Deserter
Ocotillo is a loyal SandWing who is always working hard for the benefit of others, especially the queen. So when the youngest SandWing princess, Blaze, wanders off during a sandstorm, he and his friends don't think twice before trying to rescue her. But he will soon find out that loyalty isn't always enough to stay safe. When war breaks out, it could end up costing him everything he loves…
Unlike most dragons, Ocotillo had a relatively happy childhood. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than most SandWings could ask for.
His mother was a cook in Queen Oasis's kitchen and his father was one of the queen's top guards. Cholla and Tortoise's lives were devoted to the queen, but their son came a close second. The family was almost always together.
His father taught him how to keep watch and how to fight and how to defend his queen at all costs. His mother taught him how to make special treats like camel shish kebabs, date soufflés, roasted fox ears, banana mash cookies, dried lizard, coriander seed cakes, and snake egg omelets.
Ocotillo loved growing up in the SandWing palace, surrounded by open sky and rolling desert dunes as far as the eye could see in every direction. He learned to fly earlier than any of the other dragonets at his age. He signed up for patrols, whether it was harvesting brightsting cacti or hunting desert foxes or firebombing suspected dragonbite viper lairs. He liked being useful.
He had a friend - a SandWing dragonet named Six-Claws. His parents also worked in the palace, so the two friends did practically everything together. Cholla would often say that the pair could almost be brothers.
And of course, since their parents were loyal to Queen Oasis, Ocotillo and Six-Claws were loyal to her as well. If anyone asked, they could have rattled off a list of reasons why she was a great queen. This was a conversation they heard regularly around the dinner table in the small barracks rooms assigned to their families.
It wasn't until Ocotillo was three and Six-Claws was five that they learned there might one day be a different SandWing queen.
That is, they knew intellectually, from school lessons, that a queen's daughter, granddaughter, sister, or niece could challenge her to a fight to the death, and whoever won would be queen. But neither Ocotillo nor Six-Claws had ever imagined anyone doing that to the current queen.
They were in the kitchens one afternoon, Ocotillo washing date fruits for his mother while Six-Claws pounded beetles into a glittering black powder for his father. In the corner, Six-Claws's two sisters, Caracal and Ecru, were playing Dragons and Vipers.
Six-Claws's mother, Ostrich, came into the kitchen, nudging her son affectionately with her wing as she passed. His father, Quicksand, looked up from one of the cauldrons, steam obscuring his face.
"Did you hear?" Ostrich asked. "Another princess hatched today. The queen is calling her Blaze."
"Really?" Cholla grabbed a talonful of clean dates to use in her soufflé. "She's keeping her, then?"
"Her Majesty has always said she'd allow three heirs, no more," said Tortoise, heating a pot of milk with his fire breath. "So if she keeps Blaze, one of the others has to go."
Quicksand snorted. "That's easy. The one who likes cutting the legs off jackrabbits just to see what they'll do." He wrinkled his snout. "There was one flopping around the courtyard shrieking for an hour yesterday. Do you know how hard it is to stuff olives under those conditions?"
"She's creepy," Ostrich agreed. "But the one Queen Oasis should get rid of is the other daughter, Blister. That dragon always looks like she's trying to murder you with her eyes. But it won't be either of them. It'll be the queen's sister, you'll see. She's much closer to challenging Her Majesty than the daughters are. It makes sense to dispose of her."
"Does it?" asked Tortoise. "Last I checked, none of the other queens placed restrictions on the number of heirs they have. Some, I've heard, have been lucky to even have just one heir."
"I rather like Princess Aloe," said Cholla. "She's a nice dragon. Princess Barb, on the other talon, was absolutely dreadful."
"Mommy?" Ocotillo interrupted. "Why would anyone wanna challenge the queen?"
"To become the next queen," Tortoise answered with an amused expression. "Because she thinks she'd be better at it than the current queen."
"No one could be a better queen than Queen Oasis!" Six-Claws insisted forcefully.
"That's absolutely right, dear," Ostrich said, wrapping one wing around him. "Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be queen for a long while yet. Although whoever comes after her, we'll be loyal to her, too."
"But what if they're way worse than Queen Oasis?" Ocotillo asked. "I don't wanna have a bad queen."
Cholla smiled. "I know, sweetie. We don't either. But sometimes that's how things happen." She nudged him affectionately with her wing. "And if that does end up happening, then we'll hope that whoever comes next will be better."
Ostrich was right about one thing: by the next day, Princess Aloe, the queen's one remaining sister, had vanished into thin air, and no one ever mentioned her name again.
After that, Ocotillo watched the SandWing princesses differently. Now they weren't just royalty. They were deadly. They were a potential threat to the queen.
Well...two of them were.
The youngest daughter, Princess Blaze, turned out to be one of the silliest dragonets Ocotillo had ever met. As soon as she could walk, she started following any dragon she could find who was wearing sparkly treasure. The more sparkles, the better; she had a knack for zeroing in on the dragons with the most glittering jewelry.
Six-Claws suspected that if Blaze ever killed her mother, it wouldn't be for power or a throne; it would be for a pair of diamond earrings. And Ocotillo said that she wouldn't do it with her claws or fire - she'd do it by annoying the queen to death.
Ocotillo watched the princesses for two years, but his first interaction with them didn't come until he was five years old...
"My sisters are up to something."
Ocotillo looked up, squinting at the figure silhouetted against the blinding sun. He'd been harvesting from his mother's personal garden of banana palm trees for the better part of the morning. His muscles ached mildly, and his scales were hot enough to fry snake eggs on.
"Sisters are always up to something," he said, resting his arms on a low branch. "Six-Claws has two of them, so he should know."
"True. But whatever my sisters are planning could bring down the kingdom." The other dragon turned his head into the light, and Ocotillo tensed, recognizing Prince Smolder. The prince was from the same hatching as Princess Blister, so he was four years older than Ocotillo. He, Six-Claws, and the prince had been on several missions together, although they'd rarely spoken to each other.
And Smolder was right. His sisters were not ordinary dragons.
"Which sisters?" Ocotillo asked. "How do you know?"
"Burn and Blister," said the prince. "They've been whispering together all morning."
That was definitely a bad sign. The two older princesses generally avoided each other as much as possible. If they were conspiring, that could only mean bad things for someone. And Ocotillo had a suspicion about who it would be.
"Why are you telling me?" he asked cautiously.
"Well," Smolder said, "I'm not sure what else to do. You seem kind of strong and sensible. I was hoping you could come up with something." He flicked his venomous tail around and sat down with an expectant expression.
"I'm not really as 'strong' and 'sensible' as you think," Ocotillo said. "But my friend Six-Claws is. Maybe you should go and ask him what to do."
