Hello, my friends! This Winglet takes place around the same time as the events of Chapter 24 of Finding Peace, the upcoming chapter of the story. Here, the plotline along the Sand Kingdom and Ice Kingdom border reaches its conclusion.

Now, let's take flight!

Finding Peace: Winglets

The Bloodline

It had taken days to fully scout the bandits' main encampment. Even though both Qibli and Hailstorm's dragons outnumbered the bandits ten to one, Qibli and Hailstorm's second in command wanted to make sure they knew the full scope of their enemy's fortifications. Even with most of their fellow criminals dead in the freezing sands and the snow, the bandit's fortification had been placed in a valley that gave the bandits a perfect view of any attackers coming within ten miles.

Thanks to these scouting runs, Qibli was able to deduce that the fortification had layers of protection in the form of traps when he noticed how the bandits seemed to avoid certain areas of their own hideout.

The third night was when Qibli gave the order to strike.

At the changing of the guard, the SandWings and IceWings attacked the bandits quickly and hard. Qibli had ordered his ambushers to burrow under the sand and slowly move towards the fortifications. Scaling the walls, by talon, his SandWings eliminated the sentries before they even had the chance to sound an alarm.

By the time the alarm had been sounded, Qibli, his SandWings, and their IceWing counterparts had already arrived in full force. In seconds the walls were breached and the bandits' numbers slaughtered down to a mere twenty.

Things got worse for the bandits when reinforcements from the north arrived: in the form of Prince Hailstorm himself and a group of IceWing soldiers who froze any dragon that was unfortunate enough to be caught in their way.

Eventually, when only five bandits were alive and surrendered: the battle was over, and burn down operations began when Qibli, in a rare moment of letting his anger take control, gave the order to burn the hideout to the ground. As he and his SandWings did just that, the hideout burned so hotly, that Qibli hoped the smoke could be seen from both Queen Thorn's palace and the Ice Kingdom.

Once he had let all of his anger out of his system, Qibli and the others departed for their camp and watched the smoke and embers rise into the night sky. The SandWings celebrated with their IceWing allies, the latter of whom were much more silent than their SandWing counterparts, but still took part in the celebration regardless after months of working with them.

All the while, Qibli stood on the outskirts of the camp, and watched the smoke rise. In the back of his mind, he knew he shouldn't revel in destruction. But the images of Winter's sobs and cradling Lynx's body flashed in his mind. Every time they replayed, he closed his eyes as pity consumed him.

No matter what happened, he still loved Winter. He loved him as much as he loved Moon. Seeing the strongest dragon he knew to break down into tears and sobs broke his heart. That was why he immediately volunteered for this mission when Thorn announced her and Queen Snowfall's joint mission, it was why he was willing to leave the Sand Kingdom immediately and not return to Moon in Possibility.

It hurt him that he left Moon as he had after their argument…but he could not let anyone else take command of the SandWing side of the operation. He needed to do this for Winter, while he raised his dragonet.

The crunching of freezing sands behind him drew Qibli's attention as he looked back to see Hailstorm approaching.

Hailstorm, of all dragons, knew how Qibli felt. After all, Lynx had been his sister in law. Qibli always regretted that he never got to know Lynx as Hailstorm had, but he knew the impact she had on Winter.

As the Prince stood beside him, Qibli saw him reach for a scroll that had rested in a sling. Pulling it out, Hailstorm, without looking away from the smoke and embers in the night sky, handed it to Qibli. Curiously, he took it.

"You arrived just in time," Qibli said as he glanced at the scroll with a curious brow raised.

"Couldn't let you be the only one to see this to the end," Hailstorm chuckled. Though, after that, the IceWing grew serious. "Her Highness was more than willing to let me look through the census archives of the Ice Kingdom. She and Lynx were rivals, but friends first."

"What did you find?" Qibli asked while breaking the seal that held the parchment together.

Hailstorm's silence made Qibli glance at him, the Prince simply glanced at the scroll. Raising a brow, Qibli unraveled the scroll and began to read the contents. On it, Qibli saw Lynx's entire family history stretching back to five hundred years. There were many things Qibli disliked about IceWing culture, but he did admire that they were good record keepers.

"What am I supposed to be looking for, Hailstorm?" Qibli asked, looking through the entire scroll of names and family trees. It was amazing how far Lynx's family had come within the last century. Once just a humble family on the lowest of IceWing society, only to rise through the nobility in a few decades.

