I have a song for this chapter: Boulevard of Broken Dreams, by Green Day. I feel it suits the mood of the overall chapter. Play it whenever you wish.

Spyro woke up lying on a smooth cold floor. His new wind element was making his scales tingle; he opened his eyes to find out why.

He was on a hexagonal platform, tiled in black and white. The platform was familiar; he looked further out and saw grey skies. There was a storm coming, it was this that he had felt using his wind element. He raised his head and looked around, the platform had to be up in the air; it had open walls and a roof of glass above. In a few seconds he realised where he was; he was on the high tower of Cynder's fortress.

Spyro got up and noticed that his paws and his tail had all been chained to the floor. He could move a few steps to the left and right, and he could stand up and sit back down again, but he couldn't leave the platform. He struggled for a few moments before deciding that he probably wasn't going to get out of here with his physical strength alone. He'd need to think of other options.

There was a new band around his neck, similar to the snake charm that had chained him to Cynder, but this one was made of dark crystal inscribed with runes, and it was absorbing his mana, the purple dragon naturally had a huge amount of mana, but it was all gone now, the crystal must have been put on him some time ago. It seemed to Spyro that the best means of escape he had would be to shatter that crystal.

He was about to try to break the crystal when his mind was filled with thoughts of Cynder. Where was she? Was she ok?

Spyro controlled his emotions, Cynder would be fine, she was probably getting together a force of dragons to find him right now.

Spyro frowned; first she'd have to locate him, and then she'd need to get to him. Mere numbers of dragons wouldn't help her against Malefor; only another dragon with Dragon Time could hope to fight him on any sort of fair terms. Any time Malefor chose to he could freeze the other dragons in place. Perhaps if the dragons tried a surprise attack…

Spyro shook his head to clear out those thoughts; Cynder would surely be thinking the same thing. He didn't need to work it out, Cynder would figure out how to save him herself, he trusted her completely. While he waited for her to rescue him he might as well see if he could escape on his own.

Spyro tried to bite the dark crystal, but he couldn't quite get his mouth on it. That wasn't going to work. He smashed his chest into the floor, hoping to shatter the crystal with his weight, he did it several more times but after a few minutes all he had managed was to make himself sore.

He gave up on escape for a bit and looked around. This was a rather nice place actually. The storm was somewhat threatening, but the architecture was most impressive and made the whole place feel majestic, and also rather dramatic. He wondered how this fortress had been made, had Cynder built it herself?

Spyro turned his head to look directly behind him, smiling as his mind was filled with memories of his previous visit here. Ignitus had been trapped in an energy field up there on another part of the platform and Spyro and Sparx had come to save him, fighting and defeating Cynder to do so. The adult Cynder from back then looked quite similar to the beautiful Cynder he loved now, he thought of how scared he had been to fight her and of how everything had turned out. The thought made him smile again. Spyro struggled to pull his tail out of the chains, but he wasn't able to.

Cynder would come here and save him, just as he had once come here. Then he would be playing the role of Ignitus, she would be him and Malefor would be Cynder's evil self. All things considered Spyro was in a remarkably good mood.

Spyro heard a dragon approaching from behind him and looked around. Malefor walked up to him and sat beside him.

"You seem quite cheerful, Spyro."

Spyro looked at the older purple dragon for a few moments, and then he shrugged. "This is a nice enough place to be imprisoned."

Malefor glanced around. "Speaking as something of an expert on unpleasant prisons, I must say that I agree completely. It's wise to treat potential allies with kindness."

"Are you still asking that? Well the answer is still no; I'm not going to join your side."

Malefor looked amused. "We aren't on opposing sides, Spyro, we never have been."

"Could have fooled me, what with all the trying to kill us and whatnot. It certainly seemed as if we were on opposing sides."

"Well, you know how complicated life can be."

Spyro didn't respond. Malefor activated dragon time; he stood and circled around Spyro to sit in front of him, Spyro watched him cautiously. Malefor deactivated his dragon time so he could talk to Spyro again.

"Now that we can talk I'd like to discuss a theory I have with you. I've been told that you have done some research into the nature of magic itself. I have been researching the same topic for some time now."

"Who told you that?"

Malefor considered the question. "What do you mean?"

