Wings of Fire - The LostWing Chronicles, Book 1 - The Awoken

Chapter 12

Qibli, Tsunami, and Turtle were apparently successful in their endeavors, for after a few hours a great host of SeaWings took to the air and glided off in the direction of the ocean. Anadrom watched them return, scanning them carefully for any injuries, then spiraled down and hugged Turtle gratefully. The effect might have been more unsettling than she had intended, however, as she quickly realized that she had forgotten to make herself visible again.

"Ack!" Turtle sputtered. "RainWing attack! - oh, it's you, Anadrom. Please never do that again. I think you split all my nerves in two. If launching yourself at your friends while invisible is your idea of displaying gratitude, we need to have a serious talk."

Having returned to the spectrum of light and color, Anadrom let go of Turtle and hovered in the air, beaming at the three of them and laughing. "I'm sorry, Turtle, I forgot I had that on. I certainly didn't mean to - er - frighten you at all. All of the soldiers left - they believed you, right?"

"I could have used a hug," Qibli offered, and she couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"Yes," Tsunami snorted, rolling her eyes at him. "Actually, Qibli's Paper of Infinite Mystery and Unknown Magic convinced them in the end. He brought it down in some sort of glass container along with the truth-telling stone, and once he had established that you couldn't have known about the truth-teller in advance, he answered a TON of their questions while holding it. Yes, Qibli, it was VERY CLEVER of you and all that. Star-spewing nightfish, you need praise more than a year-old dragonet does, sand-dweller."

"Thank you for the sincere praise, then, Tsunami," he responded, bumping his wing into her. "I'll just assume that you're grumpy due to arguing with your tribe for the last few hours and that you actually are very impressed with me right now."

"Er - good job, Qibli," Anadrom said shyly, and he flashed a grin at her. "Er - by the way - you didn't happen to see Solstice come down there, did you?" The absence of the dragonet from this group was worrying her. There was no way the SeaWings had taken him away, was there? Or had Nocturne and Abyss abducted him?

"Yes," Qibli replied, glancing at her with a deep and elaborate scrutiny. "When we left, he was flying over to check on the irrigation system. Did something happen between you two?"

"Well," she coughed nervously, "I - er - I think he doesn't want to be around me because he's afraid I hate him for offering a suggestion on what to use my magic for. I think - does that sound like him, Qibli? I don't know - he was really nice, and gave me a tour of the academy, and I just want to tell him that it's okay."

The larger SandWing assumed a thoughtful expression and nodded. "Well, that does sound like something Solstice would do. There was this time he discovered how to replicate firescales using some odd metal, and he was petrified that he would accidentally burn someone, so he destroyed all of his research and prototypes on the matter. Anadrom, I'm certain he was nice to you because that's who he is, and not because he wants to control your magic." Her unasked next question answered, she nodded back at Qibli and fell silent. I guess I'm fairly good at reading and understanding dragons, then. Except for Estuary - but why do I always keep thinking about her?

Turtle suddenly stopped in mid-air, and turned around so quickly that Tsunami nearly collided with him. She made an aggressive noise, but the look on Turtle's face cut it short. "Solstice - that's right - I entirely forgot to ask Moon if she'd had any visions about Anadrom," the SeaWing prince blurted out. "She was acting so strange when I mentioned the name in the dream-visit. Wow, I can't believe I forgot."

"Squidbrain," Tsunami muttered affectionately, smiling at him. "Turtle, it's fine. In case you haven't noticed, we've been rather busy for the last while. Having a prophecy delayed for a few hours can't be the biggest deal in the world; if it was super-important, Moon would have been yelling at us about it last night."