Darkness of Dragons

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “We were hoping he’d disappear forever after we took Darkstalker’s scroll away from him,” Qibli whispered. “But now he’s working for my sinister grandfather and pretending to be a MudWing. We need to take away his shapeshifting spells.”

  “On it,” said Kinkajou.

  Qibli pounced at the empty air and managed to catch her tail before she darted away. “Not by yourself!” he said. “He’s enchanted this shape to have extra strength and super-hot fire or something. Maybe invulnerable scales, too. We do not want to get in a fight with this version of him, if we can help it.”

  “Awww,” Kinkajou said. “Can’t I just spit a little venom in his face?”

  “I think your stealth mode is what we need here,” Qibli said. “Sorry. Face full of venom can be Plan B.”

  “All right, fine. So I sneak up and grab — what am I grabbing?”

  “He carries his transformation spells inside pieces of jewelry in a brown leather pouch. Last time I saw him, it was tied under one of his wings, so it won’t be easy to get. And then he’ll also be wearing something containing his NightWing spell.” He squinted at the moonlit dragon. “The good news is he’s wearing a lot less jewelry now than he was before. But it could be anything — I see an earring, three bracelets, a ring, and a couple of necklaces on him.”

  “It’s the earring,” Kinkajou said confidently. “He was wearing all that other stuff when he was a MudWing. The earring is what’s new.”

  Qibli tried to give the empty air a skeptical expression.

  “I was being a detective!” she said. “I was being super observant! I mean, OK, I missed the part about how he was actually the exact same dragon, but I did notice the matching treasure. I just thought the MudWing had handed over all his jewelry for some reason. It’s not like that makes less sense than ‘he shapeshifted into a whole other tribe of dragon.’”

  “The earring,” Qibli murmured. “All right, all I can think of is I distract him and you try to lift the pouch. We might not be able to get the earring, but at least he’ll be stuck with only one form instead of seven.”

  “You distracting him doesn’t sound very safe,” Kinkajou pointed out.

  “I’ll be fine. We have a solid Plan B, right?” He grinned and had the unique experience of sensing that the air was grinning back at him.

  Shapeshifter had found something in the ruins of the tower and was exhaling little bits of flame so he could peer at it. Qibli let the branches crackle under his feet as he approached, and the NightWing whirled around. His face contorted angrily.

  “You again!” he snarled.

  “I come in peace,” Qibli said quickly, spreading his wings. “I just want to talk.”

  “That would be wise,” said Shapeshifter. “This form could snap your neck as easily as breathing if you come any closer.”

  Oh, Kinkajou, please be so careful.

  “Sure, all right,” Qibli said. “I’ll stay right here. I just wanted to ask whether you’re ever planning to see Peril again.”

  “Why should I?” Shapeshifter snorted. “She betrayed me. She turned me in to Queen Ruby and then she helped you all steal my scroll.”

  “To be fair,” Qibli said, “you really kind of betrayed her first.”

  “But she betrayed me more!” he complained. “Besides, she doesn’t want to see me again either.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Qibli said. “I told her I ran into you in the Kingdom of Sand, and she asked me to give you something, if I saw you again.”

  “Yeah, right.” Shapeshifter took a step toward him, squinting. “What is it?”

  “Just an earring,” Qibli said. He held out one of the amber and gold earrings, shiny and warm on his palm. “It’s not as fancy as your other treasure, I know. But Peril felt bad about what happened. She wanted you to have something that would make you think of her.”

  He forced himself to keep breathing normally. Shapeshifter stomped another few steps closer and studied the earring with an avaricious gleam in his eye.

  “Kind of small,” he muttered. “Not very sparkly.” He frowned at Qibli. “Looks like yours.”

  “I bought them both at the same shop in Possibility,” he said. “She couldn’t touch it herself, obviously, or it would melt. But she said to get one just like mine.”

