Disclaimer: I do not own the original Inheritance Cycle characters.

A/N: There is bad news in this chapter. I'll give you guys a hint: A war is starting.

Chapter 10

Lykaon looked up when he heard the thunder crackle. It had been years since a thunderstorm broke out in the demon world. Anh, who was beside him, looked up as well and growled.

"I remember stories from when I was a pup about what a thunderstorm meant."

"What does it mean Anh?"

"My mother told me that when the dragon demon king has perished, the demon world will have a violent thunderstorm and lightning storm. And then the dragon demons will go to war against whoever killed their king." As she spoke, lightning flashed acrossed the darkened sky, and Anh whimpered. Lykaon could sense that she was scared, but he was actually quite calm. 'Mordecai is the king...if that story is true, then does that mean Mordecai was killed?' Screeches were heard from the distance, and dragon demons flew up into the sky. None of them looked happy.

"Anh stay here and guard the pack!"

"Where are you going?"

"To Alagaesia. I need to find out if a friend was killed!" Taking off at a dead run, Lykaon felt his limbs groaning at the fact that he was going faster than he had ever gone before. 'Well I need to get to Alagaesia quickly...before a war does in fact break out.'

~Alagaesia~

Sapphire watched as Aiden played with his dragon, who had hatched last night. He had the egg for only a few hours before it had in fact hatched for him. Arian was laying behind her sleeping soundly. At the moment she was currently lost in her memories of Mordecai. She was remembering the first encounter with him.

"Mother?"

"Huh? Oh, yes Aiden?" He was standing in front of her with his dragon on his shoulder.

"I had asked if you want to go inside since it looks like it is about to rain?" Looking at the sky, she realized he was right.

"Oh. Yes lets go inside. Arian?" He opened one of his eyes and looked at her.

'What is it?'

'Time to go inside. It's about to rain.'

'A little rain can never hurt a dragon, Sapphire.'

'Ok...just remember, if you change your mind, you can still come in through the opening in the wall.'

'I know.' Heading inside with her son, Sapphire's thoughts trailed back to Mordecai. Why had he not returned to her yet, and what was taking him so long to come back. Remembering the first time she had seen Mordecai, her thoughts deep down was that he looked too weak to be around such creatures as the dragon demons. 'Man he he sure proved me wrong.'

'Sapphire.'

'Yes?'

'I think you should come see this. I'll raise my wing over you so you don't get wet.' Coming outside, Sapphire was under the shelter of Arian's wing, but she felt as if her heart just stopped. Flying high above the trees were hundreds of dragon demons that she remembered from her last visit there years ago.

'What's going on?'

'I don't know.' Lifting his head, Arian roared up at them, but it only seemed to anger them.

"Dragon!" Arian snarled, shook his head and launched himself towards them.

"Arian!" Snarls echoed throughout the night. Aiden came outside and his eyes widened when he saw the fight up in the sky. Sapphire looked at him, ushered him back inside, and hugged him close to her.

"You don't need to see that Aiden." Pulling out of her embrace, Aiden glared at her.

"I am not a child anymore mother! You don't need to shield me from everything! I'm going to have to participate in a battle like that one of these days...when Malakai is older."

"Malakai? That's what you named your dragon?"

"Yes." Aiden winced when they heard the roars start turning into screeches. Sapphire ran back outside and saw that the other dragons had come to aid Arian. She paled as she realized what was happening once again. 'No...not another war between Alagaesia and the dragon demons...But I thought Mordecai said that there would be no war...NO!' Sapphire fell down to her knees as she realized what the full extent to this was.

"No...no...no...Mord...Mordecai..." Sapphire said between sobs, digging her hands through the dirt. Tears slowly hitting the ground and soon a loud eerie sound escaped her lips. Arian landed on the ground beside her and raised his wing, stopping the rain from hitting her anymore.

'What is it?'

'It's Mordecai...he's...dead...' Arian lowered his head, before having to look up swiftly and then he was tackled to the ground by a dragon demon, causing Sapphire to let out a little scream.

"You damn dragons and DragonRiders killed our king! This means war!" The demon said while trying to take a large chunk out of Arian's neck.

'You're turning your fury on the wrong enemy! The son of Mardonio is to blame!'

"Lies! All lies! Dragon demons! Attack until they are all dead!" Arian screeched in anger and flung the dragon demon off of him and blew fire at the demon. Pushing herself to her feet, Sapphire spread her arms out, tears going down her face even though you couldn't tell because of the rain.

"Stop! Mordecai wouldn't want this!" One of them swooped down and landed in front of her. She recognized Cerian.

"This is what we were made to do Sapphire. To go to war as soon as our king is killed."

"But-" He raised his tail, silencing her.

"No. It's the way things have to be. If our race is to be killed today, with no hope of continuing on, then so be it." Snarling, Cerian lunged towards Sapphire, but Arian rammed right into Cerian's side with a loud roar. Thorn came flying down out of the throng of dragon demons and dragons, and attacked Cerian. Saphira came swooping down and helped Thorn out, but blowing fire. As Sapphire turned around she saw the most horrible scene of all. Aiden was coming towards her, but a dragon demon was right behind him getting ready to attack.

"AIDEN!" He turned around right when another dragon demon rammed right into the one that was trying to kill Aiden. The smaller one looked at Aiden and lowered it's head.

"Aiden...you ok?" He narrowed his eyes and raised an uneasy hand.

"Alliane?" She nodded her head before roaring up at the dragon demons.

"Enough of this needless bloodshed! Shouldn't you all be wanting to attack the killer of Mordecai?" The demons and dragons stopped and looked at Alliane. One of them flew down and landed right in front of her, and sniffed her.

