Talons of Power

by Tui T. Sutherland

  Cold terror ran through him. Was Anemone really going back home? Right now? To kill Mother and steal the throne?

  She wouldn’t do that, he thought, and at the same moment, this new Anemone might. This Anemone who wants everything, who believes it should be hers — this Anemone who uses her magic for selfish reasons, who wants to impress Darkstalker … this Anemone, who acts as though her soul is damaged after all.

  The enchantment Darkstalker did on her necklace — what if it was a lie? What if it didn’t protect her soul; what if she’d been losing it, bit by bit, with each spell she cast?

  Including the one I asked her to cast on Kinkajou, Turtle thought with a wince.

  If that was true, the same thing could be happening to Anemone that happened to Albatross, their murderous ancestor all those centuries ago.

  And she could be flying home to follow in his footsteps right now.

  “I have to go after her,” Turtle said. “My tribe — my family —”

  Kinkajou took a step toward him, but Darkstalker was already folding his wings around her and Moon. “Now let’s go see the gardens,” he said. “And put all this unpleasantness behind us.”

  “But what if Anemone does something terrible?” Moon said to him. “Shouldn’t we follow her?”

  He looked down at her with sad eyes. “In all the futures I see, following her only makes it worse. You and I are the last dragons she wants to see right now. But there’s a good chance she’ll get tired after half a day of flying, stop at Jade Mountain, and stay there — safe and harmless. I think that’s the most likely future.”

  Turtle’s pounding heart disagreed. What if everything Darkstalker said to her was a spell and I didn’t recognize it? What if Darkstalker has enchanted Anemone to kill Mother?

  To punish us all for being Fathom’s descendants …

  If that’s true, there’s no way I can stop her.

  There’s almost certainly no way I can stop her anyhow.

  But I’m the only one who can even try.

  “Stay with him,” Turtle said to Kinkajou, although his voice was shaking. “You have to watch him. I’ll go after Anemone.”

  By yourself? his mind screamed. Do you want everyone to die?

  He didn’t have time to write to Qibli — and Qibli wouldn’t be able to help him anyway. Neither Qibli nor Kinkajou could follow him into the ocean, if that was really where Anemone was headed. Only SeaWings could go as far underwater as the Deep Palace.

  He stepped onto the balcony and glanced back. Another part of him was screaming don’t leave Kinkajou here! It’s not safe! What if he notices there’s a spell on her? What if she’s not the same when I get back?

  The three dragons were heading out through the main doors of the room. At the same moment, Kinkajou turned to look back at him. She gave him a reassuring smile and flared her wings, letting them turn pink along the edges.

  Then she followed Moon out the door and was gone.

  And Turtle was aloft. Flying, flying higher, beating his wings as hard and fast as he’d ever flown before.

  Could he catch Anemone? If he did, could he stop her from whatever she was planning?

  She was smaller than him, but fast, and she might use her magic to make herself faster.

  Below him the NightWing city fell away and the mountains whipped past, craggy and jagged like a dragon’s spine, peaks reaching out like claws to snag his wings. The air currents were strange in these mountains, falling away in odd places, and he had to concentrate more than usual to stay aloft.

  Why couldn’t he see her in the sky up ahead? Because she was too small, because she blended in with the pale gray-blue clouds? Where was she?

  He burst out of the mountains and veered east, following the same route they’d taken that morning. His wings were tiring already at this pace; there was no way he could keep it up all the way back to the Kingdom of the Sea.

  The sea — Turtle looked down at the dark waves pounding the beach below him. Maybe he could swim part of the way home. Maybe that’s what Anemone was doing.

  He tucked himself into a dive, plunging into the water and nearly caving in his skull on an underwater boulder.

  Careful! Careful, careful, be more careful … mustn’t die before I get there … although I might die when I get there.

  He found a rip current moving swiftly east and slipped into it, spreading his wings to catch as much of its speed as possible.

  Would Anemone actually kill me? Her own brother?

