̡͚̞̖̪̼͚͑̔͌̂̓̕͘͠?̛͚̯̬̱͙̓̇̂́̓͟

"Tiger, run!" Skytaker yelled out, talons digging into Tiger's wing membrane knocking her away from her trance.

For a moment, her claws seemed to move without her input as she tried to flee from the tentacles, quickly risen up behind her to maybe ten or twenty times the width of a dragon. They started to move towards her as she fled after the other three, following them as they scrambled towards the relatively intact building.

One of the black tentacles shot down with extraordinary speed into the ground, although Tiger was unsure if it had really hit down or if another one had risen up to meet the one above. A blast of force and rubble knocked Tiger to the side, stale wind blowing her as she followed Skytaker. She let out another scream as a second one almost brushed past her wing, black ooze dripping as huge bubbles of light reflected in her eyes. A lamppost fell onto the ground, glass cracking as pieces hit into Tiger's scales, though the pain was barely apparent in her terror. She ran between the winding tentacles, smaller falanges reaching out as if to grab her and pull her in. Just get to shelter, just get to shelter.

R̨͕̫̗͈͈̭̞̺̄̎̇͗͊̏͑͒̎͜͡u̖̼͍̠̙̯͂͑̾͆͂̍͂̏̽n̠̮̝̠͎͉͂̅̂̈̃̓͌̓ń̴̡͓̞͇͈͚̋́͌̈̈͌͘͟ͅͅĭ̧̡̨̼̯̳̙̺̠̩̅̎̂̓͗̔͞ň̸̞̺̗͈͚͈̍͛͒͆́̓̅͘͝ǧ̶̡͚̟̭̹̤͎̫͌̄̑͐͛́͜͡ͅ w̢̡̛̛͙̜̜̝͊́͒͘͟o̬͓̠͈͕͋͊͂̾̚n̢̜͚̞͉̩̪̔̿͐̐͐͡'̸̢̡̤͍̫͓̉̒̒̈̏̆̅̉͞ͅť̨̼͉͓̠͍̩͕͌̋̏̚͠ͅ w̧̯̭͓̜̟̼̼͛͑́͒̔͂̇̄̚͝o̷͍͈͖̮̣̊̅̐̏̕͡͠r̛̪̫̪̹̱̤͈̝͉̓̒̍͐̎̋̽͢͡k̷͎̟̜̻̙͗̌͑̏͆͆̈́́͘̚͟.̗̩̤̬̘̟̫͗̀̆̏̑͢͡ A̷̛̺͖̖͈̖̔̉̐̆̾̓̆͝͞ļ̢̤̞̘͕̦̭͖͊͊̂̂̑͗͆̔͜͡l̡̢͈͓̳̝̄͒̑̓̉͂̌̂̐̆͟ ơ̷̛̯͚̝̩͚̻̄̎͐̒͂̂͘͟f̛̟̘̗͖̳́̃̀̄̔͘͜͝ͅ ṳ̸͈̪́̑́̒͐̾͢͢s̗̥̱͚̣̭͂͆̀̌̎͋ t̴̡̩̜̜̲̬̗̑̂̊̌̃̂̚r̸̬͚̬̼͕̐͋̆͊̔͆̒͘͞i̛̻̙̜͗̽͛̆́̎̚͢͢͝ę̣̠̱̺͖̟̝͉͇͒͋́͂̔͛̉̍d͎̜̠͈̹̀̆͂͒͡ ẗ̸̨͓̤̩̗̦̙̳̤͈̍̿͐͡h̵͙͈̭̗̩̀̓͋̌̀́à̧̦͍̣̮͖̻̠̤̽͂́̚ẗ̴̨͚͙̞̙͈͓̝́̀̔̽̇́̚.͔͖̙̦̖̱̠̬͔̜̀̀̀̃̓̋͘̕̚͝

Midnight let out a yelp, and Tiger looked up to see that another pillar of slime had struck above the dragons, a spear of darkness piercing through the building the four had been trying to get to like it was scroll-paper. A huge chunk of stone fell from the wall where the tentacle had hit, Ecru grabbing onto Skytaker and pulling them back from the collapsing structure. A rumble seemed to shake through the ground as the stone hit ground, flying pebbles and rubble scattering across the floor. Tiger's breath went quick as she lost all hope. If the . . . thing that was attacking them, whatever it was, had struck through the building like that . . . nothing they could do would stop it.

Still, as useless as it was, Tiger turned, following the four as they tried to run down the street. For a moment, she looked back to see the tentacle wrapping around the building it had entered, ooze crawling over it as lights blinked over its surface. In only a few moments, the entire skyscraper had been overtaken, just a pillar of black in the sky. Tiger's teeth chattered as she ran after the others. This thing was massive, unimaginably big. There was no escape.

Suddenly, the other three stopped, claws screeching on ground. It took Tiger only a second to realize why. In the alleys between the buildings, the blackness had risen up, light-dotted walls rushing out towards them. Tiger turned back to see that a similar wall had risen up behind her, blinking lights staring at her expectantly. All the streets had been blocked off.

Ś̡̨̛̘̲̲̬̼̦̽̉̏̀̈́͂͘͟͝ͅô̵̢̨͉̝͔̳͈̅͒̅̕͜͞r̡̧̡͉̣̱̼̺̪̎̒̈̋̐̅̚ŗ̤̘̘̩͓͇̘͙̞̌̔̌̎̀͛͆͑͑͘y̷͎͕̤̼͉̲̿̒͌̎͐̍̑͘.̡̲͇̦͉͓͛̓͐͛͘͟ Ţ̶͉͚̟̱̃͊͌́́͘͠͠ͅh̞͙̬̝̾̍̂̐̋̋͜͠ͅẹ̹̥̪̳̜̫̉͗̌͊̎̉͜͞ͅr̶̠̳̱̱̮̜̥̰̖̒͐̍͂̓͒͗͘͝͝ȩ̱̰͔̹̙́͑̐̈́̇͂͠'̧̟̤͕̤͈͎͈͎̦̒̒̃̆́͒͐͘s̴̨̲͖̲͍̙͍̗̉̃̑̐̃͊̈̄͢ n̺̦͎̝̘̺̲̬̪͛̇̒̊̇͌̆͜ờ̴̝͔͔̭̳̼̮̥͓̅̄͟͡w̶͙̫̹̲̣̰͙͎͒̂͗͘̕͟ḩ͖͈̥̅̐͗̅͐̔̿̅͊͢e̡̬͈̦̥̭͋̋͗͑͢͝r̛̺̗̰͔̟̥͍̤͚̠͐̏̌͐̉͌́ẽ̢͉͕̺͙̮̹͓̃̓̊͐̕͢͝ t̨̪͇͇͙̝͒͋͐̆̚ö̸̡̡̬̘͈̪͖̮̠́͆̽͒̊̒̂̓̒̚ f̡̣̲͕̜͈̙̭̣̎̓̂̓͛͂̽͋͠l̷̳̮̲̲̩̯̣͉̏̀̔̅̏͆̔͟y̹̝̞̯͈̬͉̓̽̈̓̓̀͑̊͘͡.̱̠̯̩̻̗̅͛̈͐̃̓͝ͅ

Tiger looked up in the sky to see that the lights had moved closer, conjoined with the walls, forming a dome of darkness around the four, standing in the asphalt crossroads. Tiger stumbled back, into Skytaker.

"Stay back, whatever you are!" Midnight yelled out at the black ooze. She opened her wings as she put Ecru behind her, not that it could do much good in protecting her.

Filaments of darkness started to creep down towards the four, spiraling out of the sky as they circled, growing and throbbing as they expanded into tentacles. Bubbles of light popped and flashed as the circle began to tighten. Tiger whimpered as she held onto Skytaker, while more filaments began to rise up from the ground. This was it. They weren't even going to make it back to Pyrrhia alive.

Then, a strange burst of light caught Tiger's attention. Between the cracks in the road, glittering golden specks started to floaming up, the tentacles seeming to twist and shrink away wherever the calming golden light shined. She stared as a few pieces of the specks came to rest against her scales. Sand?

Ecru let out a cry of alarm as one of the tentacles suddenly lurched out towards her, forming a twisted spear as it stabbed down towards the four, like it would pierce them. But before it could, a wave of sand reached up from the ground, solidifying instantly and forming a hard golden plate between them and the tentacle. The darkness bounced against it, barely making a dent as it curved around, but not before coming back again to try and devour the four. Where it tried to hit, another plate of glowing sandstone rose up, and a third as it tried to creep around it. Individual grains of sand began to fall upwards in a huge circle around the four, pushing back the black ooze as it tried to reach in.

Within a few moments, a dome of glowing sandstone had surrounded the four, the light so bright Tiger had to squint to see. Her claws still shook, her heart still raced, but she felt a hint of relief, the pale colors on her scales fading. They'd been saved. But by whom, or what? This world seemed deserted. Who could survive with something like that here?

The sound of clawsteps reached her ears, and she turned around. Seemingly from nowhere, a dragon was walking across the inside of the dome towards the four. An IceWing, though any scales were barely visible through the shell of grey stone covering his body. A golden glow reached out of cracks in the pieces of stone, creaking as he walked, his entire body a beacon of light in the dome, so bright that Tiger even had to turn away for a moment for her vision to adjust. She squinted as their rescue came closer, trying to make out his features.

As he approached the four dragons, the IceWing stopped, and his expression contorted into a smile, stone cracking, crumbling, and reforming as his jaws moved. He sat back on his haunches, sand moving in a swirl around his talons.

"You wanted to know what it was, Skytaker?" Polar asked. "Meet the Progenitor of Animus Magic. The Great Ice Dragon."

Chapter 42

"Purrrr."

Aurora turned head down towards Sapphire's glistening eyes, staring back up at the dragon. The two were alone in the grass, a moment of calm wind after all that had happened. Sapphire cocked his head, giving Aurora a look she could only describe as judging, then lifted one of his paws up, cleaning off its backside with his tongue.

Her gaze lifted up across the calm meadow. The shaking had stopped as quick as the Empress had come and gone. Panicked Talons of Peace strutted around, talking to each other, but they were all just blurs of scale and color to Aurora's eyes.

Aurora hadn't acted fast enough, though how could she have? The Empress had disappeared in a flash as soon as she'd captured Inferno, along with the rest of the RainWings. Teleported away, by one of the many powers the Wishstone had granted her. Had Aurora been closer, maybe she could have done something. If Inferno had just stayed in the caverns, like Trustbreaker had asked her to . . .

Aurora felt fear, the same sort of terror that she'd felt when she'd faced Ash. It wasn't a common emotion for her. Up until her meeting with the Empress, few dragons on Pyrrhia had posed anything resembling a physical threat to her, past her slip-up with getting captured by Glory, and Ash's attempt to break into her mind. Even the remaining animuses on Pyrrhia seemed feeble and unaware of the true extent of their abilities.

But the Empress was something else. She knew her own strengths and weaknesses, and as far as Aurora had seen, had a variety of versatile enchantments she'd given herself that gave her complete physical dominance and control over any potential opponent. Like Aurora herself. Aurora wouldn't be able to get rid of her as easily as she'd stopped Inferno and Ash, or Ink with Shapeshifter's mask.

It was strange, feeling this sort of fear after being trained to hide it for so long. It wasn't the same as the fear she felt when she'd fought Ash, the instant rush of blood that told her that her life was in danger. Nor was it the same fear that she felt when Calamity showed her the Horror, the terror of a cruel, impersonal reality, the knowledge that any action she made was but a futile gesture to a world that neither knew nor cared for her existence. This was a calm fear, the quiet sort of anxiety that one gets when they know a great hurdle is ahead of them, something that would loom in the back of her mind until it finally reached its conclusion. The fear that something mattered, something that mattered to her.

It was exhilarating.

"Meow?"

Aurora looked back at Sapphire again, the elderly tabby pawing at her scales, asking something from her. Aurora let out a sigh.

"I failed Trustbreaker, didn't I," Aurora mused. "He tasked me with protecting Inferno, and the Wishstone within her. And now, the Empress has them."

"Meow."

Aurora clicked her tongue. "You're judging me, aren't you." Sapphire stared back as Aurora tossed him a glance. For a moment, a twinkle in his eyes reminded her of Trustbreaker.

Trustbreaker himself caught Aurora's vision. A group of Talons had gathered around their former co-leader's body, a pool of blood staining the grass around his mouth red. There wasn't much Aurora could do about that.

Aurora shook her head. It was senseless for her to be talking to a cat, even if it had been Trustbreaker's pet. One of her eyes turned down towards Sapphire, still at her paws. Could she just . . . eat it? No. That felt wrong. Trustbreaker had asked her to keep Sapphire safe. But why? Aurora frowned. Trustbreaker had been able to mentally communicate with him. What if he'd left something of his inside Sapphire? A final command, a secret to defeating the Empress? Had there been a reason he'd asked Aurora to keep him safe?

Aurora slumped her head down on the grass with a sigh, meeting Sapphire at eye-level. He stared back, not particularly interested in giving up his secrets.

"You know, you don't have much room to judge me," Aurora said, doubtful the cat could even understand her. "Thanks to you, everything's messed up in this world now. You shouldn't have left Antigonia."

Sapphire twitched his tail, uninterested in Aurora's scolding.

"Do you know how important my mission is?" Aurora asked. "The one that Calamity gave me?"

Sapphire tossed Aurora a look she decided to interpret as confused.

"Fracture wouldn't have explained it to you," Aurora replied. "The truth. The truth about animus magic." She pressed the tip of one talon to the Darkstone, a small jolt of pain running about the nerves in her neck. "It was 'given' to dragons, like the IceWings claimed, a curse disguised as a gift. A temptation of power that few could resist."

The cat's gaze was focused on Aurora now. Something she'd said had caught his attention.

"Are you wondering what gave it?" Aurora asked, with a smile. "A thing so terrible it's beyond comprehension. A twisted darkness living beneath the ground, though whether it's living or not is hardly a sensible question. A consumer of worlds, feasting on the souls of dragons, eternally trapped and tortured within. One might even call it hell itself. I call it the Horror, because that's what I felt when Calamity forced me to lay my eyes on it, when he dipped me into its depths and I heard the pleas of dragonets, cries of terror, a neverending scream of a billion souls.

"Every time a dragon uses animus magic, it gets closer to waking once more, tainting the souls and whispering into the minds of its victims. Eventually, it will awaken, like it always does, and this world will be devoured. It cannot be stopped, only delayed. Calamity used my unwitting father to get rid of most of the animuses in the modern age, but it won't be enough. It won't ever be enough. Eventually, the Horror will rise, and the world will end.

"That is why my mission is so important. Calamity needs me to delay the apocalypse, at least until he's ready for it. Do you understand, cat?"

Sapphire stared back at Aurora, so small she could crush him under a paw. Aurora flicked her tail, spines waving back and forth through the air. A glint of understanding flashed across the cat's slitted eyes. Maybe there was something left of Trustbreaker in him, after all.

"Are you surprised?" Aurora asked. "Fracture knew, but he didn't tell you, did he? Of course he didn't. Even with all the understanding he had, that spineless worm prefers the end of the world to Calamity's methods. Though I doubt this matters much for Antigonia. It seemed from my discussions with Ash that he severed the connection between the Horror and Antigonia using his own magic, though I doubt the Horror would've let Antigonia go if not for another world it could feed itself upon. Why even bother?

Aurora grimaced, as she let out another long sigh, staring at Trustbreaker's corpse.

"Of course, with the Empress here, I doubt even Calamity is sure what's going to happen anymore, let alone me. All of Calamity's plans might have gone to ruin. Everything my mother and I did, all for nothing. I'm sure Fracture is laughing in his grave."

"Meoowww."

Aurora frowned at Sapphire. Was he trying to tell her something? As she guessed it, she shook her head.

"You think I should try and stop her. The Empress. I'm not sure I can. She's far more prepared than a simple animus for me. Even if I did stop her, I'm not sure if I should or even could continue my instructions. The Sky Kingdom is in ruins; Queen Scarlet is probably dead. Without Calamity's guidance, I'd likely just make things worse."

