“What’s in there?” Qibli asked, leaning closer to study the necklace.
Winter carefully picked at the knot that tied the pouch closed. He wished his claws were a little smaller. The knot was very tight — whatever was in here was never meant to come out.
Finally he was able to hook one claw under the knot and slice it loose. The rope fell away and he poked the pouch open, shaking the contents into his other palm.
A small folded piece of paper fell out, crumpled around the corners. He peeked into the pouch and shook it a bit more. There was nothing else in there.
“Careful,” Qibli said, his talons twitching toward the paper. “Don’t rip it.”
Unfolding the paper was an even more delicate operation than opening the pouch, but at last it was done, revealing words scribbled in a dark red ink. Some of them were faded or caught in the wrinkles and hard to read. Winter found a patch of sunlight where he could smooth it out on a flat rock.
“What does it say?” Qibli asked. Hailstorm was watching curiously now, too. Maybe if he heard the spell, he’d realize that it wasn’t real and be able to stop thinking about Pyrite.
“Ok,” Winter said, puzzling over the note. “I think it says:
Enchant this paper so that when any dragon wears it in the form of a necklace, he or she shall fully become a female SkyWing named Pyrite, with the following conditions:
(1) Completely loyal to Queen Scarlet and the SkyWing tribe
(2) Insecure and weak
(3) No memory of his or her former identity
(4) Compelled to wear this necklace at all times with life-or-death urgency.”
The writing was cramped and filled every inch of the paper, front and back. Winter suspected that everything from “with the following conditions” on had been added after the first part. As though it had been tailored specifically — and spitefully — for Hailstorm.
“Wow,” Qibli said. “That is weird. I thought animus dragons just — thought their spells to enchant whatever they wanted to animus-touch. I didn’t know they ever wrote them down.” He leaned over to tap the edges of the scrap of paper. “This looks like it was torn from a larger piece — maybe a scroll since it still wants to roll that way.”
“Did you hear that?” Winter asked, turning toward Hailstorm. “See? Pyrite was just a spell. Now you’re your own real self.”
It was staggering to him how unconvinced Hailstorm looked. Here was evidence, written proof that his life as Pyrite was all a lie. And yet Hailstorm kept sneaking looks at his claws as if they might change back at any moment.
Winter folded the paper back up and crammed it into the pouch. He took the chain, threaded it through the pouch strings again, and tied a knot with the broken links.
“What are you doing?” Qibli asked, in a tone of voice that suggested he knew perfectly well what Winter was doing. “I sense a terrible idea coming on.”
“I need to see what it feels like,” Winter said. “While you’re here to — while I’m not alone.”
“But it’ll turn you into Pyrite. Who, let’s face it, is no great loss to the world. I mean, it’s a tough call, but I’m pretty sure we’d rather have you. Reasonably sure. Like, eighty percent sure.”
Winter whacked one of Qibli’s wings with his own. “This isn’t a joke. I want to know how it works. I want to know what Hailstorm felt like, being her. I think … well, maybe it’ll help me understand what he’s going through.”
“I get it,” Qibli said, nodding slowly. “It just seems like a risk. I mean, look at him. What if it messes you up the same way?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Winter said. “I’ll only wear it for a moment. But that’s what you’re here for — to take the necklace off me, because I won’t be able to do it myself. Don’t let me be a SkyWing for more than three minutes, all right? I don’t want her in my head any longer than that.”
“Hang on — let me see the paper.” Qibli held out his talons and Winter passed over the necklace. The SandWing fished the scrap out of the pouch and read it over, and then, before Winter realized what he was doing, Qibli carefully tore a tiny piece off the bottom.
“What did you just do?” Winter demanded, flaring his wings.
“I ripped off number four,” Qibli said. “The part about needing to wear the necklace all the time. Let’s see if that makes it possible for you to take it off yourself.” He stuffed the spell back into the pouch.
Winter accepted the necklace back, disgruntled. It hadn’t even occurred to him to try changing the spell. What if it didn’t work now?
