Darkness of Dragons

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “But my powers!” he cried. His voice was higher, less cavernous and booming now, as his lungs shrank. “All my magic … can’t I keep any of it? The mind reading? Wait —” Darkstalker held up his front talons, watching the claws get smaller.

  “Sorry, Darkstalker,” Qibli said. “You had more than one chance to use them wisely and well, and you chose not to.”

  “I really thought he was going to choose this for himself,” Moon said, tipping her head at the shrinking dragon.

  “Oh, I knew he wouldn’t,” Kinkajou said. “But I couldn’t tell you my awesome plan, obviously.”

  “You told her, though. Why didn’t he see it in your mind?” Moon asked Foeslayer.

  “You don’t raise a mind-reading son without learning a few tricks about how to hide your thoughts,” Foeslayer said calmly.

  “Didn’t I help you?” Darkstalker said in a lost, small voice, looking up at Moon. “Didn’t I save dragons, too? I’m not evil … I’m not …”

  “Not anymore,” Kinkajou said as a shimmer spread across his scales. Darkstalker was a dragonet now, younger than Anemone … and then younger still, until he appeared to be about one year old. He lifted his wings awkwardly and Qibli noticed that the line of white IceWing scales was gone from under his wings.

  But he wasn’t entirely black either; underneath his wings, in place of the usual NightWing silver star scales, he had a constellation of rainbow-colored scales — one emerald green here, one parrot blue there, sunrise golds and oranges scattered throughout the black scales, like shining beetles dropped on a dark velvet cloth.

  “What in the world?” Moon asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I made him half RainWing,” Kinkajou said, fighting back a giggle. “I thought that would be good for him. And it turned out so pretty!”

  “I’ll work it into my backstory,” Foeslayer said to Moon. “If the other NightWings ever wonder where I came from.”

  “You’re going to join the tribe?” Qibli asked her. “And live with them?”

  “The ones in the rainforest,” she said. “It’s beautiful there, and I hear good things about our new queen.” She smiled at Moon. “I don’t know what the others are going to do when Darkstalker never comes back. But I couldn’t live in the old Night Kingdom anyway. Too many memories.”

  The dragonet at her feet had been examining his talons closely for the last few minutes. Now his head popped up and he bonked her leg with it. “Hungry!” he chirped.

  “What are your new names going to be?” Qibli asked.

  “Oh — I’m not sure,” she said.

  “You should be Awesomeness,” Kinkajou suggested.

  “Salvation?” said Moon.

  Foeslayer laughed. “That’s a little grandiose for me.” She picked up the tiny dragonet that used to be Darkstalker. He didn’t look like a young Darkstalker; his face was too round and his eyes set too wide, but more than all that, there was a serenity in his expression that Qibli had never glimpsed on Darkstalker’s face. Being bombarded by dragon thoughts all day long from the moment you hatch probably isn’t the most peaceful existence, he guessed.

  The dragonet wrapped his arms and legs around his mother’s neck and nudged her ear with his snout. “HUNGRY,” he said in a loud whisper.

  “Here,” she said, delving into the patch of leaves next to her again. “Have some strawberries.”

  He seized them with enormous delight and stuffed two in his mouth at once, dripping berry juice down his neck.

  “I think I’ll call him Peacemaker,” she said. “I wonder if history would have been different if I’d chosen a name like that from the beginning.”

  Peacemaker. Qibli couldn’t help but find the name a bit ironic — but then, this wasn’t Darkstalker anymore. He was an entirely new dragon. And the spell wasn’t in a piece of jewelry that could be removed; it was inside him once he’d eaten that first, enchanted strawberry, changing him permanently and forever. He’d never remember being Darkstalker. He was Peacemaker now, and for always.

  “I have a name for you,” Qibli said to Foeslayer. “If you’re interested.”

  “Let’s hear it,” she said.

  He smiled at the little dragon stuffing his face with strawberries. “I was thinking maybe … Hope?”

  “Hope,” she said thoughtfully. “I like that.”

