“I assume you have a plan about how to fulfill this prophecy,” Blister said. “I mean, you must, right?”
A tense hush fell over the feasting table. Ears were pricked all over the palace. Every dragon in Pyrrhia wanted to hear the answer to this.
Tsunami felt like bees were crawling under her scales. Of course they didn’t have a plan. They’d only recently escaped from under the mountain and then the SkyWing palace. They’d barely had time to stop and think, or even a safe place to do that. And nothing they’d ever been taught had prepared them for what they had to do. Thanks for that, too, Talons of Peace, she thought bitterly.
But they couldn’t admit that to all these dragons . . . especially the ones who were counting on them.
“We’re working on it,” she said. “Obviously we can’t say too much.”
“This is the information-gathering phase,” Glory offered unexpectedly.
Blister gave Starflight a significant look.
“Um,” he blurted. “But. We think you, of course — I mean, obviously you — er — you’d make a great, uh, queen. Of the SandWings. That is. The other two — hardly any competition — really, it’s, um, a clear, so to speak, sort of, um, choice.”
“Starflight,” Tsunami said sharply. “What are you doing? You don’t speak for all of us.”
“Oh?” said Blister. She narrowed her eyes at Starflight. “Then who does?”
“We each speak for ourselves,” Glory said before Tsunami could answer.
“Yeah,” Sunny piped up.
“And we haven’t decided anything,” Tsunami said firmly. She wished she were close enough to kick Starflight and make him shut up.
“I’mjustsayingshe’dbeallright,” he mumbled, subsiding. Blister looked mildly disgusted.
“You’re quite right, NightWing,” Coral said, patting Blister’s talon. “She’s an excellent queen.”
Blister smiled, but Tsunami noticed that she moved her talon away as soon as she could. She also noticed that Blister called her mother simply “Coral,” while the queen of the SeaWings kept referring to her ally as “Queen Blister.” Tsunami wasn’t sure she liked the way they acted around each other.
Tsunami wanted to trust her mother’s choices. She wanted to like Blister. It would be uncomplicated to choose Blister as the SandWing queen. Then the dragonets could stay safely in the Kingdom of the Sea and support the SeaWing side of the war.
So why didn’t she want to do that?
What was it about Blister that felt so . . . wrong?
“Oh,” Queen Coral said. “Queen Blister, I meant to tell you, the strangest thing happened. We found a dead SkyWing in our territory the other day.”
Oops. Tsunami still hadn’t told the others about Kestrel. Something new for them to be mad at her about. She sighed.
“Really,” Blister said. “That sounds like good news to me.”
Coral laughed. “You’re right, that’s true. But what’s really strange is she’d been poison-stabbed by a SandWing. Why would a SandWing and a SkyWing be fighting all the way out here?”
Tsunami hadn’t known about the SandWing poison. She only remembered the blood pouring from Kestrel’s neck.
Her tail uncoiled as she realized — I don’t have to worry, then. Mother will know it wasn’t us who killed her. None of us could do that, not with Sunny’s useless tail.
At the same time, questions began pounding in her head. What SandWing would want to kill Kestrel? She scratched her gills, puzzled. Had Burn found her and punished her for what happened to Queen Scarlet? But why would either of them be in SeaWing territory?
Blister shrugged, resettling her wings. “That is very peculiar,” she said.
“I wonder who she was,” said Queen Coral. “She had these odd burn scars on her palms —”
Tsunami reached over Whirlpool and grabbed for Sunny’s forearm, but it was too late to stop her gasp of horror.
“Oh, no!” Sunny cried. “That sounds like Kestrel! Tsunami, what if it was Kestrel?” She pressed her claws to her snout, her eyes welling with tears.
A heavy silence fell over the table. Every SeaWing in the entire palace seemed to be staring at Sunny and Tsunami. Queen Coral was giving Tsunami a particularly intent look.
Across the table, Glory and Starflight both had their mouths open in shock.
“Tsunami?” Coral said slowly. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
“All right,” Tsunami said, squirming. “Yes. I’m sorry. I saw her. It was Kestrel.”
