I do not own Wings of Fire.

Chapter Fifteen

Cerulean was lost.

The Summer Palace may not have been as big and grandiose as it once had been, but it was by no means easier to navigate, and soon Cerulean couldn't remember which direction her room was in. By now she knew Pelican would be far beyond suspicious that Cerulean hadn't finished, and Orca impatient. She needed to get inside quickly, before a search party was sent out to find her. SeaWings preferred to swim, so she was the only one in the sky around the palace, which was good because nobody was suspicious of her presence, but bad because she was very obvious and easily spotted.

She took it as a good sign that nobody yet had flown up to meet her.

She again circled what she assumed was the prince's wing of the castle, but when none of the rooms she peered into through the window looked familiar, she grew frustrated. If she thought about the layout of the palace, this set of towers should've contained the prince's chambers. But they weren't there. They weren't anywhere. She'd searched the other wings as well. Cerulean was pretty sure she'd even circled past her own room once, but she didn't know. As time elapsed, she grew wary of looking into the windows, for fear that it might be her own, or contain Orca, Pelican, or another dragon searching for her.

Her wings were aching and tired. Even with her higher-than-average flying stamina thanks to her true SkyWing roots, she'd been flying too long, and she felt she hadn't slept in days. Her head hurt from concentrating, and the mysterious cloud of forgetfulness still fogged her mind. Cerulean wished she could remember last night, but she could no longer maintain her focus on deciphering the broken thoughts she did have of the previous night. At last, she circled the towers once more and then dropped, alighting on a balcony with a quick prayer to the moons that she was safe here.

What now? What now that she couldn't find her way?

You could always go back and turn yourself in, a strange voice suggested.

No. I won't go to the Deep Palace. I refuse. I've come so far, and I'll never figure out what happened or what's going on with Orca, Eddy, or Archipelago if I go.

"Maybe I could ask Orca to stay again," Cerulean said out loud. It was a completely ridiculous idea, as the queen was firm in refusing Cerulean this wish, but the princess was tired and hopeless, and saying the sentence aloud made it sound feasible.

No. Not that either. Why are we suddenly going to the Deep Palace again? The queen was all about going slowly with my royal duties earlier. And now she's throwing me into the deep end. Literally.

She set down Wave's statue on the terrace and stared at it. It was weird, she thought. This morning she'd woken up, unaware of who the glass dragon was, or why she should be concerned that the dragon was, in fact, glass. But somehow, in the time she'd left her room with Pelican and spoken with Orca and returned, her subconscious mind had figured it out. Now, if she could trace that path back, maybe she could remember what had happened last night.

Right. She and Chrysocolla had gone to the library that night to meet with Eddy. Earlier, they'd tried to send a message to Spindrift and the other princes – Cerulean's animus magic hadn't worked. Instead, she'd seen the life of a mysterious SkyWing named Spire, who'd wanted to live forever. Okay, she could remember all that pretty well. Then they'd found Wave, who'd been turned into glass, but they couldn't find Eddy anywhere. So, they'd gone up to the princes' room, but encountered the guard on the way there. Cerulean had shown the princes and Eddy her true identity, or form, or whatever, and then Eddy had wanted to reveal a secret of his own. But whatever it was…she'd figured out the glass statue's identity, but her mind couldn't use the same method to remember what else she wanted to know.

Just go back. The Queen's looking for you.

No, Cerulean fought back. I am not going back. Not now. I will though. I promise.

Go back. Go back. Go back now. The urge was more persistent now. It wouldn't listen to her anymore. And as much as she didn't want to, she felt compelled to return to Orca. It was the right thing to do. She couldn't find her way to the princes' room from here, but she could find her way to the palace's entrance. It would be sensible to return now, when she hadn't been gone for as long, than later, when she'd surely face worse punishment. So yes. She would go back.

Besides, she figured she'd at least stop hearing the voice in her mind chant, over and over, Go back, go back, go back now. The queen's waiting for you! Come back as soon as you can!

Sweeping the glass figurine of Wave back up into her talons, she leapt off the balcony in flight. She twisted for a moment, trying to figure out where she was, and then, when she remembered that she actually didn't know where she was, she began following the perimeter of the palace. Eventually, Cerulean figured, she'd wind up at the entrance.

She was so busy watching the sandy shore and the waves lapping the ground that she didn't see the group of dragons flying swiftly in her direction, determined to catch her.

"Hey, Bolt!"

The fierce, grumpy SkyWing whirled around, poised for attack, already preparing to shoot a bolt of flame, despite the fact that the dragon had greeted her in a friendly manner and that she was in the SkyWing Palace.

"What do you want, Spire?" she spat. Smoke streamed from her nostrils, and she looked no less hostile now that she knew who had spoken to her.