Sapphire paced back and forth, as deep in thought as Aurora. He turned back to her, and let out a sharp 'meow!'

"You want me to take this one wingbeat at a time," Aurora puzzled out, not quite sure if her ideas were being communicated by Sapphire, of if these were her own thoughts. "If the Empress wins, there's no chance of anything good happening. Calamity's plans will definitely be in ruins. And . . . I'll probably be destroyed in the process. You too. And Inferno."

Sapphire raised his paw, and made a gesture to Aurora she didn't understand.

"Inferno," Aurora mused. "You're right. I did promise you I'd protect her. And she's still my prisoner." Aurora looked out towards the north, snow-capped mountains piercing the clouds. Back towards the Sky Kingdom. "It's odd. When I followed Calamity's plans, it was never about him, or me, or anyone. I was . . . afraid. For the entire world, a Pyrrhia full of dragons I never met and never would meet. But it's not about that anymore. I don't care about the world. I'm afraid for Inferno. I'm afraid for my own life."

The words felt strange to Aurora as she spoke them. All her life, she'd been told to devote herself to saving Pyrrhia, no matter what harm came to her in the process. That she shouldn't care about her own life, a speck in a sea of others just as unimportant as her. She couldn't tell what, but something had changed. This had nothing to do with saving Pyrrhia anymore. Now . . . she wanted to live.

"Climb on my back," Aurora ordered Sapphire, lowering her underbelly to the ground. She extended her claws, and a feline-sized set of stone stairs rose up from the dirt. Sapphire eagerly climbed them, leaping up onto Aurora's backside, claws digging into the spaces between her scales.

Aurora shook herself as she extended her wings. She didn't know where the Empress was, but the SkyWing palace, or what little was left of it, was her best guess. The wind whipped beneath her wings, before she saw blue scales rush over towards her.

"Wait!" Riptide called. "You! With Trustbreaker's cat!"

Aurora rolled her eyes and turned to glare at the Talons' leader. "What do you want?" she growled.

Riptide panted as he stopped down in front of her, Aurora's wings still extended, itching to take off.

"You were with Trustbreaker, right?" he asked, frantic. "Who are you? Who were those RainWings? What's going on?"

Aurora blinked, a few of her glowscales flashing. Ignoring Riptide, she turned away, leaping forward as a gust of wind lifted her into the air. Sapphire clinged on tight, the old tabby tossing a glance back at the SeaWing beneath them.

"What's going on?" Aurora laughed, calling back to Riptide, down below. "It's the end of the world!"

Chapter 43

Sandstone walls rose far above Leopard's horns as she walked through the palace. Her eyes traced along the grooves in the thick bricks. Whichever queen had built the stronghold, it had certainly been built to last. Except for two easily guardable entrances, a couple balconies that had been walled-off, and the secret passage through the dungeon, there was no way in or out of the palace unless you could fly through solid stone. Fire didn't melt the mortar, and the strength of ten dragons barely made it budge. For Leopard and Aloe, it was a perfect barrier between them and the outside world. A lavish prison for the SandWing queen, protecting them from the huge army situated on the outside.

Leopard caught a glimpse of movement through one of the small slit-like windows in the hall, free golden scales on the other side. Leopard felt her barb twitch. Not because she was threatened by whoever it was, but because of her irritation. She barely could even remember how many moon cycles they'd been trapped in here, kept under siege by Six-Claws' army outside. Sure, they held the center of power in the Sand Kingdom, the next-best thing to having the Eye of Onyx itself, but they couldn't do anything with it. All they could do was wait, until . . . what exactly? Until Sunny gave up? Until someone rescued them?

Leopard sighed. Absolutely nothing happened in the palace, nothing for the past however long Leopard had been waiting. Eat a few rations, play a few dice games with dragons she could barely tolerate, comfort Aloe. For a war, it was ridiculously boring.

There was very little that Leopard hated more than boredom. She could probably list them on one paw. In fact, since she didn't have anything better to do, she decided she might as well. Boredom was third, after rotting fish, then Blister. And Blister was dead, so it was just rotting fish. That's how much she hated boredom.

Just the idea of boredom reminded her of old memories, of her dragonethood spent on Blister's island. She certainly hadn't chosen to be hatched there. Blister definitely wouldn't have chosen it either — her parents were two guards who'd had an affair against Blister's rules, and to make a point to everyone else, Blister had killed Leopard's mother before Leopard had even hatched. Her father, whoever he was, hadn't come forward to receive the same punishment. Leopard had been raised communally by the rest of the small army residing there. She supposed that Blister had let her live so that she'd become friends with Aloe. Not because Blister actually cared about Aloe having a friend, of course. What better way to control your dragonet than by threatening their loved ones?

But funny enough, what Leopard remembered most was the boredom. That was Blister's favorite punishment. Separating Leopard from the others, throwing her into a dark, damp cell, and just leaving her alone. Hours, days, even weeks if Aloe did something particularly bad. It blurred together, a endless droll of time. No day or night, no way to keep track of how long it had been until she was finally let out. Even the hunger or dryness in her throat became a welcoming distraction to the monotony of her own mind.

At least she wasn't stuck in a cell this time. The SandWing palace was certainly a prison, but she wasn't alone. Aloe was here.

A half-dozen SandWings stood at the primary entrance to the stronghold, weapons ready. The doors had been barred with wooden furniture that could be quickly set on fire. If there was an attack, and an enemy got through, they wouldn't have a particularly fun time running through flames.

"Is he ready for me?" Leopard asked to one of the SandWings in front of the door. A few of them were slowly dragging away the blockade, making enough room for her to slowly slip through.

"Yes," the SandWing tersely replied. The other dragons in the palace didn't make particularly good conversation. They'd been too well-trained by Blister, albeit in a different way than Leopard had been.

"Good," Leopard smiled back. She had to admit, these meetings were a bit of a bright spot to her. A beautiful storm, crashing through these doldrums.

The door opened a crack, giving Leopard just enough space to slip into the courtyard. Short walls had been built around it, more for decoration than anything. They wouldn't stop a dragon flying into the courtyard, at least. It made a nice meeting spot, a neutral ground. Plus, it was pretty.

Leopard stretched out her wings, beams of desert sunlight warming her membranes as she glanced around the courtyard. Her gaze landed on a small cluster of plots, where desert plants had grown up, untrimmed and uncultivated in the current times. Small magenta fruits blossoming at the top of a cactus brought a small smile to her snout, and she carefully plucked one off, wondering how it could take.

"You're not taking advantage of my hospitality, are you? You're supposed to be under siege, you know. Starving."

Leopard looked up to see large wings cast a shadow on the ground as a scarred dragon landed down in the courtyard. She smiled. Even if the two of them were enemies, she'd formed a cordiality with Six-Claws during the siege. Their meetings were the most interesting part of Leopard's days, and the only chance Leopard got to learn about what was happening outside of the palace.

"You can have it if you want," Leopard grinned, holding up the prickly pear. "Here, catch."

Six-Claws instinctively flinched as Leopard pretended to toss the spiny fruit. She laughed, and threw it to the side.

Six-Claws sighed as he relaxed, shaking his head. "I'm joking, you know. I really don't care if you eat it. Letting you have a piece of fruit now or then doesn't really change your situation."

"A bit spiny for me," Leopard clucked, taking a few steps over towards Six-Claws, until they were at a good speaking distance. At this point, neither of the two was particularly worried about a sneak attack from the other, or any dragons leaping out from behind the palace door or from over the courtyard walls. As much as they both hated boredom, neither of them personally cared to end this war with such a dishonorable tactic. "So, any news?"

Six-Claws raised an eye-ridge. "You're asking me to give intel to an enemy? I'm pretty sure that's treason."

"Depends who's queen," Leopard grinned. By now, this dance had become familiar to the two.

"You could get all the news you wanted if you and Aloe leave the palace," Six-Claws pointed out. "I'll add it to your terms of surrender. Free news scrolls for the rest of your lives."

"A generous offer, but we'll pass," Leopard snorted. "You know we can just get someone in and out of the palace to get it anyways."

"Really," Six-Claws said, skeptical of that claim. "We've got a tight watch."

Leopard smiled. "We've got our ways. Anyways, if you tell me, you'll be able to spin your story however you want. That's an advantage for you, isn't it?"

"Good point," Six-Claws nodded. "Alright. Something interesting happened. Queen Blackice was killed, just yesterday."

"Wait, really?" Leopard asked, somewhat surprised. Queen Blackice, dead? That was interesting. "An assassin? Or something else? She wasn't turned to stone like poor Thorn and Blaze down in the treasure rooms, was she? Details, please!"

"Not an assassin," Six-Claws laughed. "Defeated in battle. Deathbringer, Hailstorm, and Jambu brought together a coalition of RainWings, NightWings, and IceWings. Along with a few of my own valiant troops, of course. They fought over Jade Mountain. Blackice, was . . . well, let's just say that what's left of her is scattered across the base of the mountain at the moment. Even in death, Glory got her revenge. Hailstorm is King Hailstorm now, at least until he or Prince Winter has a dragonet."

"Fascinating," Leopard replied, her eyes lit up at the explanation. She wasn't particularly good cave-fellows with violence and death, but she loved the idea of battle and adventure, or really anything interesting at the moment. "I wish I could've seen it."

"From what I heard of the battle, you probably don't," Six-Claws clucked. "Not a friendly one. Blackice was aiming for total annihilation of the NightWings, and used copious amounts of animus magic, countered by the alliance's own animus-touched artifacts. That stuff is dangerous."

"Magic," Leopard whispered. She hadn't seen much of that before, beyond the dolphin necklace Aloe wore. A simple protection enchantment. Not particularly flashy. Although, if Aloe was ever caught in the middle of a battle, maybe it would be pretty impressive. The pale SandWing flinging her barb, claws outstretched as streaks of flame rose up around the obsidian diamond pattern across her scales, dragons falling left and right as Aloe walked through, untouched. Leopard salivated a little, just thinking of it.

Six-Claws gave her a funny look, then shook his head with a sigh. "Honestly, I'm considering trying to make a forge with the queens and kings around the continent. A treaty banning animus magic in battles. Since Queen Thorn's death, we've had enough of this. So, are you going to surrender now? With Queen Blackice dead, your only allies are gone."

Leopard smiled. Back to the dance. "Surrender?" she laughed. "Because of Blackice? You can't be serious. Queen Blackice made it very clear to us that her only ally was herself. We just made a temporary deal, one that we fortunately won't have to fulfill our end of now. You're not implying that the alliance that defeated her is going to come after us now, right? Cause that would be—"

Six-Claws closed his eyes, flicking his barb at the thought. He gritted his fangs. "No," he answered, fully certain of his words. "We're not doing that. Even if they're Sunny's allies, this is a SandWing matter. We're not going to bring the other tribes into this. Not again."

The silent threat of another War of SandWing Succession passed between the two quickly. Neither wanted another twenty years of war.

Six-Claws shook his head, and sighed. "You know, if you and Aloe surrender to Sunny, there'll be favorable terms. Not just for you, but for Aloe, and everyone with her. I can make sure of it."

Leopard returned a gentle smile to him. "I know. But Aloe can't exactly surrender to a queen who isn't here, can she?"

"She's not dead," Six-Claws assured her, glancing up towards the blue sky as if Sunny was going to descend from it any moment now. "She's only been missing for a fortnight; it doesn't mean she's dead. She'll be back. I know it."

Leopard doubted that. According to what Six-Claws had said, the leader of the Outclaws had been found dead, with Sunny missing. If she hadn't shown up by now, with a heavy ransom on her return, chances were she was gone for good. Unless . . . Six-Claws knew something he wasn't telling her?

"Maybe she flew away; decided she didn't want to be queen," Leopard suggested. Seeing Six-Claws' snout curl, she shrugged her wings. "Maybe not. But hey, I think that Aloe would give you and Sunny favorable terms of surrender."

Six-Claws shook his head. Like Leopard had expected. Neither of them really wanted to fight, but neither of them was willing to back down. How long would it be before they were forced to come to blows? It seemed inevitable, unless Sunny stayed missing.

The two were silent for a moment, and Leopard's gaze traced back to the cacti. Not much else could grow this deep in the desert. Even the fruit was covered with sharp spines.

"I'm bored," Leopard grumbled, just stating what was on her mind to break the silence. "I'd expected something a bit more interesting."

"You don't want interesting," Six-Claws responded. "This siege isn't particularly thrilling, but it's far better than a real war."

"A real war?" Leopard asked, unsure of what Six-Claws meant by that. "Are you implying this isn't a real war? Not taking us seriously, huh. That overconfidence will lead to your downfall, you know."

Six-Claws shook his head, and couldn't help but let out a small laugh. "You haven't seen real war. There's been a few deaths, sure, two battles, but that's nothing compared to the bloodbath that was the War of SandWing Succession. That was a real war. Slaughter and starvation, pillaging and ravaging. Dragons dropping from the sky like flies. And even that barely compares to Blackice's short reign of terror. More dragons died in a few moon cycles than in the first year of the War. Here, I could count the number of dead dragons on all four paws."

"I thought we agreed that there was between twenty and thirty dead on both sides, in both battles?" Leopard wondered, confused.

"My paws," Six-Claws chuckled. "Not yours. But the fact that we can count the dead says something. Both Sunny and Aloe managed to keep casualties to a bare minimum. That's not a normal thing in warfare."

"Hm," Leopard replied, considering this. It was true that Aloe had been trying to get the throne back with as few deaths as possible. It's why she'd made the deal with Blackice to begin with. She'd hoped that by taking the palace, she'd be able to capture Sunny unaware and win quickly. Of course, things hadn't worked out as planned. But more than anything, Aloe didn't want to be like Blister. "I think I agree. I hope . . . I hope that if there are any future battles, we can continue this. Take prisoners instead of killing or maiming. Exchanging and freeing them."

"I hope so too," Six-Claws responded. "Though things rarely turn out that way. Dragon nature, I suppose. But . . ." Six-Claws raised his head, staring at Leopard, almost begging to her. "You have Aloe's ear. You might be able to convince her to step down."

Leopard shook her head. "I can't, and won't. You know that."

"I know," Six-Claws sighed.

Another moment of silence passed between the two.

"There's more news," Six-Claws said, his already grim expression growing grimmer. "It might just be an overblown rumor, but I've fear that Queen Scarlet has been dethroned."

Leopard tilted her head, folding her wings in. She would've expected Six-Claws to be more excited about that. That was odd. "She didn't have any daughters or sisters, did she? You told me she killed them all. No one to challenge her."

"It wasn't an heir," Six-Claws explained. "Nor even a SkyWing, if this is all true. An army of RainWings appeared, apparently out of nowhere, and their leader, a RainWing known only as the Empress, took the throne. Deathbringer has no idea who she is or where the RainWings came from."

"The Empress," Leopard repeated, eyes growing wide as a toothy smile crossed her snout. A mysterious RainWing army, taking down Queen Scarlet? This was interesting. "Tell me more."

"She supposedly possesses some sort of sorcery," Six-Claws continued, Leopard attentive. "She carries bolts of lightning in her claws, and can shed her scales like a snake to reveal fur or skin. She can disappear instantly, and appear in another place."

Leopard stared into Six-Claws' black eyes. After a few moments, she let out a laugh, bawling as she shook her head.

"You almost had me convinced!" Leopard chuckled. "Shows what I get for trusting an enemy to give me my news. What next? Can she control dragons with her mind?"

"I wasn't joking."

Leopard's laughs stopped, and she went silent. Six-Claws was still grim. If he was just pulling a prank on her, his expression didn't show it. He was telling the truth.

"Are you sure?" Leopard asked, suddenly concerned. "It's just rumor, isn't it?"

"Yes," Six-Claws grimaced. "Probably grossly exaggerated. But I've heard it from enough sources, I have to wonder. And after hearing about Deathbringer's battle with Queen Blackice, it's difficult to discount it all as falsities."

"Queen Blackice? Don't tell me she's involved in this. She didn't turn into a RainWing and escape, right?"