Sunny let out a sob and buried her head in her talons. Clay patted her on the back awkwardly.
“Your SandWing seems surprisingly distressed about this SkyWing,” Blister observed.
“Kestrel was one of the guardians who raised us,” Tsunami said. “Although she wasn’t very nice, Sunny. She doesn’t deserve your grief.”
Sunny’s wings trembled, and she didn’t look up.
“So,” Coral said, leaning toward Tsunami. “Explain this to me. You recognized this SkyWing — a SkyWing I have now been wondering about for days — and you chose not to tell us who she was. Why is that?”
“I didn’t think knowing who she was would explain anything,” Tsunami said. “I knew her, but I have no idea why she was out here or who killed her.” She glanced at Glory and Starflight and Clay apologetically. “And I wanted to tell my friends first. Kestrel wasn’t a good parent, but she was one of the only parents we ever knew. I thought they should know — and I just haven’t had a chance to tell them.”
“I understand perfectly,” Blister purred. She stroked Coral’s talon with one claw. “Forgive her, Coral. It can be very shocking, seeing the dead body of a dragon you know. Especially when you’ve probably wanted to slash her throat yourself once or twice in your lifetime — right, Tsunami? I know I felt that way about my mother most of the time.”
Tsunami looked up slowly, her green eyes meeting Blister’s cold black gaze.
How did she know?
Queen Coral had only said that Kestrel was stabbed by a SandWing. Tsunami clenched her talons under the table.
So how did Blister know that Kestrel’s throat was slashed?
Tsunami didn’t know what to do. Should she accuse Blister of lying — of murder — in front of all these dragons? How would Queen Coral react?
Stop yourself, she thought. Think. Don’t lash out immediately, the way you want to. She shot a glance at Starflight. He was smart enough to have noticed Blister’s mistake, and sure enough, there was a puzzled expression on his face.
He met her eyes and shook his head a tiny bit.
Tsunami took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps he was right. She might put her friends at risk if she picked a fight with Blister right now. Better to wait and watch. And hope that Starflight could use that giant brain to figure out why in the world Blister would have killed Kestrel.
Blister’s dark tongue flickered in and out of her mouth. She leaned toward Coral, smiled at Anemone, and said, “How is our secret weapon coming along?”
Anemone dropped her head and stared unhappily at the table.
“Wonderfully!” Coral said. She patted Anemone’s head, beaming with pride. “Why don’t we show you? Whirlpool, come along.”
Whirlpool puffed out his chest and stood up. Curious, Tsunami got to her feet at the same time, but Queen Coral shook her head, her pearls dancing in the green light. “You can skip this, dear. I’m sure it won’t interest you.”
“I’d like her to come,” Anemone piped up. “Please?”
Coral and Blister exchanged a significant look. They don’t trust me, Tsunami guessed. They don’t want me to know about any “secret weapon” until they’re sure I’m on Blister’s side.
Well, too bad.
“I’m sure it’ll be very interesting,” Tsunami said with earnest enthusiasm. “Everything you do is interesting, Mother.” She blinked her large green eyes at Queen Coral. Across the table, Glory snorted and then tried to hide it with a bout of coughi
ng.
“Please?” Anemone said again.
“All right,” Coral said with a sigh. “But not the others.” Her gaze flicked suspiciously to Clay.
Tsunami followed Coral, Blister, Anemone, and Whirlpool to a high level of the pavilion she hadn’t visited before. It was shaped like a bowl, with low walls and a slight slope down to the center. Weapons were lined up along one side: white twisting horn spears like the one attached to Coral’s tail; battle armor of chain link or scales hammered over more scales; gleaming metal claws like the ones scavengers carried in all the scrolls. None of the weapons looked particularly special or secret.
But — Tsunami looked sharply at the wall of weapons again. That battle armor . . . surely that was what her attacker had been wearing in the tunnel. That was why she hadn’t been able to claw him (or her). She remembered her claws scraping uselessly against metal. And one of the vests definitely had a nick in it. So who had access to this level?
Probably everyone, she thought ruefully.
