Wings of Stone: The Lost Tribe

This will update whenever I finish a chapter, probably.

This page was last updated on June 11, 2021.

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PROLOGUE

“Floral, the eggs are hatching!” Topaz flew as fast as her wings could carry her to her friend's residence.

“They are!?” Floral cried, bursting out of her door with her husband, Seawatcher. “Already?”

“Yes! Cliff said they’d be out any minute now! Let's go!” Topaz tugged on Floral’s talons and the trio flew as fast as they could to the Hybrid Hatchery on Sapphire Mountain.

“I can't believe it, Floral,” Seawatcher said, panting. “Our first dragonet.”

“I know!” Floral said happily, pink spots blooming on her wings and body. Topaz rushed in the building from behind her.

“Topaz! They’re hatching!” a MudWing (which Topaz recognized as Beige, the owner of the hatchery) exclaimed quietly. Topaz ignored her and hurried past her toward her bright red and orange egg.

The only reason I knew was because of Cliff’s vision, Topaz thought, as she took her newly-hatched daughter and hid her under her wing, so that Beige couldn’t know that she was a firescales. He already knew that she could read minds and tell the future, he didn’t need to know about her other ability… I’ll call her Peak. If Cliff’s vision is right, she should survive this war...

. . .

It was a year after Peaceflyt was born when his parents announced they were having a family gathering. “You’re going to see you aunts and uncles!” his father announced.

Seawatcher was still a soldier, but after talking with some high-ranking officials, he’d been able to get out of battle for a day. Floral was very elated, because she hadn’t seen him for that long since Peaceflyt was born. She informed Peaceflyt that they were having another dragonet soon, within a few months, so Peaceflyt was pretty excited, having heard his parents’ thoughts about it.

They had the reunion right on the edge of the rainforest instead of in the valley near the mountains, because Peaceflyt had multiple very young NightWing cousins who couldn’t fly yet.

After Peaceflyt’s family members greeted each other, he saw a red and black NightWing out of the corner of his eye. He tried to walk away, but the NightWing (who looked maybe two or three years older than him) jumped right in front of him. Surprised, Peaceflyt jumped back and held back a yelp.

Baring her gleaming teeth, the NightWing poised in an attack position. Someone please help me, Peaceflyt thought, panicking. And as if someone had heard his thoughts, another NightWing, this one black with dark blue underscales, ran over toward the frightening red one. The new NightWing yanked the attacking one’s tail and threw her towards a tree.

“Sorry about that,” the new NightWing said pitifully to him. “That’s Deneb, one of your cousins. You should probably avoid her.” She paused, looking down at him. “I’m Milkyway, one of your aunts. I’ll keep Deneb away from you, dear.”

Milkyway left, grabbing Deneb again and keeping hold of her for the rest of the day. From Milkyway’s side, Deneb kept shooting dirty looks at Peaceflyt whenever Milkyway wasn’t watching.

An hour later, the reunion finally ended. As soon as he got the chance, Peaceflyt threw himself into the safety of the forest. His parents didn’t seem to know about his encounter with Deneb. He was still panicking, wondering if Deneb was out to get him again. Calm down. You’re in the forest. You have venom to protect yourself if you really need to. You have parents that will protect you. It’s okay. You’re never gonna see her again.

CHAPTER ONE

THREE YEARS LATER

Peaceflyt was the type of dragon who always wanted to fit in, but never could. First of all, he was a tribrid. RainWing, SeaWing, and NightWing. I mean, hybrids were more common now than twenty years ago, but they were still a sight to see. Second of all, he had a weird name spelling. Well, maybe it wasn’t weird, it was just different. He did think ‘Peaceflyt’ was cooler than ‘Peaceflight’, anyway.

Third, he was a mind-reader. Mind-readers are also slightly more common now than twenty years ago, since the NightWings moved into the Rainforest and could now have eggs in the light of the moons, but there were still only a few of them. And finally, he was an ANIMUS. A.k.a. one of the most powerful powers anyone could have. He’d only used his powers a few times for small enchantments, but he still sometimes wished all that power could be in someone else’s talons.

Those were some of the things he was thinking about while he was out picking berries for his family.

A sudden voice yelled through the trees, startling him out of his thoughts and making him drop a few blueberries. “PEACEFLYT! It’s time to go to the family reunion!”

“Oh, crap,” Peaceflyt muttered. “Do I have to?”

“Peaceflyt!” Floral yelled again. “You have to come!”

“Fine,” he grumbled. Peaceflyt had had some bad luck with family reunions, given the last time he went to one some dragon almost attacked him.

‘I have to go to another family reunion,’ Peaceflyt thought sullenly. ‘I mean, you probably already knew that, though.’

He knew Peak was flying just above the rainforest, close enough to hear his thoughts. She couldn't go inside the forest, because she had firescales. I mean, I guess she could, because she could control them, but if she got too angry? There would be a forest fire.

Peaceflyt glanced out of the out of the forest, where he could see a streak of dark red through the trees. He waved a quick talon goodbye, and headed toward the center of the Rain Kingdom.

He heard a voice as he approached. “Finally! I've been waiting for, like, an hour.” Oh. It's Autumn, he thought. He sometimes wondered why his sister had been named Autumn. She wasn’t LeafWing, and she also hadn’t inherited any of her mother’s RainWing traits.

“Autumn,” Seawatcher replied. “It's only been ten minutes.” Peaceflyt stifled a laugh.

“Whatever.”

“Hey, Autumn,” Peaceflyt said as he approached her. “Are you gonna spend your time there with Lilac?”

“I don’t really know,” she replied. “I actually don't really want to go, but mom says I either have to go or spend the whole day working for Deathbringer.”

“Oh. Okay. Also, there’s this one NightWing who’s black and red and very violent and angry, so avoid her,” warned Peaceflyt.

“Well, I can be violent,” Autumn said, looking him in the eye. “Maybe we can be friends or someth-”

“NO, no, no, no, I mean like she won’t hesitate to kill stuff.”

“Ohh.” Autumn looked slightly worried now, and Peaceflyt knew he probably shouldn’t go much further into details.

He got interrupted by Peak's thoughts in the distance. ‘Do I need to melt off Deneb’s stuck-up face yet? Joking- unless I actually need to. Oh, and does your family know that you're an animus yet?’

‘I thought I told you about that! But maybe I didn't,’ Peaceflyt responded. ‘Only my parents do. I think. I'm not sure Autumn does.

He looked over, and Autumn was staring at him. “What were you doing? Staring into space?”

“Yyyyeah,” he said.

‘Okay. I’m going to try to avoid her, obviously. Although I’m hoping she won’t remember me. I mean it has been three years.’

“Peaceflyt!” Autumn was shaking him. “Mom and Dad are already a quarter mile ahead of us! Stop doing whatever you're doing and hurry up!” She launched herself into the air and flew through the trees.

“Okay, coming.” Peaceflyt joined her and they flew toward the edge of the forest.

‘Are you gonna be coming with us?’ Peaceflyt mentally asked Peak.

‘I’m flying above you. Look up,’ She thought.

He looked up and saw the bright shadow above him. ‘Okay, question answered.’

‘I told you I was flying above you squirrel brain,’ she thought at the exact same time. ‘Oh, also, don't forget to tell Deneb that I'm above her if she threatens you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Peaceflyt thought. ‘I will.’ He looked up at the red and purple shape of Peak in the sky above him and let his wings catch the breeze, carrying him toward the plain by the mountains.

. . .

About ten minutes later, Peaceflyt guessed, they arrived. He hovered in midair for a moment, checking to see where Deneb was, if she was here. ‘There.’ He thought. ‘That’s Deneb. The red and black NightWing in the corner.’ The look on Deneb’s face was hard to decipher, but it looked like she was making a mental list of who to murder first.

Please don't look at me… Peaceflyt thought worriedly to himself as he landed, edging toward Deathmaster and avoiding Deneb’s eye. He changed his scales to black to look more like he actually would fit in.

Still, Deneb must’ve seen his scales change or something, because she swung her head over to him. OH NO, Peaceflyt’s mind immediately thought.

Don’t freak out. I’m here, Peak reminded him, making sure to hover out of Deneb’s sight.

“Well. Look at you,” Deneb said, walking slowly toward Peaceflyt. “A very weird looking dragon. What tribe are you from, anyway?”

“Um…” Peaceflyt started, but didn’t finish. He could hear from Deneb’s mind that she was just trying to distract him. Deneb looked seemingly angrier, given that her distraction problem did not work.

Her brow was furrowed and her claws looked ready for attack. “Where’s a friend to protect you now?” Deneb asked, grinning wickedly.

“A-a fri-” Peaceflyt stuttered, then stopped himself, then scolded himself mentally. He cleared his throat, but couldn’t stop his voice from shaking. “Oh, a friend? I have a friend, all right. In fact, look above you, and you’ll see her.”

Deneb started approaching more slowly and glanced upwards. His friend is probably another crazy dragon like him. (Peaceflyt felt like he had been punched in the gut at these words, as he tried so hard to fit in.) They’ll probably not be able to stop me, anyways.

“Oh. Just another SkyWing,” Deneb observed. “I can take a SkyWing in battle. I’ve taken dozens of SkyWings. And your friend will be next.”

‘Is she blind? I’m glowing. Last time I checked, most SkyWings don’t glow.’ Peak thought.

‘I don’t know. She probably just thinks of you as just another dragon she’s going to kill,’ Peaceflyt thought, then added, “She’s not a normal SkyWing, though. She has firescales.”

Deneb’s eyes widened for a split second, and she retreated backwards. Peaceflyt had never seen Deneb retreat from attacking someone before, much less look afraid.

Peak dove toward the ground where Deneb was standing. Peaceflyt honestly kind of liked Deneb looking scared of his friend.

“You weren’t perchance going to attack your own cousin, Deneb, were you?” Peak asked with fake ignorance. Peaceflyt could see she was straining to keep her scales at a mere SandWing level of warmth.

‘She killed her sister!’ Peaceflyt exploded suddenly in Peak’s mind. ‘A cousin would mean much less than a sibling. Probably.’ He stopped, and then quietly mumbled, ‘Well, if anyone means anything to Deneb.’

“Wait,” Peak said, just loud enough for Floral to hear her. Peaceflyt could feel the anger coming up inside her.

‘You never told me that Deneb killed apparently DOZENS of dragons!’ Peak thought, outraged. ‘AND she killed one of her sisters! As a dragon with a dead sister, I call dibs on killing her.’ Peak was trying to remain calm, but Peaceflyt could feel the burning fiery rage in her thoughts, and if he looked up, it looked as Peak was like a miniature sun in front of him.

She took one sharp breath, and she suddenly calmed down. She reached into thin air and her enchanted fireproof cloak suddenly appeared in her talons. Peak put it on. Deneb was still in an attack pose but speechless. ‘No,’ Peaceflyt heard Deneb think. ‘Is she an animus?’

‘Peak,’ Peaceflyt thought. ‘How did you calm down so fast? That doesn’t seem like… you.’

‘Years of self-control,’ replied Peak, with a chokehold on her emotions.

In the few seconds where Peaceflyt and Peak were exchanging their thoughts, Deneb saw her chance to attack. She lunged upward at Peak, talons outstretched. Peak, who had either heard Deneb’s mind or just had really fast reflexes, shoved Deneb away without getting scratched, but her talons were slightly heated with annoyance. She cooled her scales down as fast as she could to avoid setting Deneb on fire, and Deneb barely got burnt. Peaceflyt leaped away from Deneb, who was falling toward the ground.

SMACK! Deneb’s head hit the ground really hard, and her whole body came tumbling down afterwards. Peak was only about fifteen feet in the air, but Deneb’s impact on the ground sounded like she had fallen off a cliff.

“You blatant fool.” Peak said, disappointed in Deneb’s idiocy. She walked over to Peaceflyt, now cooled down.

‘She must have the literal brain of a squirrel to think it was a good idea to attack a firescales.’ Peak added with her thoughts.

‘She probably does have the brains of a squirrel. Maybe like a squirrel that was enchanted to kill everyone,’ Peaceflyt thought, half joking, then looked over to his left. ‘DENEB’ was the first thing he thought of when he saw the NightWing approaching. But this one didn't have dark red underscales. This NightWing only had light gray underscales.