The prince looked thoughtful for a moment. "Maybe I will. Let me guess, he's the one with six claws on his feet."
"Yep, that's him," Ocotillo chuckled at Smolder's quip. When he didn't get a reply, he turned around to find the prince had left.
Now alone, he had time to review his options. He could keep working on the bananas, which would undoubtedly earn him an extra banana mash cookie as a reward from his pleased mother. He could warn Queen Oasis, who may or may not listen to him or think that he was being paranoid over nothing. He could try to stop Burn and Blister himself, which he didn't think was a good option considering the deadly looks they had on their faces every time he saw them.
Ocotillo loved Cholla's banana mash cookies as much as the next dragon, but he had to go with the fourth option: find Princess Blaze before something terrible happened to her. Which did not sound like his job at all, but he couldn't just sit back and do nothing.
The wingery was close by; he could check there first. Most dragonets in the palace played in the shelter of its walls until they were two years old, under the watchful eye of a pair of ancient SandWings. Ocotillo remembered their creaky voices telling stories about how they'd taught young Oasis to fly when she was just a tiny mite herself. The wingery was open to anyone who lived in the palace, so the children of servants and nobles all grew up together - princess and future pot-scrubbers side by side.
With no time to waste, he hopped onto the wall of the garden and flew there instead of taking the cooler indoor passageways.
The courtyard for the dragonets featured a sunken pool in the middle, where they could splash and cool off in the midday heat. This was overlooked by a shaded pavilion with long white curtains on the three open sides. Ocotillo had spent his fair share of time in that pavilion, learning how to read and write and count little piles of red pebbles.
The rest of the courtyard was set up to help the dragonets learn to fly: ledges at different heights, soft piles of sand to land in, claw holds and perches everywhere. And of course, in one corner, a first aid station stocked with lots of brightsting cactus, which was the only antidote to the venom in a SandWing's tail. The venom didn't come in until a dragonet was closer to three years old - luckily for everyone - but at this age they had a tendency to crash into everything or leap onto their parents without looking first, so there was a lot of bandaging and antidote-administering required. The young dragons also spent a lot of time practicing how to be aware of their tails and everyone else's, so they could eventually be safely released into the rest of the palace.
Ocotillo flew down to the courtyard, finding Six-Claws's sisters playing among the other dragonets.
"Have either of you seen Princess Blaze?" he asked.
"No," Ecru said. "Why? Is she missing?"
"She might be," said Ocotillo. "If Burn and Blister have acted already."
"I could help you look," offered Caracal.
"I'd appreciate that," he said, unable to hide his smile. There was something about her that made Ocotillo's heart race.
Something whooshed past them, sending sand flying everywhere. Six-Claws stuck his head between the curtains of the pavilion and an entire class of SandWing dragonets twisted around to stare at him.
"Yes?" snapped the wizened old dragon at the front.
"Is Princess Blaze here?" Six-Claws asked.
The teacher snorted. "Do you see anyone drawing tiaras in the margins of their history scrolls? Then, no."
"Why would you draw anything on a history scroll?" Caracal asked no one in particular. "I'll never understand some dragons."
"Sorry to bother you," Ocotillo said. "Do you know where she might be?"
"My guess? Drooling over a pile of gems or sharing adoring sighs with a mirror somewhere," he snapped. "Stop interrupting our lesson."
"I can help you look," offered the dragon beside the teacher, and Ocotillo noticed him for the first time. He was older than the other dragonets, probably about four years old, with powerful sandy-yellow wings and flashing black eyes.
"Your mother said to stay here and learn the job," the teacher growled.
"Oh, but this sounds very important, Limestone," the other dragon answered, practically leaping over the little dragonets between him and the small group of friends. "I'm sure I'll be back soon!" He seized Six-Claws by the arm and muttered, "Let's go, quick."
Ocotillo, Caracal and Six-Claws backed out of the pavilion and jumped to the nearest balcony. The young dragon followed them, ignoring Limestone's wheezing shouts, and then they all soared up to one of the higher palace towers. The wind tugged at their wings with unusual strength, and when Ocotillo glanced up, he realized the sky was darker than it should be for midday in the desert.
"Thank you for getting me out of there," the dragon panted as they landed. "I'm Dune."
"I'm Ocotillo, and this is my friend Six-Claws and his sister Caracal. What was that all about?"
Dune immediately looked at Six-Claws's talons - yes, he had six claws on each of his front feet instead of the usual five; thanks so much for letting everyone know right away, Ostrich and Quicksand - and then tried very hard to pretend that he hadn't. "I'm supposed to be in training to become a teacher. My parents are both teachers, and they think working in a wingery forever would be just the perfect job for me." He wrinkled his snout.
"You sound thrilled about that idea," Six-Claws said. He was only half listening; his attention was on the palace compound spread out below them as he searched for any sign of the littlest princess. Far off on the western horizon, a wall of ominous clouds was gathering.
"I guess minding dragonets runs in the family," Dune said. He shuddered. "But I hope I don't have to do it for the rest of my life. Dragonets are so aggravating. I want to be a soldier! I want to fight in battles and do glorious things and be a hero!" He flared his wings enthusiastically. "What do you want to do?"
"Whatever my heart leads to," Ocotillo answered, with complete honesty. He wanted to choose how to live his life and be as helpful to other dragons as possible. "Now let's think. Where could Blaze be?"
"The royal treasury," Dune said promptly. "Hoping her mother will come by to unlock it so she can roll in the jewels. That dragonet is as bad as a scavenger. I'm not sure she thinks about anything except treasure, and she doesn't even care about which items are worth more than others. We tried to turn her obsession into a math lesson, but she prefers the prettiest ones, even if they're fake."
"Go check the treasury," Six-Claws said. He turned toward the other side of the tower, intending to search the other pools - then something caught his attention.
Ocotillo followed his friend's line of sight, and he saw it, too.
A flash of light out in the desert.
A tremor of movement across the sand.
A small dragonet, trekking out toward the incoming storm.
"What is she doing?!" he yelped. He couldn't tell for sure that it was Blaze, but whoever it was needed to get back to the palace right away.
"Whoa," Dune said, squinting beside them. "Is that the princess? Why would she be out in the dunes by herself? By all the lizards, she's going to get crushed by that sandstorm."
"Get help," Six-Claws said. He shoved Caracal back and spread his wings. "Tell the queen, if you can."
"You're going to get her?" Dune said. "Why? You'll both get crushed."
"Because you never leave dragonets in danger," Caracal answered, startled that anyone would need to have that explained to him.
"You don't? Even if it means risking your own - all right, all right," Dune said, cutting himself off at the looks on their faces. "No dragonets in danger, got it."
Six-Claws and Ocotillo threw themselves off the tower in unison and soared over the palace and out into the desert, beating their wings as fast as they could.