  Moon soared down through the dripping trees, scattering raindrops off the branches and setting yellow and green parakeets aflutter. Below her, she could see the NightWing village spread out along the riverbank.

  Nearly all the NightWings who had left with Darkstalker had returned to the rainforest after he disappeared. The ruins of the old kingdom on the Talon Peninsula would be fascinating to study — Queen Glory was setting up a team to do that now — but it turned out they weren’t actually a great place to live, especially for dragons who were just starting to get used to the plentiful food of the rainforest.

  Glory would have let them stay there and choose a new queen for themselves, if that’s what they’d wanted, but despite Fierceteeth’s best efforts, most NightWings ended up deciding that a RainWing queen wasn’t such a catastrophe after all. Especially in comparison to a king who instantly brainwashed them and took them to war. They were all still pretty shell-shocked by that, and by the experience of seeing into the hearts of the IceWings they were trying to kill.

  “You’re here again?” Moon’s mother teased as Moon swept down to land in the village clearing. “Don’t you ever have schoolwork to do?”

  “I finished it already!” Moon said, jumping up to hug her mother with her wings. Secretkeeper held her close, and her mind said everything about how much she missed Moon, even though she wouldn’t let herself say it out loud.

  The hum of background thoughts in the rainforest was so different these days. The NightWings were too busy to be resentful, too well-fed to keep complaining, and too abashed by their instant hero worship of Darkstalker to think about leaving again. They’d discovered that when they stopped grumbling all the time, they actually quite liked it in the rainforest. Queen Glory couldn’t hand out superpowers, but she had forged another peace with the new IceWing queen, and most of the NightWings had really lost their taste for war.

  “You know, you don’t have to stay at school if you miss me so much,” Secretkeeper said, nudging Moon’s snout.

  “No, I still love it,” Moon said. “Kinkajou and I got a new clawmate — a MudWing. I like her. I miss the ones who aren’t in our winglet anymore, though.”

  Carnelian. Umber.

  Winter.

  Qibli.

  There was still hope that one of them would come back. She hoped for it every day.

  I should go see him … I should tell him how I feel. I’ve certainly thought about it enough, trying to figure out how I feel about each of them. I didn’t want to choose … but if I want either of them in my life, I know I have to.

  Moon sighed and looked around the clearing. She let her mother think these visits were to see her, but really she was checking on Darkstalker — not Darkstalker. Peacemaker. And there he was, close to the river, making mud pies.

  “Moon!” he sang happily as he saw her approaching. “Moon moon moon mooooon pies.” He scrambled over with a smudge of mud on his snout and hugged her leg.

  “How are you today, Peacemaker?” Moon asked. Feeling even the slightest bit evil? Contemplating the conquest of the world? She knew Kinkajou had worded the transformation spell very carefully, but there was a part of her that couldn’t help worrying all the time.

  “Sleepy,” he said promptly. “Mommy made me get up SO EARLY.”

  “Which is not how most dragons would describe noon,” Hope pointed out, hopping down from one of the baobab trees overhead. “We’re all trying to adjust to some kind of normal NightWing sleep schedule,” she said to Moon. Lowering her voice, she added, “These modern dragons have it all wrong.”

  “I’m sure they’ll figure it out eventually,” Moon said, smiling. “When is y
our house going to be ready?”

  “Mightyclaws is working on it now,” Hope answered. She nodded at the dragonet crouched over a flat rock in the pavilion, drawing intently on a square piece of paper. Queen Glory sat beside him, her scales all gold and dark purple, watching quietly over his shoulder. Behind her, Deathbringer was eyeing the forest fiercely.

  Most NightWings had accepted earrings to free themselves from all of Darkstalker’s spells, even the ones that gave them extra powers. But a few had chosen to keep their powers, including Mightyclaws. Half the houses in the village had sprung from his magic in the last month.

  It turned out this had been Mightyclaws’s secret dream when he asked Darkstalker for the power to bring his drawings to life. All Mightyclaws wanted to do was help build a new, truly wonderful place for his tribe to live. That was why he hadn’t returned to school; he was too happy and busy here.

  “Hope, I wanted to ask you something,” Moon said. “Do you know anything about any legends of a lost continent?”