"Very unlikely," Six-Claws answered. "But during the fight, Queen Blackice had one of her underlings use an animus-touched object called the Gift of Guardianship. It lets the wearer become as strong as the strongest dragon in Pyrrhia while they are protecting their queen. And according to Deathbringer, the Black Prince who used it became huge, could control lightning, and could teleport instantly. A good dragon was lost to the Black Prince's rage, and even with an animus-touched artifact of his own, Deathbringer only survived because Blackice was killed, and the Gift ceased working. At the moment, its effects can't be replicated, since the IceWings currently don't have a queen, but it makes me concerned: what if this Empress is the strongest dragon Pyrrhia? How else could the Gift's powers be explained?"

"Hm," Leopard frowned, flattening her sail. "Still. This all happened in the Sky Kingdom, right? The Empress is halfway across Pyrrhia, so unless she comes for us, we should be fine. For now."

"Maybe," Six-Claws responded. "So far, she hasn't made any movements on the other kingdoms. But if it becomes apparent that she's going to attack the Sand Kingdom, we might want to consider figuring things out here before then, or consider a truce."

"A truce," Leopard said, considering it. Could they really afford that? Right now, the only advantage she and Aloe had over Sunny was the palace. If they gave that up . . . what did they have? Still if a super-powered dragon with an army of RainWings attacked the palace, they didn't have much else of a choice. "I'll bring it up with Aloe. Thank you for the news."

"Of course," Six-Claws replied, trying to force a faint smile. "It's all bad for you, so it's my pleasure to bring it. However, I should go. I promised my army a gourmet meal. Water as far as the eye could see, and fresh meat piled high. We're gonna cook it, so if you smell roasted meat, it's probably just us. If you're interested in joining us . . ."

"You'll add it to the surrender conditions," Leopard laughed. "No thanks. We'll survive on our own. Sandstone is pretty tasty, you know."

She waved a paw to Six-Claws as she turned around, feeling a brush of wind against her scales as he took off. The doors opened a crack for her as she headed back into the palace, saluted by SandWings guarding it.

She wondered how much of what Six-Claws said was true. Queen Blackice's death was believable, but the stuff about the Empress? It seemed almost ridiculous. Yet, as of yet Leopard hadn't heard Six-Claws lie to her about anything. Could he be withholding information? It was certainly possible. They were still enemies, after all.

Leopard attempted to put the talk behind her as she climbed the stairs to Aloe's room. Not that she didn't enjoy Six-Claws's company, of course. It was mostly the opposite. How could she talk so casually, be so friendly to a dragon that she may end up facing in battle one day? What would she do if she had to kill him?

Leopard slowly opened the doors to the room she and Aloe had been staying in. They hadn't taken the queen's bedchambers. A bit too easy of a target, in case Sunny sent an assassin after them. Instead, the two had chosen a small room, probably a servant or advisor's chambers. The straw bed was small for the both of them to fit in, but Leopard found it quite cozy. Neither of them were particularly used to living like royalty.

Aloe herself was laying on her back, wings tucked into her side as she read a scroll. Her hindlegs kicked up into the air as she swung her tail back and forth. Not a particularly queenlike position.

As Leopard closed the door behind her, Aloe's expression lit up, excited to see Leopard. The dim candlelight of the windowless room tinted Aloe's scales just a bit more yellow than they were in the sunlight, flushing her pale colors with the hues of orange flame, bold black diamonds breaking up the uniform color. She wore none of the golden jewelery that she usually did when presenting herself to a crowd, except for the dolphin pendant hanging from her neck. That, Leopard new she never took off.

Leopard leaped up onto the back of the bed in a single bound, careful not to catch her claws in the straw. She looked down at Aloe for a moment as the princess reached out with her forepaws, pulling Leopard's head down to her underbelly, her eyes staring up at the base of Aloe's neck. From this point of view, Leopard's gaze could easily see the dark scar running up and across Aloe's neck, where one of Rift's brothers had sliced her scales open with a dagger. The one blemish on her protected body. It had healed up nicely since the attack, but Leopard couldn't help but wonder why the enchantment had decided to fail her then.

Leopard fell down onto the bed as Aloe's wings wrapped around her, twining their tails for a moment. She took in a deep breath. Even with the lack of water to wash themselves with, Aloe still seemed clean, her scent as light as flowers.

"Are you okay?" Aloe asked Leopard.

"Hmm?" Leopard said, lifting her head up to meet Aloe's eyes. "Oh. Yeah. Just the talk with General Six-Claws is still on my mind. He . . . suggested we surrender. Said things would good for us if we did."

"Oh," Aloe frowned, the moment between the two gone. "You told him no. Right?"

"Of course, of course," Leopard assured her. "I asked him to surrender in kind. He said no too."

Aloe's tail twitched. "We're going to win," she replied. "We are. And when we do, I'm going to make sure nothing like this happens again. No more succession crises. No more terrible choices. No more violent gangster rulers."

"Mmm," Leopard nodded along. Aloe could get a little carried away, but she understood.

"I'll make sure Shore is free from this," Aloe continued. "The Sand Kingdom will be nothing like what my Blister wanted it to be. I'll reverse what Thorn did, and the sisters and Queen Oasis before her. I'll tear this horrible palace down brick by brick if that's what is needed."

"I know, sweetie," Leopard replied. "I know you would."

"The SandWings will be free," Aloe said. Leopard felt Aloe's tail tense up around her own, as she came to a concerning thought. "Possibility . . ."

"You won't need to worry about Possibility," Leopard laughed. Aloe had promised some of the northeastern SandWing territory would be given over to the IceWings when she'd made her deal with Blackice, without realizing that half of Possibility was still technically SandWing territory until Six-Claws had mentioned some of the politics around Possibility to Leopard. Thorn had considered giving it independence, but knew that if she did, Queen Scarlet would've immediately claimed the whole city as her own.

"I won't?" Aloe wondered, looking over at Leopard with a confused frown. "But I made the deal. Queen Blackice—"

"Isn't going to be a problem anymore," Leopard smiled.

"Not a problem? What do you mean?"

"According to Six-Claws, Blackice was killed in battle just yesterday," Leopard explained. "There was a large battle at Jade Mountain. For the moment, Prince Hailstorm has taken the IceWing throne. Apparently he survived the massacre at the palace."

Aloe paused, staring at Leopard in disbelief. Leopard waited a few moments as Aloe processed what that meant to them.

"Good," Aloe finally stated. "I'm glad she's dead."

Leopard nodded in agreement.

"Blackice was merciless," Aloe continued, clutching her talons around her pendant. "She was moralless. She murdered every dragon she came across in the IceWing palace, or in the rainforest, adult and dragonet alike. We should never have worked with her to begin with, and if Blackice hadn't been killed, I would've torn her apart myself if given the chance. Blister was a scheming pile of—"

"Aloe," Leopard interrupted quietly. She placed her own talons around Aloe's, shaking as the pendant dug into her paw-scales. "It's fine. She's dead. She's not coming back."

Aloe blinked, then closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, as she allowed her talons to unclench, lowering her snout into Leopard's paws. "I said Blister. Didn't I."

Leopard nodded slowly. "I get it."

Aloe shook her head. "They sound the same." She shook her wings, changing the subject. "If Prince - no, King Hailstorm is in charge of the throne now, we should establish formal diplomatic relations with him. We need strong allies, or at least a few dragons who aren't our enemies."

"Don't you think it's a bit early for that?" Leopard frowned. She didn't like the idea of getting the IceWings involved again, not until this was over. "We're not really in a position where I think anyone would recognize us as in control."

"It's not," Aloe pressed. "With Sunny missing, we're as good as won. We just need to wait for General Six-Claws to realize it."

Leopard sighed, thinking back to her conversation with Six-Claws. From what he'd said, she thought it would be quite a while before he finally gave up. "Maybe becoming queen isn't such a good idea," she muttered, almost without thinking.

Aloe tensed up, her barb instinctively curling inwards. "What do you mean?" she asked, a hint of frantic in her voice. "You promised. The three of us. We all promised, that I'd become queen of the Sand Kingdom, and then we'd be safe. No one would control us, or anyone in the Sand Kingdom as long as I lived." Her breath started to quicken, almost hyperventilating. "You can't be - you can't—"

"Aloe, please, I'm not," Leopard calmly assured her, wincing. "I'm not breaking my promise."

"Good," Aloe huffed, her emotions whipping around from fear to anger. "With Blister's ashes spread throughout the Sand Kingdom, I'll make sure she's watching. She'll be certain to see when small, useless Aloe does what Blister couldn't ever do. I'll be Queen of the Sand Kingdom. I'll erase her name from history, all while she's watching from whatever hell she lives in. They'll talk about the three princesses, Blaze, Burn, and the third one no one remembers, then Queen Aloe succeeded them, best of them all! I'll make sure - I'll make sure —"

"I know you will," Leopard nodded, trying to make her voice sound as soothing as possible. She stroked her talons along Aloe's side, letting them trace between her scales. "It'll be great. I know. But . . . that wasn't the only promise we made. The three of us promised we wouldn't win the throne like she was trying to do. We wouldn't start another war involving all of Pyrrhia. The two of you wouldn't repeat your parents' mistakes."

Aloe's talons shook as she felt Leopard's slow breath against her, the stroking of her talons helping her settle down. "I haven't broken that promise."

Leopard hesitated for a moment, before trying to push those thoughts away. "You haven't," Leopard replied with a smile. Still, she wondered. Aloe had made the deal with Blackice. They hadn't brought the IceWings into their war, but it had been close. What if things had gone differently, and Blackice had won?

It didn't matter. Blackice was dead, and what had happened couldn't be changed. They just needed to be more careful in the future.

The Empress crossed Leopard's mind again. She wondered — what would happen if the Empress came for the Sand Kingdom? Then a Pyrrhia-spanning war would happen regardless, and there was little the two of them could do about.

Chapter 44

"Polar!" Tiger and Skytaker shouted out in unison, almost laughing in relief as the glowing IceWing stepped towards them, finally becoming visible.

"You're alive!" Skytaker continued, rushing forward and wrapping their forepaws around Polar. The hybrid's claws scratched against stone, covering Polar's body in huge patches. Skytaker sniffed. For some reason, the IceWing smelt like the desert.

Polar chuckled uncomfortably, gently pushing Skytaker away as he backed up. The golden light from between the cracks of stone cast a shadow down from Skytaker, into the base of the dome.

"You're supposed to be dead," Tiger asked, confused. "Toxin said—"

"Fate had other things in store for me," Polar smiled, lifting up a paw. A glittering diamond was embedded in its center, trapped in the stone covering the IceWing's scales. "Pretty fortunate for the four of you, I'd say."

Tiger smiled. "Toxin will be so happy to hear you're alive. How did you—"

Before Tiger could finish her sentence, she let out a yelp as a chunk of sandstone hit her backside. She looked up to see that a hole had formed in the roof of the dome, a black inky tentacle squirming through it. She opened her mouth, about to scream, when Polar extended his talons. The light around him grew blindingly bright, as golden sand whipped around the darkness, covering it up as it solidified into stone.

"I can't explain now," Polar grimaced. "I can't keep the Horror at bay much longer."

"The Horror?" Ecru asked, somewhat unsure what to think of all this. "I thought you said this was the Great Ice Dragon."

"It is," Polar sighed, slightly exasperated. He quickly scanned the roof of the dome for more cracks. "The Horror is just what we call it. A bit more to the point, you know?"

"We?" Midnight wondered, not seeing anyone else in the dome with them. "Who is we?"

"As I said, I'll explain later," Polar replied, the IceWing's voice almost a growl. "Right now, I have to get you out of here. Get behind me, all four of you. When I say so, we're going to run. Stay behind me, but not too far behind me."

"Wait, we're going out there?" Midnight stammered. "You can't be serious."

Polar snorted. "Well, if you want to stay here, be my guest, but I doubt this shell is gonna hold for long. Get a move on."

Midnight frowned as she walked up behind Polar, joining the dragonets. She didn't even know this dragon. But at least Tiger and Skytaker seemed to, and it wasn't like she had any other choices.

"It'll be alright," Ecru tried to assure Midnight. "We'll be alright."

Polar lifted his wings up, spreading them out wide. The ethereal golden glow sharpened around them, and he took a step back as his claws tensed.

"NOW!" Polar yelled out, rushing forward. With a flap of his wings, a hole formed in the sandstone dome. Waiting on the other side, black shadows creeped in, swarming towards Polar.

The IceWing flapped his wings again, a golden glow shedding them as he moved his wingtips up and down in a fine motion. Shimmering sand swirled up from the ground, weaved by Polar's magic into the air. The darkness seemed to retreat backwards as the sand curled into the air, twisting and twirling in spirals. It quickly solidified into stone, forming the roof and sides of a curved tunnel over the exit, extending out in front of Polar.

Polar sprinted into the tunnel he created, more of it forming as he ran. Tiger and Skytaker ran off behind him, so close the stone spikes on the IceWing's tail almost whacked Tiger in the snout. Midnight and Ecru hurried behind, Midnight risking a glance back as she ran, heart pounding.

Cracks had formed in the dome behind them, Polar's magic not enough to keep the Horror at bay there. Black tentacles creeped behind them. Midnight let out a yelp as she saw one fling itself towards her, before turning away at the last moment as sand rose up to greet it, solidifying and blocking the attack. Midnight winced as she felt it grit against her scales, polishing them roughly.

"Don't look!" Polar yelled back to her. "It's under control!"

Midnight turned back, squinting at Polar as he continued to sprint. He hadn't looked back at all; in fact, he seemed focused on creating the tunnel above them. How did he know what was behind him?

The group turned suddenly, as Polar led them down another street, heading back towards this world's Mausoleum. Ecru caught a quick glimpse of the city, lit up by the glowing sandstone. As she'd seen earlier, deserted buildings reached up to the clouds, even as the ground was covered in the bones of the dead. But now, the Horror covered it all. Inky darkness squirmed over every surface, black shadows against the black sky, also covered by it's unfathomable expanse. Colorful lights were swept around in its fluid body, whispering as Ecru stared. Their glow provided the only sense of scale and shape in the uniform black, the close ones outlining the rectangular buildings.

"I didn't realize . . . ," Ecru whispered, not sure whether she was feeling wonder or terror. She'd sensed it when Midnight had used her magic, but this was so much to take in. "I wasn't expecting this."

"No time for sightseeing!" Polar yelled back. "We're almost there!"

With the pace that they were running, and their path already lit, it wasn't long before the blinking buildings of the dead city had been put behind them, and the group was on the path back to the Mausoleum. Midnight's heart raced as she spotted the stone pillars in front of them, and the fallen doors beyond the ancient statues. She panted, taking another glance back as she leaped over a fallen queen's torso.

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"Into the crypt, now!" Polar ordered. He stopped as he reached the entrance, whipping around to face the Horror, sand whipping around his wings. Tiger and Skytaker rushed past him, leaping over the door that Midnight had knocked down into the Mausoleum.

Midnight turned back, giving Polar a glance as she ran past him, Ecru grabbing her in a hug as she leapt into the Mausoleum. As soon as they were through, Polar backed into the ruins. Sand rose up into the doorframe at his command, solidifying into a thick, glowing wall.

Midnight's teeth chattered, staring at it, half-expecting for it to be broken, the five devoured into the darkness of the Horror. But nothing happened. All was still.

"We should hurry," Polar said, letting out his own sigh of relief. "We need to get you all back to Pyrrhia. You have your own mission, don't you? It's why you came down here."

"You can lead us back?" Skytaker asked, slightly surprised.

Polar nodded. "C'mon. Follow me."

Midnight looked over at the stone-covered door as she followed Polar and the others down into the tunnels again. A chill ran down her spine, across her tail. She could still feel its presence on the other side, even as the whispers faded.

"Was that really the Great Ice Dragon?" Ecru asked as they descended through the tunnel. More of the strange crystals were popping up, but with Polar's faint golden glow, they didn't do much to light up the path.

"Yes. The IceWings had it right," Polar explained. "Though what they imagined their god to look like was a bit off. Not an ice dragon at all, but I suppose you could call it 'great.' All legend is based in fact, I suppose."