  Killing Queen Coral was one thing — that was the only way for the next queen to take the throne, so every princess grew up with that possibility in her mind.

  But the rest of the family … if she attacked them, that would have to mean she’d lost her soul, or she was under Darkstalker’s control.

  My family, Turtle thought, powering himself forward with talons and tail. My mother. Coral had never loved him, or been at all interested in him, but he still loved her — the idea of her and the stories she wrote.

  My brothers. The whole restless, wrestling, teasing pack of them.

  Aunts and uncles and cousins.

  My littlest sister. Tiny Auklet.

  He couldn’t imagine anyone hurting a dragonet so small.

  Don’t do this, Anemone.

  Should he use his magic? Now? Should he try to stop her? Darkstalker might think he was sensing Anemone’s magic — but what if he realized it wasn’t? What if it made him suspicious?

  Drumbeats of panic were thudding around and around in Turtle’s head.

  He knew this feeling.

  He hated this feeling.

  The pressure pounded in rhythm with his wingstrokes.

  Everything is resting on me. On me. On me. And I will fail. Again. Again. Again.

  Searching and searching for Snapper. Knowing his father was waiting. Knowing his father was counting on him. Knowing he couldn’t do it. Knowing now what his father’s disappointed face looked like, and how all that disappointment would crush Turtle into a nobody.

  This was exactly the same, except the disappointed faces would be Moon’s and Kinkajou’s and Qibli’s, and the dragons who died because of him would be his entire family, maybe more; maybe everyone, if Anemone couldn’t be stopped.

  The current veered north and he went with it, realizing he couldn’t see land off to his left anymore.

  I want to run away. I want to hide forever.

  But he had no choice. Anemone was his responsibility.

  Anemone was his biggest mistake.

  Once a year, in the Kingdom of the Sea, every two-year-old dragon in the tribe is brought together for a particular ceremony.

  At least, it is called a ceremony — the Talons of Power ceremony — but really, it is a test, and smart dragonets who’ve been listening closely know that’s what it is.

  Smart dragonets also know exactly what the ceremony is looking for.

  When he was two years old, a week before the ceremony, Prince Turtle went out and caught two large fish and a talonful of shrimp. He flew them to a rocky ledge on a deserted island and left them to rot in the sun.

  Five days later, he returned and ate them, holding his nose and forcing them down his throat.

  The night before the ceremony, Prince Turtle was dramatically, violently ill in the dining room of the Deep Palace.

  It was pretty horrifying.

  No one wanted to go anywhere near the vomiting prince. He was sent to recover on a small island far away from civilized society, which meant, of course, that he missed the Talons of Power ceremony that year.

  Queen Coral wasn’t concerned. He was just one of her many little princes, and if he really had any magic in his claws (which was statistically very unlikely), someone would figure it out sooner or later. She decreed that he could be included in the ceremony the following year, when he was three.

  But the year Turtle turned three was the year his father went missing — captured by the SkyWings, according to Coral’s spies. Queen Cor
al had spent every moment of that year guarding her new egg so that a princess could finally hatch unharmed. She got her wish: a living daughter … but she lost her husband.

  The Talons of Power ceremony was canceled that year.

  So Prince Turtle was four by the time the next Talons of Power ceremony rolled around. No one had said anything to him about it in over a year. He believed they’d forgotten about testing him. Because why bother? If he were an animus dragon, someone would have noticed by then.

  At least, that’s what everyone thought.

  On the day of the ceremony, Turtle was on his way out of the Summer Palace with a pearl-gathering party when a dark green dragon blocked his path.

  “Prince Turtle,” the dragon said in an oily voice.

  “Whirlpool,” Turtle answered evenly, hiding his dislike. Queen Coral adored this particular advisor, and Turtle couldn’t figure out why, except perhaps that Whirlpool was an expert at fawning over everything Coral did.

  “Have you forgotten what today is?” Whirlpool asked. “Your presence is required at the Talons of Power ceremony.”

