“Safe from your magic, maybe,” Qibli said. “But not safe from your actions.”
“WHAT?” Darkstalker roared.
Qibli squared his shoulders and held his ground, although the expression on Darkstalker’s face kind of made him want to retreat all the way back into the crawl space.
“You didn’t lose your soul because magic ate it away slowly,” Qibli said. “You lost it because you chose to do terrible things, over and over again. Each terrible thing, each betrayal, each murder, added to this mountain.” He tapped the white sand side. “That’s not the magic’s fault. That’s you. That’s who you chose to be.”
“But — I had good reasons for everything I did,” Darkstalker said. “Visions of a good future. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Yes, sometimes,” Qibli agreed. “But not when your choices are so dark and damaging. Not when there were better alternatives you didn’t even explore.”
“Blah blah blah,” Darkstalker muttered, but he was staring into space now. “Who … that’s not possible … is it? Where does that go? How does it end?” He twisted his neck around to look above and behind him. “Can you see what I’m seeing? Come on out; I’ve obviously known you were there since you crawled down here.”
There was a pause, and then a ripple in the rocks overhead, whorls of yellow and blue suddenly appearing on the gray and spreading into the shape of a dragon who was covering the shape of another dragon clinging to the small claw holds in the wall.
“Huh,” said Darkstalker. “Actually, I didn’t know she was there.” He jerked his chin at Kinkajou as she peeled herself off Moon. The RainWing shot a glare at him and fluttered down to sit beside Qibli. A moment later, Moon landed on his other side, and even though this meant the three of them were crowded together in the small space, Qibli was finally able to breathe.
“Hello, Darkstalker,” Moon said.
“Can you see this vision?” he asked, reaching down toward her. Qibli shivered as Moon rested her talon in the giant NightWing’s palm.
She closed her eyes for a long moment.
“Isn’t that strange?” Darkstalker said. “It’s so blurred, and it ends in darkness. Is someone going to betray me again? But no one’s magic can hurt me anymore. And who? Did you see her? She looks like … but she can’t be.”
“If it was her,” said Moon, opening her eyes again, “would you take that path? Even knowing it ends in possible darkness, would you do it to see her again?”
A light was kindling in Darkstalker’s eyes. “But — do you —” He stopped, his claws gripping the stone. “Yes. Of course I would.”
“Then let’s see where this path leads,” Moon said, tipping her snout up to the sky.
Darkstalker spread his wings and paused. He leaned over to Vulture, tapped his head, and whispered something. Qibli’s grandfather vanished again, as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Then Darkstalker took off, aiming for the crack of sky overhead. Qibli exhaled with relief. This was not his final resting place, after all. He would live to see another sunrise, although he wasn’t sure he could count on more than one.
“Come on, we have to keep up,” Kinkajou said, leaping aloft. Her wings looked like flower petals on a river as she flashed away across the gray stone.
But Moon stopped one of Qibli’s wings with her own before he could follow suit.
“I heard all that,” she said, looking at him searchingly. “Why did you say no to his offer?”
“Did you want me to say yes?” he asked. “So I could be more special? Like you? I know, it’s what I’ve wished for a hundred times. I just … if I’d been born an animus, that would be one thing. But I couldn’t accept it as a gift from him. It wouldn’t be safe. And I wouldn’t know if I was myself anymore.” He glanced down at the soul reader. “That much power … it would change me. And I’m not sure it would change me in ways I would like. Or, um … ways you would like.”
“Qibli,” she said so fiercely that he flinched. Was she going to tell him to change his mind? To chase after Darkstalker and beg for the magic, after all?
Moon seized his talons in hers. “How are you so brilliant and such an idiot at the same time? You are special. You don’t need his poisoned magic, or any magic. You’re smart and you’re brave and you care and you don’t give up and you take all of that and use it to help other dragons instead of yourself. That’s better than magic. You did the right thing.”
“I did?” he said.
“Hey, swooning friends!” Kinkajou shouted from far overhead. “Am I defeating Darkstalker by myself today? Don’t you at least want to come watch?”