Phew. Peaceflyt breathed a sigh of relief. It's not Deneb.

“Hello,” Milkyway said, looking at her unconscious daughter on the ground. Oh, good, she thought immediately. Finally I can keep her contained, at least for a little bit. It's really the only way for her to stop hurting innocent dragons, to keep her either contained or by my side. I wonder why Deneb has to be such a difficult daughter. Peaceflyt could honestly NOT see the family resemblance between Milkyway’s kind passiveness and Deneb’s murderous personality.

“Who got her to quit avoiding me for this long?” Milkyway asked Peaceflyt and Peak, tilting her head. Peaceflyt glanced quickly at Peak, and she slowly raised her talons.

“Wow, really? How'd you do that?” Milkyway asked. “Anyway, thank you so much!” She bent down and grabbed Deneb by the tail. “Who are you anyway?”

“Peak,” Peak answered. “One of Peaceflyt’s friends.”

“Nice,” Milkyway responded. “I know I already said this, but thanks.”

“No problem,” said Peak. Milkyway smiled, and walked away happily with Deneb’s tail slung over her shoulder.

’Umm… good job? Apparently?’ thought Peaceflyt, looking at Peak, who had made herself look like a regular SkyWind and not a hybrid, behind him.

‘Thanks?’ Peak thought with exaggeration and sarcasm, smiling slightly.

Peaceflyt could see Deathmaster staring at them from a cluster of trees to his north. He beckoned for Peaceflyt to come over, and he nodded. Now I can spend some time at a family reunion actually NOT almost getting killed, he thought drily.

. . .

Peaceflyt, Peak, and Autumn were talking to Deathmaster, Deneb’s younger brother, and Nightlight, Deneb’s clutchmate. Peaceflyt guessed that Milkyway had hidden Deneb off somewhere, because he'd seen her a few minutes ago, and Deneb wasn't on her shoulder. He honestly wouldn't blame Milkyway; carrying a NightWing almost as big as her for the whole day would be pretty tiring.

“Peaceflyt,” Deathmaster said. “Why did you bring your friend again?”

“She just came along,” Peaceflyt said.

“Um,” Peak interjected. “More like I was saving you from Deneb.”

“Yyyyyeah,” Peaceflyt said awkwardly. ‘Right. Thanks for doing that,’ he thought afterwards.

‘Well, what can I say except you’re welcome,’ Peak sang inside his head.

‘And thank you,” Peaceflyt replied. “So, anyway, Deathmaster-”

A loud screech came from the East, startling everyone. Nightlight glanced around worriedly. “D-don’t worry, it could be a large group of scavengers,” Deathmaster said, peering out of the trees to the noise’s location. “Sometimes where I live, they have these gatherings and they're really loud.”

“I don't think it’s scavengers,” Peak observed as an angry yell broke the silence again. “I’d better go check.” She stepped out of the clump of trees and met Peaceflyt’s eyes. “Are you coming?”

“Umm…” I don’t really want to… Peaceflyt thought. “Sure.”

They flew over to where the strange noise was coming from, with Peak’s SkyWing-like wings keeping her in front of Peaceflyt.

They landed right where the strange noise was coming from. Peaceflyt’s eyes couldn’t see anything as he glanced around, but he heard a cough behind him that made Peak swivel her head around. “Who’s there?”

“Who is that?” a muffled voice said quietly, coming from a small cave three-quarters covered with boulders.

“Who are you?” asked Peak as she lifted two boulders and threw them aside. Peaceflyt stretched his neck to see what was inside.

“You,” Deneb said roughly and angrily as she slowly lifted her head up. “Have you come to knock me unconscious again? You know, as soon as I get free, I’m getting my revenge on both of you.”

Me? Peaceflyt thought angrily. What did I ever do to her? He turned around and Peak was looking behind her, like she’d seen something. However, she quickly turned around and decided to annoy Deneb instead. “When you escape?” Peak taunted. “Don’t you mean if you escape?”

‘What if she has help?’ Peak thought worriedly.

‘I’d like to know who would help Deneb,’ replied Peaceflyt. ‘Milkyway might, because she’s Deneb’s mom, but she’d keep an eye on her afterwards.’

‘The Queen of the SkyWings would befriend a sociopath killing machine that doesn’t have the brains to up-rule her.’

‘Hmm. Probably. Peaceful definitely isn’t the word I’d use to describe Ember.’

‘Really?’ Peak thought with exaggerated inquiry. ‘That’s the same dragon that exiled me from MY kingdom! And as a PRINCESS, I can say that MY AUNT is a horrid, non peaceful camel-eating squid-face.’

“PEACEFLYT!” Autumn yelled, running into their conversation. “The reunion’s over, hurry up!”

“Okay! Coming!” he yelled as his sister’s dark indigo figure took to the sky. He turned around and saw Peak squinting at something behind her again.

“What were you looking at?” he inquired.

Peak turned her head back at Peaceflyt. “I thought I saw a grey SeaWing or a really light NightWing or something behind me,” she said, visibly confused.

“That’s really… weird. The only other SeaWings here are my uncles Seaweed and Oceanclaws and my grandma, Koi. Oceanclaws is part NightWing, like my father, so his wings are kind of blue-gray.”

“The dragon I saw wasn’t blue-gray,” Peak informed him. “They were fully gray. Whoever it was dove into the trees when they saw me.”

I hope they aren’t stalking us, thought Peaceflyt. I don’t really want Peak to go over there to investigate either. It could just be a bluish-gray SeaWing, I’m pretty sure there are some of those-

“Peaceflyt, I’m not going to go over there and investigate,” Peak said. Peaceflyt flinched, he thought he had hidden his thoughts well enough for no one to hear. He was normally okay at that, since there were more mind readers in the rainforest and at Jade Mountain, but also normally he wore skyfire, so it wasn’t like he practiced it every day. How many times have other dragons heard my thoughts?

He glanced over at Peak, who was staring at the ground while walking. So this time she hadn’t heard his thoughts. “I can hear Deneb’s thoughts,” she said to him.

Peaceflyt opened his mind, and immediately hatred and anger flooded through it. ‘I will GET that SkyWing sooner or later… and she and all like her will PAY!’

‘You heard that too, right?’ Peak asked Peaceflyt.

‘Yyyyep,’ he replied.

Peak sighed. ‘Yay! I’m gonna have to incinerate even MORE dragons,’ she thought with heavy sarcasm.

‘Oh. Great. Have fun doing that,’ he thought wryly.

‘Thanks,’ Peak thought drily.

“Peaceflyt!! We HAVE to go! Literally everyone else is leaving!!” Autumn yelled.

“Okay!” he yelled back, launching himself into the air.

“See you at school,” Peak said to Peaceflyt before glowing and rising into the evening sky, putting up firewalls to all her thoughts.

“Yep. See you at school tomorrow. I’m already pretty tired, actually,” Peaceflyt responded. “Have a good night, and don’t let the Deneb’s bite!”

Peak laughed and flew away.

CHAPTER TWO

The next day, Peaceflyt dragged himself to school, wings draping behind him as he had barely got any sleep last night. He knew he was undoubtedly more popular than Peak, even though he didn’t think he was as popular as some of the other students. Most of the Jade Mountain Academy students were deathly afraid of her, and he was glad no one stared at him like a future serial killer.

‘You had more violent dreams than ME last night!’ Peak said in his mind, referencing the dreams Peaceflyt had about Deneb last night. She always had a firewall around that part of her thoughts. She was always careful of how many of her thoughts could be read, now that so many NightWings with mind reading there were. Peaceflyt couldn’t block his thoughts with fire, so he just kept skyfire on him most of the time. It meant he couldn’t have secret conversations with Peak, but it would guarantee that no other mind reader would hear his thoughts. Currently, he had his piece of skyfire on the outside pocket of a pouch wrapped around his arm. He had no clue why, but it didn’t block his thoughts when it was in that specific pocket. It was something he’d thought about but had never come to a conclusion.

He noticed that Peak had changed back into looking like herself, about half SkyWing and half Nightwing.

‘Really? Wow, I must be darker than I thought,’ Peaceflyt half-joked.

‘Yeah. I got some Darkst- dark dreams,’ she thought, hearing another mind reader close by.

At the beginning of school, when Peaceflyt and Peak were two and a half, Tsunami made all the mind readers at the school agree that they would stay out of other dragons’ minds. (Apparently multiple students had complained about some mind reading NightWing who was listening in on their thoughts and spreading rumors about their crushes and stuff). So Tsunami had gone out of her way to get some skyfire from the ocean to give to everyone who was a mind reader there. Peak couldn’t wear it, so Tsunami just had to make her promise that she wouldn’t read anyone’s mind.

The SeaWing was greeting everyone again at Jade Mountain again. This was something she’d been doing recently. Peaceflyt wondered why she wasn’t hurrying around the school like she normally was.

“Hi, Peaceflyt. Hi, Peak,” she greeted them. “How are you guys doing?”

“Meh. Okay,” Peaceflyt responded exhaustedly, trying to sound slightly less tired than he actually was.

“Just crashed a family reunion,” Peak answered Tsunami at the same time, seeming thoroughly well-rested, which was a well practiced front for how little sleep she gets.

Tsunami nodded and beckoned them both into the school with a smile, but Peaceflyt could hear a bit of confusion in her mind.

. . .

“I’m just glad that Atacama is fine with sharing a cave with ‘the fiery beast’,” Peak told Peaceflyt when they got inside. “And that Ridge liked my mom and aunt-that-didn’t-disown-me better so he talks to me. Some SkyWings hate me just for hatching.”

“Well, that really sucks,” Peaceflyt said with sympathy. I mean, I personally trust you JUST enough to not wander into my cave and burn me in my sleep.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Peak responded sarcastically.

“Let’s see… what’s our first class?” Peaceflyt muttered to himself, racking his brain. “Oh, right. Duh. It’s-”

“It’s OBVIOUSLY self defense, which you hybrids need around here.” Blizzard, the Jade Winglet IceWing, said obnoxiously as he came up from behind them. “Frigid told me.” He laughed.

“I was just about to say that,” Peaceflyt said, annoyed.

“Why does Peaceflyt need help with self defense, when he has RainWing venom?” Peak asked with venom practically dripping off her words. “And, Blizzard,” Peak said, exercising her royal posture and tone, “Why would a firescales of all dragons need lessons in self defense?” Blizzard started walking faster as Peak emphasized her point by waving her talons.

“Thanks,” Peaceflyt said, once Blizzard was out of earshot. “Let’s go to self-defense.”

Peaceflyt and Peak hurried down the halls to get to self-defense, and saw Frigid and Atacama sparring once again when they got there.

“She’s always gonna win, you know,” Peak told Frigid, and inclined her head towards Atacama.

‘Thanks,’ Atacama thought to Peak.

Poor Clay, having to deal with so much misbehaving students, Peaceflyt thought to himself. That’s probably why he comes in late so much. He took his piece of skyfire out of the outside pocket of his arm pouch and placed it into the main pocket, and at once everybody’s thoughts were silenced to him.

“Hi, Silver Winglet,” Clay told them. “Today, we’ll…” He checked a sheet of paper on the wall. “Today, we’ll be sparring.”

Peaceflyt sighed. He hated sparring. He kind of hated the whole idea of conflict.

“No using… any tribal advantages. Or powers, if you have them. You know the rules, I don’t think I need to go over them again. Why have you two started early again?” Clay inclined his head at Frigid and Atacama. No one answered. “Never mind,” Clay muttered. “Choose your sparring partners. I’ll be in the corner if anyone needs me.”

Peaceflyt saw Pelican walking over to him. “Peaceflyt?”

“Yeah, sure.” Peaceflyt hated sparring, but at least he knew and trusted Pelican. He got into a pathetic fighting position, and Pelican did the same, except his wasn’t really as pathetic.

“Dragonfly?” Ridge asked the coffee-brown MudWing. Dragonfly shrugged and nodded.

“I guess I’ll just spar my shadow again,” Peak joked from a corner of the cave where no one could accidentally tumble into her and get set on fire. While she was watching Dragonfly and Ridge spar, Pelican delivered the first blow to Peaceflyt. He leapt back and around Pelican and scraped his back. Pelican flew above him and got his tail, and Peaceflyt ducked to kick him.