Six-Claws was faster and stronger than Ocotillo, and he was lucky to be. By the time he caught up to Princess Blaze, the wind was whipping furiously around them, flinging harsh particles of sand into their eyes.
But she was still struggling onward, walking instead of flying, her wings tucked in and her head bent and her eyes closed.
Six-Claws landed in front of her and spread his wings, shielding her from the storm for a moment. She rubbed her face and looked up at him, blinking in surprise.
Ocotillo managed to arrive just in time to hear his friend ask, "Where are you going?"
"To get my favorite crown," she said spiritedly. "Don't you try to stop me, you big-shouldered bighead!"
Six-Claws tilted his head. "What crown?"
"The one Agave stole and hid out here, according to Camel, who heard it from Parch, who is her best friend, so it's completely true, and I'm going to get it back, because it's MINE and Mommy gave it to me." Blaze suddenly sat down and lifted her chin. "Unless you go get it for me. Ooo, that sounds like a good idea."
"We can't," Ocotillo said. "This storm is too dangerous." And I'm guessing that whole story is a lie planted somewhere along the way by Burn and Blister, he thought. "You must get back to the palace."
"NO!" Blaze shouted. "I want what's mine." She tried to stomp past them, but the wind immediately seized her wings and flung her backward onto the sand.
"Ow!" she cried, trying to sit up. "That hurt! Something hurt me!"
Ocotillo and Six-Claws looked over their shoulders. An enormous wall of dust clouds was bearing down on them, reaching from the sand all the way up to the sky and moving fast. There was no more time to treat the princess like precious royalty.
"We have to go!" Ocotillo shouted. He and Six-Claws threw their arms around her, pinning her wings to her sides, and lunged into the air.
"My crooooooooowwwwwn!" she wailed. She plunked her head on Six-Claws's shoulder and cried all the way back to the palace.
The princess was heavier than she looked, but the wind was with them now, hurtling them in front of the storm. As they got closer, Ocotillo could see doors and windows slamming closed all over the palace. The dragons were preparing for the onslaught of sand.
"Wait!" Six-Claws shouted as loud as he could. "Wait for us! We're coming!"
And then finally, as their strength began to give out and they felt the cloud right on their tails, Ocotillo saw a shutter open in one of the walls. Dune leaned out, waving a huge white cloth to get their attention.
Ocotillo and Six-Claws put on one last burst of speed and threw themselves through the open window, tucking themselves to crash-land on the floor with Blaze on top of them. They skidded part of the way across the room, and they could hear the cries of dragons leaping out of their way.
"Did you bring the entire desert in with you?" one of them yelped.
"Idiots! Waiting till the last minute!"
"Don't you know anything about sandstorms?"
"We should have left you out there!"
"Hey, that's Princess Blaze," said someone else, and a kind of hush fell over the room.
Ocotillo blinked, feeling sand cascading from the corners of his eyes. His vision was still blurred, but he could see that they were in one of the great halls where Oasis hosted feasts and dances. Normally sunlight filled the hall, but it was dark with all the shutters and doors closed, and only a few torches had been lit so far. Circles of warm firelight reflected off the scales and dark eyes of the dragons gathered around them.
He let go of the princess and sat up, trying to catch some of the sand that slid off his wings before it made even more of a mess on the floor.
"RrrrrrROAR!" Blaze shouted, shoving him away. She jumped to her feet and shook herself vigorously, covering him and the room and the dragons around them with even more sand. "You ruined everything and now I'll never find it! MOOOMMY!"
"Your mother is overseeing the sandstorm lockdown," said a tall, burly dragon, shoving through the crowd to stand over her. "So you can tell me what exactly you were doing so far outside the palace."
Blaze puffed up her chest. "You're not the boss of me!"
"I'm one of them," he said sternly. "I am your father."
Ocotillo tried to rub away the grit in his eyes so he could see better. Char was the queen's husband, referred to by most SandWings as the king, although he had only as much power as Queen Oasis let him have. Sometimes he went everywhere with the queen, welcomed into advisory meetings and diplomatic gatherings, and then sometimes they would fight and he'd be exiled from the palace for months at a time.
According to Ocotillo's parents, it was safest to be polite and respectful to Char, but never get too close, because you wouldn't want the queen to associate you with him the next time Char fell out of favor.
As Blaze launched into a long, complicated story about her friends and her stolen crown, Ocotillo turned and found Caracal and Dune behind him, wide-eyed.
"You were so brave," Caracal said. "Both of you." She smiled at her brother, then at Ocotillo.
His heart started racing again.
"That was alarming," Dune said. "I thought you weren't going to make it back."
Six-Claws shrugged. "We did. I'd better go shake off this sand in one of the baths."
"Father," said a cold voice, slicing through Blaze's breathless narrative. "Shouldn't we ask the names of the dragons who took our little sister out into such terrible danger?"
A chill like midnight in the desert slithered down Ocotillo's spine. He watched the crowd part around Princess Blister as she stepped forward. Her obsidian-black eyes raked over them. He could practically see her mind analyzing him and Six-Claws and fitting them into a category - something like Irksome Nuisances or Idiots Who Ruined My Plan.
"They didn't take her out there!" Caracal said, raising her tail defensively. "They saw her out there alone and rescued her, that's what they did!"
"Ah," said Blister. Her tail rattled softly on the floor. "Really. How heroic."
"Right," said Caracal, subsiding. "That's what they are. Their names are Ocotillo, Six-Claws and Dune."
"SIX-Claws?" Blaze interrupted. She wriggled out of her father's arms and flounced over to inspect Six-Claws's talons. "Ew! Three moons! You really do have six claws on each foot! That's so weird! I can't believe you touched me with those!" She leaned closer to stare at the extra claws, then jumped back quickly when he pulled his talons into his chest.
Ocotillo nudged his friend's tail with his own. No one had made fun of Six-Claws's odd talons in years, not since his first month in the wingery. He'd always worked hard to prove that it made no difference - he was as valuable as any other dragon. It didn't change anything about what he could do. It just...looked odd.
"Yeeeeeeee," Blaze said scornfully. She held out her own perfect, beautiful talons, decorated with three glittering rings. "I'm so glad I have the right number of claws."
Right then, Ocotillo decided that Princess Blaze would not be a good queen of the SandWings. Who would want a queen who cared about treasure and physical beauty more than anything else?
He didn't think that Six-Claws's talons were creepy; he thought they were cool. And, since they were friends, did it really matter anyway?
"I'm sure what my daughter is trying to say," Char interjected, "is thank you for saving her life." He gently steered Blaze away from Six-Claws, toward the mirrors across the hall. The little SandWing took one look at herself, gasped in horror, and stormed off toward the baths, radiating outrage.