He realized, though, that he wasn’t really upset. A large part of him didn’t expect the spell to work on him anyway. Even with a “Pyrite mask” on, as Moon had called it, he’d still be Winter underneath.
“All right,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Here we go.”
He dropped the necklace over his head.
Whoa. Where am I?
Pyrite looked around, blinking. Was this a garden? Why did everything smell like peaches and the ocean?
Hadn’t she been in the mountains just a minute ago? At night?
Her brain was so useless. There were so many things she couldn’t remember. Because she wasn’t any good at anything; three moons, it was awful being so pathetic.
“What just happened?” she asked, turning in a lumbering circle. There go my stupid talons, getting in my way as usual. I wish I weren’t so clumsy and useless.
The SandWing was standing nearby, watching her in a super weird way. “Did we find Queen Scarlet?” she asked.
A surge of powerful emotion rolled through her scales. The Queen! Her Most Wondrous Majesty! Queen Scarlet always knew what to do. She was such an amazing dragon. Pyrite missed her awfully. When she’d lived in the Sky Palace, she’d found a way to see the queen every day, even if it was just from a distance.
I’m glad I’m a SkyWing. She looked up at the clouds — streaked with pink and gold in a blue sky. She could be soaring up there, her wings fully extended, diving and spinning like she used to with the other SkyWing dragonets. They were freer than any other tribe, more loyal to one another, and more independent. Queen Scarlet trusted them to make decisions in battle without her. They were the smartest, fastest dragons in all of Pyrrhia.
I am completely loyal to Queen Scarlet. One day she would see her queen again, and then everything would be all right. It would feel like coming home. It would feel like flying.
“Pyrite,” the SandWing said slowly. What was his name again? “How do you feel?”
“Oh, fine,” she said. Her memory was a little fuzzy, but that wasn’t worth mentioning. “Where are the other three?”
“Do you remember anything about Winter?” he asked.
“You mean, like that he’s an enormous grump?” Pyrite said. She saw silvery scales moving out of the corner of her eye and turned, but it was a different IceWing, bigger than Winter, staring at her. What was his problem? He looked as if she was his mother back from the dead or something. Like he knew her, although she was sure she’d never seen him before. Eeeuyuck, IceWings.
“Can I look at your necklace?” the SandWing asked.
Pyrite glanced down and realized she had some kind of pouch on a chain around her neck. “Huh,” she said. “Sure, I guess.” As she reached for it, she felt a twinge of should I do this? And then she was lifting it over her neck —
— and then she was gone.
Winter dropped the necklace as if it were made of lava and leaped away from it.
“YAAAARGH!” he shouted. He clawed at his head. “Get her out, get her out!”
“Winter, it’s over,” Qibli called, catching his talons. “You’re you again. She’s not real.”
But Winter could still feel Pyrite’s scraping, banal thoughts like a damp mildew lingering around his mind. No wonder Hailstorm was so disturbed — Pyrite’s thinking was not just different from his own personality, but it had an insidious dullness to it that left a miasma after onl
y a few minutes. He couldn’t imagine living with it for two entire years and then trying to shake it all off.
Except for the part about being a SkyWing, loyal to Scarlet — that part was crystal clear in a shiny way that was equally horrible. Winter had known, with a logical part of his mind, that other dragons were loyal to their own tribes. But obviously they were wrong; IceWings were the greatest tribe in Pyrrhia, and that was a fact.
Except now he had this memory of believing the same thing about SkyWings, and believing it with all his heart.
Was that really how SkyWings felt?
And SeaWings and RainWings and even NightWings?
He did not want to try turning into any other dragons to find out.
He turned to pick up the pouch again — perhaps to destroy it, to rip the scroll and Pyrite’s very existence into tiny shreds — and found Hailstorm reaching for it.
“No!” Winter shouted, snatching it out of his grasp. “Hailstorm! Don’t even touch it!”
“Maybe I should change back,” Hailstorm said, his face twisting as though crocodiles might come crawling out of it. “At least when I’m Pyrite I only have one set of memories, right? That’s what the scroll said. And I was happy as a SkyWing. It was easier than being an IceWing — no rankings, no one comparing me to everyone else all the time. No Mother and Father expecting me to be perfect. And I had fire — fire was amazing. Winter, please let me change back.”