  Turtle’s heart thudded hard against the walls of his chest. “Me?” he said. “Isn’t it pretty clear by now that I’m not an animus?”

  “Still,” said Whirlpool, “every SeaWing must undergo the test, especially those in the royal family. If animus power should happen to resurface now, when it is so direly needed, we cannot let it slip past our noses, can we?”

  Does he know? Turtle wondered. But Whirlpool always sounded like a know-it-all, even (maybe especially) when he knew nothing.

  “All right,” he said with a shrug. “Seems like a waste of time is all. I thought the queen really wanted these pearls for Anemone’s new necklace.”

  “The test will be over by midday. Plenty of time for pearl-gathering after that,” Whirlpool said, ushering Turtle into the tunnel that led out of the pavilion.

  Turtle swam along beside him, his mind paddling frantically. There had to be some way out of this.

  He couldn’t take that test.

  He couldn’t let them find out what he was.

  If his mother found out — what would she make him do?

  Turtle had read every scroll he could find on animus magic. There weren’t many, and most of the ones that existed were about Albatross, his ancestor from centuries ago.

  Albatross, the one who built the Summer Palace with his power.

  Albatross, who went mad and massacred half his family before he was stopped.

  Turtle had often tried to imagine what it would be like if everyone knew he was an animus. Would they be terrified of him? Would they always be wondering if he’d suddenly snap and start killing dragons?

  Or would they think he could be a useful tool in the Great War that was raging across the sea? What if Queen Coral forced him to use his magic against her enemies? What if she wanted him to do something he didn’t want to do?

  What if he tried to do it and failed, and dragons died because of him?

  One thing was for sure: Everyone would know who he was. Everyone would always be looking at him. He’d never be able to hide or blend in; he would always have eyes on him, waiting and judging and expecting.

  That scared him a lot more than the idea of losing his soul. He wasn’t terribly worried about that. His soul felt fine; he certainly didn’t feel like killing anyone, ever. He wasn’t even sure he believed the theory that animus dragons lost their souls when they used their magic too much. Maybe Albatross had been naturally crazy and homicidal all along, but nobody noticed.

  Still, better safe than sorry. Better a quiet nobody than a big-deal-center-of-attention dragon that everyone thought would do great things.

  I’ll have to fool the test, Turtle realized. He was four now; surely he was smart enough to do that.

  Whirlpool led him a long way, to an island where Turtle had never been before. As they approached, he saw other dragons swimming toward it — parents with their two- and three-year-olds or members of Queen Coral’s council who had come to watch.

  He wasn’t sure why. There hadn’t been an animus dragon found in the tribe in centuries, as far as he knew. Surely it would be a very boring ceremony.

  The dragonets were gathered on a beach on the eastern side of the island. As Turtle waded up onto the sand, he realized with surprise that there were dragon-made structures around him. The remains of an old pier jutted into the water. Most of the wooden walkway had rotted away, but a few of the pylons still stood, and it clearly led out to where a pavilion had once balanced over the sea.

  Farther up the beach, overgrown by jungle vines, ruins rose out of the greenery — walls, a tower, here and there a dragon statue.

  “What is this place?” Turtle asked Whirlpool.

  “Oh, don’t you know?” Whirlpool said in his insufferably superior way. “What do your tutors spend their time on, I wonder. Use your brain, little prince: Don’t you remember anything about an ancient SeaWing palace, abandoned nearly two thousand years ago?”

  Turtle looked around again, resisting the urge to smack Whirlpool in the snout with his tail. Two thousand years ago … that was around the time of the massacre.

  “The Island Palace,” he breathed.

  “It’s the Island — oh,” said Whirlpool, realizing what Turtle had said. “Yes. That’s correct.” With a faint air of disappointment, he oozed off toward the top of the beach, where Turtle’s uncle Shark was pacing and glowering at everyone.