This was basically what happened in self-defense every day. Basically just a lot of fighting, which Peaceflyt, a sensitive dragon, pretty much hated.

Luckily for him, Sunny came in about three-quarters through class and asked to borrow Peaceflyt.

“What?” Clay asked, initially confused. Then he must have remembered something, because his face relaxed. “Ohh. Yeah. Sure.”

Oh no, he thought to himself as he walked toward the cave entrance. Is this an award or something, or did someone blame me for something I didn’t do and we have to talk about it?

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,” Sunny said when they were in the halls. A wave of worry splashed over Peaceflyt. Did she read my mind? Then he realized that he was currently wearing his slightly-worried face, and she must’ve just seen that.

“Glory- Queen Glory’s ordered that the RainWings at Jade Mountain should be doing venom practice every day, just like in the Rainforest. So she visited over the school break two days ago and helped build this.” Sunny lead him to a room that was open to the mountainside. A cluster of leaves and flowers were draped over the opening, letting the sunlight filter through in green rays. Seven target boards, mimicking the ones in the rainforest, were set up on the opposite wall.

“Hi, Peaceflyt,” Walnut said. All the other RainWings at the school had already arrived at the class and were practicing their venom shooting. Tiki and Paradise, the Gold and Jade Winglet RainWings, were talking in the corner. Tiki looked at Peaceflyt and waved. He smiled back.

“So, basically,” Sunny waved her talons around the room, pointing at different stations. “The targets are for venom practice. You probably already figured that out. And on the other side of the leaf curtain, there’s a ledge if you want to get some sun.

“Plus, you can talk with the other dragons here. So it’ll probably be pretty nice. BUT, you do have to get in at least a little venom practice each day.” Sunny smiled, waved goodbye, and hurriedly walked out the door, like she was busy.

Ok, so now what can I do? Peaceflyt thought. He settled on just going and talking to Walnut.

“Hi, Peaceflyt! How are you?” Walnut asked. “I got here about fifteen minutes ago. I would think it’s pretty late for you to come.”

“Oh. Yeah, it probably is. Did Sunny get you personally, or did she get multiple students to come with you?”

“Oh, she got me with Vine, Tiki, and Paradise. So basically everyone but you, really-” Walnut got cut off by the bell, which signaled the end of class. “I guess Sunny brought you a little too late,” she said, laughing.

. . .

Peak and the rest of the Silver Winglet came out of self defense ahead of Peaceflyt, who ran up to catch up to them.

“Hi, Peak. Did you have fun sparring oxygen?” asked Peaceflyt sarcastically.

“I had fun watching Atacama win again.” Peak smiled.

“Group discussion next,” Peaceflyt remembered. “Let’s see how much we’ll talk.”

“I’m definitely not going to talk until Tsunami makes me,” Peak pointed out.

“Neither am I,” Peaceflyt agreed.

The Silver Winglet headed inside the group discussion cave, where Tsunami was waiting for them.

“Hey, Silver Winglet,” she said.

“Hi, Tsunami,” said Ridge as he sat down on the other side of Peaceflyt.

“You had self-defense before this, right? How’d it go?”

Peaceflyt glanced over at Peak, who was sitting in the back corner next to Atacama. They looked like they always did in self-defense class- attempting to avoid any conversation with anyone else and talking about whatever friends would be talking about.

“Well, most of us participated,” Frigid challenged, glaring at Peak.

“At least I didn’t lose for the millionth time,” Peak challenged back before lapsing into silence.

“Break it up, guys.” Tsunami scowled at them. “This class is supposed to help you get ALONG, not ARGUE.”

She turned to look at Peaceflyt. “How was your venom practice?”

I guess I have to talk now. “I… kind of arrived a bit late to it,” Peaceflyt informed her. “So I didn’t really do much.”

Tsunami cast a look at Sunny.

“I was busy. You know… working on the school expansion,” Sunny quickly said.

“Oh!” Tsunami interjected. “You guys know about that, I think, right?”

“Are there any new classes?” Dragonfly asked shyly.

“Yes,” said Tsunami, grinning. “I can tell you them, if you want.”

. . .

“Peak-” started Tsunami, when group discussion was almost over.

“I know the drill.” Peak sighed. “I actually have to talk now.”

Peak started to take part in the conversation for a bit, but within a couple of minutes, the bell rang, and that was the end of class.

“She didn’t notice me until class was almost over,” Peak noticed after they left class.

“Cool,” replied Peaceflyt.

The Silver Winglet headed toward history, where Webs taught. Webs was the oldest teacher the school had (Peaceflyt guessed he was around fifty years old, but he wouldn’t ask him about his age). About three weeks ago, he’d learned about the SandWing War of Succession, and how Webs brought Tsunami and Queen Glory’s eggs to an underground cave to raise them in order to stop the war. He also noticed that Tsunami got touchy when it came to that part of her life.

Peaceflyt knew that history was Peak’s favorite class, because she could just sit in silence and not get asked to do anything (not counting the rare occasion where Webs would call on someone to answer a question he’d asked). Peaceflyt actually didn’t mind this class much either. Being the introverted dragon that he was, sitting quietly wasn’t THAT bad. And he did kind of like history. But the tone of voice that Webs would drone on could bore any dragon out of their mind if they listened to it long enough.

“Today, we are going to learn about Queen Diamond, an IceWing queen who started an ancient war over her son and daughter-in-law.”

Peaceflyt saw Frigid’s brow furrow. Oh. I wonder if this relates to that Darkstalker dragon.

His thought was proven right when Webs mentioned Darkstalker in his lecture. (He didn't know how he was paying attention enough to hear that).

The rest of class was just like a normal class of history at Jade Mountain. About two dragons ended up snoring, and most of the others attempted to stay awake in case they were asked a question. Peaceflyt thought that Peak and him were probably the only ones to actually find a bit of interest in this class.

A few minutes later, the bell for lunch rang, startling Atacama out of her slumber.

“That was unpleasant,” Atacama told them after walking out of class. “I HATE being woken up. At least it’s lunch.”

. . .

Peak flew off to eat and hunt alone, like she did every day. Atacama, Sparrow, and Pyramid ate somewhere in the Great Hall when the food arrived from Clay’s hunting group.

Peaceflyt, being half RainWing, didn’t really hunt often, so he just sat with Walnut, Tiki, and a MudWing from the Gold Winglet named Swamp during lunch.

Lunch was pretty uneventful. Tiki, Swamp, and Peaceflyt talked a bit while Walnut went to the Prey Center to get some fruit for the RainWings at the table they were sitting at.

After lunch, it was free time. Peak was still out eating and hunting, and would be out until their next class, Herbs and Healing. Peaceflyt normally spent free time in the music or art rooms, and occasionally the library where Walnut was most of the time.

“Peaceflyt?” asked Walnut. “Can you come to the library with me today?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“I’m not Peaceflyt, but I’ll come too,” Tiki added.

Their trip to the library was relatively normal, too. Peaceflyt and Tiki brought out some board games, and the three RainWings laughed and talked.

Soon, the bell rang, and Peaceflyt headed to Herbs and Healing with Fatespeaker, the very optimistic NightWing teacher.

“I’m back,” Peak said as Peaceflyt sat down, landing gingerly on her dark red talons outside the classroom.

“Hi, Peak! And the rest of you,” said Fatespeaker as Peak walked in. “Today we’re going to be practicing on one of the greatest healing herbs in the Mud Kingdom!”

She pulled out a bunch of what looked like cattails from a cabinet in the back of the classroom, and explained that these were a special type of cattail grown near the Mud Kingdom’s coast.

“Ridge, hand these out, please.” Fatespeaker dumped the plants into Ridge’s talons, and he carefully handed them out to each of the Silver Winglet.

They practiced brushing the cattails in a certain way across the scrapes and scratches they had gotten from self defense class. Peak, obviously, couldn’t do much in Herbs and Healing either, because Fatespeaker was worried about her accidentally burning the herbs she would practice with. “I mean, at least she can learn about them,” Fatespeaker had said when Atacama asked if Peak would actually be doing anything in her class.

The rest of the day was a normal school day for Peaceflyt. At dinner, Peaceflyt sat with Swamp and Tiki, and shared some of his extra food with them.

At the end of the day, he went to his sleeping cave with Ridge, his clawmate. He often wished that Pelican would be his clawmate instead, because Peaceflyt knew him better, but for now, Pelican was stuck with Frigid.

“Hi,” Ridge said about an hour after the sunset. He'd gone out to the library after dinner to read and was just entering their cave for the night. “Are you going to sleep already?”

“I guess so,” Peaceflyt said, getting into a comfortable position. “I just kind of have a weird feeling tomorrow is going to be an eventful day."

Peak’s Capture - Peak’s PoV

It was just after dawn, and Peak was at the lakes as per usual. She’d had the nightmares again. Blood, death, war, and hostages, but Peak was saved by her firescales. The very scales that were enchanted, much like Stonemover’s, but so that she could control them as long as she could control her emotions.

Peak laid down on the boulders surrounding the lakes, when she heard thoughts. There she is. We finally have her. Our informant seems to be correct. The voice sounded male.

SkyWing, again? Peak assumed it was just another SkyWing soldier, sent to attack her. Then she saw the armor.

The dragon had amber-gold colored armor studded with spikes and emeralds. The armor seemed to be immune to heat, and the dragon wearing it had an odd grayish color. It was about the same color as the dragon that she thought she saw in the rainforest.

Peak started flying, heated up her scales and breathed fire at her opponent.

Oh, this ARRR… Peak’s thoughts and low growl ceased right after a blow-dart hit her from behind. She fell unconscious, slipped into the lake, and was dragged out and carried off to a faraway island.

CHAPTER THREE

Peaceflyt woke up just when the sun was starting to come over the horizon, earlier than he normally did. He turned over onto his other side, trying to fall asleep again. It didn’t happen. Instead he just tossed and turned, wishing morning would come sooner.

Peaceflyt opened his eyes about half an hour later when he heard Ridge's voice.

“Peak said good morning,” he informed Peaceflyt. Ridge woke up as early as Peak usually did, and Peak often left a message. Currently, Ridge was reading something on his side of the cave.

“Okay. She’s at the lakes again, I presume?”

“Yep, that’s where she always is in the morning,” said Ridge. He went back to his scroll and Peaceflyt endured another few minutes of trying to fall asleep. He finally gave up and walked past Atacama and Peak’s cave to get to the library to spend the morning.

After a while, the bell for the first class of the day went off. Already? Peaceflyt thought, startled. Didn’t I only spend, like, five minutes in here? He quickly grabbed the scroll he was reading and shoved it into a random spot on the nearest scroll rack.

He quickly said “bye” to Starflight and hurried toward self defense.

. . .

“Peaceflyt?” Atacama called from behind him when he was on his way to lunch.

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen Peak?” Atacama asked, hurrying her pace to catch up with him. “She left our cave early in the morning like she always does, but she hasn’t come back yet.”

“Oh. I haven’t seen her,” Peaceflyt told her. “Ridge said she was at the lake like usual. She told him when she went there, which was probably half an hour before sunrise, I think.”

“If she’s still there, it’s sure taking a long time for her to come back. It’s lunch,” Atacama pointed out.

Peaceflyt agreed. “That’s true. Oh, and when she comes back, I’ll tell her that you beat Frigid four times again.” Atacama stifled a laugh.

“What?” the cold voice of an IceWing interrupted from behind them.

“What?” Peaceflyt said, trying to put as much confusion into that word, like he hadn’t said the pale IceWing’s name.

“I thought I heard you say my name,” said Frigid accusingly.

“Oh… I didn’t, don’t worry,” Peaceflyt lied. The lie seemed to work, as Frigid walked away and hurried off with some of his IceWing friends.

“Come on,” said Atacama. “Let’s go to lunch.”

. . .

Peak still wasn’t back by the time dinner came. Peaceflyt was starting to get slightly worried. She normally came back a couple minutes before self defense, the first class of the day. Now all of the classes were over, and she still wasn’t at the school.