Bolt was a war orphan. She'd lost both her parents to a huge massacre towards the beginning of the war. Though her parents' identity was unknown, most dragons believed that Bolt was related to the traitorous Kestrel – both dragonesses were fierce and grumpy at all times, and bore a very similar resemblance to the other. While most of the dragons in the area scurried away in fear of Bolt – ha, so much for the "SkyWing courage" General Titian was all about – Spire did not look intimidated at all. She approached the fearsome soldier with a smile on her thin snout.

"How are you?" the smaller dragon asked.

"We're in the middle of a war, for moon's sake," came the grumpy reply. "How do you think I'm doing?"

"Well, I'm doing just fine, thank you," Spire said, ignoring the hostile tone. She kept pace with the larger dragon, even as Bolt tried to widen her strides.

Spire was a fast dragon, and slight, which meant she was very good at what she did – she was a messenger, and carried some of the most valuable, top-secret information that was exchanged between the SkyWings and their allies. She was as fast or faster than dragons triple her size, but small enough that she was a difficult target, which meant she was the prefect – and only – dragoness that Queen Scarlet and Burn trusted to ensure messages were delivered safely. Well, trusted, might be too strong a word. More like, they deemed her harmless and non-threatening enough to do the work that they didn't want to do for them.

Harmless and non-threatening, ha! If they knew who she was, Spire sneered, even as she kept up her conversation with Bolt. She supposed sneering while sounding so friendly was a bit odd, but Bolt was looking determinedly anywhere except her snout, so she was safe.

"So, I heard Her Majesty made you sign up for the breeding program yesterday," Spire said, swerving away from the boring small talk into the matter that interested her the most – Bolt's future dragonet.

"Sign-up's not the word," came the red dragon's grumpy reply.

"Well, you're in the breeding program, then," Spire corrected without missing a beat. "If I'm to be honest with you, Bolt, I'm surprised Her Majesty the Queen kept the breeding program going, after what happened with Kestrel and all that."

She looked to Bolt for some sort of reaction, but the latter simply snorted.

"Well, aren't you conversational today?" Spire huffed. "Have you been assigned a partner?"

"No."

"No egg then?"

"How would I have an egg without a partner, you imbecile? Your head is too filled with clouds and thoughts of the equally idiotic Brisk to actually think logically. I can't stand to talk with dragons like you."

With that, the large dragoness leapt into flight and was quickly out of sight.

Spire sighed in exasperation. Honestly, Bolt's grumpiness was so annoying. Most dragons thought the soldier was terrifying in every aspect – Spire just pitied the dragon who would never be anything more than a faceless soldier fighting another tribe's war. But Spire, no, that was not who she was, even if she was now a messenger for a queen she had no loyalty to. She was far more important than that. Oh no, Spire, now, she was something. She was going to be the queen and live forever.

The dragons in her old life, she was sure, would probably look at her in disgust, or contempt, or confusion, because from their perspective, it looked like she was nowhere. She was a SkyWing, of all things, stuck working for Queen Scarlet in a SandWing war. Her swiftness and slightness by no means guaranteed that she would live to see peace. In fact, as the messenger, she was more likely to be killed than most of the other soldiers she worked with.

But Spire knew she was going to live to see the end. She knew because she'd seen it. And she knew that the brightest night was rapidly approaching, and that in order to become the immortal queen, she needed the egg. The SkyWing dragonet of destiny. And moons, if Kestrel's dragonets had not been hatched so early, if their lives hadn't ended (or started in the case of the monstrous firescales) in such a gruesome way, she was sure that they would've been what she needed.

But Bolt's…it, or they, however many hatched – they would look up to the three full moons and not know what a great fabulous future they had. Not for the prophecy. No, certainly not that. Who honestly believed the silly words of some pompous old NightWing? Not Spire, that was for sure. No. In the future, they held a kingdom in their talons.

I'm going to live forever. I've got a whole plan. I'll be immortal, the best queen any SeaWing's ever had. And Mother, you're going to wish you never had me.

"Cerulean!"

Cerulean jerked her head from the hypnotic shoreline that kept flashing past, shaking the last remnants of her exhaustion from her eyes. Her first instinct was that Orca had finally found her, and she was in trouble. She bared her teeth, an animus spell on her tongue, ready to hurl out in existence the moment she saw who had called her name.

Then she saw Spindrift's face, and Storm's look of relief, and realized that it was not the guards who had found her, thank the tides, but rather, her friends, minus Eddy and Chrysocolla.

"What in all of Pyrrhia are you doing out here?" she squeaked, surprised.

"We could ask you the same!" Storm asked. "But not now. We were looking for you. We need to tell you a few things, but not here. Spindrift – Archipelago – Freakwave – Azure – Puddle – where's a safe place to hide?"

