I do not own Wings of Fire.

Chapter 10

"I thought I told you to stay away from Archipelago," were the first words from Orca's mouth once she and Cerulean had exited the library, leaving Cerulean's friends behind.

The mahogany doors closed with a muffled thump as the two set off down the hallway.

Cerulean felt a rush of worry and annoyance. She glanced down at her claws to make sure they were, indeed, purple, and not red like she kept imagining them to be.

"I don't see why not," she whispered. She didn't feel quite capable of speaking loudly. Her head swirled with tons of new information and speculations and theories.

Orca frowned deeply. "I've told you all my reasons. Now, care to explain what you were doing, hidden away in the back of the library with a maid, a useless princess, and my incompetent son?"

Now Cerulean was the one frowning. "The maid has a name, Storm is not useless at all, and Archipelago is not as incompetent as you might think he is." Her voice was still low, scared almost. She was Cerulean again now, had Cerulean's voice. The intimidating and queenly SkyWing voice she'd momentarily possessed had disappeared as soon as she'd released the paperweight.

The queen looked surprised - Cerulean felt a bit too, which was difficult, because she'd spent the last few hours feeling one shock after another. "Don't talk back to me in that tone," she bit off. "I chose you to be my queen for reasons."

"And those would be?" Cerulean asked. This was something she'd always wondered about, but now she was curious about Orca's true motives for choosing the purple dragonet as her heir. And now, she felt a brave enough to actually dare to ask.

If Orca cast the spell that turned my SkyWing egg into a SeaWing one, Cerulean thought, then surely the queen would already know about my heritage, which means she would've knowingly chosen an originally SkyWing dragonet to be the next ruler, which means she must have her reasons. She wouldn't tell me, but perhaps, she'll let something slip...?

Cerulean felt a bit surprised to realize that her feelings towards the queen had shifted since the last time she'd seen Orca. She was no longer filled with a shy, quiet respect and awe at Orca. Perhaps the animus magic is what made the queen seem so intimidating to Cerulean, but now that Cerulean knew that she, herself, was one, there was nothing so magical (no pun intended) about Orca's powers.

And even if she wasn't sure about whether or not Orca had done anything, she couldn't help but feel decently suspicious of the queen. A brief memory flashed back, of the queen ordering the narwhal tusk door handles to kill the guards who'd failed to stop the egg assassin, without a second thought.

Cerulean tuned back into Orca, who was looking very thoughtful and hadn't answered Cerulean's question yet.

"I have many reasons," she spoke at last. She seemed to realize that Cerulean was expecting an example. "You, of all your sisters, were clearly the most qualified."

"But - " Cerulean started nervously. Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. "But, you came right to our village and you asked for me. You never had met my sisters or me before. How could you have known?"

Orca shook her head in exasperation, as if Cerulean was stupid and incompetent, which was probably true. "Your parents told me, of course."

"But - " Cerulean began again, and saw the severe silencing look Orca sent her way, and finished the question in her head. But Delta and Fen didn't like me. They didn't think I was qualified to read a scroll or do anything useful. Why would they suddenly decide that I was good enough to be queen?

Something tickled the back of her mind. Unless they wanted to get rid of me. But letting me be the next queen seems awfully odd of them, when they could easily dispose of me some other way. So then that would mean Orca was lying, which means she either lied to me and got information that somehow convinced her to make me the next queen, or...she really did enchant my egg.

But then that brought up another question. If Orca did enchant her egg, then when did she do it? Delta and Fen had been so excited when the queen showed up to chose her heir; not only because one of their daughters might someday be queen, but also because Orca had never, ever visited the island. So if Orca had never been there before, then how could she have ever gotten her talons on Cerulean's egg?

Unless she disguised herself and snuck in, Cerulean supplied. But that seems awfully illogical and useless. And then, why would my parents take in a SkyWing egg? They clearly never knew I was a SkyWing. They just hated me because I was purple and didn't have gills and was 'useless.' So then the animus dragon must've left my egg with Delta and Fen, who thought it was theirs, so clearly they never thought otherwise because they always wondered how their daughter had turned out so weird. But I had a brother, who hatched the same time I did. So that lined up.

She glanced at Orca, who was speaking to Gail, the head guard, and Typhoon, about their daughter Dolphin.

Perhaps she enchanted my egg while she was still believed to be dead. But she returned seven years ago - three years before I was born. So then if that were true, I'd be seven, and not four, so the timing just doesn't add up correctly.

"Tsunami's looking forward to meeting you."

