Wings of Fire: A Twisted Future - Broken Visions

Epilogue

Eel furrowed her brows as she examined the map in her talons. Mango was right; this was a copy of the Jade Mountain tunnel plan. However, this had a sketched out path and an X at the end of the crooked dotted line. The SeaWing scratched her head thoughtfully, arching a brow at the parchment. This could be the answer to Bracken's disappearance, this could lead to where he was hidden! Eel was sure that it was Fennec that kidnapped him after what she'd witnessed at the library. Yet... the unveiled truth still ached her heart.

She'd known Fennec for so long, they'd been friends since they met at Possibility searching for jobs.

That wasn't important now. Cardinal and Frigid had contacted Queen Sahara and troops had been sent to retrieve her from the academy. What was important was to find Bracken. 

With a sigh, the SeaWing pushed open the spruce door of her cave and set out down the tunnel, holding the map in front of her snout. She walked down the stone path, her translucent wings brushing the hard walls, sometimes catching on the scorching torches. Gradually the flames died and only glowing embers were left, giving the tunnels an eerie throbbing red glow here and there, dotting the darkness. 

Finally, after many subtle curves and a few slopes, the tunnel took a sharp turn and opened up into a cave. Eel's scales began to glow, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. Light seeped in from a small hole in the ceiling, stalactites hanging from the ragged surface, few of them touching, water trickling down the spires. Eel glanced down as she stepped into a small puddle, sending ripples across the shimmering water. 

She furrowed her brows when she couldn't make out any dragonesque shapes in the cave or any scents that were even close to Bracken's. However, there was another one with a sharp, foul tang, much more ominous. Her heart raced in her chest as she followed the scent trail, her brain coming up with so many pictures of Bracken lying in a pool of blood, mangled, torn apart, insects eating away at him, or barely hanging onto life... All those images were proven wrong when she stepped around one of the stalagmites and saw chains attached to the rock but no dragon trapped in the cuffs. Eel tipped her head to the side curiously, flaring her nostrils to sniff at the cuffs.

They bore Bracken's scent; faint but there. Eel flattened her ears as a sense of apprehension hollowed her out and she gripped the stone with her curled claws, suddenly feeling out of breath. The sapphire-blue dragon panted as she kicked the chains away from her and turned around, her eyes widening as she glimpsed something in the darkness. In a small corner, papers were pinned to the wall with knives and satchels were scattered near them, contents like arrows and a few tiny morsels like the remnants of a shrew and a bone that looked large enough to fit a young dragon. What was that for?

Lowering her head cautiously, Eel made her way warily toward the corner. Then water splashed. The SeaWing whipped around, her wings fanning out in an instant, to see nothing in the dark. Just black shadows and walls with almost no pigment. Eel exhaled anxiously, lashing her tail behind her, brushing a very long stalactite with a quite course surface. She turned around and glanced at the pillar, leaning away when she saw a plethora of long and deep indentations crisscrossing it. Eel felt the air press around her, as if it too were scared and wanted her comfort, so she shook her head and quickly looked down to analyze the satchels and papers.

The scent of a male dragon coated everything in the corner; fresh scent. Eel felt instinct screaming at her to flee immediately but she pushed the foreboding away and looked up at the papers. Her eyes widened when she saw that those were criminal posters. A NightWing with features that rang a bell so loud in her mind but she just couldn't put her claw on it. In the middle of these cruel posters, most of them of a hooded dragon, only one with clear enough details, was a small drawing of three dragons, a mother, a father, and a dragonet. The dragonet in the middle was-

Eel lunged for the picture and pulled it off the wall, her eyes wide in shock. A much younger version of him but it was him. The father was the same dragon as the NightWing on the poster. This was information. Useful information. Now she let instinct take over.

She whipped around, the paper in her talon, leaping for the exit of the cave only to have sharp claws rake across her snout. Eel let out a shrill cry as she collapsed onto sharp rocks, feeling them scrape her scales painfully, and her head snapped to the side to see who tackled her to the floor only to see wickedly long, sharp teeth flit forward toward her. Pain seared through her neck and her head dropped back, some runny and warm spilling from her snout and throat. 

It wasn't long before her heart stopped beating. The dragon slithered his forked tongue over his fangs and purred as he glared down at the carcass, leaning forward and unhooking the paper from her twitching claw. His lip curled when he noticed the new tear on the edge and turned back to his corner, pinning it back onto the wall with one of his arrows. He'd see them again, one day. 

One day.