"Why are we hiding?" Freakwave asked in alarm. "Oh wait, right. We're playing hide and seek."

The others ignored him, sensing urgency in Storm's voice. "We could go to our trench underwater," Spindrift suggested after a heartbeat. "Only we actually know where it is. No one would find us."

"We can't communicate very effectively underwater." Storm dismissed the idea. "It has to be somewhere no SeaWing in their right mind would think to look, because going there is so stupid, or because nobody knows that it exists."

"Like our trench," Spindrift said, looking offended that his idea had been rejected.

"The animus-testing island?" Azure suggested. "Nobody will use that because we've already tested this year's hatching."

"Too obvious," Storm said.

"SeaWing graveyard?" Puddle suggested.

"Ew, why would we want to go there?" Spindrift shuddered.

"Idiot." Puddle snapped back. "We don't want to go there, but we have to."

"I don't like that, either," Storm replied, shifting her wings and momentarily faltering in flight. She glanced behind her nervously. "SeaWings do visit the graveyard, and besides, I feel like Orca would think of that."

Come back to the palace. Go now, Cerulean,the voice willed Cerulean. A twisting feeling overtook her stomach. She needed to get back to the palace. Whatever her friends told her couldn't be as important as returning. Besides, where were Eddy and Chrysocolla? Perhaps they could return to the palace together and look for their other friends instead of running away.

And Storm was really rude to you earlier. She clearly doesn't want to be your friend. Why should you go with her?

"Let's fly," Storm instructed, beating her wings forward. "Where to?"

Cerulean blocked out the voices in her mind. She focused on what was happening now, not returning to the palace, and took a few wing beats forward. The others followed suit.

"Perhaps we could go back to the island where I was raised?" Cerulean suggested, feeling strangely optimistic at the thought of seeing her family, despite knowing they would likely not feel the same way.

"The queen would think to look there as well," Storm said. Her wings flapped, the glow-in-the-dark scales gleaming as they caught the light of the sun. "Think outside the box. Somewhere where no SeaWing in their right mind would ever want to go."

It was Archipelago who spoke. "The New Palace."

Storm beamed like a proud teacher. "Perfect. Why didn't I think of that? The queen wouldn't never think that we'd go there." She shifted her wings – they were slightly off course – and began leading the way.

"Hold it," Azure said, sounding extremely nervous. "The New Palace? What makes you think Mother wouldn't search there?"

"Honestly, Azure," Puddle replied instead of the other princess. Storm looked a bit affronted at being interrupted, but instead focused on keeping up with Cerulean, who had easily taken the lead, SkyWing blood surging through her body. "The queen's got hundreds of animus wards set up to keep Turtle from escaping and others from entering. I don't think she'd expect us to go somewhere so heavily guarded."

"But that's exactly it," Azure protested. "It's heavily warded. Surely she'd detect us if we entered?"

"You're forgetting, though," Puddle explained. "We have two animus dragons with us."

"Well, more like one and a half," Cerulean said. "Sometimes I can do magic, and other times I can't. I almost wonder if, the farther I get from the Summer Palace, it will be less likely for me to be able to cast any spells."

"One and a half animus dragons is one and a half times more than Orca ever expected to go up against the wards," Storm said. "There are, after all, at least three animus dragons that the queen actually knew about, as far as we know – herself, Waterfall, who would never, ever attempt to enter the New Palace, and you, Azure."

"And she relied on the horror stories that you'd heard of Turtle and the princesses' murder to keep you away," Puddle took over.

"So, logically speaking," Storm continued, shooting a look over her shoulder at the other SeaWing, "she wouldn't expect us to go somewhere so heavily warded, especially with what she would deem an incapable SeaWing animus." She looked apologetic. "To put it less harshly, she wouldn't expect us to go somewhere that's literally right under her nose."

"I guess that makes sense," Spindrift chirped happily. "I'm just glad to get out of the palace. We've been there for ages because Mother won't let us out. And anyway, Cerulean, we've got so much to ask you and tell you."

"But we have to wait until we get there," Storm reminded everybody.

They flew on for a few more wing beats, everybody silently lost in their own thoughts. Cerulean felt a feeling of foreboding increase inside of her, and a little whisper of the old voice, the one telling her to go back to the castle, tickled her conscious.

"What about Turtle?" Azure spoke up again. "We've all heard the stories. He's gone mad. What's to say he wouldn't kill us the moment he sees us?"

"You make it sound like he's wandering freely around the palace," Puddle said.

"Well, for all you know, he might be," Azure protested.