Cerulean blinked, realizing that she was being spoken to again. "Oh."

The queen regarded her curiously. "I thought you'd be more excited to hear that."

"Oh yes," Cerulean said, remembering the time when meeting Tsunami would've been thrilling. But now there was so much excitement in her life; she didn't want to meet her "sister" when she could be sitting in the library with her friends, speculating and figuring things out.

"Your Majesty," a guard spoke up. They'd arrived now at the feasting hall, where Tsunami was waiting inside along with Riptide, her husband, and an entourage of noble dragons.

The guard was Wave, Eddy's friend. She remained stoic as she pulled open the large and heavy doors, and Cerulean found herself envying the ease of the older dragonet's strength.

Then Eddy was at her side, and she felt a wave a relief wash over her scales when she saw his friendly face. She always felt soothed when she saw him, but this time, she no longer felt as close as she had around him before. He didn't know about her true identity. He didn't know what she knew.

She should tell him. He'd been such a good friend to her, all this time. He deserved to know.

Obviously, right now was not a good time, because there were so many dragons around them, possibly listening, and definitely watching her out of the corner of their , by her side, took the liberty to point out many of the guards and royal guests who stood around the feasting hall, and every now and then, Wave, who'd followed Cerulean and the queen inside after closing the doors, would break her seemingly emotionless mask to chime in with some funny remark about the said dragon.

Orca, meanwhile, had slipped ahead of Cerulean, Eddy, and Wave, and was talking to an aquamarine and cyan dragon with lighter horns, a dragon who kept fidgeting and looking around, distracted, before the queen regained her attention.

"That's Baja," Eddy reported, nodding with a friendly smile at the constantly moving dragon.

"Definitely is," Wave quipped. "She's only a few years older than we are, but from the way she acts, you'd think she was only a newly hatched dragonet!"

This statement seemed very true, for, at that moment, Baja knocked into one of the many dragons carrying plates of food, knocking the delicacies out of the poor unsuspecting waiter's talons and sending the food flying everywhere. Baja, meanwhile, went tripping to the ground and landed roughly on top of the waiter, scrambling frantically for footing.

Wave and Eddy stifled their laughs, while Cerulean looked on skeptically and tried to remember back to breakfast that morning, when she hadn't even known Spindrift and all the royal dragons had seemed so calm and put together. With a start, she realized she was starving and had skipped lunch.

"Oops!" came Baja's cheerful and apologetic voice from the floor. "I'm soooooo sorry. I didn't see you there - let me help - apologies, condolences! Ooh, those do look good, though." She popped some of the food that had fallen in the floor in her collision into her mouth. "Mm. Octopus. My favorite."

Orca and the other dragon who'd been talking with her and Baja, both frowned down on the teacher who'd just fallen spectacularly.

"Oh my seashells, Baja," said the other dragon who Cerulean didn't know, an older dragoness with scales such a light shade of blue they were almost white. She narrowed her yellow-green eyes at the other, as Baja scrambled up to get off the floor, popping another handful of food into her mouth. The unfortunate waiter hurried to clean everything up.

"I'm sorry," Baja apologized profusely. "I was so busy talking to Her Majesty! Ugh, I'm so embarrassed. Couldn't you use your animus magic and make it so that that never actually happened?"

As the older dragon replied severely, and Orca swept ahead of the two with an exasperated shake of her head, Cerulean narrowed her eyes. So that must be Waterfall, the only animus dragon I haven't met yet.

Eddy confirmed this. "That's Waterfall, the one chewing Baja out."

"Honestly, don't know why Waterfall bothers lecturing her," Wave added with a smile at Cerulean, a friendly gesture that caught the purple dragonet off guard. "Everything's in one ear and out the other with Baja. She's awfully sweet, though. And I'm not sure if you know, but Waterfall's one of our animus dragons."

"Yes," Cerulean said with a curt nod, not taking her eyes off of the older animus dragon's form. She was curious about Waterfall, the dragon who was interested in whether or not Archipelago was an animus dragon or not, and she needed to find out if, perhaps, Waterfall was the dragon behind all these strange spells that restricted everyone's memories. This dragon was the one, of the three known animus dragons, that Cerulean knew the least well right now. She needed to find out why, if she truly was the culprit, Waterfall would possibly ever cast such a spell.

It also occurred to her that maybe Eddy and Wave knew of other animus dragons in the kingdom.

"How many other animus dragons are there in the Sea Kingdom?" Cerulean asked.