  “Hmph. Seems like a pathetic peace offering, after what she did.” Shapeshifter grumbled softly to himself for a long, anxiety-inducing moment. But the lure of treasure, any treasure, was too strong for Peril’s father to resist. He snatched the earring out of Qibli’s talons and immediately put it on.

  “Tell her I don’t forgive her, though,” he snapped. “Tell her this isn’t over and I still — I — hey, what’s happening?!” He flared his wings, which had rippled suddenly from black to lime green, and Qibli saw a blur of movement in the air as his pouch was quickly sliced away and vanished behind Kinkajou’s back.

  “NO!” Chameleon roared, now fully transformed back into his real self, who was much scrawnier and less intimidating than any of his false shapes. “This was a trick! You lying SandWing!” He reached up to the earring, but Qibli lunged forward and seized his talons.

  “I’m sorry!” he shouted over the thunder of Chameleon beating his wings around Qibli’s head. “Peril let you keep your shapes because a part of her still loves you, even after what you did to her. But we can’t trust you with them!”

  Chameleon let out a yell and Qibli looked up to see that the silver earring was gone from his other ear.

  Nice work, Kinkajou.

  “You can’t do this to me!” Chameleon hissed, snapping his jaws at Qibli’s face. “I’m nothing without my shapes! You can’t leave me as a useless RainWing! Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Go back to the rainforest,” Qibli suggested. “Queen Glory is very fair. She’ll take care of you.”

  “I would NEVER —” Chameleon started, and then a chunk of stone from the tower above them came toppling down and cracked him on the head. Chameleon’s eyes rolled up and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  Qibli blinked down at him, then up at the tower. “Whoa,” he said. “That was —”

  “Awesome?” Kinkajou finished, popping into view on the tower. “I thought so.” She bounded down from the ruins and landed beside him, beaming.

  “You were perfect,” he said.

  “I still think he deserves a face full of venom,” she said, “but yeah, that wasn’t bad. You were perfect, too. I mean, I’m not quite sure what you did, but it was very impressive.”

  He hugged her. “It’s so great to see you awake,” he said. “I was so, so worried about you.”

  “Pshaw. Me? I’m too tough to be taken out by a super-strong shapeshifting traitorface,” Kinkajou said brightly. Her scales had turned the most startling shade of lemon yellow splashed with pink. “Plus, I can’t die, because I’m, like, Queen Glory’s best friend and she needs me. And Moon needs me to keep her head on straight! And we have to stop Darkstalker! And rescue Turtle!”

  “I know,” he said. “We will. Do you want to hang on to those?” He pointed to the pouch of shapeshifting jewelry. “Or we could destroy them now. When Chameleon wakes up, he might come looking for them.”

  “Then I’m definitely keeping them,” she said, twisting around to tie it under her wing the same way he’d had it. “I am absolutely up for having a heated discussion with this dragon, anytime he’d like to try me.”

  He smiled at her. “So what heroic feat should we perform next?”

  “I’m still working on finding out where Turtle is being held,” she said. “You should go find Moon and convince her to leave with us as soon as possible. Do you think you can do that?”

  Qibli’s heart thumped as if it was flipping over. “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Down there.” Kinkajou pointed to the square far below the palace. Qibli saw a torch flickering — and a figure carrying that torch who slipped into the vast building across from the palace.

&n
bsp; It’s Moon. She’s right there right there right there.

  “Go on, sort her out,” Kinkajou said, and her eyes were mischievous like she’d read exactly what she expected to on his face. “I’ll see you soon.” She let her scales shimmer back into the colors of the background.

  That tugging was taking over Qibli’s heart again, and a moment later he was soaring down toward the square, his wings skimming the tops of the wild palace trees.

  There were four large structures forming the sides of the plaza, including the palace. This particular one had tall columns across the front that were carved to look like scrolls, holding up the roof. In the moonlight Qibli could see that letters were etched into each column, but the moons weren’t bright enough for him to read any of the writing. One of the columns had cracks all around the base and another column had broken in half and toppled over. But for such an old building, it seemed more intact than a lot of the others.