"We should reward such brave heroes," Blister purred, slithering an inch closer to the group. "I can think of a few missions they'd be perfect for..."
A few missions we're not likely to come back from, Ocotillo thought with a shiver.
"I have a better idea," Char said, cutting her off. Blister narrowed her eyes at him, but he didn't seem to notice. "Brave and strong and swift fliers for your age - how would you two like to join the army? We could use soldiers like you. You could make your way up to captain pretty fast, maybe generals one day."
"If that's what the queen wants, sir," Six-Claws said.
Ocotillo nodded. It was probably safer than whatever Blister had in mind for him. His father would approve. And soldiers were useful, weren't they? Even in times of peace, like now, there were always skirmishes going on with the SkyWings or IceWings.
"I'll see to it," Char said with a nod.
Something jabbed Ocotillo in the side and he whipped around, tail up, before realizing it was Dune, with a very meaningful expression on his face.
"Uh," Ocotillo said. "Our, um...our friend Dune helped, too."
"And me," Caracal said.
"Oh, yes?" said Char. "Would you two like to join the army as well?"
"Yes, please, sir!" Dune said eagerly.
"Hmmm. You're a bit young, but we can put you in basic training for now. I'll have you four assigned to the same battalion." Char nodded again, looking pleased with himself, and wandered away.
Outside, the wind was howling and rattling the shutters with enormous fury. Ocotillo had a feeling he'd be sweeping sand out of every crevice in the palace tomorrow.
Except he wouldn't be, if Char did as he'd promised. He'd be in soldier training instead, set on a path to a new future. With a new friend, apparently; Dune was beaming from ear to ear, as though Ocotillo and Six-Claws had saved him instead of Blaze.
He felt eyes watching him, and when he turned, he saw Blister fix a malevolent glare on him before she slipped out of the room.
I mustn't forget I have a new enemy now, too.
And a new reason to hope that Queen Oasis lives for a very, very long time.
The best part? Ocotillo's mother was so proud of her son that he ended up getting that extra banana mash cookie for dessert after all.
The day Queen Oasis died, Ocotillo's smile was as bright as the sun and as vast as the desert beneath his talons. Today was the day he and Caracal would be wed, with Six-Claws's blessing of course.
It was a small wedding, nothing fancy, with only their parents in attendance and Dune as the officiator. Six-Claws stood at Ocotillo's side, and Ecru at her sister's.
It was an inevitable event, everyone could see how much the two were in love with one another.
They were off duty that night. That is, they were not scheduled for any soldiers' duties, but they were on duty in a different way: watching over a weeping prince to make sure he didn't do anything regrettable.
"She's gone," Smolder sobbed, plunking his head on his arms and flopping his wings over the table. Several glasses of cactus cider went crashing to the floor and shattered around their talons. "I'm never going to see her again."
Smolder's two brothers exchanged an exasperated glance over his head.
"That's your own fault," said Singe. He nudged a shard of glass away from his feet and beckoned for Dune to sweep it up. "If you hadn't made it so serious, Mother wouldn't have had to intervene."
"You know how she feels about any of us getting married," Scald agreed. "You've always known it."
"Yeah, it's a simple policy," said Singe. "No marriage, no dragonets, no extra heirs causing problems. As long as we follow the queen's rules, she leaves us alone."
"Couldn't you keep it casual like the rest of us?" Scald added. "I have three girlfriends right now and everyone's perfectly happy and not serious. And safe." He lifted his claws as Dune swept around them. Six-Claws slid another pitcher of cider onto the table.
"But Palm was different," Smolder cried. "I loved her. We would have gone away forever and never come back! Mother didn't ever have to see us again!" He lifted his head and turned teary, pleading eyes to Ocotillo. "Have you heard anything? Do you know where she is?"
"No," Ocotillo admitted uncomfortably. "I'm sorry." Ever since he'd overheard that conversation in the kitchens at age three, he knew that Queen Oasis was not as perfect as everyone made her out to be. Like any other dragon, she had her flaws. No other queen had placed restrictions on the number of heirs they had. It didn't seem fair to Ocotillo, not at all. Now that Caracal was his wife, he couldn't imagine being forbidden from loving her.
"Smolder, come on," Singe said, sitting down beside him and putting one wing over his younger brother's back. "You're not an idiot. You know perfectly well she's dead."
"She isn't," Smolder yelled, flinging him off. "She can't be! Mother is cruel but she wouldn't do that."
"Of course she would," Scald said. "Do you really not remember our aunts? And how they vanished in this exact same way?"
Ocotillo retreated to the far wall, where he could stare out the window. He didn't like to be reminded of the terrible things Queen Oasis had done to hang on to her throne - and whatever she'd done to Palm hit a little too close to home. He knew Palm. She'd worked in the kitchens with his mother and Six-Claws's father for a little while, back before both Quicksand and Char had died from the weird sickness that swept the palace a few years ago.
Palm was a sweet, clever, nervous dragon who adored Smolder and was terrified of the queen. She would never have raised dragonets to challenge Oasis. He was sure she would have happily disappeared into the desert with Smolder and never bothered the queen again.
But they'd been caught while they were trying to elope, and now Palm had really disappeared, most likely never to bother anyone ever again.
He sighed, staring out at the three crescent moons that carved up the sky. Caracal joined him, her tail twined around his. A shadow flashed overhead, huge and moving fast. Was that...the queen? Flying out of the palace at this hour of the night?
That was strange.
"Why doesn't she just kill me, too?" Smolder wailed. There was another *thump*, and another *crash* of glass splintering.
"I'm sorry, Smolder," Ocotillo sighed. He didn't know what else he could say.
Dune sidled up beside Six-Claws. "Hey. Did you hear what General Needle said about me today?"
"Something admiring, I assume." Six-Claws smiled at his friend. After all these years, they were still grouped together by everyone, for everything. Six-Claws had risen to colonel in the SandWing army, and Dune was always a few steps behind him - a captain at the moment, but sure to become a major any day. Ocotillo was happy just being a regular, everyday soldier, but he always went wherever they did.
"She said I have more promise than any officer she's ever seen." Dune lifted his chin, glowing with pride. "She said I have extraordinarily strong wings for a SandWing - almost like a SkyWing's! She said I'd be commanding armies of my own in no time."
"She's right," Six-Claws agreed.
"Maybe you two should get married," Ocotillo said jokingly. His smile disappeared when his comment made Smolder collapse into a heap of sobs.
"Do you smell something weird?" Caracal asked.
"No," said Dune, sounding ruffled. "Can we get back to talking about how amazing I am, please?"
Six-Claws stuck his nose out the window, sniffing. "It smells like...mammal. But not one of the usual desert animals."