"Let's see," Eddy said. "There's Her Majesty, Queen Orca, as you already know." He eyed the jewelry adornments she was wearing. "And there's Prince Azure - I'm not sure if you've met him? He's Prince Archipelago's brother."

"Yes," Cerulean admitted to being acquainted to Azure, and felt something twist in her gut as she said this. She didn't know why, but she felt bad admitting she had friends now other than Eddy. And that these friends, though she'd known them less than a day, already knew more about her than Eddy, who'd been her friend for month, did.

Eddy nodded.

"Any others?" Cerulean pressed.

The two guards exchanged a brief look, and if Cerulean hadn't been watching so carefully, she would've just thought it was nothing, just a quick glance. But no, the look they'd just shared had lots of meaning to it, and Cerulean didn't like not knowing what the meaning was; she didn't even like not knowing why there was meaning.

"And of course there's Waterfall," Wave continued carefully. She glanced at Cerulean as if she expected the princess to interrupt, and when the purple dragonet didn't, the guard pressed on. "But I hardly think she should count anymore. She can't have cast a spell for centuries, at least."

Eddy snorted. "Wave, she's hardly twenty years old."

"Hmph," Wave said. "She looks ancient."

"Don't speak of your superiors that way," Eddy reprimanded in a mocking way, but his voice turned serious. "Really, Wave. We're only guards-in-training. This could be one of our tests. We don't know who could be listening to this conversation."

"I am," said a new voice, and both Wave and Eddy leaped about a foot into the air. They turned to see a foamy green dragonet who couldn't've been much older than Eddy or Cerulean.

"Gar, you nearly gave us a heart attack," Wave reprimanded severely.

"Sorry. I just wanted to let you guys know that we've been called for duty - Gail wants us down at the castle entrance," Gar said, sounding a bit nervous. He saw Cerulean now. "Hi, I'm Gar. You must be a new recruit. I haven't seen you before."

"I'm Cerulean," the heir replied.

"She's not a recruit, though," Eddy put in. "Gar, this is Princess Cerulean. The next queen."

"Oh my moons!" Gar yelped loudly. "I'm so sorry, Your Majesty." He bowed to the ground, so low that his snout brushed the floor.

"Please don't do that," Cerulean begged, mortified.

Gar now stood up so quickly he nearly overbalanced. "I'm so sorry, so, so sorry, Your Majesty. Oh, what a horrible impression I must be making on you. I'm so honored to be talking to you, I'm not worthy of this, I'm not - "

"Calm down, Gar," Wave sighed in exasperation. "I think you should get some fresh air. You seem a bit faint. I'll go with you."

"No, no, I'm okay," the younger guard-in-training protested. "It was so nice to meet you! I'm so sorry - " he added when he realized there was no point in arguing with Wave.

"Same to you, and you don't need to apologize!" Cerulean called after him, feeling sympathy for Gar. For the first time, she'd actually run into someone who was a lot more nervous than she was. She turned back to Eddy, who was scanning the feasting hall and all of the guests with an alert eye. "So, Waterfall, Azure, and Orca. Those are they only SeaWing animus dragons?"

Eddy flicked his tail, his eyes still roaming over all the eating dragons. "Well," he said at last. "There is another one that I know of."

"Who?" asked Cerulean, very curious of the fact that he was suddenly avoiding her gaze and speaking so lowly when just a few moments ago he'd been rather loudly telling her all of the animus dragons in the kingdom.

Her friend glanced around, looking nervous. "I don't think this is the place to tell you."

"That's okay," Cerulean said understandingly. She took a breath. This was more than good, really. There was a new possibility, another animus dragon who they could go to, who might be responsible for the strange fog that coated so many important memories. And, if they planning on meeting up later so he could tell her some of his secrets, than this would be the perfect opportunity for her to tell her what she'd found out about herself as well. "Eddy, I have to tell you a few things too...can we meet in the library later tonight?"

Eddy looked uneasy. "I have guard training until really late. I'm not sure if I actually can."

"It doesn't have to be tonight, then. Maybe tomorrow?"

"Tell you what," Eddy decided. "I'll have Chrysocolla - I think we can both agree that she can be trusted?"

"For sure," Cerulean agreed, thinking of the way the maid had leapt in to stop Orca from picking up the enchanted paperweight, and how trusting she'd been about keeping Cerulean's SkyWing secret.

"Well, I'll give her a note then, later tonight, telling you when I can meet," Eddy finished.

"Okay," Cerulean nodded.

"I've got to go now," he added, sounding uncomfortable. "Wave and Gar and Gail will be expecting me. Gail will probably want me to lead the practice."