“May I?” Whirlpool said officiously, gesturing to one of the strands of pearls on Coral’s wings. She dipped her wing so he could remove it. He strutted to the center of the bowl and carefully laid the rope of pearls on the floor in front of him.
“All right,” he said, rubbing his talons together. “See if you can make it crawl over to the wall.”
Tsunami looked around. Who on earth was he talking to? Where was the secret weapon?
Anemone sat down next to Tsunami and sighed. “Do I have to?” she said. “It seems like a waste.” Tsunami stared at her.
“Practicing is never time wasted,” Whirlpool said, wagging a claw in a way that made Tsunami want to snap it off.
“But I don’t want to end up like Albatross,” Anemone said. She flicked her wings and edged a little closer to Tsunami.
“He made an entire pavilion grow from stone before he went mad and tried to kill everyone,” Whirlpool said patronizingly. “You have a way to go before that happens. Now. The necklace, please.”
Anemone sighed again. She held out her front talons and, to Tsunami’s amazement, the necklace began to slowly wind toward the wall, moving in curves like a snake.
“Oh my gosh,” Tsunami blurted. Suddenly every thing made sense — the “magic” in Whirlpool’s title, the self-adjusting harness in the Deep Palace. “Anemone! You’re an animus!”
Anemone dropped her talons, and the necklace stopped moving. “I know,” she said with an expression like she would rather be descended from sea cucumbers.
“We’ve had a few animus dragons in the royal family,” Coral said proudly. “But not in several generations. Anemone was hatched just in time to help us win this war.”
“Careful,” Blister said with a hiss.
“She doesn’t have to know our whole plan to guess that an animus dragon would be very useful in battle,” Coral said. “There are lots of marvelous things we can do with this power.”
“Yes, watch this,” Whirlpool said. He picked up a metal armor breastplate and flung it up in the air, over the edge. “Catch it with a spear!” he called to Anemone.
None of the spears moved. The breastplate plummeted toward the lake.
“Sorry,” Anemone said, not looking very sorry. “You didn’t give me enough warning.”
“Ow!” someone yelled from below.
“Anemone,” Whirlpool said with a sigh. “Battle is all about quick thinking.”
“How would you know that?” she said.
He frowned at her.
“Try it again,” Queen Coral said, clapping her front talons together. “And this time do as you’re told, Anemone.”
Whirlpool flung another flat piece of metal armor into the air. Instantly one of the narwhal spears shot after it and pierced it through.
Blister and Coral applauded, but Tsunami thought it was more interesting that the spear then carefully brought the armor back to rest safely on the floor.
“Impressive,” Blister said. “But not much more impressive than what I saw last time. What about progress? What about bigger objects? How much longer must this training go on?”
“I’m sure she’s nearly ready,” said Queen Coral.
“Years. Lots more years,” Anemone said at the same time.
Blister’s forked black tongue slipped through her teeth, and she narrowed her eyes at Anemone. “Coral,” she said, tilting her head.
“Stay here,” Coral ordered. She slid as far away as the harness would reach and crouched with her wings spread, whispering to Blister.
Whirlpool strutted over to Tsunami and Anemone. Anemone gave him a glare, and suddenly the pearl necklace he’d left on the floor whirled around, whipped under his belly, and soared off the ledge. With a yelp, the green dragon raced after it, diving over the edge.
“This is what you have to save me from,” Anemone whispered quickly.
“Boring lessons with Whirlpool?” Tsunami answered. “Sure, I’ll get right on that.”
“No, not just that,” Anemone said, wrinkling her snout. “Although he is awful. All he ever asks me to do is make things move. I can enchant any inanimate object to do my bidding, and he’s like, ‘Make this spear dance! Now make that chair walk from here to here!’ It’s insulting, really.”
“What else could you do?” Tsunami asked. She glanced at Coral and Blister, but they both had their backs turned and were sharing their own secrets.
“According to Blister, I should be able to enchant the Sky Kingdom’s palace to cave in on all the SkyWings,” Anemone said softly, looking up at Tsunami. “She also wants me to curse a spear so it will search for Burn’s heart and not stop until it kills her.”