Moon laughed and let go of Qibli.
“Time to fly,” she said, and they did.
A dragon was waiting for them on one of the peaks of Jade Mountain. The three moons illuminated her silhouette, and Qibli heard Darkstalker inhale sharply. He abruptly looped back in the sky to hover in front of Moon.
“I’m not going to fall for this. Turtle made her, didn’t he?” he said. “The way I made Clearsight? This is a plan to mess with my head.” But his expression wasn’t angry, or suspicious. Qibli thought it was more … desperately hopeful.
“No,” Moon said. “She’s real, Darkstalker. She’s been in the Ice Kingdom all these years, trapped in a kind of suspended animation spell. She has only lived for tiny fragments of time here and there, so she is not much older than when you last saw her.”
“I thought they killed her,” he said, his voice breaking.
Moon hesitated. “It’s … it’s actually worse, what Queen Diamond did to her. But she’s all right now. She wants to see you.”
Darkstalker wheeled around without further argument and soared down to the dragon on the mountaintop. She turned to face him, her wings whispering across the frozen violets that dotted the grass around her talons. It was the dragon from the palace library, Qibli realized.
Moon beckoned to Qibli and Kinkajou and they landed softly nearby, close enough to hear without intruding.
Neither dragon said anything for a long moment as Darkstalker stepped closer and closer to her, his face still anxious with disbelief, his long neck and vast wings towering over her.
Finally he stopped right in front of her and crouched, making himself as small as he could.
“Mother?” he said.
She opened her wings to him. “Darkstalker,” she said. “My beloved disaster.”
The two dragons folded into each other. Qibli could hear Darkstalker’s quiet sobs carried on the wind.
Huh, he thought. So Darkstalker has a mother who loves him.
Oh, very good idea, Qibli, this is an excellent time for some self-pity.
“Where did she come from?” he asked Moon softly.
“She’s the NightWing Winter rescued from the Ice Kingdom,” Moon whispered. “Foeslayer. She’s been hiding in the shadows, watching him and the other NightWings, trying to figure out what was happening and what she should do.”
“She didn’t want to see him immediately?” Qibli said, surprised.
“Well, she’d heard what he did to his father,” Moon said, making her voice even quieter. “And she really loved Arctic, you know? I think she was afraid Darkstalker had lost his mind, and she didn’t know if her reappearance would make it worse. She said she was thinking of fleeing the continent instead … and then she met you.”
“Oh,” he said, remembering their conversation in the library — and all the things he probably wouldn’t have said about Darkstalker if he’d known she was his mother.
“I guess you made her realize she had to try reaching him,” said Moon. “She came to us after the battle, when she saw Darkstalker take you. We were chasing after him and she joined us. She said she wanted to help.”
“I hope she can,” he said. “But I don’t know how.”
“You’d be surprised what that kind of love can do,” Moon said with a wistful look. He wondered if she was thinking about her own mother and her strange
upbringing, hidden away in the rainforest, but loved very, very much.
“Mother,” Darkstalker said in a sudden rush, sitting up to look at her. “Do you remember the soul reader I made?”
“Yes,” she said wryly. “I remember you prowling around the house trying to catch your father with it to read his soul.”
He hesitated, perhaps reading on her face that she knew everything about what had happened with Arctic.
“It … it says I’m evil,” he said to her, sounding centuries younger than he looked. “Like, all the way almost entirely completely evil. Worse than Father ever was. I’m not, though, am I? I’m not evil.”
“Well,” said Foeslayer, “I can’t say I entirely approve of your choices lately. Or two thousand years ago, for that matter.”
Darkstalker hunched his shoulders, his wings hanging askew. “It was his fault you got caught by the IceWings,” he said petulantly.
“No. It was my fault for letting a stupid fight make me so mad I took off my protection.”
“What did they do to you in the Ice Kingdom?” Darkstalker asked. “I’ll make them pay. You can watch while I make them all sorry.” His claws jerked open and closed again.