"How is it the Great Ice Dragon, then, if it's neither a dragon nor made of ice?" Midnight frowned. She tried to remember what Ecru had told her about the Great Ice Dragon. One thing in particular stuck out to her. "Is that . . . where animus magic comes from?"

She felt her stomach turn as Polar nodded. Her magic, her powers. It didn't come from her, but from that horrible . . . thing? Thanks to her father, she'd never been fond of her powers to begin with, but now that she knew what caused them, she wanted no more than to tear her brain out from her skull, her powers with them. Even here, she could still hear the quiet buzz, the hum that had in the back of mind there since she'd healed Gazelle, except for her short time on Antigonia. Maybe Torrent had been right, all along.

"You're right, sort of," Polar started to explain. "It's a little more complicated than the Horror just granting powers. Have you noticed all the crystals in these tunnels?" He brushed his tail against one, causing it to light up quickly. "They're called Darkstone. A bit of a misnomer, since not all of them are dark, but the ones in Pyrrhia's Crystal Caverns are. They were created by the Horror. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, but IceWings originally got animus magic by living near them, in the hills south of the Ice Kingdom. They slowly mutated the IceWings until the Horror got access to their minds.

"The Horror itself can't use animus magic," Polar continued. "Not that it needs to. We're not sure why. In all honesty, we barely know what it is, or even if it's alive or not. Kinda difficult to study. Maybe it's not intelligent enough to use magic itself, or maybe that's just a condition on its powers. However, it's able to grant the wishes, so to speak, of dragons who are connected to it. That's how animus works. If you're connected to it, you can ask it for something, and it'll usually say yes."

"I think I understand," Ecru remarked. "Every time an animus uses their magic, their connection to the Horror grows. And eventually, they lose their souls to it, while the Horror moves closer to Pyrrhia."

"Wow. You're pretty much right," Polar responded, grinning. "I'm surprised you figured that out just from what I told you."

Ecru frowned. The group had entered the glassy caverns, and Polar stepped onto the crystal bridge. Hopefully, he knew where he was taking them. "I could feel it when Midnight used magic."

"You could feel it?" Polar asked, flicking his tail. "What do you mean by that?"

Ecru squirmed uncomfortably as she crossed the bridge.

"She tends to notice things other dragons can't," Midnight answered for her. "Subtle things, like being able to tell when dragons have died in a place."

Polar stopped, considering this for a moment. "Ecru, can I see your eyes?"

"My eyes?" Ecru asked. "Er, sure."

Polar turned, lifting Ecru's head until their snouts were pointed at each other. The stone around his talons scraped her jaws as he stared, his eyes locked with hers.

After a few moments, Polar dropped her head, turning away. Ecru let out a sigh of relief.

"What is it?" Midnight asked, a bit concerned for Ecru.

"Nothing abnormal," Polar laughed. "Interesting. Déjà vu, perhaps? I thought she'd have something like Fracture or Ink's powers, but I guess not."

Midnight perked up. "Ink?" she asked. "You mean my brother? Did you know him?"

Polar chuckled. "That's right, I never properly introduced myself. Tiger and Skytaker met me at Jade Mountain, but you don't know me. I'm Polar, Fracture and Clarity's dragonet. I was one of the five dragons that my father sent down here to stop the drought, with Ink, Toxin, Inferno, and of course, Slate. You don't need to introduce yourself, Midnight, I already know who you are. This way."

He turned, squeezing into a small passage that Midnight swore hadn't been there before. The other four followed him into it, climbing up loose stone.

"You seem different, though," Skytaker mused.

"I do?" Polar asked. "What is it? The stone on my scales? The glowing?"

"More than that," Skytaker pointed out. "You're not as, er, mean."

Polar nodded in agreement. "You're right. I'm not. Time works differently in the Crystal Caverns. It's been far longer for me than the rest of you. I suppose that changed me a bit. Got a bit more sense of . . . perspective."

Polar glanced back, stretching his claws out to help the others up a steep slope. When he got to Tiger, she gave him a cautious stare, hesitating to take his claws.

"You want to ask me something," Polar suspected. "You're free to do it."

Tiger curled her claws. Something about this whole thing was wrong. "Toxin told me what happened. How did you survive?"

Polar smirked, and turned around, weaving past the others in the tight tunnel to get back to the front of the train of dragons. "I'm pretty sure you already know."

Tiger stopped, giving Polar a wary look.

"C'mon. I saved you, remember?" Polar sighed. "I'm not leading you to your doom."

"That's what I don't understand," Tiger frowned. "Why would you save us?"

Polar shook his head. "Just because things are more complicated now doesn't mean I'm your enemy. I'm still on your and Toxin's side. I promise, I don't have ulterior motives in bringing you back to Pyrrhia safely. The Empress is my enemy. I don't want her transforming Pyrrhia either."

Tiger felt a cold feeling of dread creep up through her talons. She finally asked the question she wasn't sure she wanted an answer to.

"Did Polar really survive?"

Polar stopped. The cavern went quiet as he turned around, meeting Tiger's eyes.

Tiger growled, baring her fangs. "I want to know. Who is talking to me right now? Polar, or Calamity?"

It was a few moments before Polar responded. "I'm still myself. I hope that's enough for you."

Polar turned back, continuing to walk down the tunnel. Tiger glared at him as she followed. It was true. Polar had been saved by the dragon who Ink had sacrificed himself to stop, and had aligned with him. She quenched the maroon hints of rage coming through on her scales.

"Er, I think I'm a bit out of the loop here," Midnight said, very confused. "Who's Calamity?"

Tiger opened her mouth to respond. "Calamity was . . . is—"

"I can tell her," Polar interrupted, receiving a glare from the RainWing dragonet. "I was with Toxin during the battle, remember?" He took a deep breath, before looking Midnight directly in her eyes. "Calamity is the dragon who killed Queen Fen. The dragon who killed Princess Blister. The dragon who created your father, the dragon who caused the drought. The dragon who send Crystal and Aurora to kill you, Nightreader, Loresearcher, Queen Tourmaline, Queen Thorn, and Queen Glacier. The dragon who Ink, Toxin, Inferno, Slate, and I failed to destroy. The dragon who Ink gave his life in order to bind and defeat. The dragon who saved my life after I threw it away trying to stop him, and now, the dragon who saved yours." Polar tilted his head. "Is that a sufficient explanation?"

Midnight felt her breath go shallow as she tried to take in everything that Polar had told her, not quite able to fit it in all at once. Calamity was the final piece in the puzzle of her life, and her family's history.

"Yes," Midnight whispered, talons shaking. Confusion, fear, or anger? Some of all three. Calamity was behind not just her family's massacre, but far more than that. Even as she felt hatred creep through her, she was uncertain what to feel. How could Polar align himself with someone like that, even if Calamity had saved his life?

"That's good," Polar replied. "It's alright to hate him. He deserves it. But things are rarely black and white."

Midnight's talons raked across the stone, and she turned her head away, not able to look Polar in the eyes. Part of her was furious at Calamity even for just having a claw in Polar saving her. Was he trying to make her feel indebted to him? There was no way, especially with three of her family members dead because of him. Why hadn't he let her die, then? What was he trying to do? Were they walking into a trap?

Ecru put a wing around Midnight, and she relaxed a tad. She hadn't even heard about Calamity until a few minutes ago. Yet, she had to wonder: what would her life have been like if her mother hadn't been killed? A parent other than the brooding Torrent and the elderly Gazelle. A family, with two siblings. What would that have been like?

Then she probably wouldn't have met Ecru. She sighed, shaking her head. There was no use wondering what would've happened. She probably would've be nothing like the dragon she was today.

Midnight's head suddenly perked up as something started to vibrate beneath her paws. The small pebbles on the ground had started to shake. She looked around, seeing that the other dragons had noticed it to.

Ecru suddenly let out a yelp. Midnight looked to the ceiling to see that two huge rocks had fallen down from the dark crack of the tunnel above them, let loose by the shaking. Midnight tried to jump out of the way, but the tunnel ahead seemed to squeeze against her, scraping her wing membranes as she tried to get past.

Not a moment too soon, Polar stretched out his talons, a golden beam of light shooting from them. It hit the boulders directly, and they exploded into particles of find sand, falling harmlessly on Midnight's wings. She let out a sigh of relief, shaking the sand from her scales. The ground had stopped shaking.

"Keep moving," Polar ordered, like the earthquake had been nothing. "We're almost there."

Midnight started to bare her fangs and bark back a reply, before thinking better of it. Even if he was working under Calamity, Polar had saved her now, twice.

She noticed Ecru glancing backwards out of the corner of her eye. "What is it?" Midnight asked.

"I thought I saw something," Ecru frowned. "Just for a moment. A flicker of a shadow, creeping towards us. I saw it earlier, too. Polar, is the Horror still here?"

"Yes, but we're further from it now, and it's weaker here," Polar replied. "It's fine. You've got nothing to worry about as long as you're with me, so long as the Horror remains asleep."

"It fell back asleep after we woke it up?" Skytaker asked.

Polar shook his head, and laughed at the idea. "No. You didn't wake it up. It takes a lot more than a single enchantment to do that."

"You're saying that was it sleeping?" Midnight stammered, shocked. "Where it consumed the entire city? Three moons. I don't want to see it awake, then."

"Don't worry," Polar chortled. "You wouldn't be able to see it for very long. It only wakes up when it's feeding."

"What does it eat?" Midnight winced, already suspecting the answer.

"Souls," Polar smiled.

Tiger stared forward as they climbed the path, folding her wings into her side. "The Great Ice Dragon lives trapped beneath ice," she whispered, paraphrasing the legend. "When the world ends, Pyrrhia will got hot, the ice will melt. She'll be free once more, and she'll take the IceWings to an eternal paradise."

"Almost right," Polar clucked. "But not just the IceWings, and while having your soul devoured over a few millenia might seem eternal, it is far from a paradise."

The group reached a fork in the path. Polar quickly looked back and forth, squinting as if he was trying to listen for something, then turned to the left.

"This way," Polar said. "We're almost back to our world."

Midnight panted as they climbed up another slope, the tunnel spreading out as it grew wider. The surface quickly transitioned to clear crystal, shining like a mirror in front of Midnight's eyes. She stared at it, brushing her tail against its sheer surface. Even if it looked like ice, it wasn't cold to the touch.

The path flattened out, and Midnight turned forward. A thin bridge of crystal, like the ones in the other caverns, stretched out in front of them. Her eyes traced out across it, until finally reaching the other end. She stopped, heart pounding.

"Midnight, what's wrong?" Ecru asked. "You're shaking."

A all-to-familiar dragon stared back at her from across the bridge, horns and scales that haunted her dreams since her hatching. Midnight stood frozen in fear, only able to look as Crystal's laughing snout stared down at her, cackling as her talons clenched around the hilt of her twisted dagger, pointed towards Midnight's skull.

Chapter 45

A slow, blissful breath moved in and out of Aurora's lungs. For just a moment, she was at peace. Brisk wind billowed under her wings, membranes flapping as she soared the northern air currents. Snow-capped mountains spanned the ground below her like a dragon's spine, trees, rivers, and lakes dotting the valleys between them.

A small bit of fur itched between Aurora's horns, a little reminder of her duty. For a moment, she was about to brush it off with her claws, before recalling what it was. Sapphire had laid down on the top of Aurora's skull, making a small place for himself as he clutched between her scales, threatening to peel a few off with his sharp claws. Even the back and forth rocking and the winds clambering to pull him into the open sky until he was just a blotch on the mountainside didn't seem to scare him. Aurora supposed that she shouldn't have been surprised. He was used to flying with Trustbreaker, no doubt.

Aurora didn't know where the Empress had gone, but the SkyWing palace was her best bet. It wasn't really Queen Scarlet's anymore, but she didn't want to call it the Empress's palace just yet. Although it wasn't really much of a palace anymore, after the Empress's devastating magical attacks on it. Regardless, that was where Aurora suspected she would be. She hadn't taken her entire army to the Talons of Peace, which meant some of them had stayed behind.

Clean, untouched air entered Aurora's throat, and her glowstripes gave off a happy flutter. Happy. That was odd. She hadn't felt happy in a long time. Not since she'd left her family in the Crystal Caverns, and not for a while before that. She pondered the emotion for a moment, wondering why she was feeling it.

A thought bubbled up in her mind. This was the first time she'd ever enjoyed flying aboveground. It had taken her a while to get used to it. There was so much . . . stuff. Everywhere she looked, there was just more. An infinite expanse, above and to all sides. She hadn't been used to it. She hadn't been prepared for it. But she'd started to get used to it, this worlds open spaces and sunlight. Something about it just felt . . . right? Right. This was where a dragon was supposed to be, with the world beneath her wings, so high above she was but a speck in the sky. Not trapped in the bellows of the ground. Up here, she was free.

Freedom. Maybe that was also why she was happy. Not just because of the geographic freedom, though that was certainly a part of it, but she was free of her duty. Specifically, her duty to Calamity, and to Pyrrhia. With the Empress here, there was no way she could complete Calamity's plan. It wasn't something she had to worry about, something constantly lurking across her mind. She'd failed, and that was . . . freeing.

The mountains beneath caught her gaze. They were so beautiful! Greens and whites and blues, all in harmony. Shadows moving, tracing across the individual cracks and crags between the mountainsides. Peaks reaching towards the sun, glittering snow melting as the day progressed. There was nothing like it in the barren caverns, nothing so expansive and eternal.

But if Trustbreaker's words had been true, the supposed eternity wouldn't be very long. The Empress posed a threat to even Pyrrhia's landscape. Aurora would likely be dead before the Horror ever arose, but the Empress was immediate. Maybe that's why she was going after the Empress. She wanted to save Pyrrhia for its beauty, so that she could experience more of it herself.

She frowned, as she thought of what the Empress was doing now. Trying to get the Wishstone out from Inferno, presumably. What was going on there? Was the Empress hurting Inferno? Torturing her, even? Aurora felt another emotion spark as the idea crept into her head. Anger. Boiling anger towards the Empress, for capturing and hurting Inferno. Why was she feeling that? In the grand scheme of things, Inferno was just one dragon. She didn't matter. Yet, Aurora was still angry. Had she become . . . attached to the SkyWing?

It was true that her feelings about Inferno had changed. While she hadn't really noticed her at the time, she recognized the SkyWing's pacifism and bravery now. Where she'd stood up to Aurora and defended Ink at the base of Jade Mountain. Where even knowing Aurora could've killed her in the blink of an eye, she met with her in front of the Crystal Caverns in order to try and make peace. Her calmness while she'd been Aurora's prisoner, her willingness to treat Aurora as more than just a temporary ally and ex-enemy.

Aurora's talons began to shake, her glowscales blinking on and off as she felt her breath quicken. What was going on? Was that why she was going after the Empress? Because she wanted to save Inferno? Because she cared about her?

She shook her head, clenching her claws as she pushed the thoughts back down. There was something wrong with her. She wasn't supposed to care about individual dragons. She couldn't care about them if she was to complete her mission. Crystal had told her. Attachments were a weakness, and would just interfere with her goals. That was the only way she could've been able to let her mother die.

The moment had passed. Aurora decided it would be bad if she did any more introspection on her motives, and why she was going after the Empress. It was just an extension of Calamity's orders, trying to stop the Empress so that his plan could continue. She turned away from the mountains, looking into the cloudy sky.

Movement caught her gaze. Other dragons, flying her way. A few dozen of them, from what she could tell. Reds, oranges, and yellows. SkyWings on the wing.

The dragons' course didn't change as they approached Aurora. She frowned, talons twitching. There were a lot, but unless they had any sort of magic with them, she'd be able to take the group down easily, or just phase through them. She prepared for a fight, though the SkyWings looked more wary than vicious as she passed closer to them.

She glanced over at the crowd of SkyWings. Only a few seemed to be soldiers. The rest were just ordinary dragons, even a few dragonets. Did she recognize any of them? She wasn't sure, but it seemed likely these were some of the SkyWings that had been in the palace during her time there. Some certainly seemed to know her, based on their quick looks away as they caught her gaze. These were refugees, escaping the fallen Sky Kingdom.