"You might as well tell me who your traitor is, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

Malefor shook his head, amused.

"I think the word traitor isn't accurate in this case, the dragon you refer to is just as much a friend to you as they are a friend to me and they betrayed no-one. However I will not name them."

"So this friend of yours knows me personally?"

Malefor sighed and spoke patiently. "May I continue with what I was saying?"

Spyro nodded, deciding to think more about the traitor later. He wondered if Cynder would have worked out who it was. Either way she would probably come to rescue him alone, bringing more dragons would only slow her down. Spyro got lost in thought, thinking about Cynder coming to save him, fighting her way past Malefor to get to him. He had to admit that he rather liked the idea. He noticed Malefor watching him and shook his head to clear it.

"Sorry… uh, yes, I've been working out how the elements interact with each other as mana, and from there I'd come to believe that wind was the fifth guardian element, which it is."

"And you were quite correct." Malefor nodded. "But I'd like to talk specifically about dragon time, and about dragons."

"Dragons are weird in time." Spyro offered helpfully. Malefor smiled.

"So you've seen it too. Good, before now I couldn't ignore the fact that my senses alone weren't enough evidence to support my theory. Can you try to describe this 'weirdness in time' a bit more? What made you choose those words?"

"Cynder said them to me a while ago."

"Ah, all three of the Dragon Time users have noticed it. That's excellent."

"It's like time is an energy field that passes through everything… except dragons."

"Indeed, I've seen the same thing."

"You know, Cynder and I were actually planning to ask you about that."

Malefor looked slightly surprised. "Really?"

"Yep, although I hadn't exactly planned to be in chains while asking."

"Things have a strange way of working out, don't they? Well I've been studying this for some time, and the most logical conclusion I can draw is that dragons don't age."

Spyro raised his eyebrow. "I, uh, have trouble believing that." He had, after all, well more than tripled in size since he and Cynder had fought the Dark Master for the first time.

Malefor laughed. "You misunderstand. Dragons grow and change, but that is merely our physical form. We know that dragons are the only creatures capable of naturally using mana, but I feel that this isn't the extent of our uniqueness. Dragons may grow older, but they are not aging in the fashion that other things in our world do. I believe that our race is, in a manner, immortal."

"What?" Spyro found that hard to believe. "Are you sure?"

"No, but I think it is the most likely reason for a number of things that would otherwise be much harder to explain."

"But if dragons are immortal then why are there so few of us compared to the other races? I mean sure dragonesses are only fertile once every four years, but there have been a lot of four year cycles in the past."

"Yes, that is the crux of the problem, isn't it? Why are there so few dragons?"

"It sort of messes up the whole theory, in my opinion."

"The answer is because dragonkind has incessantly been at war, either amongst ourselves or with the other races. But it isn't that we've been at war which concerns me, it's why."

Spyro thought about the question for a few seconds, and then decided to take the bait that Malefor was offering him.

"And… why have dragons been at war?"

"As I said, that is the problem."

"But you have a reason, don't you?"

"I do have a reason." Malefor smiled. "But now is not the time for me to share it. We have more immediate concerns."

"What concerns?"

"Dark Spyro."

A sort of shiver ran through Spyro as Malefor said the name, he hesitated. "Why… why is that an immediate concern?"

"Because I have taken a risk, and it is possibly one that I should not have taken. Up until now I had you and Cynder connected by a chain of magic, Cynder's presence was the factor that kept your darker side under control. In separating you from her I have taken some risk."

"Well yes… but I'm still fine aren't I?"

"The symbols on the dark crystal band around your neck are keeping Dark Spyro contained."

Another shiver took Spyro at those words. "Okay?" he said cautiously. Malefor noticed the shiver; he too had been struck by a similar effect when the name The Dark Master had been mentioned in the past. It haunted him no longer, but still brought back memories the ancient purple dragon preferred to forget.

"But in doing so the crystal band has brought your dark side closer to the surface of your personality; that was the other risk I took. With Cynder now not here for you to care about, I am certain that as soon as that chain is removed your dark side will take control and begin to rampage."

"Wow… ten out of ten genius planner at work here, huh?" Spyro said sarcastically. Malefor looked slightly annoyed as Spyro insulted him.