  “A little,” Hope said. “It was sort of a joke in my time — like, ‘I’m so fed up with all of this I’m moving to the lost continent!’ ‘Where did these weird plums come from, the lost continent?’ That sort of thing.”

  “But is it real?” Moon asked. “Are there really other tribes out there somewhere?”

  “Made you a pie!” Peacemaker chirped, smashing a pile of mud over Hope’s talons. “Yum yum yum yum,” he sang as he buried her claws, his wings fluttering in the breeze from the river.

  “Oh, delightful,” Hope said. She shot Moon a curious look. “I have no idea. I guess I always thought yes, probably. I mean —” She broke off, freed one of her talons from the mud, and picked up a cantaloupe from a nearby pile of fruit. “Imagine this is our world, right? According to NightWing calculations, our continent only covers about this much of it.” She spread her talons on one side of the melon, covering about a third of the space on the knobbly globe. “So it’s well within the realm of possibility that there’s more land around this side.” She turned the melon around. “And if there’s another continent, why wouldn’t there be more dragons? But it’s too far for any dragon to fly, we believe, so there’s no way to know for sure.”

  “Hmm,” Moon said. Her temples were starting to pulse again.

  “You had a vision, didn’t you?” Hope lowered her voice even more. “I know that look.”

  “Maybe,” Moon said. “But it’s … mysterious.”

  “As visions should be,” Hope said wryly. “Well, before you go looking for trouble, see if you can find anything on the Legend of the Hive.”

  “What’s that?” Moon asked.

  “An old story. I don’t remember it well, so read about it if you can. It might give you some ideas about these missing tribes.”

  “AHA!” Peacemaker suddenly declared. “Have an idea! Super good one! Going to take a NAP! Like a RAINWING! YAY!” He scampered off toward one of the hammocks.

  “You’ve only been up for an hour!” Hope protested. “Peacemaker! What about this mess? Excuse me,” she said to Moon, and chased after him.

  It was always such a strange feeling, coming to see Peacemaker. Moon kept expecting to find hints of Darkstalker in him. It was both a little sad and an enormous relief that she never did. He was exactly the ordinary dragonet that Kinkajou had promised he would be. Very few dragons knew his secret; he himself certainly never would.

  Everyone else thought Darkstalker was back under the mountain again, asleep for good this time. Most of them assumed Anemone had taken care of him with the same spell that ended the battle. Others were sure that Moon and Qibli were involved somehow, or thought perhaps the original dragonets of destiny had saved the world again.

  Pretty much nobody guessed that the real mastermind who took him down was Kinkajou.

  She didn’t mind. She said the “Epic Legend of Kinkajou“ was a work in progress, and one day when she and Peacemaker were both long gone, the truth would be revealed and then everyone could sing rousing songs about her for the rest of time. But Kinkajou said that for now, really, it was a lot easier to be a student without an Epic Legend following her around.

  Moon’s mother thought the whole mess with Darkstalker was proof that powers were a curse and disaster for any dragon who had them. But despite everything that had happened, Moon didn’t think so.

  I like my powers. I like caring about what other dragons think and feeling their emotions. I’m even glad I have my visions, no matter how much they hurt sometimes.

  I think there’s a way to use my powers for good, like Qibli always says.

  And that starts with taking this new vision … and doing something about it.

  The forest was full of scuttling noises, from fallen leaves tossed by the wind to squirrels darting up tree trunks. But some of the noises were bigger than others, and Winter was getting better at figuring out which ones were scavengers. They had a way of walking even when they were trying to be quiet, and his sharp IceWing ears could pick out their footsteps from quite a distance.

  He crept slowly through the trees. Now he could hear whispered squeaking as well, so there were at least two of them. He wondered if his little net would be able to hold both, or if he should focus on catching just one.

  There they were! One was clambering around the branches of an apple tree while the other stood below, holding something that looked almost like a miniature dragon basket. They can make baskets? Actually, that wasn’t too hard to imagine, with those clever little paws.