"You are a dragon demon female...the first one in years...But you aren't full dragon demon. You have elf in you because of your father." The demon pulled his head back and turned to his brethren. The other dragon demons swooped down and landed in the mud, making Sapphire wince at the sight of the craters in the mud. They were all pure muscle. Saphira swooped down as well, but landed next to Allaine, with her wings slightly opened in a threatening stance. Remembering the stories that Saphira was at one point the only female dragon alive, Sapphire realized that the sapphire colored dragon would understand how Alliane must feel at the moment.

'What does her having to be female have anything to do with this completely unreasonable mini-war?' The dragon demons snarled at her, but the one who had originally spoken, looked at her sadly.

"Because she is female indicates that she is going to be wanted by every single dragon demon male here in order to repopulate the species." Sapphire gasped. Now way would she let her own daughter become some baby machine! Running forward, she stood in front of her daughter, with a bow and arrows ready to be used.

"No one is going to touch my daughter in that way just yet!"

"You will have to let one of us or do you want to ruin your husbands' goal of repopulating our race?" Sapphire's breath hitched in her throat when his words reached her heart. That was the very reason she had become pregnant seventeen years ago to be exact. Mordecai had asked her to help him repopulate his race, but in different wordings, and she had slightly helped. She gave him a boy and a girl in one pregnancy. But he had never required anything else from her since then. He had never even requested that they make more children, but she knew clearly in her heart that Mordecai would not want anyone touching his daughter at the moment.

"I am not ruining it...I am guarding his dream." The demon pulled his head back, clearly not expecting that reply.

"How? If I remember, you became pregnant 17 years ago and bore him two children. The girl rightfully belongs to us as the repopulator of our race. Once we have more than enough females, we'll be done with her." Saphira snarled at the demon and fully extended her wings.

'Foolishness! Whether or not it is your ways, you should not treat your only female in the sense that all she's useful for is for making babies! When I first met your kind, I had a great fear of your unknown power. But eventually that fear disappeared, only to be replaced with deep respect for the ruler of you. But right now, I am disturbed by your ways of ruling.'

"Whether it be our ways or not, you are correct. Our females are treated with the upmost care and are never mistreated. If they are, the king will execute the male. Now if you will please, hand over the female and we'll go." Alliane returned to her human form and hugged her mother, shoulders shaking in fear.

"Mother...I'm scared..." Sapphire rubbed her daughters back, but kept her hold on her tight.

"Shh...you don't have to go. You don't have to go with him." Alliane looked at her mother, and slowly shook her head.

"You don't understand, do you? If I don't go with him, everyone will continue fighting."

"But your father wouldn't allow or even want this to happen to you right now."

"But he has a point. I belong with them as a repopulator. I need to help them mother...or else they'll never survive." Sapphire still wouldn't release her daughter.

"But why now? I just lost your father, why do I have to lose you as well?" Alliane's breath seemed to catch in her throat before answering.

"You'll never lose me mother...I'll come back every year." Alliane pulled herself out of her mother's grasp and turned to her demon form. Raising her head high, Alliane walked slowly towards the males with a certain gracefullness to her walk. Baring her fangs a little, Alliane stood by one of the males and looked at her mother and brother. The older demon glanced at Alliane and nodded his head, and looked back at Sapphira and Saphira.

"We shall leave for now." Saphira growled at the demon in anger.

'Do us all a favor and never come back.' He returned the grow to Saphira.

"You can count on us being back!" In unision, the demons jumped into the sky...except Alliane. Lowering her head, she sighed, before jumping up into the sky flying after the males. Sapphire dropped to her knees and cried violently. Aiden looked away from his mother and looked at the dragons that had landed during the conversation. Malakai had come out of the house, and was sitting at his feet not making any noise. Slowly standing up, Sapphire just stood there frozen stiff. Her whole heart was crushing down at the moment.

"Mom?"

"Aiden...I'm sorry. Forgive me. I should've fought harder to keep your sister." He approached his mother and put a hand on her shoulder.

"There's nothing you could've done." Sapphire broke into tears ago and pulled Aiden into a hug.

"There's plenty I could've done to prevent this! I should've agreed to Mordecai's offer before he started your training. He had asked me if I wanted to come live with him and never have to deal with the chaos of Alagaesia. I refused, saying that I wanted to make sure that my family would be all right here and to make sure nothing stirred up again. I should've agreed! If I had agreed, Nicolae would never have somehow escaped and it's because of him that Mordecai is dead!" Aiden rubbed his mother's back, while trying to picture how his father would have been like before he had been born. If he had been anything compared to the other demons he just saw...then he had to admit that his father was not very scary. But then again those demons weren't kings. 'Wait a minute...they weren't dying all that easily. None of them died in fact! Neither did the dragons...so is there a possibility that father is still alive?'

~With Nicolae~

Smilin smugly, Nicolae watched the stream looking for any traces that somehow Mordecai had lived. But when he saw the dark black blood slowly coming towards him, he knew that Mordecai was in fact dead. Standing up, he laughed.

"Well, I don't see why it took the DragonRiders so long to kill Fraener the first time he was alive. I guess being only half dragon demon can really lower someone's ability to survive the water. Pathetic." He walked away, hardly even fazed at the fact that he no longer had a dragon demon on his side. All he cared was that he took out the demon king and now he just had to take over the elves and then he's the ruler of Alagaesia.

All right review! (click the button! You know you want to!) In your reviews let me know how you guys want Nicolae to die (if you guys even want him to die) and if you guys want Mordecai to actually still be alive.