"You're an animus dragon, Azure," Spindrift said like his brother was the stupidest thing to ever live. "And while we're at it, Cerulean's also an animus. Plus, you've got Storm, Puddle, Freakwave – though he's probably not much help – "

"HEY!"

" – and I as well, so he's outnumbered."

"So, that's one and a half barely competent animus dragons and four scrawny weak dragonets against a fully grown, ex-animus, mad, insane, and probably bloodthirsty SeaWing ex-prince," Azure summed up, dread in his voice.

"Exactly," Spindrift said with confidence oozing out of his voice. "Keep up, will you?"

Azure and his brother continued to bicker. Freakwave was uncharacteristically silent, as was Storm, who seemed to be focusing her energy on keeping just slightly ahead of Cerulean.

The purple princess, meanwhile, was feeling the same amount of dread as the other animus in the group – perhaps more. This – this flying away and abandoning Orca wasn't right. She'd only escaped Pelican to find her friends, not run away into hiding. She'd fully intended to return to the queen after she'd spoken with them. And now here they were, flying away on swift wing beats. Weren't they blowing this out of proportion? Surely whatever Storm needed to tell her could've been reported at the palace?

These doubts and fears crawled into her mind, invading her gut instinct of yes, you need to run and get away from the palace. And then, paranoia set in.

It was the strangest thing. Cerulean had never been a confident dragon. She'd always had the feeling of being stuck inside the wrong body – a feeling that had been justified – and she'd always feared for the worst. But she'd never been paranoid. Not like this.

Because suddenly friends were enemies, and the moons were eyes watching her every move, and the water was whispering all her secrets for everyone to hear, and there was nowhere safe in the world, and she couldn't see, but she knew she was falling, falling, falling, and waiting for the sound of her world shattering in her ears.

She blinked and realized that she'd sped up quite a bit. Storm was puffing to keep up, and failing in doing so.

No, Cerulean couldn't run away. That wasn't part of the plan. She was needed. Needed for Orca, needed for the kingdom, needed to be queen. And as suddenly as the paranoia had set in, she was whirling around and flying swiftly back the way she'd come. Her friends called after her, but she said nothing.

Orca hadn't even done anything worthy of Cerulean's betrayal. Because by flying away from her queen, Cerulean was betraying her. Her friends, no, they wouldn't understand. Orca had been there for Cerulean when her own family hadn't. Orca had been the guiding light out of the darkness. She never would've been here if it weren't for Orca. Her friends – they weren't worth it. They weren't worth giving up the throne and leaving Orca heartbroken. What if, by leaving, she killed Orca somehow, of sorrow or betrayal? Who would rule the throne when Orca was dead?

Her mind wasn't her own anymore.

The figurine of Wave was burning her talons.

So many things were happening. Her mind was chaos. Visions of Spire the SkyWing pressed into her skull, down on her eyes. I'm going to live forever I'm going to live forever I'm going to live forever you'll be sorry if they knew who I was ha.

And then she'd dropped the statue, and the glass gleamed in the light of the sun as it fell, fell, fell, and Cerulean heard the sound of shattering eggs as the little figure disappeared beneath the ocean, lost forever.

Wing beats. She looked up, expecting to see her friends, but they were little more than specks in the distance, growing steadily nearer, but not near enough to be heard. Cerulean breathed heavily, wondering what had just happened, what she'd just done. Had she just murdered Wave, she wondered briefly, and then Chrysocolla was by her side, out of breath and exhausted but there.

"Chrysocolla!" Cerulean said, overjoyed to see her friend alive and well. "Oh, thank the moons. What happened? Last night, I can't – "

The look of fear on Chrysocolla's face silenced the princess.

"What – what is it?"

Chrysocolla caught her breath, gripping Cerulean's forearms as the two hovered in midair. Then she spoke, her voice breathless but firm. One simple word: "Run."

Author's Note: I can't even begin to apologize enough for my lack of presence on this cite. I could go on with excuses, but I don't want to trouble you with that. I hate to say it, but I fear that for this story, and most of my other Wings of Fire fanfics, updates are going to be very, very sporadic. I'm working on updating my profile with more info on everything, but this might be the last chapter for a bit. I hate updating quickly just to say I updated, and I'd rather sit down and write the best chapter I can in the time I have for quality writing, which nowadays is rare. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed!

I'm sorry, I don't have the time to reply to all of my awesome reviewers, so just know that I'm endlessly grateful for all of your feedback and support! Thank you thank you thank you x googolplex. I figured that it would be better to get this completed chapter out, so thank you so much to:

Fatespeaker, DOY DOY DOYADOY, WofDoggy, jade334, InsertNameHere, Jaysong, Giest, thepicduck, Ghostpelt of ThunderClan, DragonFlame1380, HaveaQueenysummer, and Icestalker!