  He felt a little shiver of excitement through his wings. If he could make his scavenger sanctuary happen, he’d get to study them all day long. He’d be able to see them making baskets and maybe even drawings, if Sunny was right that they could do that. He’d seen some of the ones Flower drew, but he personally suspected that she was unusual because of spending so many years around dragons. It would be astonishing to discover that capacity in other scavengers as well. A scientific breakthrough, really.

  “Winter!” a voice yelled in the distance. “Winter, where are you?”

  Oh, no. The scavengers both shot into alert stances, staring around them like little meerkats. The black fur on their heads fluffed and tufted in the wind.

  “WINTER!” Whoever it was crashed closer, making an almighty dragon-sized racket.

  The scavenger in the tree made a flying leap to the ground, knocking over the other one as it landed. They both scrambled up and bolted away.

  With a frustrated growl, Winter shot after them. But it was too late. The scavengers around here must have some kind of system of bolt-holes or well-concealed tunnels. They managed to vanish within a pair of heartbeats.

  “There you are!” The dragonet bounding into the clearing was absolutely bright lemon yellow and beaming all over her face. “Riptide said you were skulking around the forest somewhere!”

  “I was being STEALTHY, Kinkajou,” Winter grumbled. “I know that’s a foreign concept to you.”

  “Oh, hello to you too, grouchy and ridiculous all at the same time!” she said. “I am the queen of stealth. I stealthed my way all around that NightWing palace! I can outstealth you any day of the week!” Her scales became pine trees and shadows, and he had to concentrate to keep his glare on the spot where she had been standing.

  Although, actually … his frown faded. “Hey, that’s true!” he said excitedly. “You could catch me a scavenger! They’d never see you coming!”

  Kinkajou reappeared, lilac and light blue now, looking somewhat mollified. “I might be willing to help you with that,” she said. “Depending on what you plan to do with it once you have it.”

  “Riptide is letting me build a den for them in Sanctuary,” he explained. Winter had been living with the Talons of Peace since the battle of Jade Mountain, helping them build another town like Possibility, where dragons from every tribe would be welcome. It was nestled in the foothills of the Claws of the Clouds Mountains, beside a small, very cold lake that Winter was pa
rticularly fond of.

  “Actually,” he added, “that’s how Riptide got the name for the town — I mentioned wanting to build a scavenger sanctuary, and he liked the word so much he decided to fly with it. I’m hoping to get about six or seven scavengers to live in there so I can watch what they do.”

  “Your scavenger obsession is so weird,” Kinkajou said. “Although they are pretty cute. Almost as cute as sloths.”

  “But smarter than sloths,” Winter pointed out.

  Kinkajou looked skeptical. “I guess we’ll find out,” she said. “Anyway, I’m sure what you meant to say was HI, Kinkajou, oh my goodness, thanks for coming to visit, I’ve missed you SO MUCH!”

  “Indeed,” said Winter. “Sorry. Of course. In those exact words.” He hesitated. “Did you … come by yourself?”

  “Oh, that’s nice.” Kinkajou wrinkled her nose at him. “Way to make a dragon feel wanted.”

  “I thought I phrased that very politely!” he protested.

  “Yes, but I know what you mean,” she said. “And no, Moon didn’t come with me.”

  He tried valiantly to keep his wings from drooping.

  “You could visit her,” Kinkajou reminded him. “You could even have stayed at school. Sunny and Tsunami would have stuck up for you.”

  “I know,” he said, “but I didn’t want to cause any more trouble with Snowfall. I’m not a real IceWing to her anymore, so me taking the place of another IceWing who really wanted it … well, it wouldn’t have made relations between her and the school any easier.”

  Winter was still surprised that all the queens had agreed to give Jade Mountain Academy another chance. He knew that Queen Snowfall would have preferred to wall off her tribe and never leave the Ice Kingdom again. But after the spell that ended the war, her palace had been flooded with requests from IceWings who wanted to attend Jade Mountain Academy. Even if she had wanted to shut down communications, her subjects wouldn’t have let her. And so two new students had arrived to replace Winter and Icicle, and there was a wait list ready for when the school expanded.