One of the older dragonets said something to what might have been his mother, a short argument. Ignoring her advice, he courageously glided over towards Aurora, actually brave to speak to her. Aurora felt a tiny bit of admiration for the dragonet. Everyone else had usually been too scared of Aurora, her powers, and her connection to Queen Scarlet to talk with her willingly.

"Er, your, er—" the SkyWing dragonet stammered, not sure of the proper title for Aurora.

"Aurora," Aurora responded. She was technically a SeaWing princess, and Queen Scarlet had given her a title at some point, but Queen Scarlet wasn't much of a queen at the moment and Aurora didn't want to bother with formalities.

The other SkyWings slowed down, watching the two anxiously, careful to keep their difference.

"Aurora," the dragonet continued. "I just to, um, warn you about going that way. Not that you need warnings or anything, but the SkyWing palace was destroyed, and an army of RainWings are inhabiting it. They attacked SkyWings in the lands around it, which is why we're fleeing south."

"Is the Empress there?" Aurora asked. "The one with the crown and lightning powers. What about a fireborn? Is Queen Scarlet still alive?"

The dragonet shook his head. "Sorry. I don't know. It's dangerous. We flew away before getting a good look."

Aurora nodded, before turning away. She frowned, wondering if she should say something in response. "Thank you," she decided on.

The dragonet quickly flapped back to the group, who quickly continued on their way. Aurora heard someone say, "You know who she is, right?" but wasn't quite sure which SkyWing it was. Not that it mattered much.

As the refugees flew south, Aurora continued to the north, Sapphire clutching her scales. So the Empress was still at the palace. That meant that Aurora was on the right track.

---

The flight to the palace took longer than Aurora had expected, but the world hadn't been destroyed, so she supposed there wasn't any harm in her taking her time. She could've figured out a way to shoot across the sky like how she and Inferno had gotten to the Talons of Peace, but then she would've had to worry about healing herself after getting to Liliana, and she was too worried that the small, elderly Sapphire wouldn't have been able to survive the heat and acceleration.

Even before she spotted the palace ruins, she spotted RainWings on patrol, guarding the lands and skies around it. That wouldn't be a problem for her, of course. From the battle she'd seen, they were just RainWings, no special powers or anything like that. Unless she slipped up again and accidentally got sleep darted like when she'd met Queen Glory, none of them posed a threat to her but the Empress herself.

She heard a purr from above her snout, reminding her of Sapphire's presence. That was right. She'd carried him all this way, but if she was going into battle with the Empress, she couldn't take him with her. Her healing abilities were slow and limited as was, and she needed to make sure she wasn't distracted by trying to keep him alive. She spotted a landmark she thought she could remember, a spire of stone that stuck out of a forested valley like a claw, and landed down by it.

Carefully, Aurora wrapped her talons around Sapphire's small body, pulling him from her head. Not without pain — the cat seemed to refuse to let go of her, yowling and scratching as she tried to get him off. After some effort, she managed to set him down at the base of the spire.

"If I survive, I'll come back for you right here," Aurora stated, hoping he could understand. "If I don't come back, I'm likely dead, and the Empress has won."

Sapphire let out a yowl, trying to leap back towards her. Aurora turned the stone beneath him to water, soaking the unhappy cat in it before he could latch onto her again.

"If I bring you, I don't think you will survive," Aurora continued. "You saw how easily she killed Trustbreaker, yes? That would happen to you. Stay here."

Aurora turned away, leaving Sapphire behind as he climbed out of the pool of water. With a flap of her wings, she took off, turning towards the palace to the north.

It wasn't long before the RainWings on patrol saw her. She didn't pay them much attention as they soared down towards her, claws out and ready to attack. So the Empress didn't want interference.

Venom shot at her from the side, on target even with the wind. She phased through it, causing it to land harmlessly on the ground. Another RainWing tried to grasp onto her with claws. She let him fly through her, before whacking him in the side with her tail, quickly growing metal hooks from its spikes. The RainWing let a cry as she ripped out scale and flesh from his side, diving away from her.

The first RainWing shot venom at her again, now noticing clearly how it just went through her. After a couple more attempts, the RainWing finally gave up, gliding down to the ground to help her fallen companion.

By this point, the palace had just come in view, with a swarm of RainWings overhead, like a huge cloud over the Sky Kingdom. The palace itself had seen better days. Since the Empress's attack on it, more of the numerous towers rising up from its balconies had fallen, outwards or inwards. The great tiered open space on the inside had been filled with rubble, ancient rocks and stone toppled to the ground. RainWings perched on every surface, the army making the ruins their temporary home. Aurora spotted what looked like a chunk of cloud on the ground. It seemed like Queen Scarlet's throne had been thrown out. Not that Aurora cared too much. She had no sentimentality for the place, and Queen Scarlet's vicious rule there.

A few more RainWings tried to accost Aurora on her flight there, meeting similar results as the first ones. It didn't take long before they gave up trying to harm her, and settled for flying a distance away from her, cautiously watching as she headed towards the palace. She looked around, trying to find where the RainWings were most densely packed, before noticing what was left of the arena. RainWings filled the seats, watching the pit of sand below, rubble cleared away. That was probably where the Empress was. Ironically, it seemed like Aurora would be serving as Queen Scarlet's champion after all.

No one tried to stop Aurora as she soared over the arena, her sky blue scales unique, but not enough to camouflage her descent. She looked down into the arena as she landed.

The Empress's glittering eyes stared back up at her, her golden crown of leaves and vines shining in the sunlight. So she'd returned to her RainWing form. She made no attempt to attack as Aurora fluttered downwards towards the arena, instead gesturing for her to land. Still, Aurora saw a crackle of lightning arc from one side of the arena to the other. An attempt at intimidation, or a threat?

The Empress wasn't the only dragon in the sands of the arena. Backed up against one of the walls, tendrils of smoke rose from Inferno's scales. Her blue eyes lit up as she spotted Aurora, and she tried to take a step forward, but Aurora quickly noticed she was unable to move. As she took a closer look, Aurora spotted thin green vines, like tendrils, wrapping around Inferno's neck and legs, tightening as she struggled. Whatever they were, they were clearly magical — any ordinary plant would've instantly burned at Inferno's touch. Still, she seemed unharmed.

"AURORA!"

Aurora turned at her name being called. Not far from Inferno, another dragon was held prisoner in the vines. Queen Scarlet clambered out as Aurora approached, vines tightening and almost choking as she struggled to get free.

"HELP ME!" Scarlet squealed at Aurora. The queen's former regality and menacing appearance had been much reduced since Aurora had last seen her. Her scales were dirty and covered with sand, the unscarred side of her snout stained with tears. Her scales seemed to be shaking in terror, and every so often, her eyes darted towards the Empress or one of the RainWings, instantly flinching and cowering, like she expected venom to come raining down on her at any point. "PLEASE, SAVE ME! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME MY SCALES THEY'LL RUIN THEM I'LL MELT I'LL DIE I'L—"

"Quiet," the Empress commanded, her voice penetrating through the stiff air. She raised a single talon, and vines wrapped around Queen Scarlet's snout, sneaking in through her teeth. The SkyWing queen froze up as she felt one crawl down her throat, silencing her. She stood still, shaking, staring at Aurora in terror.

Aurora looked back as she landed in the sand, though her gaze wasn't focused on Scarlet, instead, at the metal box at Scarlet's paws. So the Eye of Amethyst was still in there. She shouldn't have been surprised. Had the Empress taken it for herself, Calamity would've had access to it, and would've used it to kill her. But since it wasn't the Wishstone, the Empress had no use for it.

"You have a lot of guts, coming here," the Empress snorted, taking a step in the sand towards Aurora. "You do know who I am, don't you? I remember seeing you, when I destroyed the palace."

"I know who you are," Aurora calmly replied. She took a step to her right, keeping her gaze locked on the RainWing. The Empress made a similar movement, keeping her distance from Aurora, while remaining attentive on her. So she was also exercising caution. She didn't know the full extent of Aurora's abilities, and Aurora didn't know hers.

"You should've stayed away!" Inferno suddenly cried out. "You shouldn't have come. Ash said you can't beat her!"

Aurora didn't turn to look at Inferno, even as she heard the SkyWing's voice call to her. If she lost her focus for even a moment, the Empress could take advantage of that.

"I don't care what Ash says," Aurora replied. "If I ignore her, she's going to destroy Pyrrhia." And you, most likely. She continued circling around the Empress, making her way around the arena.

The RainWing flicked her tail, smirking. "Destroy Pyrrhia? That's a bit of an over-exaggeration. I don't plan to destroy Pyrrhia. I plan to make it better. To get rid of the pain, the violence. To make a world where everyone lives in harmony. If you're fighting against that, then can you really say you have Pyrrhia's best interests at heart?"

Aurora snorted, shaking her head as she dragged her tail through the sand, spikes marking a path through it. "That's ironic."

"Ironic?" Liliana asked, frowning. "What do you mean by that?"

"The two of us," Aurora explained. "You didn't come from this world, and nor did I. Yet, we're both trying to save it. The fate of Pyrrhia comes down to a battle between two beings who aren't from it."

"Hmm," Liliana mused, continuing her circling. Aurora spotted something new in her eyes. Respect? Hesitation? She seemed a little more guarded than before. "I suppose I underestimated the dragons here. I was expecting to meet resistance, but I wasn't expecting such a strong challenger so soon. Aurora, is it? Your SkyWing friend mentioned your name. We don't need to fight. I want to make a deal with you."

"A deal?" Aurora asked. "What do you mean?"

"I'll let you have Queen Scarlet, and whatever is in her box," the Empress suggested. "When I remake this world, I'll leave the two of you alone. In exchange, you leave me alone. A non-aggression pact."

Aurora continued circling around the Empress. She considered the deal. But only for a moment.

Aurora shook her head. "That's not a sufficient deal for me. I need this world intact for Calamity's plan to continue. Along with you out of it."

"Calamity?" Liliana asked. "So you're not working alone? Who is that?"

Aurora let out a sound somewhere between a wheeze and a laugh. She snorted. "You really don't know? So you don't know why there are other worlds, and yet you plan to conquer them? Ash didn't tell you anything."

The Empress's snout furled. For a moment, Aurora could see the fear in her gaze, her sudden realization that she'd stumbled into something far greater than herself, that she was again just a powerless scavenger in a hostile world. Her eyes darted towards Inferno, glaring at Ash. But it didn't last long, and Liliana regained her determination.

"Well, I'll have plenty of time to ask Ash all about it. I'm sure he'll be willing to explain. I take it that there's no sufficient agreement we can come to?"

"This Pyrrhia is under Calamity's domain," Aurora stated, delivering her ultimatum. "Return to your own, and never come back, and you'll be left alone."

The Empress sighed. "So we're unable to reach an agreement. In that case, fighting will be our only option. A brutal test of strength and magic that delivers no verdict on the correctness of our ideals."

"I have no interest in correctness," Aurora said. She risked a quick look down. The tracks of her tail had met up with themselves. She and the Empress had circled all the way around the arena. "Your ideals will fail regardless of the outcome of this battle, correct or not."

Aurora stopped her walking, and turned to face the Empress directly. A layer of ceramic began to grow over her scales, covering her sky-blue scales with thick earthy plates. She took a step forward, the battle armor stiff as it scraped against itself.

The Empress smiled as she raised up her talons. A glow quickly travelled between them, and not a moment later, an arc of lightning shot towards Aurora. Thunder crackled across the arena, Inferno wincing at the great noise. Sand flew up into the air, the great light blinding.

The Empress lowered her paw, and the sand settled. She stared, expecting Aurora to have been obliterated by the blast. Her expression quickly contorted into a frown. Aurora hadn't moved an inch, her armor not even scorched. Instead, the sand in a spot a few tail-lengths away from her had been transformed into hard glass. Liliana had missed.

The Empress bared her fangs, and raised her talons to try again, another bolt of lightning shooting towards Aurora. Yet before it touched the hybrid, it jolted to the side, flung into the same place where the previous bolt had hit. The Empress looked down at her claws, wondering if her powers had stopped working properly.

Aurora swept her tail over the sand, getting rid of the glass. Sunlight glinted off metal, a pole buried beneath the sand. The Empress blinked, unsure what it was, before realizing what Aurora had done.

"Lightning rods," the Empress chuckled, shaking her head. "That's why you were circling around me. You placed them around the arena." She smiled. "I'm impressed. You managed to nullify my lightning so easily. I suppose I shouldn't have expected obtaining the Wishstone to be so easy."

Aurora remained silent, focused on the Empress. While Aurora had only one, albeit very versatile, enchantment on her, Trustbreaker had said that Liliana had a multitude. Lightning, shapeshifting. What would she do next?

There was a flash of blue light, and suddenly, the Empress was gone. As Aurora saw another flash behind her, she whipped her head around, but was a moment too late. The Empress had re-appeared behind her, and her talons slammed down into Aurora's hips, not giving her enough time to phase.

The thick ceramic armor cracked at the force, the Empress's single blow as powerful as a boulder falling from a mountainside, with the strength of a hundred dragons behind it. Aurora managed to leap away as scales and bones cracked beneath the RainWing's talons, splintering into shards as Aurora's hind-leg tore itself apart, her body unable to withstand the force.

Instinctively, Aurora's training went into effect. The instant she felt the pain, she detached the nerves in her leg, all sensation removed from it. Metal rope shot from both sides of the flesh where the leg had parted from the rest of her body, sowing it back up and binding it to the rest of her. She dissolved the splintered and destroyed bones, replacing them with new titanium poles, screwing into what was left of the flesh. Metal scales reappeared to replace the old ones, all in the blink of an eye.

The Empress leaped again, bringing down her claws again. This time, Aurora was ready. From each of the lightning rods in the sand around her, sharp metal poles wove up through the air, impaling the Empress before she could land. A hundred different spikes pierced through her scales, holding her a few feet above the ground as crimson blood leaked from her body. Aurora stepped back, unsteady on the temporary leg she'd created. She stared up at the Empress, the poles wrapping themselves around the RainWing and through her flesh, trapping her.

It didn't last long. Another blue flash lit up the air, and the Empress was gone, leaving a mess of bloody metal in the air above the arena. She teleported behind Aurora again, the RainWing's body healing almost instantaneously, and brought down her talons again.

But this time, Aurora was ready. Metal twisted up from the ground, impaling and trapping Liliana's claws. Aurora moved back as the Empress snarled, ripping her paw from the metal, cracking and breaking from the force.

The Empress shook her paw, a flash of blue surrounding it as it teleported away from the metal, bloody spikes falling to the ground. She instantly healed the wounds, laughing.

"I have to admit, this is somewhat exciting," the Empress chuckled. "Don't you agree? I haven't had anyone been able to physically withstand me for quite a while." She cocked her head. "However, the fate of Pyrrhia is far too important to treat as a game."

Aurora stared blankly at the Empress. She didn't find the fighting to be particularly enjoyable. Though, she supposed Queen Scarlet was getting the thrilling arena battle she'd wanted from Aurora. "If this is how the fate of this world is to be decided, let it be done so quickly."

"My pleasure," Liliana sneered, vanishing in a flash of light. Appearing behind Aurora instantly, she struck down at the hybrid again, only for her talons to pass straight through her. Metal cylinders rose up beneath Aurora's paws, as she used them to propel herself away from the Empress.

With another flash, the Empress appeared behind Aurora, reaching out again. Again, Aurora was quicker, dodging the strike and rolling down into the sand. She sent another field of spikes up after the Empress, only for the RainWing to teleport out of the way before they could hit. Aurora cocked her head to the side as the Empress reappeared in the sand, her tail twitching in excitement.

Aurora frowned. Neither of them were getting anywhere at this rate. She needed more information on the Empress's healing and her other powers if she wanted to counter and figure out a way around them.

Something suddenly wrapped around Aurora's metal leg, pulling it towards the ground. The Empress flexed her talons, and thorny vines burst from the sand, climbing up around Aurora's scales, latching into them to hold her in place. That was right, she'd done something similar to hold Inferno and Scarlet in place. Aurora stared up at the Empress as the smirking RainWing stepped closer, not yet phasing out.