“None of the IceWings alive today did anything to me,” Foeslayer said firmly. “Except for one, who freed me from my prison.”
“But you were imprisoned,” he said, pouncing on that word. “All this time? Wasn’t it awful? Don’t you want revenge?”
“I was never a vengeful dragon,” she said with a sigh. “You get that from your father. Calm down, it’s true. But it doesn’t make sense to punish the IceWing tribe for what happened to us all those centuries ago, Darkstalker. Queen Diamond is long gone. The war should have ended then. Time has moved on without us and we should let it, not drag it back into the blood and fire of our old fight.”
“But they —”
“Started it?” she interrupted. “They don’t see it that way. I remember what Arctic did during our escape from the Ice Kingdom. I understand why they were so angry, and why he never really recovered. I’m sorry you had to live a life shaped by that anger.”
She reached out to trace the lines of his face. “I wish I could start over and give you a happy life instead.”
“Maybe you can,” Moon said, moving forward into the moonlight.
“That’s true,” Darkstalker said. “You can help me rule Pyrrhia, Mother. I wouldn’t need anyone else then.” He touched his forehead. “Why can’t I see that future?”
“Because I would never say yes to that,” Foeslayer said sadly.
“Wait. Darkstalker,” Moon cut in. “I’ve had a new vision since the moment Jade Mountain didn’t fall. I wasn’t sure it was a vision at first, but it keeps looping back over and over.”
“Which one?” Darkstalker asked, his gaze shifting to the faraway look. “Qibli as an animus? I liked that one, although it wasn’t strongly probable. The others … none of them are perfect. I can see I never get Clearsight right. The Ice Kingdom is a frozen wasteland that’s a misery to conquer. The SeaWings never stop popping out of the ocean to fight us, no matter how many times I think I’ve stamped them out. The RainWings are impossible — it’s like trying to fight butterflies. An army of invisible butterflies who can melt your face off the moment you fall asleep.” He rubbed his eyes. “Thanks to those wretched earrings, becoming king of the whole continent is a lot harder than it should be. It’s exhausting. I’m tired and I haven’t even begun yet.”
He sat down heavily, resting his chin on the ground in front of Foeslayer. “And what’s the point?” he said sadly. “Clearsight’s gone. I never have dragonets, I never fall in love again. You’re still my only friend, and you and Mother spend the rest of your lives yelling at me.” He snapped one of the ice-covered flowers off its stem and crushed it into tiny purple fragments between his claws. “Is that what you see, Moon?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “The vision I see — I don’t think you’d be able to see it.”
He raised his head and looked offended. “Oh, really? You can see a future I can’t?”
“I think so,” she said. “If I’m right about it. It’s a vision of a dragonet. He’s growing up in the rainforest. He loves to weave and fish and sing. His favorite fruit is strawberries, which he and his friends fly to the mountains to find. He teaches himself to make jam and pies and he writes a song called ‘Strawberries as Big as a Scavenger’s Head,’ which becomes the anthem for a yearly strawberry festival.
“He lives a peaceful, ordinary life. He marries the tribe’s blacksmith and they have two funny little dragonets who steal his strawberries and make him laugh every day. They’re with him when he dies quietly in his sleep.”
She paused, watching him expectantly.
“Well, I don’t know who that is,” he said. She kept looking at him and he frowned. “I mean, who loves strawberries that much? I’ve never tried one. They look like they’re full of seeds.”
“Really?” Moon said with a little laugh. “They’re not at all. You’d like them.”
“I saw some over here,” Foeslayer said, searching a patch of leaves near her talons. She plucked one of the dark jewel-red fruits and passed it to her son.
He held the green stem between his claws and eyed it suspiciously. “Wait,” he said. “You think the dragon in your vision is me?”
“You without your powers,” said Moon. “You without your memories. A new you, with a chance to start over.”
Darkstalker snorted, little puffs of flame shooting out of his nose. “Why would I ever give up my powers?” he said. “I’m the most powerful dragon Pyrrhia has ever seen! Everyone wants to be me!”
