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

Epilogue

Ocotillo paced about the well-lit little cavern, his tail arcing in graceful sweeps as it billowed out behind him. Eelgrass was watching with a patient expression, his head tilted at just a slight angle as if he found his husband to be an interesting case of study. There were many things whirling about within the SandWing's mind, as there always were after Anadrom's evening visits. In itself, that was the greatest problem of all - visits. In the Kingdom of the Sea, they had spent the vast majority of every day together, just the three of them, but now he barely saw her for more than an hour a day. The passage of time felt so hollow without the presence of his daughter, without her nervous smile and her kind, trusting eyes that were so similar to his.

"She would have wanted to come here eventually, regardless," he said aloud, earning a nod from Eelgrass. "As smart and hopeful as she always was - is - well, there's nothing she would have liked better than being able to attend this - this grand - Jade Mountain Academy."

"You're still disappointed in them," Eelgrass observed, and Ocotillo hissed under his breath. His tail lashed against the floor now, little sparks and flecks of dust rising from the spots where his poisonous barb collided with the stone.

"How can the leaders of the - the peace effort, the progressive movement, whatever they call it - how can they be such prejudiced, terrible dragons without anyone caring? And why doesn't she?" He fumed for a moment, thinking of the cruelly regal IceWing and the cunning SandWing, who had put his Anadrom through such harm without anyone seeming to care. And then there was his daughter's quiet acceptance of the apologies given to her by those two - and her irrational willingness to entirely start over with them. "I saw her with Qibli again today, going off who knows where to do who knows what."

"I have vouched for the possibility," Eelgrass huffed, and Ocotillo nodded at him.

"Of course they must have enchanted her, Eelgrass! Remember Qibli's mystery-scroll while she was in front of the whole school? - the whole school - but disregard that aspect of their evil for a moment. Sure, he told everyone the scroll just made the truth-stone, but didn't Anadrom tell us later that it also put him in charge of her powers? Able to control which spells she could cast and which she couldn't? If you were a conniving - and, frankly, power-hungry - teacher who had already become renowned for defeating one animus, wouldn't your top priority be to make certain the next would do whatever you asked?"

"The Darkstalker had that popularity spell of his," the SeaWing provided. "Which was strong enough to prevent Queen Glory from even opposing his capture of half of her subjects, so we know that such things are possible. Qibli probably tricked Anadorm into casting a spell on herself, so that she would immediately like all of them, all of those dragonets of the Jade Mountain Prophecy. Would do anything they asked, believing entirely that it was just the right thing to do."

"I need to get a look at that scroll," Ocotillo murmured. "His cave and office aren't far from ours, you know, and the Informabands do have the invisibility option. I just want to make sure she's safe and thinking for herself. This is the situation with Estuary all over again, but this time she doesn't even know it."

"And if it's really on there?"

He mused for a moment. "Tell her, I suppose, and see if that changes anything. Then get her as far away from all these heroes - ha! - to keep her safe."

"Not all of them are terrible," Eelgrass countered. "Turtle wouldn't have been involved in any of this, to be certain - he saved her from the Kingdom of the Sea originally, remember? And the NightWing - Moonwatcher - she fought against Qibli's ideas in their meeting. It's really just the IceWing and him that are the problem."

"Right," Ocotillo agreed. "The others wouldn't even know - Qibli would be hiding it from them, afraid they'd turn on him if they knew the truth. Well, we'll make sure they do. We'll bring him to justice, and then we'll take Anadrom to a far better place than this." It'll crush her, he thought sadly. Learning that the dragons she looked up to all her life - the dragons we all looked up to, to be honest - are no better than the Darkstalker. Is this the right thing to do? Even if she is enchanted, she loves it here, especially because of her clawmates. I would hate to take her away from them - but it's what has to be done to keep her safe. She's my daughter, and I just want her to be protected from all of these manipulative dragons.

He reached absentmindedly up to his ear, the one Anadrom had magically repaired, and twisted it beneath his cold talons. I would do anything to protect her from them.

From within her cave, Moonwatcher heard the entire conversation play out in the minds of Anadrom's parents. She hadn't meant to, of course, but they hadn't yet been given skyfire rocks and she was always too busy to remember to give the privacy-protecting stones out herself. The words of the two concerned dragons echoed within her as she made her way to the library for her night shift. Qibli wasn't the kind of dragon they thought he was - that she knew for certain. He was clever, of course, but not in a deceitful or manipulative way. And as to his being power-hungry - that was entirely unjustified. He had denied the ability to become an animus when Darkstalker presented him with the choice, and he had become a humble music teacher here at the academy rather than the commander of Queen Thorn's royal guard, a notable position which had been offered to him.

Yet she had strongly disliked the way Qibli had acted surrounding Anadrom at first, treating the nervous dragonet as if she was worse than Darkstalker had ever been. He had refused to listen to her repeatedly as she insisted that the SeaWing had truly been framed - and she, of all dragons, would know what she was talking about. What was the good of being able to read the minds of others if no one else would listen to you?

The scroll had seemed manipulative at the time, to be honest, and he hadn't yet shown the entire thing to any of them.

Don't be absurd, she told herself firmly. Qibli would never have done that to her. Like they said, it was something Darkstalker would do, and my husband couldn't be more different then him. She would just ask Qibli to show her the scroll tomorrow, and then she was certain that all doubt would be cleared and provided to be entirely unwarranted. Even now, she felt guilty for ever thinking her beloved Qibli would ever do something so devious. She knew him to be - and loved him for being - a noble and kind dragon.

The last thought of Ocotillo's that she had heard - that of taking Anadorm far away to keep her safe - that at least she knew wouldn't be possible. Her visions weren't as clear as usual, not yet, but they were more focused now and were just beginning to be decipherable. There had been more words as well, all of which were chilling and unpleasant, and contributed to the dark knowledge within her that Pyrrhia was about to be entirely destroyed in its most likely futures. Beams of darkness spiraling down from the heavens to strike and melt the Earth - Anadrom rising against the shadows in a regal form of light seemingly unquenchable in brilliance, only to fall at the talons of some unseeable tyrant - and then, worst of all, the image that had shaken her to the bone these last few days.

A flicker of movement within a darkened cave, a stirring of some great malice, and then the opening of slitted eyes from the gloom. Darkstalker's eyes, full of malice, watching her every time she closed her eyes. And then the words hissed in his deep, brassy voice: You betrayed me, little Moon. I'll make certain you pay for that, you and everyone you love. The true darkness of dragons is coming, and you don't have the faintest hope of stopping it.