There was a clink as Aurora felt the vines pull her metal leg against one of the buried lightning rods she'd made, wrapping around it to hold it in place. A small bolt crossed the Empress's talons, indicating her plan a moment too early. Aurora extended a front paw, thick copper wire winding up from her hindlegs into her foreclaws, sharp metal rods shooting out from them at the RainWing.

An arc of electricity shot from the Empress's claws into the lightning rod, thunder crackling through the arena. Within a moment, it travelled up through Aurora's hind-leg, into her claws, and across the wires connecting her back to the Empress. The Empress let out a shrill shriek in surprise as her own bolt struck her, flesh burning as she short-circuited herself.

In the RainWing's moment of surprise, Aurora extended the metal leg, propelling herself through the air at the Empress, smoke and ozone swirling around her. Without the Empress having enough time to react, Aurora reached close enough to use her powers on the Empress. She flung herself through the RainWing as she turned the Empress's body into water, splattering across the sides of the arena into wet splotches of sand.

Aurora twisted around, sand whipping up as she landed into the ground, looking back around the arena for any trace of the Empress. For just a moment, she'd wondered if she'd actually been able to destroy her, but it didn't last long. Aurora gritted her teeth as she saw droplets of water rising up in the air, coming back towards the center of arena until they formed an shimmering orb of water, floating at dragon head-height above the sand. Whatever healing or shapeshifting enchantment Ash had done on her, it was versatile enough that even turning her body into an inanimate substance couldn't kill her. She quietly cursed Calamity for training Ash so well.

The orb of water stretched back out into the shape of a RainWing, liquid become scales as the Empress reappeared. The Empress shook her head and laughed, before vanishing as their battle resumed.

Aurora jumped to the side as Liliana teleported in front of her, striking down with her talons. The hit itself missed, but Aurora felt a sudden tug, looking down to see that Liliana had grabbed her nerveless metal leg, still extended. There was a quick whip and a crack of metal as the leg snapped, and the Empress threw Aurora across the arena, into the wall on the other side.

Instead of slamming into the wall, Aurora quickly phased through it. The Empress scanned around the arena, unsure where Aurora had went, before the hybrid leaped up from the sand, claws outstretched as she attempted to grab onto Liliana again. This time, the Empress was faster, vanishing in a flash of blue.

Aurora extended her wings and whipped around mid-air as the blue light signalling the Empress's return flashed beneath her. Diving back down, she turned the air beneath her into thick metal spikes, the Empress yelling out as she teleported into them. Aurora flapped her wings before the Empress could hit her, the RainWing appearing in a mass of sharp metal that Aurora had created, poking out of her in a myriad of directions, so much that Aurora couldn't tell if her scale color was grey or purple.

The Empress teleported again, this time a distance away from Aurora as her healing went into effect, the numerous bloody holes in her scales patching themselves up. She bared her fangs as a piece of metal fell from her eyes, glittering gold once more. With a snarl, she curled her talons.

Aurora suddenly froze, her body unable to move from whatever the Empress had done to her. She felt her legs slowly start to move, like they were being pulled by some invisible force. Aurora phased into the air, hoping that would stop the Empress's telekinesis, but to no avail. A smug grin replaced Liliana's scowl as she started to contort Aurora's three remaining legs, realizing that her control over the hybrid was working after all. A crack sounded as one of them broke, sending a pain through Aurora's nervous system that the hybrid quickly broke, losing feeling in the leg. Aurora felt a sudden pang of fear, unprepared, but quickly quenched the feeling. She couldn't let herself be distracted by emotions in the midst of a battle. She had to keep her mind sharp.

Focusing on using her powers on the area around her instead of just herself, Aurora envisioned a pattern into her mind, and hundreds of tiny metal spheres appeared in front of and around her, blocking the Empress's view of her as they chaotically whirred around. The Empress's concentration faded as she became unable to keep track of where Aurora was, and the hybrid fell to the ground. The spheres fell with her, rolling across the arena ground.

In the moments she had, Aurora tried to quickly repair the damage the Empress had done to her body, creating a new metal leg from the old one while repairing the broken bone as fast as possible, wincing as she fused the nerve back together. All temporary healing measures. She wobbled as she stood back on all four legs, facing the Empress. This battle had gone on too long, and the extreme stresses and accelerations her body had gone under meant that parts were starting to succumb.

Liliana smiled. She'd noticed the same things that Aurora had. "This battle seems to be a test of endurance," she laughed. "I can tell you haven't actually healed yourself. You're just creating quick modifications to keep your body working until the battle is over. You don't have an enchantment that lets you do that? A shame." She shuffled her wings, glancing back at them. "I'm perfectly fine. You realize now you can't win this, don't you?"

Aurora bared her fangs. She'd seen enough to know that the Empress was right. Without an instant healing enchantment, Aurora was at a disadvantage. Additionally, with the teleportation, she had no way to trap the Empress. There was nothing she could do to win with just her transmutation powers. She glanced over towards Queen Scarlet, against the side of the arena. If she could get to the Eye of Amethyst . . .

"I think it's time to finish this," the Empress snorted. "You've been too much of a pest, I'm afraid."

The Empress's wings outstretched to the side, leathery membranes filled with blue light. A terrifying pressure suddenly creeped over Aurora, heart racing. Fear. But why?

Aurora took a step back as a blue ring appeared in the center of the arena, a glowing blue pillar climbing up from it to the sky. Aurora's talons shook and her eyes went wide as the portal opened, colorful lights blinking within it. A snake-like tentacle crawled out from portal, spiraling up into the sky as bubbles popped in it.

W̸̮̰͇̰̥̓͛̅̾́̆̔̈͆̚ḥ̻̤̪̭̥̱͑͐̄͗͞e̷̙̤̖̥̣͚͈̞̜̍̽̍̂͂͊̏͗̚̚ͅr̸̡̧̞͇̫̩͔̼̓͛̅̀͆̔͘͝ͅę̻͔̜̩͎͋̾͗͋̍̋́̚͟͠ â̴̢̺̭̜̪̘̾̐͒͋͜͞͡ŗ̷̛̖͈̥̪̰̗͐̿̄̕̚͟͢e̶̢̫̼̣̫͈̠̾͂̒̿̎̀̈́̅͜͞ w̜̱͙̦̳̉͌̽̂͢͞ẻ̫̦̳̥̭̦͔̒̑̓̐̃͂̐͟͡?̨̛̛̯̪̟͈̥̙̞͈͈̽͌̏́͑͐ W̶̞̗̹̦͚̔͊̋̓͊̋̔̿̐ḩ̛͓̤̼͈͐̄̓́̓̓̊̓͝y̸̙̻̼̲̦̌͑̌͊͐͊͑͢ͅ i̧̻̦͍̬̼͈͉̭͐͒̏͆͒̒̏̿͘͡s͙̦̠͎̫̜̙͗̈́͑͆̅̏́͘̕͢͞ t̜͖̙͉̹̲̭̾̀̈͛̓͒̕͢͡͝h̢̡̛͈̝͚̮̭̯̯͑̑̄̽̋͟e̡͈̤̙̘̻͙̗͌̾̂̓͠ŕ̴̯̜̮͙̤̳̐͊́̎̚͟e̸̛̻̼̥̯͎̣͛̆̕̕ ḻ̢͉̦̬̃͒͛̓̍͋̕ỉ̧̩̣͍̗͚̖̯͙͂͗͐̇̓̽̏͟g̸̹̰̘̯͖͚͈̬̰͐́̐̈͛͆͜h̡̝̩̪̝̭̣̲̰̟͑͌̆̇̐t̶̡͔̠͉̼̻̫͆͑͒͘͡ͅ?̷̢̜̪̯̝͙̲̠̓̉͑̎̌͐̀͂͛͐

Smaller tendrils split off from the dark tendril, like they could smell Aurora's Darkstone. She leaped out of the way as it slammed down into the ground around her, circles of sand flung up into the sky along with the remainder of the metal balls. It turned, snaking across the ground, seeking out Aurora as she leaped away from it, setting up crystalline barriers to block the darkness. It broke through them, the crystal only holding it long enough for Aurora to run around the side of the arena.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" Aurora screamed at the Empress, dodging another attack from the Horror as more tentacles burst from the portal.

"I discovered a bunch of these worlds while looking for the Wishstone," Liliana calmly explained, creating another portal in front of Aurora. The souls of dragons screamed as the Horror reached towards Aurora, blocked as she created another easily broken barrier between her and it. "Opening up portals to whatever that thing is is certainly an effective way of inspiring fear in your subjects, wouldn't you agree?"

"You're an idiot!" Aurora yelled back at Liliana. Her heart pounded as she sprinted across the sand towards Queen Scarlet, weaving in and out as the shadowy tendrils slammed into her path. More tentacles were spilling out of the two portals the Empress had made, creeping up into the sky like a blooming flower of darkness, reaching up towards the clouds. "You have no idea what forces you're playing with! Are you trying to kill not just us, but all of Pyrrhia and Antigonia alongside us?"

Liliana frowned, a bit concerned at this prospect. She lowered her wings, trying to close the portals she'd created, but more of the Horror kept streaming out, like water flooding through a dam. "I can stop it. I did before."

"That's because Ash got rid of animus magic on Antigonia!" Aurora screamed, frantic at this point. "To stop this! Idiot! Idiot idiot idiot!"

Aurora side-stepped as another tentacle almost hit her, her scales feeling like they'd been frozen off as it almost touched her. She leaped forward, extending her wings as she saw Queen Scarlet in front of her.

"SAVE ME!" the SkyWing queen wailed, spitting the vine out from her mouth.

Instead of grabbing Scarlet, Aurora jumped down into the box at her paws, phasing through the metal as she pulled out the Eye of Amethyst. She whipped around, turning towards the Horror, darkness into the sky as it started to spread. This wasn't supposed to happen, none of this. The Eye of Amethyst shouldn't have been activated for hundreds of years. But what choice did she have?

Aurora held the Eye of Amethyst up with with one forepaw, golden wings on the edge of the glittering purple stone. Scarlet cowered behind her with a squeal as bolts of energy travelled from the ground to the Eye, through Aurora's talons. The Horror had grown larger than one of the mountains itself, a black cloud across the sky.

"COPPER AWAKEN!" Aurora screamed out, dragging her talon clockwise around the stone. A vertical line appeared on the surface of the amethyst, becoming a glowing blue pupil. It moved from one side of the stone to the other, looking back and forth between Aurora and the Horror. Aurora felt Copper's presence in her mind, the ancient SkyWing animus as frantic as she was. She'd face no resistance from him.

Aurora raised the Eye up, and a wave of pressure started to expand around her. The ground itself began to shake, rocks rumbling as snow shook loose from the nearby mountains. Aurora focused the Eye on the air above her, a golden glow shimmering as wind began to curl, turning around in a huge circle above the arena. Queen Scarlet let out another yell, but Aurora could barely hear as the roar of the wind and screams emanating from the Horror clouded her ears.

The winds grew faster, moving around and around as dark tentacles thrashed at the sides, trying to escape. Aurora concentrated as a tornado formed, swirling as it contained the Horror. The pupil on the Eye's surface glinted, and the winds pushed it the darkness back into the portals, squirming as it tried but failed to break through. Aurora gritted her fangs as she felt ground beneath her rumbling, Pyrrhia itself beginning to tear itself apart as the pressure wave she'd created expanded, the power of the Eye of Amethyst expanding to cover the continent. Too soon.

Aurora let out a roar as the wind shoved the darkness back through the portals, tentacles trying to break through. She gave the shocked Liliana a desperate stare, pleading for her help. The Empress complied, and the two rings of light closed. The winds went calm.

Aurora stared down at where the portal's had been for a moment, trying to detect if there was any trace of the Horror left. There wasn't. She let out a sigh of relief, before turning to glare at the Empress.

"It's still shaking," Liliana muttered, the ground beneath her vibrating back and forth. She tsked, chuckling. "Well, I suppose that crisis was averted. Shall we resume?"

Aurora opened her mouth, not even sure how to reply to that. She wanted to continue the fight, even after that? "No."

"You don't have a choi—" the Empress started to snarl, getting ready to attack Aurora again.

Aurora stuck out her talons, and a huge crack appeared beneath Inferno. Inferno let out a scream as she started to fall into it, unable to fly with her wings bound by the vines.

"NO!" Liliana yelled. She teleported mid-leap, grabbing ahold of Inferno before she could fall into the crack, yowling as her scales burned and healed and burned.

Flapping her wings, Liliana pulled Inferno from the put Aurora had created, gritting her teeth as she finally let go, the scent of roasting flesh surrounding her. The Empress looked back to where Aurora had been, before gritting her fangs together in annoyance. As she looked back up, she saw Aurora, disappearing into the sky.

Aurora winced as she created winds beneath her with the Eye, the arena already small beneath her. The Empress stared back, a speck below. She'd decided not to follow.

Good. Aurora's thin wing-bones had been broken in numerous places, and she needed to regenerate her leg along with various other parts of her body that the Empress had injured or destroyed. That would take time.

A small hairline crack appeared in the mountains beneath Aurora, and she saw boulders tumbling down, taking trees down with them. She glanced to the Eye of Amethyst, the pupil staring back up at her. With it fully activated, she had no choice but to let it go to completion, regardless of the disastrous effects that would happen to Pyrrhia. Well, another piece of Calamity's plan completed, albeit a bit early.

Aurora glanced back at the arena, disappearing behind her. None of the RainWings had bothered to follow. If she'd learned anything from this, it was that Liliana was far more dangerous of an enemy than she'd initially thought.

Chapter 46

Wind roared past Sunny as she trudged up the mountainside. White flurries of ice stung as they hit her eyes. She winced as she looked down at her claws, barely able to feel them as powdery snow covered her yellow scales. For a moment, the wind settled, and Sunny was able to catch a glimpse of the mountain above her, snowy peak rising high in the sky, piercing the misty grey sky above. The Claws of the Clouds.

Sunny groaned as she saw the winding path ahead of the two of them, leading to the peak, though she could hardly call the thin icy trail a path. Any dragon in their right mind would've flown up to whatever was at the top, and the only reason that she and Jackal weren't was because of the crushing pack on Sunny's back. She winced as it rubbed against her spine, pinched between the heavy weight of whatever was in the huge bag, so long it stretched from Sunny's horns to her hips. The leather strip chafed against her thin underbelly scales, holding the pack and her wings tight to her torso. The pack had Jackal's 'belongings,' whatever those were. It certainly felt like she'd filled it with rocks.

Jackal herself seemed to be faring fine with whatever she was carrying. Even though the eldery SandWing was somehow smaller than Sunny, she carried the weight between her wings like an ant lifting a stone ten times its weight. She made it seem so easy.

Another wind blasted against Sunny, threatening to tilt her over. She nervously glanced to the left of the narrow path. The snow seemed to drop off in a steep cliff there, and if she went over the edge, there wasn't much chance of her throwing the pack off in time to unfurl her wings. At least the strong winds couldn't lift her over the edge, with whatever Jackal was making her carry weighing her down.

Sunny shivered as the wind seemed to blow straight through her scales, trying to douse the SandWing warmth inside of her. She could swear that an icicle had formed on the end of her snout, even though she couldn't see it. She tried to keep in mind why she was doing this, holding the thought between her eyes like a flame to keep her warm in the snow. If she wanted to save the Sand Kingdom from Aloe, she had to change. She had to be strong, like her mother. And Jackal was her best chance at that.

"How much longer do we have to walk?" Sunny yelled out to Jackal, a few paces ahead of her, but still disappearing in the wind. It might have just been clouds of snow covering the sun, but it seemed like it was getting dark, the white snow turning grey. "We're going to be there soon, right?"

Jackal turned her head back, eyes barely visible as snow started to pick up. "You need to know when to be patient, beetle," she cackled. "You'll end up dead if you rush too quickly into things."

Sunny frowned. She didn't like being told that. She'd been patient most of her life, just waiting to leave the caverns, for her life to finally begin. And with night approaching, was this really the right time to be patient?