Suddenly a fierce roar tore through the night. A blast of fire lit up the sky beyond the palace wall, followed by more roaring, wild and agonized as though someone was being murdered.
"What is that?" Dune cried.
In the room behind them, all three princes were on their feet, blinking and startled.
"It sounded like Mother," said Scald. "But I thought she was asleep."
"Let's go find out." Ocotillo darted out of the room with the others behind him. They raced to the nearest courtyard, opened their wings, and flowed over the palace rooftops. The roaring had stopped, leaving only echoes like shredded holes in the air.
Other dragons joined them, calling to one another in confusion, and so it was a fair crowd that came over the top of the outer walls together...
...and found the queen lying dead in the sand.
Somebody shrieked, a long wordless cry of rage. It might have been Scald, or it might have been Six-Claws's mother, Ostrich, now pushing past everyone to crouch beside the body. It might have been both of them, or himself, or everyone together.
"Who did this?" Ostrich yelled. "Who killed our queen?"
"Was there a duel?" another dragon asked. "Did I miss it?"
"I didn't hear about a challenge," Singe answered, looking around blankly. "In the middle of the night? Out here? With no witnesses?"
Burn suddenly landed with a violent *thump* on the sand, knocking two dragons over. She stormed forward and glared down at the queen's corpse, quivering with rage.
Ostrich swallowed and took a step back, dipping her head to signal cautious respect.
Burn just stood there, breathing heavily.
After a moment, Ostrich ventured, "Was it you, Your Highness? Are you now our queen?"
Burn growled, low and deep in her throat. "No," she snarled. "I didn't kill her." Ostrich started to raise her head and Burn snapped, "But it wasn't Blister either! I just saw her!"
"Was it...Blaze, then?" someone in the crowd asked.
There was an awkward pause as everyone tried to imagine the queen's spacey daughter successfully attacking her. Ocotillo looked around and realized Blaze wasn't even there. She probably slept right through all this noise. Wearing jeweled earplugs or buried in expensive pillows.
"It wasn't any of us," Blister's voice said icily from a shadow near the palace wall. She stalked across the sand, flicking her tail menacingly. "Mother wasn't killed by any of her daughters."
She faced Burn across the queen's body, each of them sizzling with coiled tension. Burn was older and bigger than Blister, with more battle experience and the scars to show for it. But Ocotillo knew that Blister was smarter...and that made him truly unsure who would win in a fight.
"So..." Singe asked carefully. "If none of you killed her...then, um...who's our next queen?"
Blister hissed, dragging one claw through the sand. "I was going to challenge her soon," she said.
"So was I," Burn snapped back.
Ocotillo wondered if that was true for either of them. As scary as they were, it was hard to imagine either of them defeating Queen Oasis.
But clearly someone had. Why would anyone murder the queen, unless it was to get her throne?
Revenge, his mind whispered. Beyond his sisters, lit by the pale moonlight, Smolder's eyes were shining. He was nothing but happy to see his mother dead.
But Ocotillo and his friends had been with Smolder when they'd heard the roars. Even if Smolder had wanted to kill his mother for what happened to Palm, he couldn't have done it tonight.
"Maybe you two should fight right now," Scald suggested to his sisters. "Whoever wins gets to be queen. That seems fair, right?"
Blister shot him an unreadable but unpleasant look.
"Not exactly fair to Blaze, though," Singe pointed out, and got his own withering glare from both sisters. "Yeah, all right, I know. You two duke it out."
The idea made sense to Ocotillo. A simple fight to the death, the way it had always been, with an obvious winner. The SandWings needed a queen. They should get it over with.
Years later, Ocotillo would often try to imagine how history might have turned out if the sisters had fought that night. He could never decide if it would have been better - no twenty-year war - or worse - one of these two as queen of the SandWings, unchallenged and unstoppable.
Burn curled her talons, ready to lunge at her sister.
"This hardly seems like the time or place," Blister said calmly, taking a slight step away from Burn. "I mean, priorities, my dear brothers. Surely first we must find out who did this to our poor beloved mother." She tilted her head at Burn and whispered, "Besides, we don't have the Eye of Onyx."
Not many dragons heard her, but Ocotillo was close enough to catch her words. He didn't understand them, though. There was an Eye of Onyx in the treasury, but what did that have to do with dueling for the throne?
"Right," Burn said, slowly opening her claws again. "Of course. Who killed our mother. That's what we need to figure out," she said, raising her voice to address all the gathered dragons. "Admit it now, whoever did this! Don't make us start gouging out your eyes!"
A shuffling flutter ran through the crowd as everyone stared at everyone else, searching for a guilty expression or bloody talons.
Bloody talons, Ocotillo thought. How did the queen die? He looked down at the sand around the body, searching for clues. He noticed that the odd mammal smell was stronger out here. And then he saw for the first time that there was a small spear sticking out of the queen's eye.
He crouched, peering closer. It wasn't a dragon-sized spear; it was only about as long as his foreleg and so thin he could probably snap it between his teeth. Was this what had killed her? This tiny thing?
He scanned the rest of her body for other wounds and discovered the strangest thing of all.
Someone had cut off her venomous tail barb.
"Three moons," he said. "Who would -"
"Search the area," Burn commanded. She seemed to be swelling to twice her normal size, her wings flaring and her voice suddenly ringing like a queen's. "Whoever did this can't have gotten far. We will find them and punish them!"
The SandWings immediately spread out and started shooting flames into all the shadows or poking the dunes with their tails. Their shouts and growls filled the night, and Ocotillo thought he would not want to be the murderer, hiding somewhere nearby. Even anything that wasn't the murderer, like a desert rat, was liable to get stomped by a crusading dragon tonight.
He stared at the small spear again.
Everything started to click into place in his brain.
That scent...
The spear was too small for dragons...but there was one other animal that was rumored to use spears.
An animal notorious for trying to steal treasure from dragons, no matter how often they got eaten in the process.
"Hey!" Smolder shouted, digging in a sand dune several feet away. "I found something!"
Burn's head snapped up. "What is it?" she barked.
"It's -" Smolder stopped and looked up, confusion written all over his face. "It's a scavenger."
The next few years passed in an exhausting blur. Ocotillo was one of the dragons who chased down the scavengers that had escaped with the queen's tail barb and the stolen treasure; he was there when Burn set their dens on fire and burned all the scavengers' homes to the ground. He helped to hunt through the ashes and then, when they found no treasure, flew back to the palace behind Burn, only to discover that the SandWing treasury had been completely emptied. Four rooms full of gems and gold - all of it gone, vanished into thin air, presumably stolen by the scavengers, although no one could figure out how or where they'd put it.