"On the contrary, your dark side needs to be freed if it is to be destroyed, saving Cynder and myself was done in that manner, and you will be the same. This way I won't need to resort to using my magic to cause you to have a switch; you will simply have one of your own accord."

"Goodbye Cynder's Fortress, then, is it?"

"Indeed, you would wreak havoc on this place and could even overpower me or escape me, which is why I've arranged a safe place for your dark form to live in while I work on destroying it and not destroying you."

"A safe place? Where could possibly be safe?"

"The same place where it was safe to let Cynder's dark side take control of her, and where the Dark Master waited for thousands of years without escaping. I'll put you in Convexity."

"Oh… right. It explains why you brought me here of all places, it's where Cynder created a portal to Convexity last time. That's not a totally awful plan after all."

Malefor laughed. "I'm glad that you think so."

There was a moment of silence after he had spoken. Eventually Malefor spoke again.

"There are many things I'd like to discuss with you and explain, but now isn't the time for that. I am loath to spoil your good mood, but I should tell you that Cynder will not be likely to come and try to rescue you any time soon."

Spyro stiffened, his acceptance of being captured vanished as he felt concern for the black dragoness. He strained to get out of his shackles.

"What do you mean? What happened? Is she okay?"

"After I took you the fire dragon Magmar attempted to assassinate her and several of the other Warfang dragons. Apparently the truce between Shattershelf and Warfang was largely dependent on your survival, and my presence put that in doubt. Cynder fought and killed Magmar and the fire dragons immediately surrendered again to Warfang once he was dead."

"Cynder's ok? She isn't hurt?"

"She's okay, but two dragons called Raze and Feyer are dead." Malefor looked sad. "Also a young dragon called Spark."

Spyro stopped struggling. "Spark is dead?"

"Yes."

Spyro sat quietly for a moment. "How long was I unconscious?"

"You've been unconscious for just under one day."

Spyro absorbed this information in silence, then spoke again softly. "The last thing I remember was you hitting me with fire."

"Yes, I stunned you and removed your chain."

"Right. But what happened in the rest of your fight with Cynder?"

"Nothing. I had captured you, so I stopped including her in dragon time and left while everyone was frozen in place."

Spyro was unsettled by this explanation. "Stopped including her in dragon time?"

"Yes. She has never used dragon time before this week; I know that for a fact. She has very little practice and could use dragon time for perhaps two minutes at the most, you are more practiced and I'd prepared for you to be capable of a maximum of five minutes."

"It's only three." Spyro admitted.

"I had only been able to do three at your age, but I knew you were skilled and so I planned for a worst case scenario. After you were stunned and Cynder had ran out of dragon time I simply left."

"You… stalled… your offer to us was you stalling for the five minutes that you estimated I could keep dragon time, after that you never even needed to fight! You could have just frozen us and captured us."

"The offer was and is genuine, but yes. I admit I was stalling for time."

"It was never a fair fight, not in any way."

"No. I don't plan fights I may not win, your defeat and capture was certain from the moment you stepped into the fire dragon city."

Spyro took a few seconds to process this information. He realised that for all of his and Cynder's speculation on how to fight Malefor, and their decision to be cautious of his powers, they had still managed to completely and disastrously underestimate him.

Malefor too spent a few seconds thinking, deciding if it was wise for him to say more now. He had as much time as he needed, and his experiments and experiences with his own dark side, as well as with Cynder's and Spyro's, had taught him a lot about how to deal with them. He decided to leave Spyro alone until the next morning. He would have orcs bring food for the young purple dragon.

"I shall talk to you again tomorrow, Spyro." Malefor turned away.

"Please do. It's not like there's much else I have to occupy my time." Spyro responded immediately, only half being sarcastic.

Malefor smiled. "I'll have food brought to you." He left the tower quietly.

Spyro sighed and sat down, making his chains clink. High above him, standing still on the roof of the tower, a skeletal winged creature watched his every movement with sharp eyes.

Already the General had gathered valuable information about Spyro from watching his movements and reactions to Malefor, it waited and observed patiently, already it was preparing a full report and detailed analysis for its master.

Ignitus looked around at the rows upon rows of books that surrounded him and sighed in frustration.