  The doorway yawned emptily — whatever door had once been here had either rotted away or been taken for some other purpose. More writing was carved into the lintel: something about knowledge and flames and darkness, as far as Qibli could tell. He stepped cautiously inside, hoping there weren’t other, less friendly NightWings lurking in the shadows.

  The glow of firelight was coming from one of the rooms off the central hall. As Qibli tiptoed up to peek in, he realized suddenly what this building was, and then he felt like rather an idiot for not guessing sooner.

  It was a library.

  The biggest library in the world, most likely, if every room was like the one that was lit up. The walls in here were lined with slots for scrolls from floor to ceiling, and the ceiling was pretty far overhead. A vast wooden table filled the center of the room, so large it couldn’t have fit through the doors.

  Most of the slots were empty — but up by the ceiling, a dragon was flying from one to another, pulling out the few scrolls that were left. She was humming quietly to herself, and the light gleamed off the silver teardrop scales by her eyes.

  It is her.

  Qibli felt as if he could breathe again, for the first time in days. He listened to the song she was humming for a moment, and then he stepped over to the table and began lightly drumming on it with his claws, in rhythm with her music.

  It took her a moment to notice, but finally she whirled around, looked down, and saw him.

  The expression of joy that flared across her face nearly made his heart burst. He wanted to make her smile like that every day. He wanted to feel like this forever — like a dragon who was welcomed and missed (and maybe something else he didn’t dare put into words).

  “No way!” she cried.

  “Always a way,” he answered, smiling back at her.

  “Qibli!” She stuck the torch into a holder near her and soared down, landing in a run that threw her into his wings.

  He caught her, laughing (and not crying not crying). “You’re real,” he blurted. “I was starting to feel like I’d imagined you.” Inside the dome of his wings, her talons took his, and she leaned against him, a mystery of cool scales and strong muscles and beating heart. He bent his head toward her, letting hope wash over him.

  “How are you here?” she asked.

  “Well,” he said, “I figured, check every library in Pyrrhia and you’ll run into Moon eventually.”

  She laughed and looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Isn’t this place amazing? Wouldn’t you live here forever if you could?”

  No, Qibli thought, in these cold halls, away from the sun and the sky? Only if you asked me to. And then he thought, Would Winter say yes? Doesn’t that make him the better dragon?

  “Come see,” Moon said, tugging him toward the shelves. She led him around in a whirl of excitement, describing the old classification system, the archives, the collections each room used to hold, and the giant index scrolls that used to contain the entire catalog of books in the NightWing library.

  “The tribe took as much as they could, but they left so much behind,” she said. “And we have to be so careful, I mean, scrolls are not supposed to last two thousand years — some of these are just fragments or dust — but some are beautifully preserved. We’ve started copying the most important ones, quick before they fall apart. There’s so much history here,” she said dreamily.

  “I haven’t seen you this excited since … the library in Possibility,” he joked.

  “That one was great, too!” she said. “Especially because it had scrolls from all the tribes — do you remember we even found that really old RainWing scroll?”

  Of course Qibli remembered. He remembered that Moon had shrieked loud enough to bring a stern SkyWing librarian bustling over to grump about how hopping up and down was not allowed in the library.

  “This much excitement about scrolls is strictly forbidden,” he said in an imitation of the SkyWing’s pinched voice.

  And he remembered this, too: the way Moon collapsed against him in giggles after the librarian left, exactly as she was doing now.

  “Why would you be a librarian if you don’t get excited about scrolls?” she cried. “I will never understand some dragons.”

  “I wish I could find them this exciting,” he admitted, a little nervously.

  She tilted her chin up to look at him, then reached up to touch his face. “Not everyone has to be a scrollworm. For you, other dragons are like scrolls — you love meeting new ones and trying to read them. You’re always thinking about how other dragons think and what they’re like on the inside. That’s what … I mean, that’s one of the interesting things about you.” She pulled back suddenly and looked down. “Sorry. I know you don’t like hearing about what I overheard in your thoughts.”