“That is completely insane,” Winter said. He tried to make his voice as cutting as their mother’s. “When you’re fully yourself again, you’ll recognize that there is nothing preferable about being a SkyWing. No one would ever choose to be anything but an IceWing.”
Qibli cleared his throat significantly, and Winter shot him a glare.
The problem was, he felt it now. Not the desire to be Pyrite, but the appeal of being a SkyWing.
He couldn’t let Hailstorm see that, though. He needed to be strong so that Hailstorm could be, too.
“You will never be Pyrite again,” Winter said. “Get that through your frozen head.”
Hailstorm growled furiously, and for a moment Winter wondered if he would actually attack his brother to get the necklace back. But finally Hailstorm spun on his heels and marched to the far end of the garden, where the trees gave way to a street that was starting to be crowded with dragons and rolling carts.
“Good speech,” Qibli said. “Well, kind of mean, but in a convincing way.”
“I need to be alone for a moment,” Winter said.
Qibli raised his wings and stepped back with a little bow of acknowledgment.
Winter needed to straighten out his own brain. He’d wanted to step into Pyrite’s talons so he could understand Hailstorm — but he didn’t want to understand him this well.
He sat down under a fig tree and closed his eyes, taking deep breaths.
I am Winter the IceWing. I have always been an IceWing.
Slowly the Pyrite-ness began to clear.
I am Winter the IceWing. I am loyal to Queen Glacier. I will reach the top of the rankings one day.
What would life have been like as a SkyWing? Would he really have loved the tribe of sky dragons that much?
I am Winter the IceWing. Be strong, be vigilant, strike first. Trust nobody.
His father’s mantra didn’t quite sit right in his mind anymore, but that wasn’t because of Pyrite. It was because of Qibli and Kinkajou and, most of all, Moon.
As he thought of her, he heard a door close and opened his eyes to see her emerging from the back of the doctor’s house.
I am Winter the IceWing. I do not make friends with dragons from other tribes.
I am not in love with a dragon I am sworn to hate.
“Is Kinkajou all right?” Qibli asked Moon. Winter stood up and went over to join them. He glanced over at his brother as he did and saw him standing under a tree with round orange fruit, banging his head on the trunk. Winter sighed.
Moon shook her head, curling her tail around her talons. “She has a skull fracture and three or four broken ribs,” she said. She sounded as though she was trying to imitate the doctor’s professional delivery, but her voice wavered as she spoke. “Also a hairline break near one elbow and bruising all along her spine and left side. The doctor says she needs to stay completely still for probably a month, maybe longer.”
“Is she awake?” Winter asked.
“No.” Moon ducked her head, shaking back tears. “The — the doctor doesn’t know when Kinkajou might wake up.”
Mayfly stuck her snout out one of the back windows and beckoned to Moon. “I need your authorization on this,” she said, brandishing a small scroll and an inkpot. “To have her transferred to the clinic. They’ll take care of her. Although they’ll want to know what really happened to her.”
“I told you,” Moon said with a hint of exasperation. “A dragon attacked her.”
“Are you sure?” the doctor asked. “She wasn’t hit by an avalanche? Or thrown off a cliff? Or trampled by a herd of hippos? That really happened to a patient of mine once. There’s no shame in admitting it. Hippos can happen to anybody.”
“Just a dragon, knocking her into a tree,” Moon said firmly. She took the scroll and inkpot, dipped her claw into the black ink, and signed her name. “I promise.”
“I saw it, too,” Winter agreed.
“He was really big,” Qibli offered.
“With superdragon strength?” Mayfly muttered skeptically. She took the scroll back from Moon and stomped back inside. Moon looked around, then carefully set the inkpot on the windowsill.
“Oh, good,” Qibli said. “So our new mystery NightWing friend has inexplicable animus powers AND unusual strength. Super.”
“Also, now he hates us, don’t forget,” Winter added.