Sunny emerged out of a cave and practically ran into him. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she yelped as she looked down at him.

“It’s fine,” Peaceflyt replied.

“Are you worried?” asked Sunny, reading his expression. She is REALLY good at reading my expressions, somehow.

“Oh… no,” he lied again. “Well, I mean, I was heading to dinner but I think I left something in the library. So I'm going to go get it now.”

Atacama, who’d come out of a cave to see Peaceflyt lying to Sunny, gave him a puzzled look as he casually walked back toward the library. As soon as Sunny was out of sight, he walked back up to Atacama.

“You’re weird,” Atacama noticed.

“Yeah, sometimes I can be,” Peaceflyt admitted with a shrug.

. . .

Atacama walked into the Prey Center just before Peaceflyt was about to go out with Clay’s hunting group.

“Are you joining us, Atacama?” Clay asked, tilting his head.

“I guess so,” she mumbled.

She’s coming with us? Peaceflyt thought, surprised. She normally either waits for the hunting group or hunts by herself. Then again, I’ve only hunted with the hunting group a few times too.

“Okay, then,” said Clay, vaulting into the air. “Let’s go.”

The other dragonets who’d joined the group leapt into the air behind him, and this was when Peaceflyt realized that Clay seemed very downcast. He was obviously trying to hide it, but he couldn’t fake the droop of his wings and head when he was flying. His sadness seemed to get worse with flying, so he appointed Hawk, the Jade Winglet SkyWing, the leader of the hunting group for the session, and swiftly flew back to Jade Mountain a quarter way through.

Their hunting route for the day, according to Hawk, was flying right next to the river for a bit, crossing it, flying over the hills, past the lakes, and back to the Academy.

The lakes! Peaceflyt thought. That’s where Peak went! I’m going to ask Atacama if she wants to come investigate with me.

Peaceflyt casually flew over two dragons and ended up next to Atacama. “Atacama, I’m going to check the lakes to see if Peak’s still there. Want to come with me?”

“Oh, yeah! I totally forgot that's where she disappeared,” she said, surprised. When the group passed the lakes a while later, they both dove down towards them without any hesitation, though Atacama made a shortstop to kill a mountain goat.

Peaceflyt hovered in the air for a moment, studying the scene. There were six lakes there, two medium-sized ones and four small. Jade Mountain loomed in front of them. And…

“Is that a fire?” Atacama asked, pointing to a small bit of smoke coming up from the trees across the lake.

Peaceflyt flew closer to investigate. “I think so.” He lowered toward the water, and with one swish of his SeaWing tail, the fire was quenched.

He promptly headed toward the site where the fire had burnt, and Atacama followed suit, landing next to him. It smelled of burnt wood and smoke. It looked like what a normal forest fire would look like. So why did it seem so unsettling to Peaceflyt?

Maybe the first question he had was “how could a fire start here?” It was evening and it had been a completely clear day. And if lightning did strike, someone from the school would’ve heard it. No scavengers lived in this area either, so they’re couldn’t have started a forest fire. (Peaceflyt had learned at Jade Mountain that scavengers had almost dragon-like personalities and abilities, so they probably could’ve started a forest fire here if they really wanted to.) There was no sign of anything that could’ve started a fire and wouldn’t have put it out… except maybe a firescales who couldn’t put it out.

The only other firescales other than Peak that Peaceflyt knew who ever came around Jade Mountain was Peril, but he was pretty sure she never went by the lakes. So this fire had probably been started by Peak.

He told Atacama what he’d been thinking, and she looked him dead in the eye and told him, “Wow. You might be right.”

As he and Atacama explored the area a bit more, they found more clues. Burnt blood, on the forest ground. Vague scratch marks on a couple of trees. A burn mark on a tree that looked like a dragon had made it. These were obvious signs of a struggle. And the biggest clue of all… there was a dark red scale on the ground that almost matched perfectly with Peak’s color, though she could’ve left it any time she came near the lake.

“This is where Peak disappeared,” Peaceflyt concluded. “But what happened?” Did someone kill her and hide her? Or did they take her alive? But why? Is it because she’s a hybrid? There’s not enough blood if they killed her anyway. So why would they take her? And where?

“NO ONE CAPTURES AND INJURES MY FRIENDS!” Atacama yelled. “I’LL KILL THEM BEFORE THEY KNOW I’M THERE!” She leapt into the air and flew back to Jade Mountain in a rage, leaving Peaceflyt at the lake by himself.

I might as well go, too, Peaceflyt thought sadly, hoisting himself into the air as well and following Atacama. While he was flying, he had a good amount of time to think. Peak has firescales, so how did anyone get to her? Maybe if they found fireproof armor- I heard there was this one rare metal that was fireproof. The SkyWings or IceWings could be good suspects. Didn’t some IceWings try to kill her family when she was younger? The SkyWings would also be good suspects, because Queen Ember kicked her out of the Sky Kingdom and… maybe wants to capture her or something?

Atacama was nearly at the Academy now, and Peaceflyt was using all of his strength to try and catch up to her. He guessed she was rage flying, because he’d never seen her fly so fast.

“Peaceflyt!” Walnut exclaimed when he finally arrived, stumbling into the Great Hall. “Atacama told us about what happened to Peak… is it true?”

“Y-yes… I think so.” Peaceflyt plopped down on the ground, wings spread on either side of him.

She instantly turned a deep color of gray. “Oh, no… oh, no…”

. . .

Peaceflyt’s wings were like heavy weights to him by the time nightfall arrived. He collapsed on the ground in his sleeping cave, but he couldn’t sleep for hours. His thoughts kept him up all night.

How will I be able to save her? I actually… don’t want to- I mean, I don’t want to go by myself. He sighed. I’m not really that brave. I’m not really great at riddles or questions, sometimes. And I need to be brave for this. And I also need to know who the MOONS-CURSED DRAGON EVEN IS AND WHY THEY WOULD CAPTURE PEAK!

He took deep breaths, and tried to keep his thoughts from overflowing his brain. Luckily, that worked, and he was finally able to go to sleep after almost five hours.

. . .

A vision of Peak waking up, confused, in a small cave slowly flooded into his mind in the middle of the night. There was a tangerine orange colored SkyWing who looked about... maybe seven years old next to her, peering out of… a crack in the rocks? Something like that.

Peak jumped to her feet and almost immediately fell, and the orange dragon pointed to something on her side. Even though Peaceflyt couldn’t hear a word the orange dragon was saying, he got the general idea of what she was talking about by reading her lips. Something about a tranquilizer dart.

“Is this a dream?” Peaceflyt said, taking a step closer to the two dragons. “Peak? Is that really you?”

No one answered. Peaceflyt sighed.

The orange dragon knelt down next to Peak and grabbed on to the blow dart. With a jerk backwards, it was in the orange dragon’s talons. She studied the dart for a few seconds, and then threw it behind her, muttering something that probably would’ve been unintelligible even if Peaceflyt could hear the conversation.

Peak slowly attempted to get up, and when she finally did, she asked the orange dragon something. The orange dragon explained it to her, and from her hand motions, Peaceflyt had a vague guess of where she was. In a prison somewhere.

Peak growled multiple angry things and balled her talons. The orange dragon put a claw up to her snout, pointed to the crack in the rock, and whispered something.

Peak and the orange dragon suddenly jumped back with wide eyes, and practically startled Peaceflyt out of his sleep, even though he could hear nothing. The crack in the rock got wider, and Peaceflyt realized that there was a rock that acted like a door there.

Stony gray talons grasped the door and pulled it aside. A slangry old dragon the color of mountain rock mixed with dirt peeked her head inside and yelled something at the two SkyWings. Peaceflyt caught a glance of an engraved word on the arm of the dragon’s armor, ‘Travertine,’ it read.

Travertine? That’s an odd name. As he studied the dragon’s face, he realized that it looked vaguely like a NightWing’s. I wonder if she’s a hybrid.

Travertine’s brow furrowed. She muttered something and slammed the rock door on the SkyWings’ faces, so hard it shook Peaceflyt out of his sleep.

It's just a dream… just a dream… don't freak out. You're just dreaming. Peaceflyt reassured himself as much as he could, but he wasn't completely sure that it wasn't.

CHAPTER FOUR

Peaceflyt woke about half an hour after sunrise the next day. He was still thinking about how Peak had disappeared, and the thought of that kept him up all night. Surprisingly, he felt a bit more awake than he did yesterday, despite the sleep deprivation. Maybe it was just because of Peak.

“‘Morning, Peaceflyt,” said Ridge, reading the same scroll he was reading yesterday. His corner of the cave was noticeably cleaner than Peaceflyt’s, although there were a few of his items scattered across the floor by his bed.

“‘Morning,” he replied. “Did Peak come by and talk to you this morning?”

“Hmm…” A frown formed on Ridge’s face. “No… I don’t remember her coming.”

Oh, great, it wasn’t a dream, Peaceflyt thought glumly. So she actually got captured or whatever. I wonder if Peak came by and Ridge was too into his scroll. Then again, Ridge isn’t the best dragon at remembering things.

Peaceflyt stretched and wandered out into the halls. Tsunami and Clay were the only dragons in the hall as far as he could see, and they were talking about something.

“PEACEFLYT!” A sudden voice pierced through the air behind him. Peaceflyt jumped.

“Atacama!” Peaceflyt said with a hint of annoyance, looking behind him.

“I love making dragons jump,” Atacama said happily. “You seem really jumpy, anyway. I can't believe you're coming to rescue Peak with us.”

I'm coming? To rescue Peak with them? Peaceflyt wondered, surprised. I mean, I guess it’s better than going by myself. And I do want to rescue her.

Atacama raised her venomous tail barb towards him with a mischievous smile. Peaceflyt quickly jumped back with a face that basically said, ‘are you serious?’

“So, you are jumpy,” Atacama said, lowering her tail. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that. You’re not on my enemies list, so I have no intention of killing you.”

“O-kay. Good to know.”

Atacama laughed. Then she walked off, probably to find Pyramid and Sparrow.

Should I head to self defense? Peaceflyt wondered, checking the time. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to be earl-

“Hey, Peaceflyt!” Walnut’s voice said. Peaceflyt turned his head to look at her- them. Tiki was with her too.

“Hi, guys,” he replied. “What's up?”

“Um… so... what are you going to do about the Peak situation?” Walnut inquired, a bit hesitantly.

”Uh… I know this might sound a bit weird,” Peaceflyt said slowly, “but I'm apparently going to go out and rescue her.”

“Ok, I can see why it's a bit weird,” Tiki said.

Because I could die. And I'm not that brave, Peaceflyt thought sourly.

“If that were me, I'd probably not go,” Tiki said. “I don’t really know Peak that well, anyway.”

“Can I go?” Walnut asked. “If you’re going, I’m coming with you.”

“That’s fine with me,” Peaceflyt said. “I’m sure Atacama will let you come.”

“Atacama?”

“Yeah. She told me that I’m coming with her,” Peaceflyt explained. At least going with someone else is better than going by myself.

“I think Atacama will let me go,” said Walnut confidently. “In the meantime, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. The bell should be ringing soon. Maybe in about a minute or so.”

“Oh. So I’d better get to class, then,” Walnut said cheerfully. “See you at lunch!” The bell rang as she walked off into the halls, and Peaceflyt decided that he’d better get going.

Better get going before there’s a flood in the halls, Peaceflyt thought. Cold scales whipped by to his right, and he saw an IceWing bump into two more dragons before hurrying into the self-defense cave.

Nice one, Frigid, Peaceflyt thought sarcastically.

. . .

“Clay’s late again,” Dragonfly noted.

“He’s always late,” said Pelican. “But, yeah. It’s been half the class already.”

“You know, I heard that if teachers miss over half the class, we can leave,” Atacama said with a michevious smile.

I hope he’s fine, thought Peaceflyt. I hope HE didn’t get captured.

Luckily, he heard footsteps around the corner, and Clay walked in. His eyes had bags under them, like he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. His wings dragged across the floor, and there was a frown across his face, which seemed fairly unlike him.

“Are you okay?” Ridge asked, concerned.

“Hm?” Clay looked up at his students, then leapt to his feet. “Oh! I’m sorry. I haven’t gotten anything planned today, I’m such an idiot.” He walked over and checked the sheet of paper on the far wall, which listed the activity for each day in the school year.