Malefor had come for him; Ignitus had been given no warning, and had been caught almost entirely off guard. He knew he was lucky to still be alive, but at this particular moment he felt that being killed by the purple dragon would have been less of a hassle.

Everything he had done to try to stop Malefor had failed completely, and the purple dragon had simply walked in. The ancient defences that warded and guarded the White isle had barely slowed him down.

Malefor had wrought havoc on his library. He had done no harm to the books themselves, much to Ingitus' relief. But Malefor hadn't left the library untouched, he had destroyed something else.

The library of the Chronicler was practically infinite. It contained books detailing the lives of every dragon that had ever lived, and it was nearly impossible to find anything in it. Over the past several thousand years the previous chronicler, or past chroniclers, Ignitus couldn't be sure how many had come before him or indeed when exactly they had come; had managed to create a magical system for organising the books.

This system didn't organise based on title, or author. Many of the books had neither of those two distinguishing features. The magic that was woven through the library of the chronicler ordered the books based on their subject, and more specifically based on how prominent their subject was in the mind of the searcher.

A dragon looking for books on history could find them no matter where they looked, if they were looking in the right way. Should their mind wander then they could end up finding books on any number of other subjects.

Malefor had broken this system; he had put it in utter chaos. Wherever Ignitus looked he only ever found one book. He could put it down on a shelf and pick up the book next to it, only to find he had somehow still picked up the same book.

The only book he could find was the history of Malefor.

Ignitus had spent several painful hours trying to restore the magic of thousands of years to its working state, but he'd had no success. The ancient purple dragon had ruined it beyond his ability to repair.

It had taken no more than a few minutes for Ignitus to dismantle the magic, but doing so had felt like sacrilege to him.

He looked around the library of the chronicler now, and he had lost his way to tell where everything was. But somehow he hadn't. On pure instinct Ignitus walked through the shelves, spotting familiar books as he went, now that he was cut off from the magic that had been created by the chroniclers of the past he was seeing the library from a new perspective. He knew that something was missing; he could feel it like a soft headache behind his eye.

Malefor had taken Spyro's book. He had made no secret that he had done so, he had simply taken it and Ignitus had been powerless to stop him. But Ignitus knew how clever Malefor was, and he feared that there would be more missing books.

Why else would Malefor have done so much damage to his library system? The purple dragon would have done it deliberately. He would have stopped Ignitus from knowing which books he'd taken and then used dragon time or some other magic to conceal them and take them away.

He had searched urgently, but carefully, for books that might be missing, but it was impossible for him to know what was gone when he had barely known what was there in the first place.

He found that his headache intensified as he searched, he lost all track of time as he scanned over thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of books.

At last his eyes fell on a slim book bound in black. He didn't recognise it. Most of the books that he had in the library were heavy tomes with lots of information in them. This book was very unusually small, but even as he looked at it the pain in his head began to grow. He walked towards the book, wincing as he moved.

He took it from the shelf and looked at it warily. The pain in his head began to ease as he held it. The book had no title.

He felt a sense of foreboding, like a shiver running up his back.

Ignitus opened the book cautiously, treating it as if it might explode. He read it quietly, growing more and more disturbed as he did. He threw the book down and hurried to get a different book. He was fortunate to remember passing it earlier, and he found it quickly. Ignitus rapidly flicked through pages, reading much faster than any normal dragon could have managed.

The book he had gone to get had been written by two of the previous Chroniclers, and was almost incalculably old. Its subject was the future, and the past.

The first part of this book had been written when the Chronicler of that time had discovered a new book. They had given no information as to what this book contained, and the entire account was disappointingly vague about many things that Ignitus would have been grateful to know.

A second dragon, with different writing and a different pen had later returned to the book, writing more in it and making many alterations. The second dragon had come to finish it after the future told in the mystery book had come to pass.

Ignitus looked down at the nameless book, the slim volume lay where he had left it, and on its spread pages were two pictures that filled the old dragon's heart with dread.

Two purple dragons, lying side by side. Dead. A city in ruins around them.

A black dragoness, alone, buried in a cave deep below the earth, crying uncontrollably.

He had to go. He had to stop this future.