The snowstorm got worse as it got darker, so cold Sunny could swear her wings had frozen off. This was a place for an IceWing, not a half-SandWing. White snow seemed to blow from every direction, a cloud all around Sunny. She couldn't see the cliff anymore, and the path in front of her had disappeared beyond a couple tail-lengths. She tried to lift a wing to block out some of the wind, before remembering the pack strapped to her back. It was just enough to throw her off balance, and she fell to the side, the pack pulling her to the ground.

The fall was gentle at least. Sunny landed in freezing snow, cushioning her as she rolled onto her side. She tried to pull herself up, back on all fours, only to realize she wasn't strong enough to get the pack back in the air. She let out a groan. When would this day end?

Instead of just getting back up, Sunny tried to roll onto her underbelly, getting the pack on her back before standing up. With the soft snow not giving her claws a good hold, it took her a few attempts, but she eventually managed to get back up to her paws. Her scales shivered, covered with wet snow and ice.

"Jackal?" Sunny yelled out as snow clouded her vision. She couldn't see the SandWing any more. She could barely even see the path. But Jackal was still nearby, right? "JACKAL? JACKAL!"

Her voice echoed emptily through the mountainside, but Sunny received no response. Then finally, a low rumble seemed to make its way back towards her, careening across the snow. She frowned. Was Jackal growling at her? She wasn't sure, but it didn't sound like the rumble was coming from a dragon.

She looked over to the right, up what she could see of the slope above her. The rumble grew to a roar, and her heart started to pound as she saw movement above her, loosened snow tumbling down the mountainside. An avalanche.

The sudden terror gave Sunny a new burst of energy, her fatigue forgotten. Her legs seemed to take off as she sprinted back along the path, a wave of snow crashing behind her. She had to get out of the way! Sunny tried to get her wings free of the pack, but it wouldn't budge, the strap too tight for her wings to get loose of it. Her claws slipped as she tried to tear through the leather. How was she supposed to get this thing off? She felt a pang of regret for not watching closer how Jackal had gotten it on her in the first place, but didn't have long to think, as the snow slipped out from under her paws and a blast of freezing cold engulfed her.

Sunny tried to let out a yell, only for snow to fill her mouth. She quickly closed it as the snow wrapped around her, throwing her around as it lifted her, rolling and tumbling her back and forth. She winced as she felt something hard whack her in the side, but whatever it was got quickly thrown in the other direction by the avalanche. Something else, maybe a rock or a tree hit her leg, catching onto a claw and ripping it off, though Sunny barely noticed the pain with the numbness in her talons. She felt herself rattled back and forth like a rock in a stream, the avalanche cruel and uncaring to the dragon caught in its midst.

Then, it stopped. The snow settled, and for a moment, all was still. Sunny felt the cold encroach her, surrounding her from every side as she was held suspended in it. Her breath went still, and even the pain in her torn claw was subtle and still. All was calm, and Sunny was calm within it as even the cold began to fade away, the air stripped away from her lungs in the tumble.

She felt an anxious thought rip through her. What had happened to Jackal? Had she been caught in the avalanche too, that Sunny had caused? Sunny moved her paws towards where she thought was up, pushing snow aside as she tried to climb out of the pile. She grabbed onto something. A tree trunk, maybe even one that she'd hit. She winced as she pulled herself up, the pack still weighing her down. She couldn't die here, not like this. The Sand Kingdom needed her. The other Dragonets of Destiny needed her.

Sunny groaned in pain as she hoisted herself up, but her horns finally broke through the surface of the snow. She wheezed as she took in a deep breath, then took in another, unable to get enough air in. Things began to clear up for her, and she cringed up as pain ripped through her torn talon, blood dripping onto the snow. With the darkness around her, she had no idea where she was. But she had to keep going.

"Jackal?" she called out, quietly this time. There was no response. Sunny kept limping across the field of snow, guided only by moonslight. The cold and pain bothered her immensely, but not so much as the fear that Jackal had died because of her. "Jackal?"

Sunny pulled herself over the snowfield, trying to catch any sign of a dragon buried in the snow. She kept whimpering Jackal's name. Could she be here? Her limbs began to give out, Sunny stumbling into the snow snout-first. She closed her eyes.

Jackal was strong, far stronger than Sunny was. If Sunny had survived the avalanche, then Jackal certainly had, also. And if Sunny hadn't found her by now . . . she wiped frozen tears from her eyes as she headed towards the mountainside. She needed to find someplace to shelter for the night, until it was morning, and hopefully, the storm was over.

Sunny wasn't sure how long it was before she found the cave. An hour, or six? She could barely see the moons with the snow covering the sky, and if the sun was rising soon, there wasn't any sign of it. Eventually, she happened on a small hole in the side of the cavern, protected from the snow by a nice overhang. She stumbled into it, collapsing against a wall. She just wanted to sleep.

Sunny tried to pull the pack off again, but couldn't figure out whatever mechanism let it off her. Maybe it had gotten torn off in the avalanche, or it was hidden beneath her sail? Whatever. She dug her talons into the leather strap, attempting to tear it. She winced as they shook from the cold, Sunny barely able to control them from the shivering. She tried to tear, but with no luck. Her talons just scratched the thick surface, skidding across the wet leather. Why hadn't she gotten them sharpened?

Biting through the leather also had no effect. Sunny bared her fangs. She just wanted to get this stupid thing off her! Desperately, she lifted the shaft up, and blew flame down onto it.

Sunny yelped as the flame hit her own scales, burning them. She gritted her teeth. That had been a stupid idea. Of course all it had done was burn her. The leather was wet. She sighed as she reached towards a nearby pile of snow, placing it on her burn to sooth it. She barely noticed it alongside her aching legs and numerous bruises and scratches from the avalanche.

Well, if she couldn't get the pack off, she could empty its contents. Maybe there was food, or some cloth to bandage her claw up with. She twisted around, trying to reach towards the rope holding it closed. Instead of managing to un-knot it, her shaking talons just ripped through the pack. Oops.

Sunny rolled herself over onto the side, letting the contents of the pack spill out onto the cave floor. She squinted as she stared at them, not quite sure if she was seeing things right.

"Rocks!" Sunny squealed, almost in tears as she lifted a stone up, claws shaking before she dropped it again. "She made me carry rocks!"

She tried to rummage through the pile of rocks, looking for anything that might have been of use. There was nothing. Nothing but useless rocks. She couldn't eat rocks, she couldn't use them to make her talon stop aching and bleeding!

"Stupid!" Sunny groaned, flinging one of the rocks across the cavern. "Stupid rock! Stupid stupid rock!"

Calling the rocks stupid didn't make her feel much better. She lowered her head on the pile of rocks, closing her eyes as they poked into her scales. A bed fit for a queen.

It was just moments before Sunny drifted into sleep. Snow and ice filled what little dreams she had, her sleep light as she swam in and out of it. Her talon throbbed as she turned, her wings barely a blanket over her in the cold.

A noise and movement at the cavern entrance woke her. She opened one eye to see a large shadow against dawn-lit snow, the edges blurry. She squinted, trying to focus the outline of the blur. A dragon? Had Jackal come to find her?

No. A bear stood at the entrance on its hindlegs, a scar across one eye. White snow powdered the huge grizzly's brown fur, its head reaching above Sunny's horns even when she was on all fours. It glared at her, claws glinting as it took a step towards, beckoning a fight.

"I-is this your cave?" Sunny asked it, doubting the bear could understand her. She quickly got to her paws, backing up against the cave wall. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I can leave if you want."

She tried to slowly inch along the wall, the bear blocking the only exit to the small cave. Maybe if she moved slowly, it would leave her alone? Even small, she was still a dragon. The bear wouldn't want to risk a fight—

The grizzly let out a roar as it charged forward, leaping on Sunny as it grabbed at her neck, trying to wrap around it and throw her to the ground. Sunny let out a yelp as she felt thick claws dig into her chest, ripping through scales as the bear slammed her into stone. She twisted her tail as the bear shoved her, attempting to stab the grizzly with where her barb might have been. It didn't flinch, instead latching its jaws around Sunny's neck.

Sunny let out another cry. She had to fight back. Without thinking, she twisted her head down and let out a blast of flame, hitting the bear directly in the back even as it singed Sunny's snout. She winced and turned as the bear let out a howl of agony, releasing Sunny as it dove towards the other side of the cave. Even wet, its fur had caught fire, quickly spreading across its body as it thrashed.

Sunny couldn't look as the bear was burned alive. She felt the heat of the flame as she turned away, wet tears freezing against her snout as it howled. It was a few minutes of agony before the cries finally went quiet, the grizzly still. She hadn't meant to kill it, especially not like that. She'd just wanted to be left in peace.

The aroma of the burnt meat reached Sunny's nose. Against her own will, she felt her stomach gurgle, her jaws water. Her snout twinged. She was hungry, so hungry. She hadn't had any food since the the feast with Cheetah and Midnight. Jackal said that there was food up where she'd been taking Sunny, but how long would it be before Sunny got there? She couldn't fly with her wings bound, and didn't even know where it was. She had to regain her energy if she wanted to make the trip, instead of ending up dead on the mountain.

She glanced towards the bear. It's skin had been blackened and crisped, but there had to be something filling on the inside still, right? She winced. She felt so guilty about the whole thing. She hadn't wanted to kill the bear. They weren't truly at odds, it was just a tragic mishap. But it had been her or it. And was there any point in really letting its body go to waste . . . ? The smell was so tempting to the starving, delirious hybrid.

She gave in. Hardly even reluctantly, Sunny tore into the bear's flesh, digging past the charcoal taste of its skin to the scorched and cooked meat below. Blood dripped from her fangs as she ripped its body apart, fat dripping down her throat as she swallowed it down. She gorged herself, bones cracking as her talons became stained with crimson, skin crackling.

Finally, she was full. She lifted her head up, letting out a fulfilled sigh. Her exhausted energy supply was already starting to return. She even felt slightly warm.

Another movement caught her eye. Something in the far back of the cavern, hidden by the shadows. Sunny bared her fangs, extending her blood-soaked claws. Another bear?

Her heart seemed to stop when she spotted it. A grizzly cub, smaller than her paw. It cowered against the cavern wall, trying to remain as still as possible, knowing that it had no chance if Sunny decided to attack it.

Sunny stumbled back, staring at her own claws as she realized why the grizzly had attacked her. A mother, trying to protect her cub. More tears fell from Sunny's eyes as she was overcome with guilt. She'd killed the cub's mother right in front of it's very eyes, then ate it as it watched.

She turned, rushing out the cavern entrance, stumbling through the snow. She hadn't had a choice. She'd protected herself. She hadn't known. Sunny sprinted as snow lightly fell, the dawn sun rising over the mountain, running from her own shame. What had she done?

She washed her talons and fangs through the snow, trying to spit out the taste of blood, hiding it. She had to move on. She'd just done what any dragon would've done. Self-preservation. But the mother bear had done what any mother would've done, protecting her cub from an invader. What gave Sunny any right to live, while the bear died? Even though they both had the right intentions, the situation had ended in horrific tragedy.

But Sunny could do nothing now. The deed was done. She just had to keep moving.

With the snowstorm over, the path up the mountain was clear, no longer endless. A light dusting whitened Sunny's scales as she climbed the mountain. Though the weight of the rocks no longer burdened her, the guilt seemed to have replaced it. The Claws of the Clouds were beautiful, but deadly. A lesson Sunny would never forget.

The building at the end of the path wasn't actually on the peak, as Sunny had initially thought, but tucked against a cliff-face right below it. Three crumbling white stone walls formed the rigid exterior of it, the fourth formed by the cliff itself. Whatever this place was, a monastery, a fortress, or Jackal's hideout, it was both large and imposing even though it seemed to blend into the mountainside whenever Sunny looked away. Boarded up windows watched Sunny as she sprinted towards the entrance, two thick doors with faded carvings across their surface.

"Jackal!" Sunny called out, not making the mistake of saying her name too loudly again. She grabbed ahold of one of the two knockers at the doors, a dragon's iron face staring back at her from each one, one grinning and one growling. She banged it against the door, stiffening as she heard the loud noise reverberate through the building.

The doors creaked open, and Jackal's snout poked through, staring up at Sunny.

"It took you long enough," Jackal snorted. "Don't lag behind next time."

Sunny's snout contorted in pain. Sunny had searched for Jackal for what seemed like hours. Did Jackal just not care what happened to Sunny at all?

"It wouldn't have been so hard if you hadn't made me carry rocks up the mountain!" Sunny wailed, distressed. "I almost died! We could've just flown!"

Jackal tsked. "Speaking of the rocks, where are they? Your pack is empty."

"I left them," Sunny growled. "Did I mention that I almost died?"

"You LEFT them?" Jackal squealed, eyes going wide at the thought, seemingly far more concerned about the rocks. "What do you mean you left them? Those were valuable! Gold ore and gemstones instead!"

"So they were treasure?" Sunny asked. She frowned. She had a distaste for the stuff. "Sorry, I guess. But it's just treasure. It doesn't actually do anything, just sits around being shiny."

Jackal bared her teeth. "Doesn't do anything? A single one of those rocks could be the difference between a dragonet starving to death or feeding a family for a greater moon." Her eyes narrowed. "If you wanna be SandWing queen, you better recognize that enough treasure could buy your own life one day. If you deal it out wrong, you'll have your head served to your successor for breakfast. What do you think killed Queen Oasis? Not just scavengers, it was treasure."

"You care an awful lot about it for a hermit," Sunny grumbled.

Jackal glared, flicking her barb back and forth. "Go back down the mountain right now, and bring it back. Every last stone."

"Seriously?" Sunny squealed, her fin bristling.

"Until you do," Jackal snorted, "I'm not letting you in. You wanna be trained? First, you learn to respect the treasure." She glanced up at the sky. "Better hurry unless you wanna spend another night in a cold cavern."

There was a large bang as the door slammed in Sunny's snout, snow shaken from the rooftop onto her. She gritted her teeth. Maybe training with Jackal wasn't a good idea after all.

Still, Sunny had to persevere. She had to retake the throne. For the good of the Sand Kingdom, and to avenge her mother. Jackal was the dragon who'd raised Thorn, made her into the queen she had been. If bringing Jackal a few rocks was the key to Jackal's help, she'd do it.

The misfortune that had plagued Sunny the previous day had seemingly disappeared, and the snowstorm didn't return. Though the journey back down to the bears' cavern was tiring, it was little else.

When Sunny got back to the cavern entrance, she had to take in a deep breath to keep her composure. Could she bear to face the cub again? See the grief in its eyes, the terror that it had got from her burning its mother alive and eating her?

She was fortunate that she didn't have to. The cub had fled the cavern while Sunny was gone, leaving only its mothers carcass behind. Sunny felt another pang of guilt. Would the cub survive all by itself? If she'd wanted to rescue it, it was too late now, though she doubted it would have wanted her to rescue it. Likely, it wouldn't survive to adulthood, starving to death, succumbing to the cold, or being eaten by another predator. The world, to dragon and beast alike, was cruel.

Sunny gathered the rocks, trying her best to ignore the carcass. After a number of tries, she managed to fit them all back in the pack. She heaved it up as she got onto all fours, and left the cave. She hoped she wouldn't have to return again.

The climb back to the peak was easier the second time around, even with the rocks weighing her down. She knew where it was, how far she had to go. It was slower with the load, but the snowstorm didn't pick back up again. Finally, she reached the doors to Jackal's stone building, as the sun lowered beneath the horizon.

She knocked, and the doors opened again.

Jackal squinted as she scanned Sunny, a content smile coming over her as she saw that Sunny had brought the treasure rocks this time. "Good," she clucked. "You're ready to start your training."

Jackal reached down towards Sunny, tugging ahold of the leather strap around her wings. Almost instantly, it fell off, the pack rolling onto the ground. Sunny stared at it, blinking. How had Jackal done that so quickly?

Sunny frowned as Jackal let her into the building, pulling the pack of rocks into the doorway. Faded colors of paints and drawings lined the walls, the dying images of dragons staring at her as she passed them. Numerous weapons seemed to line the hallway wherever she looked. Disks like the ones that Deathbringer threw, silver spears, sharp knives to double one's talons. Spiked chains, and blades that fit on wing membranes. Was this what Jackal was going to teach her how to use? Was she sure she wanted to learn how to use them, how to cause more death?