“It looks like we’ll be doing… sparring again. Sorry again. We’ll be doing something different tomorrow.”

Peaceflyt sighed. Sparring two days in a row?

It might help in rescuing Peak, a corner of his brain thought. If you have to battle anyon- Oh, no, I might have to battle someone. Maybe I shouldn’t go. But Atacama and Pyramid are going, and they’re good at battle. And I really want to rescue Peak… I’ll go.

“Peaceflyt?” Pelican asked, ending his train of thought. “Spar?”

“Umm… talk first, spar later?” Peaceflyt said quietly.

Pelican thought for a second. “Sure. What’s up?”

“Are you going to come rescue Peak with me- us?” Peaceflyt asked.

“Us? Who’s going?”

“Um… me, Atacama, and probably Walnut, Pyramid, and Sparrow,” Peaceflyt said, counting on his claws. “I’m actually not completely sure if Pyramid and Sparrow are coming, but I’m guessing since Atacama hangs out with them all day and since they’re some of Peak’s best friends, they’re coming.”

“Okay.” Pelican paused. “I guess I can come. It’s not like I know Peak well, but as far as I know, they’re not teaching anything important in the next week. And I kind of want to go somewhere. Coral barely ever lets me go to new places. Since I’m her youngest son, she has the urge to protect me more than my older brothers. I guess I just have to hope she doesn’t find out I left.”

Oh yeah, Peaceflyt thought. Why did I forget he was the son of the SeaWing queen? “That’s definitely going to make it harder for you to come.”

“Well, I’m going to go anyways,” Pelican said. “When are you leaving?”

“I dunno. Probably soon.”

“Okay.”

“Wait, you do know what happened to Peak, right?” Peaceflyt asked.

“Didn’t she get captured or something? I thought the whole school knew that,” Pelican said. “Unless she didn’t get captured…”

“No, she got captured,” replied Peaceflyt. “The whole SCHOOL already knows that?”

“I think so,” Pelican said.

“Do the teachers know?” Peaceflyt asked, hurriedly.

“No,” replied Pelican. “Probably not. I think if they did, they’d say something about it, right?”

“Yeah,” said Peaceflyt. I hope no one tells them. They’ve had enough drama in their lives. And then they’re going to try and save Peak if someone breaks the news to them. But they’d probably just dismiss the news as rumors… Right?

“Pelican? Peaceflyt?” Clay called out. He sounded a bit more sad and tired, like he was faking his happiness.

“Sorry,” Peaceflyt said. “I guess we have to spar now, then.”

Pelican nodded, and ran at Peaceflyt. They started sparring, and nothing interesting happened. By the end of class, they both had small scratches along their bodies.

“Wonder why Clay’s so down,” Ridge muttered as they walked in the halls. “Guess I can’t talk to him now.” He then turned down the hallway toward the sleeping caves.

. . .

Peaceflyt ran into Nightlight as he was rounding a corner toward the group discussion cave. She jumped. Peaceflyt knew that she’d always been jumpy, and he didn’t blame her, having Deneb as her sister. She waved at him awkwardly, and he waved back.

“Just… going to self-defense,” Nightlight muttered, and walked off.

Is it just me, or has she been acting weirder lately? Peaceflyt thought. Or maybe it’s just because she nearly saw me get killed by her murderous sister. That could be it.

“Hey,” a familiar, slightly deep voice said from behind him.

“Hi, Ridge,” Peaceflyt said.

“So, are you really going to rescue Peak?” questioned Ridge.

Peaceflyt paused. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“I’m your clawmate,” Ridge told him.

“Yeah, I know. But how did you know?”

“I overheard you and Atacama talking about it while I was walking to self-defense earlier,” the SkyWing admitted. “I swear I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just overheard you.”

“Ok. Try not to talk about it until after we go-” Peaceflyt stopped. “Actually, try not to talk about it at all, but mostly try not to talk about it until after we go.”

Ridge nodded. “Sure. If the founders freak out about it, can I tell them?”

“Hmm… only if they’re sending dragons out to go find us, or if they’re going to try to find us themselves,” Peaceflyt said.

“Okay,” Ridge said. A loud ringing echoed through the halls, which meant the bell had rang and the next class was starting.

“Oop, there’s the bell,” Peaceflyt muttered. He speed-walked down the hall and turned in to the group discussion cave, where Tsunami was sitting with Dragonfly and Atacama.

“Hi, Peaceflyt,” Tsunami said as Peaceflyt sat down. “And Ridge.” Ridge came through the door. “And Pelican,” she said as Pelican hurried into the classroom.

“Who’re we missing?” Tsunami muttered to herself as she counted on her talons. Frigid walked in. “Frigid… wait… he just came in, never mind,” the SeaWing said, glancing up at Frigid. So we’re only missing Peak.”

Peaceflyt’s eyes opened a bit in surprise. Oh, right. The teachers don’t know about Peak yet, he thought. He shot a glance at Frigid, and was hoping he either didn’t know, or would keep quiet and not tell the founders. Peaceflyt noticed that he did look a bit happier today. Maybe he does know. Unless he’s happy about something else. I’m just hoping he won’t tell anyone.

“I guess I’ll just have to mark Peak late for now,” Tsunami said. “Anyways, has anything exciting happened to any of you guys since our last group discussion?”

YES, Peaceflyt wanted to shout out. Although my best friend getting captured isn’t really exciting. More just like eventful. He looked over at Atacama and saw that she was staring into space. Maybe thinking about Peak. She was sitting in the dark corner she usually sat in with Peak, although she looked much more lonely sitting by herself.

When no one answered, Tsunami continued. “Okay, someone share SOMETHING. I don’t want to sit in silence here all day.”

Please don’t talk about Peak… Peaceflyt prayed. When no one said anything AGAIN, it was likely that Tsunami would randomly call on someone and make them share. In fact, Peaceflyt could already see her lashing her tail in annoyance, and he decided he should probably talk so Tsunami wouldn’t call on anyone.

“I-” Peaceflyt said, but got cut off by Tsunami. “Ridge,” she said, pointing at the SkyWing.

Phew, Peaceflyt’s mind said. At least I told him to not tell the founders about Peak.

“Umm… I found a pretty cool scroll yesterday,” said Ridge. “It was about scavengers- like, if scavengers were in the place of dragons.” He settled back, indicating that he was finished.

“Nice,” Tsunami said, then turned around to call on Dragonfly, who was raising her talons.

“Why are they doing construction by my sleeping cave?” She asked quietly. “I just remembered about it, and I was wondering how long they were going to do it.”

“Oh! That!” Tsunami exclaimed, wings opening. “They’re going to finish working on them tomorrow. I'm supposed to tell you why they're doing that during the lunch break.” She smiled, seeming like she was trying hard not to spill whatever exciting secret she was thinking of.

“Can you tell us now?” Frigid asked.

“No,” Tsunami said sharply, but her face clearly said ‘I WANT TO TELL YOU AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.’

“Peaceflyt?” A soft voice whispered next to him. He turned and saw Pelican looking at him.

“Yeah?” he whispered back.

“I’ve been thinking a little bit,” he said, “and I think I know why Clay’s so sad.”

“Really?” Peaceflyt’s ears perked up a little.

“So you know about Peril and Clay,” Pelican said. “And how Peril’s always said that she hadn’t missed a day at the school for… twenty years or something, right?”

“Yeah,” Peaceflyt replied. He hadn’t seen Peril every day since he got admitted into the academy, but he’d seen glimpses of her walking by in the halls every so often. The SkyWing had even showed up at lunch one time.

“Well, I didn't see Peril anywhere yesterday. And I pass the founder's private cave- you know, the cave where they talk in private, every morning when I walk around the school,” Pelican told him. “And I've seen Peril in there every day since I started walking around the school. But I glanced in there yesterday and didn't see her.”

“Maybe she was… late,” Peaceflyt hoped, not liking the thought that was coming on. “Maybe she didn't come in the morning.”

“Maybe,” Pelican said. “But that was the same day Clay started acting sad. And I know that Clay liked Peril to come best in the early morning before he had to deal with the school.”

“Oh, no…” Peaceflyt’s head was filling of thoughts on where Peak was and what had happened to her. “Do you think…”

“Yeah,” Pelican said grimly. “I think someone is trying to capture all the firescales on Pyrrhia.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“Class dismissed,” Tsunami said, after what seemed like an eternity sitting there for Peaceflyt.

He was still thinking about what Pelican had said. Someone is trying to capture all the firescales on Pyrrhia. But why? What’s the point? Are they holding them hostage? Are they- he hesitated. Are they trying to overthrow a kingdom or a queen or something?

Actually, I really just want to know who’s taking them.

“Peaceflyt?” Atacama asked once they left the classroom, catching up to him and Pelican. “I’m thinking we should leave around lunch.”

LUNCH? That’s really soon. Peaceflyt thought, then starting scolding himself. Stop trying to get out of doing things that are out of your comfort zone, Peaceflyt. You’re going to go save her. She’s your best friend, so you should be excited to go and try to find her. You shouldn’t be so scared!

“Oh…” Peaceflyt said, responding to Atacama after an awkward second or two. “Okay. Is it fine if Pelican and Walnut com-”

“Yeah. Sparrow told me about Walnut, she can come with us. And so can Pelican, I guess, if he wants to. Although Queen Coral might be pretty mad if she finds out,” Atacama pointed out.

“She’s been mad at me before,” Pelican said. “And hopefully if it doesn’t take too long, she won’t even notice.”

“Well, okay,” Atacama said. “I guess we just have to go to history before we leave.” She sighed. “I kind of hate school sometimes.”

“We all do at one point,” Peaceflyt said reassuringly. To be honest, though, he thought he was really lucky being able to attend the highest-rated school on the continent. After Jade Mountain was founded, a few other inter-tribal schools popped up around Pyrrhia, but this one was the original. And it was the one that the famed Dragonets of Destiny had founded right after the Great War. So that was pretty cool.

But school could be pretty boring. About 99% of the students collectively agreed that history was the most dull subject. For Peaceflyt, it depended on what they were talking about during class. History of the RainWing queens? Boring. Geography? Not boring.

They entered the history cave, where Webs was standing in his normal spot. He looked a bit more tired today- well, he’d recently looked tired a lot, but today he seemed more exhausted than usual.

He said something along the lines of “Today we’re going to be learning about Queen Vigilance, a NightWing queen who lived a few thousand years ago,” and then pointed at the chalkboard, but Peaceflyt barely paid any attention to the lesson, which was what he didn’t do often. Thoughts of Peak and kidnapping cluttered his head, not to mention the thought of going out into a vast continent that was having a war regarding hybrids, his own kind.

Oh well, Peaceflyt thought. I guess I’ll just go with my RainWing look. Luckily, he took after his mother’s RainWing side, so all he really had to do was change his scales to make the wave patterns on his back look like spikes and change his fluorescent scales to match with the rest of his body. He obviously couldn't do anything about his tail, which was obviously a SeaWing’s, or his four gills, but hopefully no one would look too close at him to see that he was a hybrid.

After a while, the bell rang and the Silver Winglet headed off for lunch. Peaceflyt and Pelican found Atacama, Sparrow, Pyramid, and Walnut waiting for them towards the entrance.

“Hey, Peaceflyt. Hey, Pelican,” Atacama said, running up to them. “So, I think we should go pretty quickly.” She glanced around, making sure no one could overhear her. “We can probably catch some stuff for lunch out there, and then we’ll head out across the continent afterwards to see if we can find her.”

“Wait,” said Peaceflyt. “Do we even know where she is?”

Atacama thought for a second, then laughed. “Honestly, no. But we could look for clues across the continent.”

“Wouldn’t that take a while, though?” Peaceflyt asked. “W-what if we took too long, and it would be too late for the firescales?”

“The firescales?” Atacama asked. “Wait, all the FIRESCALES are captured?”

“Um…” Peaceflyt said uncomfortably, looking backwards. “I’m not completely sure, but since Peril apparently went missing yesterday, and Peak was captured two days ago, that’s the conclusion that I came to. I’m not completely sure, though.”