"I understand," she assured him, even though she really didn't.

"You know, late night training and all that, the joys of being a guard, et cetera," Eddy elaborated.

"Why are you a guard, if you don't like it? Why did they choose you?" Cerulean asked.

He shrugged. "I wish I knew, Cerulean. I mean, Your Majesty. Just in case anyone is listening, you know, that's the only reason I'm addressing you so formally. See you around. Have fun meeting Tsunami."

"Bye," Cerulean called after him as he disappeared into the crowd of guards, waiters, and party-goers. Then the princess turned away from where he'd gone and now scanned the room for Orca, or someone who looked like how she'd always imagined Tsunami to look like; brave, fierce, determined.

"There you are, my dear," came a voice from her right, and with some relief Cerulean turned to see the queen. At the same time, the purple dragonet wished she was not in the feasting hall, and that she'd slipped from the room after Eddy and gone back to the library or gone to the princes' room.

Now, she was stuck meeting Tsunami. Not that that was a bad thing. It just didn't seem necessary right at that moment - couldn't Tsunami have come a few days earlier, before everything had happened?

"Cerulean, please meet Tsunami," Orca said, an almost sinister smile appearing on her snout. "Tsunami, meet the future queen of the Sea Kingdom, my heir, Cerulean."

Author's Note: I'M SO SORRY THAT THIS UPDATE WAS LATE. And I don't have an excuse, either, so this was just my laziness. DON'T KILL ME. I WILL TRY TO UPDATE SOONER NEXT TIME. And by the way, I'm shooting to make Fridays my updating day, but no promises on that actually always happening.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE AWESOME PEOPLE WHO READ THIS. I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOYED THIS CHAPTER!

Also, more OC's got introduced. They probably won't play as big as a role as some of the others, because there are a lot of characters running around at the moment, but I will try to use them. And thank you for submitting them! I really appreciate it. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Any feedback is much appreciated!

MysticFire101: Your welcome! I will probably end up using Breeze should I need a name for Cerulean as a SkyWing! And it does fit her. I agree! I'm glad...well, not glad exactly, like, weirdly glad, that you found Cerulean's distress at her voice change so heart-breaking. You know? Like, I'm glad that you felt that way, but I feel like it's weird to take joy in someone's heartbreak. You know? Okay, sorry, that was random, but I'm glad that that you thought it was awesome! Thank you! Also, I'm so happy you liked how Storm, Chrysocolla, and Archipelago reacted. It took me a while to get that scene; at first, I had them all get really upset and kind of desert Cerulean, but then looking back on their characters, I was thinking, first off, that's just mean, and secondly, I don't think they would actually do that...I agree with what you said about Tsunami. She's coming up in the next chapter! I hope you'll like how I portrayed her. It is a different timeline, seven years after the events of Darkness of Dragons. THANK YOU! I'M GLAD YOU THINK THIS IS AMAZING! That is a very flattering compliment, and I appreciate it so much! Hope you liked this chapter! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

jadewolf334: THANK YOU! I'm so glad you loved this. That means a lot. I agree, I love the SkyWing tribe. If I were a dragon, I'd probably want to be a SkyWing. Or an IceWing. Or a RainWing. Haha, it is kind of weird to think of Cerulean as a SkyWing, but she's staying as her SeaWing self for the time being. I LOVE PLOT TWISTS. Both writing them and reading them. I admit that reading plot twists is more fun because you normally don't see them coming and you kind of think, whoa, I didn't see that one coming and the author had better have a good explanation for this. Writing them, I find, is harder, because you want the plot twist to be something completely unexpected, but also you kind of want to hint that it's coming, but not too much, and then you also actually have to have an explanation for why what happened is possible. But they do drive me crazy, no matter what! Aha! You sighed! That must mean your still alive - good, I see you are. Thank you for not dying, and you are AWESOME TOO. Seriously. Your awesomeness motivates me all the time, and thanks! No problem, I can't believe I didn't follow and favorite you before. And this chapter was EDDY time! I'm trying to bring him in more, I kind of killed him off before. Oops. Sorry about that. Hmm, maybe he and Cerulean would be better goether? I'm not sure. :) But there was more Eddy this time. I will try to portray Archipelago as a stronger character; right now, I was aiming for more of an inconspicuous dragon, but I'll probably spice him up a bit. You'll learn more about him, too, along with Eddy! YAY! I'm so glad you like Chrysocolla! That is important, and thanks! And I would never have had her character if not for you! So thank you! Glad you liked the chapter, and here's another! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