Amazing to look at, but no reason to suspect why Lynx, of all dragons, was targeted.

"Look at her maternal bloodline," Hailstorm suggested. "Two hundred years ago."

Qibli did that, looking at Lynx's mother's name and her mother's bloodline back several hundred years.

Nothing out of the ordinary…until he spotted the name of one dragon.

"Lapis?" Qibli blinked in confusion. "That's…a SeaWing name, isn't it?"

"It is," Hailstorm nodded. Pulling out another scroll, he handed it to Qibli, who quickly took it and opened up the scroll. "Lapis was the daughter of an IceWing and a SeaWing. When she was older, she joined her mother's tribe while the rest of her siblings remained with the IceWings."

When Qibli opened the new scroll, he saw that it had SeaWing names with years underneath them. It was a SeaWing census.

"How did you get this?" Qibli asked.

"Queen Coral was willing to give me census scrolls about Lapis' bloodline, she always liked Lynx when she served as Queen Snowfall's representative to the SeaWings and was friends with Princess Auklet," Hailstorm explained. Glancing at him, Hailstorm continued. "Look at Lapis descendants…I'm sure you'll recognize one of them."

And so Qibli did…he traced Lapis' bloodline straight to the descendants who would be alive today.

That's when he saw one name that stuck out to him and made Qibli's mouth fall open.

One of Lapis' descendants was a SeaWing who was named "Surf of Adderin."

Son of a scorpion…that couldn't be!

"Are you saying…?"

"Surf and Lynx, while distant, share the same bloodline," Hailstorm answered. Qibli looked up at him, his black eyes blinking in surprise. They were silent for the longest time until Hailstorm continued. "Don't you find it strange, that the bandits murder Lynx? Then, a few weeks ago, we are visited by one of her distant relatives, who knew what that lantern was and had magic that could protect us from it? The Blue mist, the…chant that we were forced to repeat? And now we find out they are related?"

"It's not a coincidence," Qibli shook his head. "Somehow, they must have known about that relation!" He said, gesturing to the burning hideout in the distance. "Do you think Surf had a talon in her murder?"

"If he did, why did he help us?" Hailstorm pointed out.

The rational part of Qibli knew that Hailstorm was right. Surf did not have a talon in her death, he read his expression clearly. Surf was mysterious, maybe arrogant enough not to answer Qibli's question, but he was not a bad dragon. On the contrary he seemed like an honorable one, even. There was no way he would have killed Lynx.

On the other talon, he still remembered how curious Surf had been about Darkstalker, how he had been defeated. It was difficult reading Surf, but it looked like he really wanted to know.

Surf couldn't have been involved in Lynx's murder. But the mystery surrounding the SeaWing with peculiar magic still bugged Qibli even now. It wasn't that he couldn't read Surf that bothered him, but that he seemed to be outside of anyone's jurisdiction.

"What do we do now?" Qibli asked, changing the topic and focusing on the task at talon. "The bandits are dead, Lynx is avenged."

"I think we should take time to scout the area the next few days," Hailstorm suggested. "Make sure we did a thorough job. Afterward?" Hailstorm rubbed his eyelids. "I owe my brother and nephew a visit."

Qibli nodded, remembering that it had been a long time since Hailstorm and Winter had spoken with each other in a relaxed setting. For Qibli, it had been even longer. He wanted to see Winter, but he needed to finish things here.

And he owed Moon a much-needed conversation.

"Right," Qibli said as they turned back to the camp. "Perhaps we could see him together?"

"That would be good," Hailstorm nodded, smiling. "Though, I'm not sure he'll believe me when I tell him about how skilled you are."

"Oh, I know," Qibli laughed. "But that's just one of his many charms."

With that, the conversation drifted into friendlier topics. Lynx's death was avenged, now they could focus on other topics and the future. There were still mysteries, but those could wait for the next day.

When everything was finished here, Qibli had every intention to return to Possibility. He would see Moon, and talk to her. Even though he had left her on bad terms, he would salvage their relationship. He loved Moon, and that love was worth fighting for.

If, and when, he salvaged their relationship: maybe he could convince her to focus on the present, not the future. Then who knows? Maybe they could reach out to a dragon they both loved deeply.