  “I don’t mind anymore,” he said, catching her talon. “I mean, if you don’t mind what a mess it is in there.” Or the mean thoughts I have sometimes. If she has looked all the way into me and still wants to be my friend … maybe I’m … maybe I’m actually worth something.

  “Least messy brain I’ve ever met,” she said, smiling and squeezing his claws.

  She doesn’t seem enchanted at all. She seems exactly like herself. But we haven’t talked about Darkstalker yet …

  Moon whacked his side with her wing. “You’re distracting me with library talk,” she said. “How did you really get here?”

  I shouldn’t tell her about Anemone, he realized. Just in case. He didn’t want to lie to her — but he had to, at least for now, for Anemone’s safety.

  “You’re not going to believe it,” he said. “Winter remembered that the IceWings call those mountains out there ‘Darkstalker’s Teeth.’ So we thought, huh, maybe the ‘lost city of night’ is on the other side. And here you all are.”

  “That’s why I’m here!” she said. “I mean, in the library. I’m still trying to figure out the prophecy. We found the lost city of night … so now what? Is Jade Mountain saved? Or is there something here we’re supposed to get or read or figure out … maybe something that Fathom or Clearsight left behind? But I can’t find anything about what happened to his friends afterward.”

  Qibli tilted his head at her. It was a relief to discover she was still worried about the prophecy. (And kind of cool that she’d had the same thought he did, that maybe Fathom or Clearsight had left something for them.) He’d expected that Darkstalker’s bewitching would make her think everything was absolutely fine, like everyone else did.

  “I can help you look,” he said. “But I, um — I have kind of a weird request first.”

  “Everything about my life has been weird since school started,” she said. “Give it your best shot.”

  The amber teardrop of the earring glowed like a captured ball of fire, reflecting the light of the torch up above them. Qibli cupped it in his talons for a moment, wishing he could add more armor to the spell for her, and then he held it out for her to see.

  Moon blinked at the earring, then at him. “Matching earrings?” she said curiously. “Is this a SandWin
g thing? Are we — um, does this mean —”

  “They’re enchanted,” he said quickly, before she misunderstood any further. “There’s a protection spell on both of them — all of them — there are others.”

  “Oh,” she said. Did she seem disappointed? Or relieved? Maybe in brighter light he would have been able to tell. “What kind of spell?”

  “I asked Turtle to make me immune to any spell Darkstalker casts,” Qibli confessed. “It protects me from his magic — and this one can protect you.”

  Now she definitely looked sad. “I hope I don’t need that,” she said, but she lifted the earring out of his claws. “He promised not to cast any spells on me. I want to trust him.”

  “Even if you trust him, isn’t it better to be safe, just in case?” Qibli asked. “It’s like the skyfire. We trust you, but you gave it to us anyway so our thoughts would be private. He might cast a spell accidentally — or think he’s trying to help, but it’s something you don’t actually want. You know?”

  “I do.” She touched the amber gently with one claw, then reached up and put the earring on.

  Just like that. He’d expected more arguments — he’d worried that Darkstalker’s spells on her would be so strong they’d repel any effort to fight them. But there she was now, safe, with a tiny sun on her ear. Qibli smiled.

  “It’s a weird feeling, right?” he said. “Doesn’t everything feel different? Like the air around you was full of smoke and now it’s all blowing away and everything is clear?”

  She gave him a funny look. “No,” she said slowly. “I don’t feel any different.” She glanced around the library and shook her head. “I really don’t think I had any Darkstalker spells on me, Qibli. I’ve been confused since he came out and I’m still the same amount of confused now. He’s a complicated dragon. I know that. But I don’t think he’s evil, I really don’t. He’s my friend.”

  Qibli stared at her in astonishment. It sank in slowly. She’s not bewitched. She genuinely likes him.

  His understanding of Darkstalker shifted around, like a puzzle box clicking into a new configuration.