A wind dragon was lying on the stone floor of a Warfang dungeon. The first living being that had been imprisoned in those cells in at least six years, the first dragon to be imprisoned there in decades, and the first guardian dragon to be locked in the Warfang dungeons ever.

Imperia was rather proud of her ability to break records and become the first to do things, becoming the first wind guardian dragon in history was one of her greatest successes, but she had to admit that she would have preferred not to be credited with this particular accomplishment. Indeed some records didn't need to be made. For example there was no record of which dragon had killed the most other dragons in history, and it would be nice if that remained a mystery.

Imperia tapped her claws on the stone thoughtfully. She knew her history, and spent a few minutes trying to work out who the top contenders would be. Magmar had been infamous for his willingness to kill, but she supposed that it had been the ancient black Darkmire dragon that had killed the most dragons, and that particular record certainly did not deserve to be broken.

Imperia knew she was distracting herself with pointless trivia, but she really did have nothing better to do.

She was trapped.

Her silver neck band had been connected by magic to a green glowing chain, which in turn had been fixed to a hook on the back wall of her cell. Imperia had already tried to break both the hook and the chain.

Imperia had been the one who designed the snake bands Spyro and Cynder had worn; she had been taught how to make them by Malefor and had built them to his specifications with a bit of her own design flair thrown in, she was proud of her work on those bands. She had then used her knowledge to create the hook and chain which now bound her.

It struck her as ironic, that she was being imprisoned by a device of her own making. But she knew perfectly well that she had no chance of breaking it, and the guardians knew that too. It was locked by a key that Terrador would undoubtedly keep with him.

She felt that at least some sort of escape attempt would be expected of her. It was what an obliging captive would do, particularly if they had Imperia's reputation for being… whatever it was that she was; she didn't know if there was a single word that summed her up properly.

For her first escape attempt she'd used wind blades to try to cut the bars, but this had barely scratched them. Ramming the door with her shoulder had been laughably ineffective and had made her feel rather silly for trying it. She's then tried to pick the lock, which hadn't gotten her anywhere. Even if she hypothetically could get past the bars on her cell then the chain would still keep her trapped down here, and she'd get into trouble with the others for trying to escape.

The wind guardian reassured herself that her escape attempts were just another distraction. Her actual plan was to wait for the other four guardians to come down and visit her, then to simply talk to them, maybe flash a smile, do some flirting, and ask to be let out again.

Imperia knew would need to answer questions, and she intended to just be honest. It wouldn't be difficult for her to convince them that she was no threat.

Imperia was extremely confident that this plan would work; the other four Guardians were her friends after all, as well as being intelligent, powerful, polite and good natured dragons. Plus she was in a romantic relationship with two of them.

Imperia sighed and rolled onto her back, stretching like a cat and sighing in pleasure. The cell wasn't so bad really; there were narrow windows high above that let in a decent amount of light. She floated up into the air and moved a metre to her left so her silver belly could be warmed by sun from one of the windows. Just as she relaxed back to the floor she heard a dragon coming to visit her.

There was one long set of stairs that led from the cells up to the base of the dragon temple. The temple had been relocated after Malefor had destroyed it and therefore it was newly built. The cells were much older, so the moles had needed to build the temple to fit in with the existing buildings. Imperia had taken a lot of interest in the work they had done, and she was friends with some of the moles who had worked near her current cell.

The stairs were straight, with no side passages or forks, and they sloped down through the rock to the small area where the prisoners were kept. Imperia was the only prisoner, therefore she had a visitor. She sensed the dragon with her wind magic and quickly recognised the figure as being Terrador. About a minute later the powerfully built earth dragon emerged into the room.

"Hi there." Imperia smiled at him. "Is this the part where we're both friends so you let me go? I figure it isn't, because Flare, Volteer and Cyril will need to be here as well so that I can be officially released."

"The four of us will question you tomorrow." Terrador said briefly.

"Oh good. I've been terribly bored down here. I don't suppose you brought me a book?"

"I'm afraid not."

Imperia sat up, flicking her tail.

"Aww, how hard could it be? My tower is about… What, five minutes' walk away? Just talk to one of the students in my class, they all love me, they'd bring their poor teacher a book if you told them they were allowed to." Imperia smiles brightly.

"They're grieving. Spark is dead."