He was there for the councils and arguments and trials that followed, everyone fighting over who should be the next queen and how it should be decided. He was in the palace the night that Blister took off with half the army, and he was there the night Blaze escaped and fled north with a squadron of loyal guards. In fact, both times he was approached by friends and fellow soldiers, asking him to join them in supporting the dragon they wanted to be queen.
He said yes, because he knew that Blaze was not dangerous. She wasn't likely to brutally punish him for losing an important battle. That's not to say he thought she'd be a good queen, because he didn't. But between the bloodthirsty Burn and the conniving Blister, Ocotillo would gladly take the gentlest of the three.
The same went for Cholla and Tortoise, and also Caracal, his beloved wife, who stood by him the whole way through, even when her brother chose to support Burn instead.
They ended up having to flee the desert, up north towards the Ice Kingdom, where Princess Blaze somehow managed to earn protection from the IceWings. It wasn't until later that Ocotillo learned that this was because she'd foolishly offered them a large area of land from the Ice Kingdom to where the desert starts.
It wasn't a matter of weeks. The war dragged on, and on, and on for years, and in that time Ocotillo saw way too many of his friends die in battle, and he fought way too many faces he had once considered brothers-in-arms.
But he kept fighting. He did as he was ordered. He stayed loyal to Queen Blaze, because loyalty ran deep in his blood...and because he didn't see any other choice.
It was getting harder, though. He was there the day Six-Claws's mother, Ostrich, was killed. She had been like a second mother to Ocotillo, and he could only imagine the devastation her son was feeling toward her death. He'd wanted to console his friend, but they were on opposing sides in this war.
He was having difficulty describing the three sisters' good qualities, the way he had once been able to do with Queen Oasis.
Was all of the fighting really worth it? How large of a price did each of them have to pay to have a new queen on the throne?
Three years into the war, Ocotillo was lying on a camel skin rug in the middle of his assigned room in Blaze's fortress, Caracal at his side. Looking back, he would always remember it as the night his life changed forever.
"What's better," she said, "pink or blue?"
"Pink or blue?" he repeated, his snout scrunched up in confusion. "Well, I've always been partial to yellow myself. Why?"
She smiled. "Because, we're having an egg, Daddy."
"Daddy?!" Ocotillo sprang to his feet, elation written all over his face.
They spent the rest of the night, and many nights after that, coming up with names for their dragonet.
"I like Diamondback," Caracal said. "Isn't that just the perfect name?"
"That depends," Ocotillo said. "If they have any diamonds on their scales."
"I'm sure they'll be beautiful," she sighed. "Not like the ones on Blister. They make her look so scary."
One year later, their egg had arrived. It would be another year until it hatched, and Caracal kept insisting on the name Diamondback.
Finally, on the eve of their egg's due date, Ocotillo said, "What if they don't have any diamonds? What would we name them then?"
"I will love them anyway," Caracal said. "And, if that's the case, you can name them whatever you want." She stood and headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To catch a camel," she said. "For you to roast for our little one's first meal. Don't you want them to know how wonderful of a cook you are?"
"Mother taught me well," said Ocotillo.
That was the last time he ever saw her.
Their egg gave a son, and as luck would have it he had a pattern of black diamonds running down his spine. Ocotillo waited for his wife to return; he wanted her to be the one to give their dragonet his name, the name she had picked.
"I'm sure she'll be along soon," Cholla assured him. She and Tortoise were curled up by the fireplace, where they'd lit a burning fire form them to keep warm from the frigid winds outside.
"But none of her hunts have ever lasted this long," Ocotillo said. "Something must have happened."
Tortoise looked at his son, but didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
A week had passed before someone finally arrived at the fortress.
But it wasn't Caracal.
It was Six-Claws, carrying a wounded Dune with the aid of a SandWing nurse.
"What are you doing here?" Ocotillo asked, alarmed. "Where's Caracal?"
No one answered. They laid Dune in front of the fireplace, and he sighed at the fire's warmth.
Ocotillo grabbed Six-Claws by the shoulders. "Six-Claws, where is your sister? Where is my wife?"
The polydactyl SandWing refused to meet his friend's eyes. "I'm sorry, Ocotillo," he said, his voice full of tears. "Caracal...she's dead."
Cholla let out a silent gasp while Tortoise shook his head sadly.
"Dead?" Ocotillo stumbled back, tripping over his own tail and tumbling to the floor, nearly crushing his week-old son. "But...how?"
It had been about two weeks since Burn had her brother Scald killed for, as far as Six-Claws could tell, "annoying her". The polydactyl SandWing general was flying back to camp with his battalion after a particularly crushing battle with the IceWings in which he'd lost four good dragons.
And more than that, perhaps even worse: Dune had been badly injured. Dune, the one dragon who had stayed by his side and survived all these years. One of his forearms had been bitten nearly in two and his wing had been hit by a blast of frostbreath. Six-Claws hoped there was still time to reverse the damage and heal his friend. He helped carry Dune all the way back from the battle site.
They'd set up their small city of tents not far from where the desert shifted into rocky hills, then tundra and the Ice Kingdom. Technically the rocky terrain was part of the Kingdom of Sand, so he could have made camp even closer to the IceWing border. But his dragons needed to sleep on sand and return to the desert at night for their morale. If he'd forced them farther north, they might have had shorter flights to their battles, but they would have been cold and miserable and tired, and it would have been too easy to wear them down.
He didn't like wasting dragons.
"You'll be all right, Dune," he whispered in his friend's ear as they flew. "We're almost there. They'll fix you and you'll be flying again in no time. Just hang on."
They landed beside the medical tent in the center of camp, and three dragons immediately emerged, clustering around Dune.
"He needs heat on that wound, and fast," Six-Claws said, pointing to the glistening ice crystals and blue-black scales along the edge of Dune's wing. "Do everything you can for him."
"Of course, sir," one of them answered.
"He might lose the foot," said another, studying Dune's damaged foreleg, "but he needs his wings more. We can save those."
"Yes, we can heal injuries like this, sir," said the last one, indicating the frostbreath gently. "We've done it before. It's not too bad."
"Thank you," said Six-Claws. They whisked Dune away into the tent.
Six-Claws wanted to follow, but he couldn't. There was too much to do. Dragons he had to see and dispatches he needed to read and -
He turned around and found Queen Burn looming behind him.
"Your Majesty," he said with a bow.
"Still alive," she commented.
"Me?" he said. "Yes, I'm afraid so."
"Show me your claws again," she ordered.
He forced himself not to sigh. This happened every time he saw her; he should be over how sick and uncomfortable it made him feel. He held out his front talons.
"Yessss," Burn hissed, taking them in hers and staring at them greedily. She tugged on his sixth claw on each side and eyed his face to see if he'd react. He kept his expression blank.