“I don’t,” said Qibli.
“Me neither!” said Kinkajou. “Evil and smug and fatheaded and evil, no thank you!”
“I’m not —” Darkstalker started and then, surprisingly, fell silent. Foeslayer settled her tail over his and patted one of his free talons as though it was a lonely sloth.
“You could be happy,” she said to him. “You could be loved.”
“But you have to choose it,” Moon said. “You’re the only one who can make it real. Imagine it, Darkstalker. If you turn yourself into a different dragon, you could actually do good things for the world.”
He shook his head vigorously. “That’s ridiculous. Without my powers? What do I do, make pie? You must be joking. Couldn’t I do more good things with my powers intact?” he asked. “Like take Pyrrhia into the glorious future I’ve seen?”
“I’d rather have pie,” Kinkajou said.
Moon shook her head. “The future of Pyrrhia is not your own personal scroll, waiting for you to write it, Darkstalker. The only future you control is yours. And you have not brought happiness to the dragon tribes. We don’t want that future you see if we have to travel your dark path to get there.”
Darkstalker spun the strawberry in his claws for a moment, thinking.
“Do it,” Foeslayer said quietly. “Become a dragonet again. I’ll take care of you. I want to. We’ll be happy this time.”
“All I see this way is darkness,” he said, touching his forehead.
“Darkness is all the rest of us see if you do become king,” Moon said. “But this way —”
“No,” he said. “I can’t. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
Moon blinked, looking bewildered. “But my vision — I’m sure this is the path you choose.”
Darkstalker’s tail lashed back and forth, throwing off his mother’s. “I don’t want to lose all my memories! I’d forget Clearsight … she’d be even more gone that she is now!” He rose to his feet. “No, I’m going to be king. King of the whole continent. King of all the tribes! That’s my future; I’ve seen it a thousand times!”
“Darkstalker, please,” Moon pleaded. “I know there’s good in you still. If you listen to it, you’ll choose this for yourself, I’m sure you will.”
“You are a bunch of small-minded little lizards,” he said, rising
to his full height and spreading his wings. “What, did you think I’d taste a strawberry and decide, mmm, wow, that’s worth giving up my magic for?”
He looked down at the tiny fruit in his claws and ripped off all the green leaves. “Or did you have Turtle enchant this? Or perhaps another secret animus I don’t know about? It doesn’t matter, you boring, ordinary creatures. I can’t be enchanted by anyone! I’m smarter now; I’ve made myself completely safe. Nobody’s animus magic will work on me. Which means nobody will ever be able to stop me.” He threw the strawberry in his mouth and swallowed it, casting a dark look at his mother.
“Actually,” said Kinkajou, “there is one dragon’s magic that will still work on you.”
He glowered down at her. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m right,” she snapped back.
“Oh, really? Whose?”
She glared right back, and her scales were the color of burning strawberries. “Your own.”
Kinkajou upended her pouch and poured a tiny pile of scraps of paper onto the ground in front of her.
Qibli’s mouth dropped open.
The last pieces of Darkstalker’s scroll. The ones Chameleon used to transform himself into different dragons.
He could see the dark jagged scrawl of Peril’s father’s handwriting on them — and then, as Kinkajou carefully flipped them over, he recognized her own awkward lettering on the other side, and he remembered the hours and hours she’d spent practicing so she could be the first RainWing in a century to learn to write.
She used his own magic against him.
“What?” Darkstalker said, choking. “But how — I didn’t see —”
“I know,” Kinkajou said proudly. “Never saw me coming! Taken down by a ball of fluff! Who’s insignificant NOW, frogface!”
Darkstalker collapsed forward — no, he was shrinking, Qibli realized.
“You knew,” he gasped to his mother. “You helped her.”
“Of course I did,” she said. “What else could I do? Send you to your room? Extra chores for a week? Somehow neither of those seemed particularly apt for this situation.” She patted his shoulder — he was now about the same size as her. “It was this or leave forever and never see you again. I decided we’d both be happier this way.”