Terrador felt guilty for saying that as soon as he saw Imperia's eyes fill with tears. The silver dragoness bowed her head and looked away from him. He realised that Imperia had been trying not to think about the dead dragons.

"I'm sorry." He said.

"I… I would be very grateful… if you would let any of them who want to talk to me… if you told them that I would talk to them."

"Not today. I'm sorry, Imperia."

"I understand." Imperia said quietly.

"I'll have books brought down to you." Terrador said. "And I have an urgent question for you. Cynder has left, she came back to Warfang with the rest of us, but this afternoon she departed without telling anyone where she was going, saying only that she was going to save Spyro. I am certain that you told her where to go, and I would ask you to tell me where she is going."

"I can't tell you." Imperia said softly. She looked up at Terrador sadly. "If Cynder didn't tell you then she doesn't want you to know, and… I can't…"

Terrador hesitated. He could have tried to force Imperia into telling him, and he probably would have gotten the information out of her, but he didn't want to do so.

"I'll make sure someone brings you books. You'll be questioned soon, and perhaps released, if we decide we can trust you. I hope you'll change your mind about telling us where Cynder is going, it would go some way towards restoring my personal trust in you."

Terrador turned and walked back up the stairs. Imperia listened to him leaving, trying to control the feeling of misery that was welling up from inside her.

Cynder flew alone in the evening sky. To an observer she might have seemed peaceful and relaxed, gliding in smooth arcs as she flew over the forest. She was going west, out towards where the dragon temple had once been located. Beyond that was where she would find Concurrent Skies and the fortress she had once ruled.

Cynder was physically relaxed, but her mind was racing with plans, ideas and the occasional unhelpful moment of fear. She certainly wasn't peaceful.

She hadn't told the others where she was going, of course, and she didn't think they would have been able to follow her, she was a wind dragon after all and she flew very fast. Cynder wasn't certain that she had made the right decision in not telling the others where she was going. Other dragons would only slow her down, she thought. But on the other hand she would have been glad to have someone she trusted to watch her back and someone to talk to, someone to help her keep calm and make a plan.

She wished that she could be travelling to save Spyro with Imperia.

Cynder didn't know what would be going on between Malefor and Spyro. No doubt Spyro would have hope that she would come and rescue him, which she certainly did plan to do. Malefor would be there, and who knew what he might be saying to Spyro even now. Would he try to turn Spyro to the dark side? Malefor was unpredictable, and Cynder didn't know what he would be doing with Spyro. She remembered that Gracious and Seth, who worshipped Malefor, had talked about destroying the darkness within Spyro. Would Malefor try to do that? How did that even work?

She needed to rescue him.

Cynder was flying in arcs rather than a straight line because she was looking for somewhere to touch down and spend the night. A small clearing looked like a good spot, so she circled down towards it.

From several hundred metres out Cynder realised there was a creature in the clearing. It was roughly her size and was not moving, so she flew closer. In a moment she recognised that it was a dragon curled up on the ground.

Cynder considered her options for a moment. She was confident enough of being able to subdue any dragon she might find out here, if they were an enemy. The problem was that then she'd need to sleep and they might wake up and attack her.

She could leave and go looking for somewhere else to spend the night, she supposed, but again she would be at risk of being attacked while she slept.

The first thing to do, she decided, was to go down and find out more about the sleeping dragon. Why were they here? Where were they going? The black dragoness shrouded herself in shadows and floated down through the trees. Her smoky form folded around the leaves and the branches and she touched down on the ground silently.

The dragon did not move as Cynder approached; Cynder crouched low and slithered towards them, ready to spring if she needed to attack.

The sleeping dragon was pink.

"Ember!?"

Writing this chapter was something of a trial. I had a general plan up until now, but from here on up the story is a lot less clear to me. Still, I have some idea of what's to come, and it should be good to read (I hope!)

I'm sorry to say that the next chapters will also be slow in coming. Aside from what I've already mentioned there's the minor problem that Dark Souls 3 comes out in 11 days (as of this chapter being posted) and I'm super excited. That's probably going to eat a lot of my writing time, but the good news is that I'm seriously considering writing a Dark Souls fanfiction.

Review with comments and questions if you're enjoying the story, and thank you everyone for reading!

-4Dragons