Wings of Fire: Nightfall

Prologue: Watershed

The dragonets are coming

Night will fall eternal lasting

Unless the hopeful stand united

Against destiny severed and fates divided

A warrior to rule the vicious waves

A nomad owns the path she paves

The prophet heralds blackest night

Talons of power must set it right

One repentant betrayer of thrones

One fell martyr will sins atone

One command to rend the skies

And send the world to its demise

Destined saviors herd tribes to slaughter

Slaves to night's darkest daughter

Beg her mercy and kneel before

The dragonets will end the war

-

"Hvitur is dead."

Webs stared in disbelief at the shattered eggshell tossed at his feet. A grave silence gripped the air of the stale and damp cave. Something caught in the back of his throat. Even with natural-born dark vision, light was bleeding from the world around him. It was his worst fear fully realized.

"But-the Skywing egg-" he finally spoke.

"Broken," came the curt reply of Kestrel, the adult SkyWing who had cast the egg fragment to the ground. "Gone. It's over, Webs."

"It can't be," he said, "Tomorrow is the brightest night. The three moons will all be full for the first time in a century. The dragonets of the prophecy have to hatch tomorrow."

"Well, one of them is already dead," Kestrel snapped. She lowered her gaze to the eggshell, holding it there as if her inner fury alone could conjure it back to life.

Dead. A destined dragonet, not even hatched, had been lost. Was that it? Was the prophecy they had struggled for years to achieve doomed so easily? They had sacrificed too much, lost too many dragons on the path to peace. How could this be the end?

"I knew I should have stolen the SkyWing egg myself," Kestrel continued, still staring at the shard. "I know the Sky Kingdom. They wouldn't have caught me a second time."

Webs was barely listening to her anymore. It's over. The words wouldn't stop repeating in his head. What were they going to tell the Talons of Peace? Better yet, what would become of them? The prophecy was what held the entire underground movement together. Dragons from all sides of the war had worked together for two decades to end the conflict. Two decades spent planning, gathering information, sending scouts across the continent, all to prepare for the coming of the fabled Dragonets of Destiny. They had been a night away from seeing that goal finally realized. Just one night away their whole reason for being lay smashed in a gorge somewhere. The entire organization would disintegrate, scattering to the winds with no purpose to unite behind. Webs knew many of the dragons in the Talons had nowhere left to turn, forsaken by their respective tribes. Himself chiefly among them.

It occurred to him then, that without a prophecy, there was no cause for the Talons to retain possession of the eggs they had already collected.

Maybe if I returned with her egg, Webs thought to himself. If I denounce the Talons, maybe she'll forgive me. Maybe she'll let me back into the tribe. Maybe...I'll be able to see him again. Guilt broiled in his core at the appearance of such devious thoughts. How quick he was to change loyalties. Did he regret taking the egg from the royal hatchery that much? It was a slim chance he would earn redemption this way, but if the prophecy was hopeless...