Atacama growled. “I am seriously going to MURDER whoever is doing this. Ok, I want to go right now.”

“Right now?” Peaceflyt asked hurriedly. “Are you sur-”

“Yes, right now,” Atacama said angrily, running over to Walnut, Pyramid, and Sparrow. “We’re going to leave right now.”

“Really?” Walnut said, alarmed. “Can I at least check on some stuff?”

“Sure,” replied Atacama, not unkindly. “Just don’t take too long.”

“I’ve been waiting for this for a while,” Pyramid remarked.

Peaceflyt decided this would be a good time to go outside and get some answers to where Peak might be.

Pelican started to follow him, but Peaceflyt put up his talons and mouthed ‘I’ll explain later’. The SeaWing gave Peaceflyt a confused look, but he didn’t protest or try to follow him, to Peaceflyt’s relief. He glanced around to see if anyone was looking at him, and when he saw that no one was, he quickly ran outside and found a medium-sized rock ledge around the entrance, half hidden behind a tree.

He leapt from the entrance to the ledge and checked to see if anyone was outside. No one was in sight. He quickly camouflaged his scales, looking around again, and grabbed a small quartz rock off the ground near the tree. This way, he’d be able to distinguish this rock from other dull gray ones.

Is this important enough to enchant? Peaceflyt thought. Is it a big spell? He asked himself, going through his mental checklist he made a few years ago to make sure he didn't use too much of his magic. No. Is it selfish? He thought for a moment. I think not. I mean, it could save a lot of dragons, so I'd say it's pretty selfless. Is it important? Yeah, I think this would count as important.

He eventually arrived at his last mental question. Is it an emergency? Like a live-or-die situation? He thought of Peak and the other SkyWing, presumably in a cave of some sort, presumably being tortured. I mean, he hoped they weren't being tortured, but he wasn't exactly sure about that. Hmm. Maybe. Okay, I think I can enchant this.

“Enchant this rock to write down the location of any dragon I choose,” Peaceflyt said slowly and clearly. He glanced back worriedly at the school entrance multiple times, afraid that someone might come outside and see a rock floating suspiciously in his invisible talons.

“Where is Peak the SkyWing?” he hastily whispered to the rock.

A moment or two passed. Please work, please work, Peaceflyt silently pleaded. He hadn’t touched his animus magic since he was two, when he enchanted something that could heal him whenever he wanted it to. So he wasn’t completely sure how it would work, or how fast it would go, or if he even did his spell correct.

A message slowly engraved itself onto the rock. WORK, please! Peaceflyt thought, panicking. He was pretty sure Pelican, and maybe Atacama or Walnut, might be wondering where he was now. If they caught him intently staring at a random rock, they'd probably wonder if he was in his right mind or not.

The rock’s message immediately appeared. Startled, Peaceflyt nearly dropped it.

What the… Peaceflyt thought, surprised. Why in the name of the moons did that write so fast- Oh. Worry cleaved through Peaceflyt. I asked it to hurry up. Oh no. I just used my animus magic twice in a day. I guess it was just a small spell. I don’t feel any different. He abruptly shut his eyes, trying to reassure himself that his soul was still intact.

He heard SeaWing talonsteps in the distance, coming out of the school. Is Pelican looking for me? I really hope he isn’t, not right now. Well, I don’t think he’ll find me right now anyway.

The talonsteps slowly faded back into the school, and Peaceflyt looked down at the rock in his talons and studied the message scrawled on it.

“Peak the SkyWing-NightWing hybrid is located approximately halfway between the Sea and Sky Kingdoms,” Peaceflyt muttered to himself, reading the message off the rock. “But where? Maybe I should’ve told this to show me a map. Not like I want to use my power any more today, anyway.”

He looked up and decided that he should probably tell the others what he'd found out. I bet at least one of them will ask for proof, he thought, glancing at the stone beneath him. Maybe I can find a dirt patch and scrape claw marks that face the Kingdom of the Sea. I hope they'll believe me if I did that.

He put the rock in his pouch and leapt off the ledge, his scales still invisible. The RainWing circled the entrance area a couple times, and then found a good-sized dirt patch that had ground nearly as soft as sand, soft enough to easily make talonprints in.

Peaceflyt hovered in the air for a moment on one side of the patch, making sure no one was in eyesight. Then, in one quick swoop with his front arms limp, like he was an unconscious dragon being carried away, his talons swiped against the dirt.

He stopped in midair on the other side and slowly flapped to the ground to inspect if his mark looked authentic. I think it does, Peaceflyt thought. I still hope that Atacama or Pelican or anyone else doesn’t suspect anything. I guess I should probably get back inside.

He quickly visiblized his scales and casually walked back into the Great Hall.

“Hi, Peaceflyt,” Pelican greeted him, then added in a lower voice, “What were you doing out there?”

“Ummm… hunting,” Peaceflyt lied.

“Really?” Pelican arched a brow. “Why did you seem so suspicious about it earlier?”

“I did?” Peaceflyt blurted. Oh, great. Please don’t ask about anything.

“Yeah,” Pelican said. “You didn’t want me to come outside with you and you told me you’d explain later.”

“Oh. Yeah. I- um… was just looking at the weather. Seeing if the flight conditions were okay,” Peaceflyt lied. “But when I was out there, I found a clue to where Peak might be.”

“Really?” Pelican's ears perked up a little. “Can I see it?”

“Let me tell Atacama first, and then I can show all of you,” Peaceflyt said, heading in her direction. “She’ll probably be pretty mad if I tell her there's a clue to finding Peak and I didn't immediately tell her.”

“Yeah,” Pelican replied. “True.”

“Atacama?” Peaceflyt asked, coming up from behind her. She turned around to face him.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“So… I think I might have found a clue to where Peak is,” he informed her. “And I think she's near the Kingdom of the Sea.”

Atacama paused. ”WHAT!?” She yelled. “What would some random SeaWings want to do Peak? Or firescales, for that matter?”

“I have no clue,” Peaceflyt replied.

“Okay,” Atacama said angrily. “We’re going to leave RIGHT NOW. I’m going to go check on Walnut.” She stomped down the hall he’d seen Walnut go down earlier.

Pyramid watched her go with a blank expression and turned back to Sparrow. “You know what, I feel like murdering some SeaWings.”

“We don’t really know it was the SeaWings who captured Peak,” Sparrow pointed out. “It could be anyone.”

“I guess so,” Pyramid said. “Oh wait, it could be SkyWings. I didn’t think of that. Queen Ember did banish Peak. And I’m pretty sure SkyWing tradition says something along the lines of ‘whenever we figure out a firescales is about to hatch, we smash their egg.’ I just can’t understand why they’d want to do it now. I don’t think any firescales went into the Sky Kingdom since Peak left.”

“I wonder how they captured them,” Sparrow wondered.

“Wasn’t there that special rock or something that firescales can’t burn through?” Peaceflyt asked. “I forgot what it was called.”

“Wasn’t it called tungsten?” Pelican asked.

“Yeah,” Peaceflyt said. “I think it is. They could’ve worn that for armor or something.” He looked towards the hall that Atacama had disappeared down and saw that she was coming back with Walnut.

“Hi, guys!” Walnut said. Pyramid, Sparrow, and Pelican turned their heads to the sound of her voice. “Apparently we’re leaving now, so yeah! I hope we don't get killed,” she added.

“We’ll try our best to not let anyone get killed,” Pyramid reassured her. “Except the dragons who kidnapped Peak, obviously.”

“We’re going to kill the kidnappers?” Walnut asked, with a hint of anxiety in her voice.

“Yeah,” Atacama replied, as if it was perfectly obvious that she and Pyramid were going to do that. “Actually, we should really get going. We can talk while we're flying, but now that I think about it, Peak is probably suffering on an island right now.” And without any hesitation, she ran outside.

Peaceflyt looked at Pelican and shrugged. They both followed Atacama, with Walnut, Pyramid, and Sparrow behind them.

“Are you guys ready?” Atacama asked, stretching her wings and looking up at the sky when they caught up to her.

“I guess so,” Peaceflyt mumbled.

“Definitely,” said Pyramid.

“Then let's go save some dragons.” Atacama launched herself into the air and the rest of them followed, their wingbeats becoming silent as they flew away from Jade Mountain.

CHAPTER SIX

As they flew away from the school, thoughts clouded Peaceflyt’s head. I hope Peak is okay. I hope she knows we’re coming to rescue her. He glanced over at Atacama and Pyramid’s determined expressions. Actually, I think she knows we’re going to rescue her. I bet she knows her friends would do anything for her. Except me. Because I’m a coward. I wish I could enchant something that would make me more brave, but I’m not supposed to use magic to mess with my personality. Now that I think about it, being brave could probably get me killed easier. So maybe I’ll just not be brave. For now.

From there his mind went to think of all the dangers they might face. Who will we encounter? Whoever we do, I really hope they aren’t mean. Well, there is a war going on, so- Oh, right, duh. He looked backwards at his scales. I forgot to change my scales. I guess I’ll take care of that. He willed his scales to change color, hiding the wave patterns on his back and making his fluorescent SeaWing scales look almost identical to his RainWing scales. He glanced over at his friends flying beside him, and none of them seemed to have noticed.

“Are we completely sure that we know where we’re going?” Peaceflyt asked after flying about ten minutes more. They were currently out of sight of Jade Mountain, and tall mountains were all they could see.

Atacama glanced back at him. “We’re going towards the Kingdom of the Sea, right? So all we’re going to do is…” She paused for a second, thinking. “Fly over some mountains, go over the Mud Kingdom, and fly across the ocean- Oh, yeah, we have to fly across the ocean.”

Pyramid sighed.

“Across the ocean?” Walnut asked. She sighed. “Well, it's not the entire ocean, so I think we can make it.”

“I probably can,” joked Pelican.

“You’re lucky,” Sparrow said. “All of us have to fly across the ocean, but you can just swim across.”

“Yeah. But I hope I don't run into any other SeaWings,” said Pelican.

“Why?” Walnut asked.

“Because I'm supposed to be in school,” he explained. “And since my mom is the queen, I’m thinking if I run into any other SeaWings, they’ll report to my mom that I’m not in school. And then she might notice that you guys are gone from school and are heading towards the ocean.”

“Oh,” Walnut said. “Well, let’s hope that we can make it across to the Thousand Scales, AND that we can make it across without running into any SeaWings.”

What if we need the SeaWings for something? Peaceflyt’s mind worried.

“Are you sure we have to go over the ocean?” Walnut asked. “Can’t we fly over the Tail Peninsula? Wait, no. Anything that can get us to Peak quickest would be the best.”

“Yeah. Because it would take way longer to go over the Tail Peninsula,” Peaceflyt pointed out.

“I’m just not built for flying long distances,” Walnut said. “But any route that will get us to Peak fast will be worth it, I think. I just wish there’s something that could remind us that we won’t all die or get hurt on this trip.”

Like a prophecy, Peaceflyt thought. A vision of dragons who were an odd gray color flashed quickly through his head. He faltered in the air. Where did that come from? I'm not a prophet. I don't have visions. He tried to assure himself that he didn't have another power, but the vision of the strange gray dragons seemed unsettlingly real. He pretty much knew that he couldn't see the future, because there were no indications that he ever could.

“Do we know where we're sleeping tonight?” Sparrow suddenly asked. “I hope it's not on top of a mountain or glacier. That wouldn't be the best place to sleep.”

“True,” Peaceflyt said. We definitely should've studied our route before we left. Could we go back to school and borrow a map? He looked back at the miles and miles of mountains. He wasn't even completely sure which direction Jade Mountain was in at that point. No. It would definitely take a while to just get back to school. I guess we'll just have to wing it.

. . .

About three hours later, the sun was starting to go down in the horizon, and Peaceflyt was starting to tire out. Actually, he'd been tired out for a while, but his wings were starting to get really sore at this point. They had stopped multiple times throughout the mountains, resting and talking. They hadn't had much luck trying to find food, given as there weren't many green mountain valleys they could see. So far, they’d only caught a mountain goat, which Sparrow had shared with Atacama and Pyramid, and some fish, which Pelican had shared with Peaceflyt. Walnut had only had a few blackberries that she'd found on a bush a while back.