  This was where the massacre had taken place. Turtle felt an eerie chill flood through his scales. Nine dragons had died here, the victims of Albatross’s magic, most of them members of the royal family — his ancestors. If anywhere in the kingdom was haunted, this would be the place. He imagined restless ghosts, stepping through puddles of blood on the verandas, reaching with translucent talons toward the living …

  “Hey,” Octopus said, breaking Turtle’s trance. “What’s she doing here?”

  Queen Coral came swooping down from the sky, but Turtle knew that wasn’t the “she” his brother meant. Octopus was talking about their sister, little Princess Anemone, the dragonet clinging to Coral’s neck. A harness bound the two of them together; Turtle had never seen them without it.

  “She goes everywhere Mother goes,” Cerulean whispered. “You know that. They’re here to watch the ceremony, like everyone else.”

  But he was wrong about that. Coral landed on the sand, shook her wings, and looked around triumphantly at the assembled council members.

  “I want Anemone to be tested with the other dragonets today,” she announced.

  “Anemone!” protested Turtle’s cousin Moray, who was old and on the Council. “She’s not even one year old yet!”

  Queen Coral smiled fondly at her daughter. “Yes, but she’s very precocious. And I have a feeling about her. I just know how this story should go.”

  Princess Anemone slid off the queen’s back in a move that was almost graceful, except she got tangled up in the harness and ended up flopping onto her side in the sand. Growling softly, she struggled to her feet and wrestled the harness back out of her way.

  Next to Turtle, a three-year-old dragonet twitched forward, as if he wanted to go help her but he wasn’t sure he was allowed to. His scales were grayish-blue and there was a nick on one of his ears which Turtle recognized. That was Pike, who had a reputation for fighting too hard in training classes and hurting himself by accident.

  “All right, here we go,” Whirlpool said, smacking his front talons together wetly. “A coconut for each dragonet, please.”

  A few older dragons moved between the dragonets, passing out coconuts. Turtle looked warily down at his. This could be the instrument of my destruction, he thought. This harmless-looking snack could betray me and change my life forever.

  “We’ll start on this end,” Whirlpool said, stepping over to the line of dragonets. “You three, loud and clear: Tell your coconuts to float into the air, then return to your claws.”
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  The three dragonets on the end dutifully spoke in unison, issuing commands to their coconuts.

  Nothing happened.

  “You may go,” Whirlpool dismissed them.

  As they slipped back into the water with their parents, Turtle felt his heart racing as fast as his mind. Whirlpool would be looking right at him. He’d have to say exactly what he’d been commanded to say. How could he fool the test?

  Enchant it now, he thought. Before he gets here.

  He sank his claws into the coconut shell. Coconut, he thought, don’t move. No matter what I or anyone else says to you, you are now a completely normal coconut who can never be enchanted.

  Would that work? He had experimented so little with his power, because of the need to keep it secret. He knew he could enchant things by thinking about it, without having to speak aloud. But he wasn’t sure if spoken spells were stronger and might overpower a thought spell. He also wasn’t sure it was possible to enchant an object to be enchantment-resistant.

  What else can I do to distract them?

  His gaze fell on Anemone, sitting up the beach, beside their mother. She held a coconut, too, studying it and turning it between her talons like a large opal. Queen Coral was watching her as though Anemone had been carved out of sea glass, perfect and shimmering and sharp. Her eyes were full of all the things Turtle feared: grand plans, dreams, ambitions, expectations.

  In Queen Coral’s story of the world, of course her one surviving daughter would be magical. Of course she would be the first animus dragon to hatch in hundreds of years. She would be chosen — she would be a savior for the whole tribe.

  That’s it. An idea hit Turtle like a lightning bolt.

  If the tribe already has an animus … then they won’t need me.

  As quickly as it had struck, his excitement faded. The type of enchantment he was imagining — no one had ever tried it before, as far as he knew. It was probably impossible. Almost certainly impossible. Insane, in fact. Especially since he couldn’t touch her or speak out loud — it would have to be a thought spell from a distance, and those were difficult enough, even when they weren’t immensely powerful requests.