Tsunami coiled her tail closer, trying not to look as shaken as she felt. If Anemone could do either of those things, she really was a secret weapon. Power like that could end this war in a week.
“I don’t know for sure if I can do any of that,” Anemone said. “I’m scared to try. I don’t want to try. Every time an animus dragon uses her power, she loses a bit of herself.” Tsunami’s sister held out her talons as if they might not really be hers. “Albatross was a prince and a hero at first, but they didn’t know about the price of animus magic then. Building the pavilion turned him evil.” She slipped one talon into Tsunami’s grasp. It felt colder than ice and hard as stone. “I don’t want that to happen to me.”
How can I possibly save you? Tsunami wondered. Even she was tempted by the kind of power that could bring peace so quickly. But she couldn’t ignore the fear in Anemone’s eyes.
“First I’ll catch the dragon who’s trying to kill us,” she said, curling one wing around Anemone. “Maybe then Mother will let you off the harness and start to trust you more. Maybe she’ll listen when you tell her you don’t want to use your power.”
“Ha,” Anemone muttered.
Tsunami didn’t know what else to say. She had no words of advice ready for dealing with strange magical problems. But she did have a lot of other questions for Anemone, and this might be her only time to ask them.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said. “If none of Coral’s daughters survived, who would be queen after her?”
Anemone flicked her tail around and studied the end of it. “Who knows? I don’t think a queen has ever died and passed on the throne peacefully, at least not in our kingdom. And who else would challenge her? I heard Uncle Shark say once that maybe a son should inherit. But I guess it would probably be our cousin Moray. Except she doesn’t want the job — she wants Coral to be queen forever. At least that’s what she says.”
“You don’t believe her?” Tsunami asked.
“There’s just something weird about her,” Anemone said. “Isn’t there? It’s like she must be faking, because nobody could really act like that all the time and mean it.”
“Maybe,” Tsunami said. “But I think the assassin is Shark. I bet he wants Moray to be queen, and if none of Coral’s daughters survive, it’ll have to be her.”
Anemone snorted. “Moray would rather die than challenge the queen.”
Tsunami saw Queen Coral’s wings flutter closed. “In the meanwhile,” she whispered quickly, “keep acting like you need more training. Make mistakes sometimes if you have to. Make them think you aren’t ready for as long as possible.”
“Mistakes,” Anemone said with a sigh. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Queen Coral slid back to them, twisting her snout from side to side. “Where’s Whirlpool?” she asked.
“I think he lost something,” Anemone said innocently.
“Queen Blister wants you to try —” Coral started, but stopped as the SandWing’s head suddenly went up. Blister stared around the cavern, poised in her eerie stillness, nothing but her eyes moving. Tsunami felt hypnotized by her; Anemone and Coral were equally silent, waiting.
Blister’s gaze slowly lifted to the canopy of leaves and vines overhead.
Then Tsunami heard it, too.
Something was moving around up there.
Something big.
Queen Coral hissed softly. “I’ll call my guards,” she said.
“Wait.” Blister lifted one claw. Her voice barely stirred the air. “We want to catch whoever it is, not scare them away.” She flicked her tail. “Come.” Quietly she slid over the side of the pavilion and flew to the cliff wall.
Coral and Anemone went after her, and Tsunami followed close behind. She wasn’t sure she’d been invited, but she didn’t care.
Blister landed on a ledge beside the tallest waterfall. The water spilled out of a hole high above, nearly at the level of the canopy. It rushed in torrents down the cliff wall, dividing around boulders and sending out small clouds of spray.
And it was loud, loud enough to hide the sound of their wingbeats as the four of them flew higher, staying close to the falls.
She is clever, Tsunami thought, glancing at Blister. Why does that make me more ner vous about her instead of less?
At the top of the waterfall, the SandWing hovered for a moment, studying the canopy with her glittering dark eyes. From this high, the dragons far below looked like lizards, scurrying around the pavilion and swimming in the lake. Tsunami spotted Whirlpool, paddling frantically in circles with his talons outstretched. He was still trying to catch the pearl necklace as it twisted away from him.