Peaceflyt looked over at Walnut, who was struggling beside him. He knew RainWings were probably not supposed to fly dozens of miles in a day. She glanced back at him with an exhausted but determined expression, as if all that mattered was rescuing Peak.

And it kind of is. That's the whole reason for this mission, right? Well, I guess all that matters is that we rescue Peak and don't die. That's another good reason.

“Can we… try to find… another resting point?” Walnut said in a strained voice.

“We stopped at one twenty minutes ago,” Pyramid said. “I guess we could try to find another one, but we're right in the middle of a humongous mountain range.”

“Wait,” Atacama said, looking down. “I think I see a cougar down there.” Her voice sounded excited. “I'm going to try to catch it.” She smiled at Pyramid and Sparrow and dove down, extending her claws out to snatch it. She wasn't fast enough, though; it leapt into a thicket of tight bushes where it would be able to hide.

“Talons and tails!” Atacama cursed. “I only had, like, two bites of a mountain goat for lunch, and the second animal I see in hours gets away from me!”

“I can try to get it,” Sparrow offered. “No promises. I’m not a great hunter, but I’m supposed to be able to hunt in the mountains.”

“Sure,” Atacama said. “I’ll take whatever, as long as I get food, because THREE MOONS I AM HUNGRY.”

Peaceflyt hovered in the air next to Walnut and Pelican, watching Sparrow grappling with the bushes below. After a few moments, she came back with the cougar in her talons.

“Yes!” Atacama exclaimed, as Sparrow tossed part of it to her. “Thanks, Sparrow.”

“No problem,” Sparrow said, tossing another piece to Pyramid.

Peaceflyt stared at the piece of cougar in Atacama’s talons, his hungriness suddenly kicking in again now that he could smell food. “Um…” he hesitated as Atacama turned her head to him. “Can I have a tiny bit? I’m also really hungry.”

Atacama looked down at the cougar in her talons and back at him, probably deciding whether she should eat the whole piece to fulfill her hunger or give some to him.

“Fine,” she decided, tossing part of the leg to Peaceflyt.

“Thanks,” he said gratefully, and glanced over at Pelican flapping beside him. “Do you want any?”

“I never really… liked cougar,” Pelican admitted. “But I guess I can try a little bit, since I haven't had food in so long.”

”Okay,” Peaceflyt said. He ripped off a tiny piece and handed it to him.

Pelican hesitantly bit down on the cougar. He made an odd face and swiftly spit it out.

“Ew. Mountain animals,” Pelican said, disgusted.

“EW?” Atacama protested. “Mountain animals are good!”

“Not to me,” Pelican replied. “I like seafood better.”

“I... prefer neither,” Walnut interjected, panting behind them. “I don't... really like meat in general. But then, most RainWings... don't... eat meat. Speaking of which… if any of you see a bush with berries or fruit, can you tell me?”

“Yeah, if we can ever find any plants,” Peaceflyt said, a mix of sarcasm and sadness. “I’ve barely seen any foliage since we left. Not counting the river valleys.”

“Hopefully we'll be out of the mountains... soon,” Walnut replied optimistically.

Peaceflyt thought she was being a bit too optimistic, as all he could see were craggy peaks. But deep down, he also hoped that they could finally land on some flat ground.

“Should we take a rest soon?” Walnut gasped after about a few dozen more minutes of flying. “Actually… I'm going to… land on that spot over there.” She indicated to a small piece of mountaintop ahead of them that was significantly flatter than its surroundings.

She put on a burst of speed and flew to the small snowy plateau, exhaustedly landing there a moment later. She glanced up at Peaceflyt and smiled.

When Peaceflyt landed next to Walnut a minute later, he collapsed on the ground, realizing how tired his wings were.

“Yeah, it's really tiring, right?” Walnut said sympathetically. “Especially when you're small and your wings are meant to be flying through trees. Not like I’m saying that out of personal experience.”

“I get it,” Peaceflyt replied. “I even think Atacama and Sparrow are tired.” He motioned to the dragons with his head, who had just landed and were panting off to the side.

“I want to fall asleep,” Atacama complained. “But I also want to rescue Peak! I want to do both at the same time! Or I wish that I wasn't so tired!”

“Yeah, same,” Sparrow said in between breaths.

Pyramid landed last, next to Sparrow, while Pelican collapsed next to Peaceflyt.

Peaceflyt got up off the ground and sat up. He looked up at the sky. The sun was slowly starting to set, and the sky was tinting orange.

His stomach growled, and he realized how hungry he was again. ‘When will we have our next full meal?’ he thought sullenly. He saw Walnut dozing off to his right and decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to take a nap just for a few minutes…

When Peaceflyt opened his eyes about ten minutes later, he found Walnut gone. He quickly stumbled onto his talons and looked around.

“Walnut went off to look for fruit,” Pelican told him, seeing his franticness.

“Oh. Okay.” Peaceflyt walked over to the mountainside and looked down. It took him a few seconds, but a glint of yellow finally caught his eye.

She must be concealing herself, making sure she doesn’t get caught. I guess she found some fruit, Peaceflyt thought. He knew that it was hard for many RainWings to conceal their emotions when they were really strong. Walnut, Peaceflyt guessed, was really happy that she finally found some food.

“Peaceflyt!” Walnut said happily. The air materialized and Walnut appeared, running up the mountainside. She held out both her talons, which were full of berries. “There were a bunch of bushes down there, so I got as much fruit as I could!“ She threw some berries into her mouth. “I’m so hungry.”

“Same,” Peaceflyt agreed. He secretly wanted some of Walnut’s berries, but he didn't want to sound forceful.

“You can have some, if you want,” Walnut said.

“Oh. Ok. Thanks.” He held out his front talons and Walnut dumped a small amount into them.

For a while, they just sat there eating the berries. Pelican came over at one point and started talking to Peaceflyt about where to sleep. “I wish this mountain range was less pointy. I mean, if I have to, I can sleep on a mountain, but it would be really nice to have a kind of flat place to sleep. That’s not cold.”

“Yeah.” Peaceflyt looked at the sun setting. We have to go so much farther. “We should probably go before it gets too dark.”

“I agree,” Pyramid said from his left. She heaved herself onto her feet. “Let’s go find a place to sleep.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“MOONS, my snout is so cold!” Atacama complained. “Could we have found a better place to sleep than on a freaking GLACIER?”

I wish, Peaceflyt thought. The group had surveyed the area multiple times and the only place that wasn’t full of rocks or on a steep mountainside was a glacier. It was cold, but at least it was flat. “It was the only flat place I could find!” he protested, shivering.

“Are you sure that this is a good idea?” she asked.

“Uh-” Peaceflyt stopped, trying to figure out a decent answer to Atacama’s question. “No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think it was,” she replied bitterly. “I’m a SandWing, so if I stay out here any longer, I’ll probably die.”

“True,” Peaceflyt said. “But it’s almost completely dark now and I don’t want to fly any longer because my wings are really tired.”

Atacama looked at her wings, which were huddled close to her body, seeming to realize how tired they were. “Yeah. But I just wish I had something warm, because holy moons I am cold. Hopefully Pyramid and Sparrow will come back soon.”

Peaceflyt sat there in silence with Atacama, Walnut, and Pelican. Pyramid and Sparrow had gone off to do something. Peaceflyt didn’t know what they were doing, but they did whisper something to Atacama before they headed off.

He looked over at Pelican and Walnut, who were violently shivering. Inside, he wished that he could enchant something to keep them all warm, but he resisted the urge. I can’t believe we have to sleep here tonight, he thought. Maybe we should sleep on a rock. It would be warmer than this.

They sat there shivering for a bit longer, when Peaceflyt heard footsteps from behind him.

“GUYS! We found a cave!” Pyramid yelled, with Sparrow behind her. “Maybe we don’t have to freeze to death tonight.”

“YES!” Atacama cheered so loud that Peaceflyt cast a worried glance around them to see if anyone had overheard that. Luckily, as he suspected, no strange dragons came out of the mountains.

Walnut walked up to Peaceflyt, shivering. “Thank goodness.”

The trek to the cave was surprisingly short, and Peaceflyt was surprised that he hadn't seen it during flyovers.

Sparrow stepped aside as Peaceflyt and the others entered. The entrance of the cave was partly hidden by a boulder to the left, and was large enough for Peaceflyt, the tallest of the group, to get in without hitting his head.

“Ahhh,” Atacama said, turning toward Pyramid and Sparrow. “Thank you SO much.” She flopped down on the floor.

“No problem,” Pyramid replied.

“It wasn't that hard to find,” Sparrow added. Peaceflyt felt a tiny bit of guilt set in, as he'd made his friends wait out in the open when there was an obvious cave right where he flew over. I really suck at finding things.

“I’m going to go to sleep now,” Walnut suddenly said, settling down on the floor. “That trip really tired me out and we'll need energy for tomorrow.”

“Good idea, Walnut,” replied Atacama. She closed her eyes and a minute later, she was snoring.

Peaceflyt sighed in exhaustion. I guess I should probably go to sleep too. Walnut was right- if we want to find Peak, we'll need energy. He laid down and closed his eyes, hoping for a long rest. Of course, that didn’t happen.

. . .

Peaceflyt awoke in the middle of the night to angry thoughts bombarding his brain. The thoughts had a tone that Peaceflyt vaguely remembered... He thought for a moment and sat up with a jolt. DENEB! What’s she doing here? He looked around and realized that his skyfire had slipped out of his pouch that it was supposed to be in. That’s why I could hear her thoughts. Thank goodness. Actually, no, I’M LITERALLY GOING TO DIE if she comes in this cave.

He lifted his head up with his ears strained, trying to hear any talonsteps. Normally, he would be pretty tired right after he woke up, but the adrenaline rushing through him caused him to be wide awake.

‘According to Dacite, he was flying through the mountains with some other dragons from that stupid school,’ Deneb thought. Peaceflyt flinched. Deneb’s thoughts seemed closer now, like she was walking on the glacier that they were on before Pyramid and Sparrow found the cave.

Please don't come any closer, Peaceflyt prayed. Please just don’t see the cave. Please fly away.

‘He should be here somewhere!’ Deneb’s thoughts complained.

She means me, Peaceflyt thought, uncontrollably shaking. She's looking for revenge because Peak and I put her in that cage. Another thought shot through his mind. Wait, did Deneb get Peak? Is that why she’s missing? Peaceflyt didn’t have any time to think about that.

Peaceflyt got up onto his feet and quietly walked towards Atacama. He was trying to turn his scales invisible, but since he was pretty much having a panic attack, he only managed to get them slightly transparent. His scales would only turn invisible when he was calm (or at least not freaking out), so seriously freaking out didn't help. He prodded her lightly with his talons. “Atacama? I think-” He froze. Deneb’s thoughts were suddenly right behind him. He whipped his head around and spat venom. He heard an unpleasant splattering sound as Deneb yanked his tail backwards.

“ATACAMA! GUYS! HELP!” Peaceflyt yelled frantically. Atacama’s head shot up in alarm. “Peaceflyt! Why’d you wake me-” She halted, and when she saw what was happening, she immediately leapt to her feet and ran at Deneb.

Why did my venom not work? Peaceflyt thought, digging his claws into the ground so he wouldn’t be pulled away. He forced himself to turn his head around and saw his venom dripping off metal armor that was covering pretty much her entire body. No! She’s wearing armor! How are we gonna attack her? We’re ALL GOING TO DIE!

Peaceflyt tried kicking Deneb as hard as he could, but his claws hit her armor and sent a burst of pain spiking through his body. Deneb looked at him with a mix of pure evil and annoyance and yanked his tail upwards.

“OW!” Peaceflyt cried, a drop of venom unwillingly spilling out of his mouth. He tried struggling away, but Deneb had his tail in an iron grip, and whenever he tried to get away, she just pulled him closer.

Deneb raked her claws against Peaceflyt’s leg as she pulled him to a corner of the cave. She’s gonna kill me. And then she’s going to kill my friends! And she might have already killed Peak!