“But you saw what we did to his face,” Moon said. “Between my fire and your frostbreath, he’s probably much less dangerous now.”
The creeping spider legs feeling under Winter’s scales suggested otherwise. In his experience, no good could come of adding vengeance to a dragon’s list of reasons to get up in the morning.
“Eagle!” Hailstorm shouted suddenly, sending a jolt of alarm through Winter. He whirled around to see his brother at the back gate, craning his neck to see over a SeaWing pulling a fish-laden cart.
“Eagle!” Hailstorm called again, his voice full of excitement. “Eagle! Over here!”
“Uh-oh,” Qibli muttered. Winter bolted over to his brother’s side as a large SkyWing the color of raw tuna shouldered his way through the crowd and stared down at them. Two more burly SkyWings stepped up behind him, glowering.
“How do you know my name?” the SkyWing demanded. “Who are you?”
“I’m —” Hailstorm faltered. “But don’t you — I’m — we fought together under General Ruby —”
“She’s Queen Ruby now,” Eagle snapped. “And I don’t remember fighting any IceWings and leaving them alive.” He eyed Hailstorm up and down. “I suppose if I did, that’s a mistake that could be corrected.”
“But how did ’e know your name?” asked one of the other SkyWings.
“Right,” Eagle said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Explain that, whale-eater.”
“He doesn’t —” Winter started.
But Eagle growled low in his throat, cutting him off. “Let the lizard speak.”
Hailstorm stammered for a minute and finally mumbled, “I — I — I thought we were friends.” He rubbed his eyes miserably.
The two flanking SkyWings looked incredulous. Eagle swelled with fury. “What?” he roared. He lashed out, reaching over the gate, and grabbed Hailstorm by the throat. “How dare you? I would never be friends with an IceWing! Is this a joke? Did someone pay you to make a fool out of me?”
“He didn’t mean it!” Winter yelled, trying to pull Eagle’s talons off his brother. “He’s just confused!”
Qibli darted up on Hailstorm’s other side and grabbed the SkyWing, too. “He was hi
t on the head,” Qibli explained quickly. “A war injury — his memory is all messed up —”
“Please don’t hurt him,” Winter cried. Hailstorm’s face was turning bluer than usual.
“Drop that IceWing right now,” said another voice behind Winter. He turned and saw Meerkat standing in the garden beside Moon, arching his venomous tail menacingly. “I order you by the authority of the Enclave.”
To Winter’s surprise, Eagle immediately let go of Hailstorm. The IceWing collapsed back against the tree, gasping for breath.
“Sorry,” the SkyWing said to Meerkat, all the rage gone from his voice. “Didn’t realize he was with you, Meerkat.” He took a step back. “He was saying some mighty stupid things, that’s all.”
“Head injury,” Qibli said again. Winter crouched beside his brother, but Hailstorm pushed him away.
“Oh. Another wounded veteran,” Eagle said. All three SkyWings were nodding. “I’ve seen plenty of those. Hope he recovers.” He jerked his chin at Winter, then turned and shoved his way back into the throng, half of whom had stopped to stare at the fight.
“Moving right along,” Meerkat said, waving at the audience until they all started moving again.
“It was just a mistake, Hailstorm,” Winter said to his brother in a low voice. “You’ve only been out from under the spell for a few hours. Give it some time. You’ll forget all about Pyrite once you’re surrounded by IceWings again.”
Hailstorm shook his head; Winter didn’t know if that meant disagreement or despair.
“Winter,” Hailstorm croaked softly. Winter leaned closer to hear, and Hailstorm turned hopeless blue eyes up toward him. “Winter — I want to go home.”
“You’re leaving now?” Moon asked, dismayed.
“I have to get him back to the Ice Kingdom,” Winter said, glancing over at Hailstorm. His brother was sitting at the base of the greenhouse tower, with his wings folded close around him and his face hidden. “I feel like he won’t be safe until he’s with our tribe again. And then he’ll remember he’s really an IceWing … I hope.”
“But Kinkajou …” Moon started, then trailed off.