dragonwritergirl112: XD. Yup. Cerulean and those mysteries. They keep multiplying. Hopefully, I'll be able to tie them up nicely at the end. Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Remained unnamed: Oh. Je suis désolé. Haha, though, I relate. Every time my French teacher starts rapidly speaking to me in French, I kind of just blink at her stupidly and say, "Oui," while wishing that could actually decently speak the language. My accent is horrible. Glad you found this chapter interesting, though! Thanks! Your stories are awesome though! You're an excellent writer, and your skills of art, man...I'm jealous. Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Guest: Yay! Glad you don't think my proofreading is bad! Every now and then, I'll come across a stupid mistake and I'll be like, "Oh my god, seriously self." Glad that's the only mistake you've encounter, though! When I finish this up, I'll probably go through every chapter and make sure that everything's correct. Aw, thanks! It means so much that you love this story so much - I love you for reading it! Yes! I'm so happy you liked this chapter! And I hoped you liked this chapter, too. I'm already working on the next one! Your welcome, and thank you for reading and reviewing!

Someone: Thank you! I'm glad you don't think my proofreading is horrible, and I'll try not to be so hard on myself. Thank you, I'm so glad that you are loving this story, and think the grammar and spelling is good! It drives me crazy when a fanfiction has such a good concept but the writing is so bad you can't focus on the actual plot. Thanks! I'm glad you thought it was an amazing chapter! Hopefully, you liked this chapter too! I'm already working on the next one, so hopefully you won't have too wait too long again! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Hamburger: Yay! I'm so glad you loved the last chapter! I'm also glad you liked the simile I used. You can definitely use that in your writing! Just make sure not to call a library 'the nursery' like I did. I didn't catch that while writing OR proofreading and then published it and realized that I called the library a nursery and stared at it for about an hour willing the word to change. Oops. I'm glad you like my descriptions, and think that the story is flowing nicely! I hope you liked this chapter, and I'm working on the next one! MWAHAHA. THE SUSPENSE. Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Pancake Unicorn: Thanks! Glad you liked the last chapter. And also, I'm super happy that you're liking the characters! That's always so exciting to hear! Yes! Excitement and mystery and intrigue is good, right? Here's another update, and hopefully the next one will be a lot sooner than this one was! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

Jaysong: HAHA! YES, IT APPEARS SHE IS! Wait, no explosion of brains allowed - are you okay? This wasn't supposed to KILL anybody! MAYBE THIS CHAPTER UN-EXPLODED YOUR BRAIN, I HOPE. I'M GLAD YOU'RE EXCITED THOUGH. And you're okay, you don't need to apologize! I'm really glad you liked this chapter and are still liking Chrysocolla (don't worry about misspelling her name!) and that you like Storm more - sorry that they both didn't appear in this chapter. And don't worry, you've said lots of important stuff in your review, and really the fact that you're taking the time to leave your thoughts means a lot to me! Tiredness happens to everybody...I'm really tired right now, actually, and I ramble all the time...hence the state of the last chapter, where it was basically one theory after another. XD. I have heard of Hamilton, but I haven't listened to it - a lot of my friends really like it, and one of them actually writes lyrics on her desk from it every day in math. I'm sorry, though, that I actually haven't listened to it. Anyway. SEE YOU NEXT CHAPTER TOO! HOPE YOU LIKED! AND HAPPY (late) VALENTINE'S DAY TO YOU TOO! Thank you for reading and reviewing!

BrightMind: Well, I'm glad the last chapter wasn't confusing, but I'm so sorry that it was random and an information overload! :( I will try not to do that again. Yes, I agree, this does resemble my mind as well. People think I'm crazy because often I will mutter angrily to myself and then reply in an equally angry voice. I'm sorry that you found the middle of the chapter a bit short of pointless; luckily, I suspect that the last chapter will be the only one with all that speculation; I'll probably stick to Cerulean's musings. I really hope I didn't lose you on the last chapter though! I'm so sorry if I disappointed you. Yes, you're right about animus magic, and how it's almost cheating to cast something to protect your soul, assuming the theory isn't correct. In addition to an object to tell her why she is a SkyWing, I was also thinking through it and wondering if Cerulean could also just enchant something to clear away the fog in everyone's minds and discover what was up with those memories, as well as find out if there are any other animus dragons in the kingdom or what Orca's motives are. But that would result in a boring story, and I'll probably cover something about the "limitations" of animus magic. Thank you for your honest opinon, and for reading and reviewing!