"Your soldiers remember their orders, do they?" Burn said. "When you die in battle, they know they are to cut off your arms and bring them to me."
"Yes, Your Majesty," he said. It took all his considerable training to keep still instead of yanking his talons away from her. "They know. They won't forget." How could they forget a gruesome order like that? Everyone knew exactly what she wanted to do with Six-Claws's talons. One day, when he died, she would happily dismember him and preserve his odd-looking claws in her creepy weirdling tower, along with all the other strange and horrible things she'd collected over the years.
Burn finally dropped his talons with a snort. "Well, as long as you're still alive, you'd better make yourself useful. Come up with a different strategy than that plan of yours. Focus our energy here until we find Blaze and kill her, so we only have one enemy instead of two." She yawned. "Boring. You haven't found Blaze yet and I hate waiting."
"We've only been looking for a few weeks," Six-Claws protested. "They're fighting hard to keep her hidden. I'm sure today's battle was close to her hiding spot."
He'd never admitted his secret hope, of course. What he really wanted was for one sister to die so the other two could fight it out - just the two of them in a regular duel, with no armies or soldiers or other tribes or innocent bystanders dragged into the mess. He wanted this to be over.
And for that, his strategy made the most sense. If they kept pounding away at Blaze's IceWing alliance, surely they would find her soon.
"You know," Burn sneered, "if you want Blaze dead so badly, perhaps you shouldn't have saved her life all those years ago." She flicked her tail at the shouts of pain coming from the medical tent. "Maybe all of this is your fault."
Six-Claws clenched his talons, trying not to reveal that he'd had that exact thought himself over several sleepless nights.
"Your Majesty," he said as calmly as he could. "I strongly believe that we should stick with our current strategy."
"Well, I strongly believe that we should go kill some SeaWings and MudWings," she said. "And I am your queen, so that means I always win."
"Can we discuss this?" he asked. He didn't want to sound as though he was begging, but maybe that was what she wanted him to do. "I can show you the maps - our deductions - our next steps - we have it all worked out."
"You disloyal worm," Burn snarled. "I can see you need a little extra persuasion." She pushed past him and shoved her way into the medical tent.
He started to follow her, but suddenly there was a commotion from the sky above the tent.
He recognized Caracal's voice. "Let me go! Please, I have to get back to my husband!"
Six-Claws ducked into the shadows and watched as two of Burn's soldiers dragged his sister into the tent. Caracal was thrashing like mad, trying to pull herself free, but the soldiers were bigger and stronger than she was.
She was on Blaze's side of the war. If she wasn't his sister, Six-Claws's first thought would be to use her to find Blaze's location. But he couldn't betray Caracal, or Ocotillo. They'd never forgive him if he did.
What can I do? I can't betray Queen Burn. But Caracal is my sister.
What if I made the wrong choice, supporting Burn? I can't switch sides, Blister would never trust me.
Wait. Why follow any of them? There's always the Scorpion Den, right? Plenty of SandWings there who don't fight for anyone. From what I've heard anyhow.
Deserters. No. That's not me. I'm loyal.
But what if there are more important things than loyalty?
"SIX-CLAWS!" Burn roared from inside the tent. "Get in here!"
He pushed through the flaps into the tent and found Burn standing over Dune and holding Caracal by the throat.
Six-Claws's friend was lying on a low pile of blankets, unconscious, with his wings spread out on either side of him. Sacks filled with fire-heated stones were packed around the frostbreath injury on his wing and also around his front leg. Here, in the torchlight, Six-Claws could see the wounds more clearly, and he saw that an IceWing must have raked Dune with her serrated claws as well.
But his wing would heal and he would fly again. The doctors said they could fix him. He'd be all right.
"This little toad is one of your sisters, isn't it?" Burn asked. She jabbed Caracal's chest with one claw.
Six-Claws started forward. "Let her go -"
"Don't move," Burn snarled. Then, to Caracal, she said, "Join us, and I'll consider letting you go."
"I'll die first!" Caracal said.
"That can be arranged," Burn growled. "Six-Claws, kill her. Now."
"What?" Six-Claws blurted.
"That was an order!" she barked. "She is the enemy! Now, kill her!"
His heart pounding in his ears like a drum, he glanced at his sister. Of all the battles he'd fought, all the dragons he'd killed, he'd never seen such fear and defeat as what he saw in Caracal's eyes. She clearly thought that her brother was about to betray her.
There are more important things than loyalty.
My family is more important to me than anything else.
Family comes first.
Steeling himself, Six-Claws looked Burn in the eye and declared, "I'll die first."
Burn's eyes flashed dangerously. In one swift, hard-to-follow motion, her tail lashed out and stabbed Caracal right in the heart.
"NO!" Six-Claws heard himself shouting, felt himself tackled by the other SandWings in the tent as he lunged toward the queen. "Caracal!"
Too late. His sister was gone.
Burn pushed a healing pack off Dune, and the injured dragon made a small noise of pain, but didn't wake up. Behind Burn, one of the doctors was wringing her talons like she wanted to intervene but didn't dare.
"Please, stop," Six-Claws said, his stomach twisting. He was the one who had disobeyed Burn's orders. He was the one who should be punished, not his sister, not Dune. "Don't hurt him. He's a loyal soldier to you."
"And what are you?" Burn demanded. She slammed her talons down on Dune's injured wing. Dune came awake screaming as the frozen parts snapped off completely, leaving only misshapen, blackened ruin. Burn sliced her claws through the tendons and membranes, destroying what was left of the wing.
"Unquestioning obedience," Burn said. "That's really all I ask." She kicked Dune aside and shook the blood off her claws.
There were at least three dragons pinning him down. Six-Claws took a deep breath, forcing away his guilt and fury and disbelief.
Burn stepped over him, nearly smacking him in the face with her deadly tail. "You're lucky you're such a useful general, or I would just take those fascinating talons for my tower and be done with these boring arguments. Oh, and Six-Claws." She stopped in the opening of the tent and looked back at him. "The next time you feel like questioning my orders, remember that your friend there has another wing...and a tail...and three working legs, all of which could meet with even more horrible accidents. Understood?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." Six-Claws couldn't look at her. He kept his eyes closed and his face in the sand until he heard her leaving the tent and her heavy footsteps treading away.
"We're sorry, sir," said one of the nurses, climbing off him. "We didn't want her to kill you."
"I understand," he said as they all let go and backed away nervously. He staggered to his feet and over to Caracal's corpse. Six-Claws knelt beside her and gently touched his sister's head. She had been dead before she hit the sand.
This should have been me. If I could trade my life for hers, I would. I'm so sorry, Caracal.