"Was the whole leaving me behind thing part of my training?" Sunny asked Jackal with a grimace. "Did you send the bear to teach me a lesson about how sometimes you have no choice but to fight an enemy, or something like that?"

"Bear?" Jackal scoffed. The elderly SandWing gave Sunny a funny look, before shaking her head. "What are you talking about? You were just too slow to keep up."

Sunny grumbled unhappily. She'd had a hard two days. She didn't care for Jackal's berating.

"Do you want to leave?" Jackal yawned. "You're free to go at any time, but you won't be allowed to ever return."

"Of course not!" Sunny answered. "If I wanted to leave, I wouldn't have gotten you your stupid treasure."

"Fine by me." Jackal shrugged her wings, then turned into a narrow corridor. How far did this structure go into the mountainside? The thin passages seemed to wind without making any sort of sense.

Jackal pointed out a small room to Sunny. "Your quarters," she explained. "I've left some smoked meat for you there, though your breath smells like you've already had your fill. We start training at dawn. Get a good night's rest. You'll need it in the morning."

---

Sunny let out a battle roar as she charged towards Jackal, though to her ears it sounded a bit more like a hearty squeak. It was the first day of her training, and she'd been exhausted even at the start of it. Jackal had taken her down to one of the many rooms of the building, a large cubic chamber filled to the brim with weaponry, the floor covered with stiff woven grass. Today, Jackal said that she was going to teach Sunny the basics of claw-to-claw combat.

As Sunny rushed into Jackal, the SandWing seemed to move like water, ducking beneath Sunny's wing as the very last moment. Sunny felt her scales tense as she stumbled past Jackal, and the smooth part of the SandWing's barb dragged along her side.

"The basis of every fight," Jackal stated, "is claw-to-claw combat. The most important weapons are your natural weapons. What are they?"

Sunny turned back, panting. She swung out at Jackal, trying to rake her scales. Jackal didn't even let Sunny touch her. "Claws," she huffed. "Fangs. Fire-breath. Barb, if I had one."

"Wrong," Jackal snorted. When Sunny swiped against her again, she suddenly found herself blinded by Jackal's wing, obscuring the SandWing's body for just a moment. Out of nowhere, Jackal's tail swung into Sunny's front legs, pulling them out from under her. Sunny fell to the ground, head whacking into the floor.

"Your natural weapons are your whole body," Jackal explained. "Wings, tail, even your sail. Not to mention your brain. They have to be in sync. Close-range, or long-range?"

"Both, right?" Sunny asked, charging Jackal again. This time, instead of feinting away, Jackal met Sunny head-on. Sunny swiped to the left, this time, her claws managing to land between Jackal's wings, on her back. Jackal's forepaws wrapped around Sunny's neck and torso, and her tail swung.

Almost instantly, Sunny was flipped onto her back, Jackal turning and landing on top of her underbelly. Fangs wrapped around Sunny's neck as one of Jackal's hindpaws slammed into Sunny's stomach, raking along them. Sunny squealed as she tried to throw Jackal off her, rolling and trying to scratch at Jackal's head to no avail. One of Jackal's forelegs wrapped around Sunny's, pinning it down.

Jackal finally got off Sunny, but only when she decided to herself, quickly leaping back onto all fours as she got distance away from her. "Correct. Keeping your distance gives you a chance to hurt your opponent without being seriously hurt yourself, but most fights end up with one dragon on top of another. Learn how to use your opponent's body against them, to control it like it's an extension of your own."

Sunny looked down at her underbelly, gritting her teeth as she saw surface-level scratches welling up with blood, dripping onto the floor. "Ow," she winced. "You actually hurt me. I thought we were just training."

"If you want to win in a real fight, you need to train in a real fight," Jackal retorted. "If you ever expect your enemies to play fair, you'll end up dead. Get back up."

Sunny gave Jackal another look. Something about the elderly SandWing reminded her of Kestrel's training, though with Jackal smaller than Sunny, how poorly Sunny was doing was a bit more shameful. Maybe if they'd listened more to Kestrel, things would've gone differently. Maybe Glory would have still been alive.

---

Sunny flinched as Jackal placed the silver disk in her talons. This wasn't a dull practice weapon. If she learned how to use this, she'd be able to use it to kill.

"I'm not sure I'm ready . . ." Sunny gulped, pinching the disk on its side, careful not to touch the blade.

"No one is ever ready," Jackal responded, picking up a disk of her own. "You've seen these before?"

Sunny nodded. "Yeah. Deathbringer uses them." An assassin. Was that what Jackal was training her to be. "He almost killed Blaze with one."

"Almost," Jackal scoffed. "They're called chakrams. There's no reason you use one, unless you're trying to kill your opponent. Hit an artery in the neck, they're dead. Anywhere else, and you've done little else. A poison can be added to the blade, but poisons are complicated. Antidotes and resistances built up over time."

Sunny stared down at the silver disk, seeing her own eyes reflected in its image. If that was the case, she didn't ever want to have to use one of these. But what if she had no choice?

"Spin it around your tail," Jackal commanded.

"My tail?" Sunny frowned. "But Deathbringer used hi—"

"I said, your tail," Jackal tsked. "You keep mentioning your lack of barb. Well, this will give your tail something else to make up for it. Spin it, and when it's going fast enough, send it flying."

Sunny sighed, and placed her tail through the hole in the chakram. She tossed Jackal a nervous glance as the SandWing backed away. Probably for the best. Ducking her head down and sticking her tail in the air, Sunny swirled her tail around in circles. The disk started to spin.

Suddenly, it fell off from her tail, a bit earlier than Sunny had wanted. Sunny let out a yelp as it span out, flinging across the room, ducking her head and hoping it didn't hit Jackal. When she opened her eyes, it was only a few paces away, and fortunately, no one had gotten hurt.

"Hmph," Jackal scolded. "You need to keep it on for longer, fast enough it'll slice through whatever you want. Then you can worry about aiming. Keep trying."

Sunny walked over towards the chakram to retrieve it, only to hear Jackal scoff again. She glanced over to her mentor. "What did I do wrong now?"

"The way you're walking," Jackal clucked.

"The way I'm walking?" Sunny groaned. Was there anything she was doing that Jackal didn't thing she was doing poorly? Was there a problem with the way she breathed?

"I can hear your claws clunking about from here," Jackal answered. "You've never hunted before. You don't want to alert every dragon in the Sand Kingdom to your presence whenever you walk, do you? Be silent, and attack from the shadows, when they least expect it. Light steps, light breaths, and you can fire off one of those disks from a tail-length away."

"Assassinate them," Sunny muttered.

Jackal shook her head. "Assassins get payed to kill. This is just a way to fight. How you use it is up to you." She chuckled. "Being queen though, that's an assassin. Getting payed taxes to inflict death on your kingdom's enemies, internal and external. Try the disk again."

---

"What's this room for?" Sunny asked as Jackal led her into it. She glanced around it with a frown. After a few days with Jackal, the lack of weaponry in the room seemed more odd than not.

"How to fight wasn't the only thing I taught Thorn," Jackal explained, tail twitching. "I've been focusing on that with you because you're so . . . lacking in that area." She scanned Sunny up and down, squinting as she circled around the hybrid. "I've got it. I want you to pretend to be a cute, useless dragonet."

By now, Sunny had known Jackal long enough to realize that she wasn't joking about that. She frowned. "Why?" she asked. "Everyone's thought of me as a cute, useless dragonet all my life."

"And that's an advantage," Jackal declared. "If that's the impression you give off, then they'll be less at guard around you, even if you're queen. And when the time comes—"

Jackal's tail suddenly whipped out from beneath her wing, her barb jabbing straight towards Sunny's leg. Sunny let out a yelp as she saw it coming, instinctively leaping into the air to dodge. When she landed, her claws wrapped around Jackal's tail, pinning it to the ground.

Jackal smiled as Sunny stared down at the tail, barb oozing poison. A few days ago, she wouldn't have noticed Jackal's attack until it had already hit. But now . . . did that mean that Jackal's training was working? She'd become faster, more attentive.

"—you strike." Jackal pulled her tail back, dragging Sunny inwards as she jutted a wing out.

Sunny winced as Jackal's wing whacked her in the snout, stumbling back and letting go of Jackal's tail. She touched her nose, feeling a trickle of blood from the strike. Maybe she shouldn't get too full of herself, just yet.

"It's why I pretend to be a feeble, elderly dragon," Jackal smiled, giving Sunny a glance of cunning. "Stay in the shadows, and let your enemies underestimate you." She clicked her tongue, shaking her head. "It took a me a while to learn that lesson. Aahhh, those were the days, strutting around the Scorpion Den like I was in charge of it. You knew Vulture? That snail-licker used to be quite the hunk, and quite a formidable rival at it. Mmm, I can't say what I enjoyed more, our fights, or what we did after the fights. Well, not always, sometimes during when we—"

"THREEMOONS please don't make me think about that!" Sunny quickly interrupted wanting to barf at the image Jackal had so graciously formed in her head. "I'll do the impression, okay? Just please never mention that again."

Sunny unhesitantly put on her best dragonet face, opening her eyes up wide and crouching her head down to make her look even smaller than she was. "I'm Sunny!" she squealed gleefully. "I'm really excited by everything! Wow look, a frog! I want it as a pet!"

Jackal snorted. "Not terrible," she judged. "Except for the brittle sarcasm and self-loathing in every word."

Sunny paused, letting Jackal's critique sink in. "It's not—" she started to try and argue, unsure how to finish. Jackal was right, wasn't she? That was why Sunny had come with Jackal. She wanted to become strong, like her mother. She wanted Jackal to turn her into someone else, someone who could be the queen the Sand Kingdom needed.

"We'll work on it," Jackal sighed. "Try again. But this time, like you're actually attempting to fool me."

---

The days seemed endless on the mountaintop. Sunny slept and ate, but only at Jackal's will. They rarely left the great building, so large and empty it seemed like Sunny never ended up in the same room twice. Not that she had much time to think about the passage of time. Jackal kept her busy, barely a moment to herself. And Sunny learned, as much as what she could. The skills Jackal had taught Thorn. And what Thorn would've taught Sunny, had Dune not taken her egg.

"Did you take Thorn here?" Sunny asked Jackal one day, or maybe one night, as they were eating. Bruises and cuts lined Sunny's scales by now, every muscle in her body aching. "Is this how you taught her?"

Jackal nodded. "Not everything, of course. I've learned my own lessons since I took her under my wings. I've changed too. But yes, she came here. She was much like you."

"Like me?" Sunny replied, surprised. Thorn had been like her? Over-excited, happy, seeing the best in the world? What had happened?

"Not exactly like you," Jackal laughed. "Not a hybrid. She was an orphan in the Scorpion Den. A bit rougher around the edges, but she had that glint in her eyes. Young, hopeful, and naive. She managed to see the best in dragons, somehow. That if someone just gave them a push towards it, we could live in a far better world. I caught her trying to steal from me. Not a good idea, as you might imagine. But she had potential.

"I trained her a lot like I trained you. I made sure that the next time she stole from me, she wouldn't get caught. I'd been getting tired, and the Outclaws needed a new leader. I wanted to roam the world, to be free of the burden of power. I shaped her into the leader of the Outclaws. Someone who had what it took to survive the Scorpion Den, but who would try and make it a better place for everyone. To fix my own mistakes. She was my greatest success, even more than the Outclaws themselves." She chuckled. "She went far beyond my greatest expectations, of course. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect her to become queen. Though that was more your doing than hers, wasn't it, Dragonet of Destiny? Morrowseer even managed to hide you from me. Makes me your grandma, doesn't it?"

That night, or whenever she finally got to sleep, Sunny stared up at the stone ceiling. This is what Thorn had done, to become the great queen that Jackal had made her into. Was that what she wanted? To become Thorn? She knew Jackal was willing to do it, and if she let Jackal, she'd succeed. Slowly, she was becoming more and more like Thorn.

She remembered the bear. The mother, and her cub. What if there was another way out of that? A way that she just couldn't see, not yet? As much as Jackal had taught her, she didn't think Jackal could teach her that.

Faint candlelight outlined Sunny's talons as she put them in front of her snout, staring at them. For a moment, she could imagine red blood dripping down them. And yet, it didn't disturb her. Was that her destiny, to become like her mother? Someone who could kill when needed.

"If you want to lead dragons, you have to show them your claws sometimes, beetle."

Thorn's words echoed in Sunny's head. She saw it again, as her mother's barb pierced Preyhunter's heart, the NightWing screaming in terror as he died. His head turned, his eyes staring at Sunny, pleading for her to save him. But it was too late.

The world is better off this way. My friends are safer now that he's dead.

She could already feel her sympathy for Preyhunter fading. He'd threatened her mother. Whatever Preyhunter's ideals had been, they'd clashed unreconcilably with Thorn's. She'd had to kill him.

The scene played again in Sunny's head as she drifted off into her dreams. This time, it wasn't Thorn on top of Preyhunter, but Sunny herself. The NightWing's talons sliced at Sunny's underbelly, raking them.

She made a decision. To protect herself. Sunny twisted her tail, the silver disk around it piercing through Preyhunter's heart. He screamed as he died, over and over. Sunny stared down as his scales melted into fur, flames reaching up between Sunny's talons, engulfing her as she ripped out his innards, swallowing them down.

This time, she felt no shame. She ate the cub too.

---

"I'm leaving."

Jackal lifted her head up, squinting at Sunny. If she was surprised, she didn't show it. "Are you sure?"

Sunny paused, hesitating. She closed her eyes, nodding. "I am. Please don't be offended, I'm very thankful for everything you've taught me. It's just, after last night . . . I'm not sure I want to be made into my mother."

"You're not sure?" Jackal scoffed.

"I don't want to be made into my mother," Sunny said again, this time, even more sure of her words. "I loved her, but I don't want to become her. Even if that's what it takes to rule the Sand Kingdom."

Jackal grinned, sharp fangs beaming. "Beetle, I doubt I could make you into Thorn, no matter how hard I tried. Catch."

Sunny flinched as Jackal tossed something shiny to her, but managed to grab it. She looked down to see the golden chain of intertwine dragons that Thorn had wore.

Sunny shook her head. "I can't take this. I'm not worthy enough or tough enough to be the next leader of the Outclaws. Besides, I don't want to lead them."

"What, think I'm making you in charge?" Jackal snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. You're queen, not the leader of some pitiful band of thieves. I'm too old for it myself. I'm just giving it to you to decide who the next leader will be. I'm sure you'll choose a worthier successor than Kudu or Cheetah. So, where you going next?"

Sunny furled her snout. She hadn't really thought about that. But she already knew the answer. There was only place she could go from here. "The SandWing palace. I'm going to take back the throne."

Jackal nodded, like she'd already known what Sunny's answer would be. "Good. A last word of advice — I may have taught you how to fight, but you need to choose for yourself when to fight, and when not to. Choose well." She glanced over towards the huge doors of the mountain fortress, beckoning Sunny away. "If you leave, you won't ever be able to come back. This decision, like so many others, is final."

"Will I see you again?" Sunny asked.

Jackal smirked. "I'll be watching you from the shadows. Know that. If your eyes ever do land on my scales once more, you won't recognize me. Now go. Fulfill your destiny."

Sunny bowed her head in respect. She might not to have Jackal finish her training, but Sunny was grateful for all Jackal had taught her. Maybe she didn't need to fully become her mother to take keep the throne. Maybe this would be enough.

Sunny raised her head, and turned. The doors seemed to swing open for her, the freezing wind blasting against her snout. She spread her wings, now free, and stepped into the snow. A strong gust lifted her immediately into the sky, snow blinding her for a moment.

When Sunny glanced back to the mountain peak, there was nothing there. The cliffside fortress, and Jackal, were gone. For a moment, she wondered: was the building just been covered in snow, or had it actually disappeared?

Then Queen Sunny turned to the west, Pyrrhia's great desert stretching out beyond the mountains all the way to the sea. It was time for her to reclaim her throne.