Six-Claws looked over at Dune, who had mercifully passed out again. His wing was a wreck, far beyond saving, and his foreleg was a bloody stump. "Is there anything you can do for him?" he asked the other dragons.
They tried. He could see how hard they were trying. He sat and watched as they bandaged and swabbed and did what they could. His other duties had all faded into a blur in the back of his mind.
"It's getting late, sir." One of the doctors brushed Six-Claws's wing with her own. "You should get some sleep."
"I'm not going to sleep," he said. "I'm getting Dune out of here. As far away from her as I can get him."
The doctor glanced around and Six-Claws realized they were alone, apart from Dune and Caracal's body; the other SandWings had left without him realizing it.
"Where are you going?" she whispered. She was the one who'd thought about stopping Burn; he remembered the horror and pity in her eyes. He'd seen her before, taking care of other patients. She was always calm and efficient. He liked that about her, even though he didn't really know her.
"To find Ocotillo," he whispered back. He rubbed his eyes. "He has to know what happened. Then we'll head for the Scorpion Den, we'll be safe there...I hope. I'll have to carry Dune."
"I'll help you," she said. "If...if you don't mind me coming with you."
He could use the help - Dune was too heavy to carry far on his own. But he shook his head. "It's too dangerous," he said. "You'd be a deserter, like us. Burn would kill you if she caught you."
"Apparently she might kill me even if I stay right here," the doctor said wryly. "I'd rather go with you. I trust you."
"You don't know me at all," he said.
"Of course I do," she answered. "You're General Six-Claws."
"It'll just be Six-Claws from now on," he said. "I don't know your name."
"Kindle," she said. "Let's go now, before anyone comes back."
They wrapped Dune in blankets and lifted him between them as carefully as they could. Outside, the temperature had dropped to almost freezing, and most dragons were huddled in their tents. No one questioned Six-Claws and Kindle as they carried their burden to the outskirts of the encampment.
"General, sir," said the dragon on guard duty, snapping back her wings as they approached.
"We're taking this dragon back to the stronghold for more advanced medical treatment," Six-Claws said.
"Do you want me to take him?" the soldier offered. "You should rest, shouldn't you, sir?"
"I'll be fine," said Six-Claws. "But thank you."
"Yes, sir," she answered. "I hope he's all right."
Kindle took one side of the blankets and Six-Claws took the other, and with Dune slung between them, they lifted off into the night sky.
I'm sorry to leave you, Six-Claws thought at the soldier on guard duty...at all the soldiers he had to leave behind. He felt like the lowest snake in the sandpit, abandoning his position and all the dragons who'd counted on him.
But Six-Claws was helping a monster rise to power, and he couldn't do it anymore. Especially not if it meant that his family and friends, like Dune, would have to live in constant danger.
He'd try to find a way to save the others. Maybe he could get more of them out, anyone who wished to be free of Burn or the other two sisters. Maybe together they could make the Scorpion Den a safe place for dragons who wanted no part of this war.
Dune shifted in the blankets and Six-Claws had to adjust his wingbeats to the way his weight rolled. He glanced down and saw Dune looking up at him with bleak, haunted eyes.
Not at Six-Claws - at his wings, powering steadily through the air. The way Dune's never would again.
"I'm sorry, Dune," Six-Claws said.
Dune didn't respond for a long time. Finally he asked, "Where are we going?"
"To the Scorpion Den," Six-Claws answered. "I'm taking you somewhere I hope Burn will never find us. But first, we have to visit an old friend."
"It took us longer to find you than I would have liked," Six-Claws said, "and a lot of dirty looks from Blaze's SandWing supporters when they recognized me. I'm so sorry, Ocotillo."
Tears streamed down Ocotillo's cheeks like tiny rivers as his friend explained the story.
"Caracal," he breathed. "Dead. My wife is dead."
"But not all is lost," Kindle said. She nudged the week-old dragonet with her snout. "You still have something to live for."
His son. His last connection to Caracal.
"It's not safe here," Ocotillo said. "We need to get out of here. Out of this war, away from the princesses. You said you were heading for the Scorpion Den?"
"Yes," Six-Claws said.
Ocotillo scooped up his tiny son. "We're going with you. All of us. Me, my mother, my father, and my son, Diamondback."
"Good name," Kindle said.
"Caracal picked it," Ocotillo admitted. "Once he's old enough, I'll let him know...I'll tell him that his mother loved him. That she would have been so happy to meet him. I'll raise him as best I can, teach him all the right things, things that are really important. I'll make him a dragon she'd be proud of."
"And I'll help you," Six-Claws said. "He is my nephew, after all."
"We'll help, too," said Tortoise.
Cholla leaned in and nuzzled the tiny dragonet's snout. "I already love my little grandson so much," she said sweetly.
The flight to the Scorpion Den was long, longer than they would have liked. And it didn't help that the first several miles were through the bitter cold of the tundra surrounding Blaze's fortress.
Little Diamondback was snuggled up close to his father's scales, desperate for warmth against the biting wind.
"Don't worry," Ocotillo said. "We'll be home soon, my son. Somewhere we can be free from all this madness."
"You know," Dune let out a bitter laugh. "You always said it was so important to be loyal. I guess we've learned something about loyalty, haven't we?"
Six-Claws beat his wings in silence for a moment. "Yes," he agreed at last.
"That it's stupid," Dune said, "and we were stupid for being loyal in the first place, and now we're paying for it. I'm paying for it. There's no point to any of this."
"No, that's not it," Six-Claws said. "We were loyal to the wrong dragon, that's all. I see that now."
"Oh, good," Dune said sarcastically, stuffing his nose into the blankets. "Just in time."
The sun was starting to rise off to their left, casting dazzling sunspots in the corners of Ocotillo's eyes.
"We'll be more cautious in the future," Tortoise said. "We'll find dragons we can truly trust and respect, and then we'll have a reason to be loyal. I believe those dragons exist. You'll see."
"Wonderful," Dune muttered. "Can't wait."
"And we'll all be loyal to each other," Cholla said. "We'll support each other and help other dragons who are suffering. If we stick together, we can make it through this war."
They glanced over at Kindle. She was blinking away tears, outlined by the halo of the rising sun.
"I hope you're right," she said.
Six-Claws flew a little closer to her, his wing brushing against hers. "Me too," he uttered softly.
"So do I," Ocotillo said, and they flew on together, south toward the Scorpion Den, toward an uncertain future, toward that tiny thread of hope.
Yeah...that happened.
I hate what I had to do to Ocotillo, and I understand if you all hate me for it. But believe me when I say that things get better for him from there. Or, at least until Dune steals his egg for the prophecy.
...I'm gonna shut up now.
Next: Assassin
(I won't be including Runaway in this because it would be exactly the same in this universe as it was in the original books, so, really, there's no point in writing it.)