Deneb threw Peaceflyt on the ground as hard as she could. Tears sprung up in his eyes, and his vision went blurry for a moment. He lay there for a bit, still dazed. When he finally got the energy to lift himself up, he saw Atacama ram headfirst into Deneb’s ribs right in front of him. Deneb fell to the ground, the wind momentarily knocked out of her. Atacama smiled at Peaceflyt, then at Pyramid and the other dragons.

She turned her head back to Deneb, but Deneb had somehow already gotten back on her feet. The NightWing leapt at Atacama and slashed her face.

“ATACAMA!” Walnut cried. Peaceflyt’s head shot towards Walnut’s voice. She was towards the back of the cave with Pyramid, Sparrow, and Pelican. Pyramid was quietly raising her tail barb, like she would stab Deneb if she came anywhere near her or her friends. She looked like she was waiting for the right chance, but that right chance hadn’t come yet. Sparrow and Pelican were both towards the back, with looks on their faces wondering if they would die. Walnut looked tempted to use her venom on Deneb.

Peaceflyt looked back at Atacama. The claw marks on the side of her head were bleeding, but not as bad as Peaceflyt thought they’d be. She was still fighting Deneb.

She’s actually pretty good, Peaceflyt thought as Atacama slashed Deneb’s face. Deneb had multiple bleeding scars throughout her body. Atacama had more, but Peaceflyt knew how good at fighting Deneb was and was surprised to see that Atacama was almost just as good.

After a while of the two dragons fighting, Atacama got lucky and landed a hard kick in Deneb’s stomach. Deneb flew towards a corner and Atacama ran after her.

“You’re really going to fight for this pathetic mess, sand-snorter?” Deneb said, snarling. She motioned to Peaceflyt.

“DON’T YOU CALL ME A SAND SNORTER, NIGHTWING!” Atacama yelled. She raised her talons above her head and pummeled Deneb’s underbelly, leaving multiple bleeding slashes along her stomach.

‘Am I really about to be killed by a SandWing dragonet? Deneb thought sourly, attempting to dodge Atacama’s claws. How pathetic is that? Her train of thought switched. Except Marble says I’m the strongest dragon she’s ever allied with. I’ve killed hundreds of dragons in battle. I can take on one SandWing.

Deneb’s brow furrowed. Gathering all her strength, she rolled under Atacama’s claws and propelled her foot into Atacama’s stomach. Atacama flew across the cave and hit her head on the opposite wall. “You don’t want to mess with me,” Deneb said as Atacama slipped into unconsciousness.

“Atacama!” Pyramid yelled. She sprinted over to her and checked to see if she was still alive.

Deneb stalked toward Peaceflyt, looking more evil than ever because of her bleeding scratches.

“Long time, no see,” Deneb said hoarsely. “It probably doesn't seem like that to you, but that's because you weren't the one who was locked up in a cage. You weren’t the one planning revenge.” She raked her claws against the stone floor.

Peaceflyt thought this was kind of an overreaction to being put in a cage for a few hours until he heard her thoughts. Her thoughts told him that Deneb wasn't used to being defeated, let alone by two dragonets. Her thoughts also told him that she thought Peaceflyt made her look weak in front of her family. He could feel the rage emitting off her.

“Say goodbye, RainWing.” Deneb paused to study Peaceflyt. “Or SeaWing. Or NightWing. Whatever freak you are.”

Peaceflyt cast a nervous glance over Deneb’s shoulders. Pelican, Sparrow, and Walnut were watching with horrified expressions.

Deneb raised her claws to attack, and Peaceflyt instinctively shot venom at her face. He knew she had armor on, but he was hoping that some venom would slip through the armor. His heart was pounding so hard in his ears, he was surprised he could still hear what Deneb was saying.

“Good try,” Deneb said wickedly. The venom hadn't slipped through the armor.

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

I failed and I'm going to die.

She brought her claws down on Peaceflyt. He closed his eyes, brought his arms above his head, and prepared to be killed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Peaceflyt couldn’t think anymore. In the second before Deneb was going to snap his neck, every single thought he’d ever had seemed to flash through his brain. He wanted to scream, but his mouth wouldn’t open.

Deneb’s talons landed on his head and shoved it to the ground. They quickly slipped onto his neck, and Peaceflyt shut his eyes as hard as he could. He knew if he struggled, it wasn’t going to do anything. He would die anyway.

He felt Deneb’s muscles tense, and tried to shut his eyes even harder. This is it. His heart was beating so fast, he was afraid that he’d die from blood overdose before Deneb killed him. He was so panicked, his brain couldn’t seem to process anything anymore.

The only thing he remembered was a sudden voice yelling “OH NO, YOU DON’T!” He dared himself to open his eyes and saw a blur sailing across the air from behind Deneb. The blur splattered right on Deneb’s ear- one of the only parts of her body that had no armor. Deneb tightened her grip on Peaceflyt’s neck as her head whipped around in surprise.

She paused for a second, but that second seemed like an hour to Peaceflyt. He now saw what the blur was- venom.

Deneb’s talons shot off of Peaceflyt and onto her ear. She started screaming in agony as the venom got under her armor and started to drip down to her neck.

“OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! YOU MOONS-BLASTED IDIOTS! I AM GOING TO DISMEMBER ALL OF YOU!” She scraped at her armor and screamed even louder as she just pushed the venom further into herself. Peaceflyt immediately got up and ran towards his skyfire. His brain was so flooded with Deneb’s miserable thoughts, it was almost like he could feel her pain.

As he grabbed the skyfire, he took a shaky breath. Deneb was still howling in pain, but at least her agony wouldn’t be invading his head as well as his ears.

Deneb ran outside to the glacier and shot up into the sky, still screaming. He wondered if dragons from Jade Mountain could hear her.

“Is she gone?” a voice whispered by Sparrow.

Pyramid looked up from Atacama. “I'm pretty sure she is. And hopefully she'll be gone a long time.”

~ WE HAVE NOT EDITED THE TEXT BELOW, SO SOME PARTS MAY BE SLIGHTLY OFF ~

“Say bye, RainWing.” Deneb paused to study Peaceflyt. “Or SeaWing. Whatever you are.”

Peaceflyt cast a nervous glance over Deneb’s shoulders, and saw Pelican, Sparrow, Pyramid, and Walnut with horrified expressions. Walnut was pointing to her fangs, for some reason.

Wait. Peaceflyt thought. She wants me to use my venom. But I’d never use my venom on someone else! Um, but Deneb wants to kill you right now, so...

“You’re taking too long.” Deneb lunged forward, claws outstretched. She lifted her arm up, and brought it down towards Peaceflyt’s throat.

“AAAAAAAAAH! OW! WHAT IN THE MOONS!?” Deneb roared and jumped back as Peaceflyt’s venom hit her. The venom had hit her near and on one of her horns.

Deneb leaped out of the cave into the air, flying away as fast as she could. Peaceflyt walked toward the back of the cave.

“Are you okay?” Walnut and Pelican both asked.

“Uhh… I think so,,” he replied. “Is Atacama okay?”

Pyramid answered, “I don’t know. I bet she’ll wake up soo-”

“GET AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS, YOU FILTHY NIGHTWI-” Atacama yelled as she stood up. “Oh. The NightWing’s gone. Are you guys okay?”

“I guess. I did shoot- ow- venom on her, though. I mean, she deserved it, to be completely honest,” Peaceflyt responded. He paused. “Oh, did I mention Deneb is my cousin?”

“WHAT!?!?” Atacama went over to Peaceflyt. “YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU WERE PART PSYCHO!!!”

Ironic, I'm not the one yelling, Peaceflyt thought. “Do I look like I’m part psycho?”

“Peaceflyt, you don’t,” Walnut said, coming up to them. “I know you aren’t.”

“Yeah. I’m definitely not a psycho.” Peaceflyt said, laying down. “I’ll… go back to sleep, I guess.”

“Good idea,” Walnut replied. “THANK YOU, DENEB, FOR WAKING US ALL UP FOR NO REASON!” She yelled.

“Peaceflyt. Why was Deneb after you anyway?” Pyramid asked.

“Uh… I think it was because I had a family reunion not long ago- ow- and… Peak and I… well, Peak threw Deneb to the ground, and… we got Deneb put in the time out cage for murders for a little while. I’ll bet she’s got Peak…” Peaceflyt trailed off as his eyes started to droop.

I really hope Peak is okay. I wonder if they’ve done anything to her after they captured her. I hope… I hope she’s not dead. Moons, please don’t let her be dead.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Peaceflyt, we need to get going,” the voice of Pelican said as he prodded him. “Wait… how’d your wounds heal already?”

“Uh… I’m a fast healer.” Peaceflyt didn’t want to reveal that he had an enchanted leaf hidden under one of his scales that could heal any wound or pain the dragon wearing it had. The leaf would only heal when the dragon wanted it to heal.

He got up and followed Pelican to the others. Moons, it's cold. I forgot we were on a glacier.

"Hi, Peaceflyt! We're getting ready to leave," Walnut said.

"Why did you take so long?" Pyramid asked.

I literally almost got killed by Deneb at midnight. Peaceflyt thought, and said "Deneb."

"Oh, if we meet that Deneb dragon again, remind me to team up with Atacama to capture her, pluck each of her scales and teeth out, and stab each of her eyeballs," Pyramid said.

"Uhh… okay," Peaceflyt said uncertainly as he walked toward the small ledge of ice they were going to launch off of.

“Do we actually know where we’re going?” Sparrow said after a few minutes in the air.

Do we? Peaceflyt thought. No one answered. Okay, we don’t, then.

“I think this is the way we were headed yesterday,” Pelican said. “But I’m not 100% sure.”

“That helps,” Pyramid said. “Oh, I think we’re going the wrong way, by the way.”

Peaceflyt looked ahead. All he could see was mountains. “Wait, how can you tell? All I can see is mountain-”

“Fly up a bit then.”

He flew up about a dozen feet above Pyramid and the others and could see a tiny patch of yellow land. “What? Is that the Kingdom of Sand?”

“Yep.”

“Then we should fly the opposite way, right?”

“Probably,” Pelican said.

“I think we’re lost,” Peaceflyt told the group after almost two hours of flying in the opposite direction, with only two breaks.

“Well, I guess we’ll just die here then by freezing to death,” Pyramid said.

“Slightly off topic, but would you rather freeze to death slowly in the mountains, or have an IceWing breathe their frost breath down your throat?” Walnut suddenly said.

“That was random,” Peaceflyt said. “Can I vote for neither?”

“Uh- sure!”

“That was kind of dark,” Pelican said.

“I know.”

It would really help if we could get some guidance to where we are going, Peaceflyt thought. He suddenly got blinded by something in the distance, about a mile ahead of him, he thought. He squinted and saw one- no, two, dragons ahead of him.

One of the dragons looked like an IceWing, but had a SkyWing build. The other dragon was what looked like a SandWing hatchling, with no frill.

“Is that an ICEWING?” Pelican asked, looking ahead.

“WHAT?” Atacama yelled.

“What is an IceWing doing here? We’re far from the Ice Kingdom,” Sparrow said.

“Beats me,” Walnut replied.

“I think it’s a hybrid,” Peaceflyt informed them. “Half IceWing, half SkyWing.”

The hybrid on the ground let the dragonet run into a small pouch around her neck and took to the air, flying the same direction as Peaceflyt’s friends, and glanced backward. The hybrid saw them, and turned around, hovering in midair.

“Who are you guys?” the hybrid asked. “Why are you here?”

“No, who are you?” Atacama demanded. “And why are you alone in the mountains with a dragonet?”

"I'm Harmony. This dragonet here is Horizon. Oh, yeah. She doesn't have any frill,” the hybrid said after Atacama looked at the dragonet.

“Are you a hybrid?” Walnut asked.

“So what if I’m a hybrid?” Harmony said. “Oh, cool. Are you a hybrid too?” She nodded her head towards Peaceflyt.

“Yep,” he replied.

“Where are you guys going?” Harmony asked, as the little dragonet rolled over in Harmony’s pouch.

“We’re going to… meet someone,” Peaceflyt lied. It wasn’t really a lie, though, as they were going to ‘meet’ Peak. By meet, they were going to attempt to get her out of captivity.

“Do you know how to get us out of here?” Atacama asked. “None of us has really been in the mountains much.”

“NUVS BIMOUN UH,” Horizon declared, imitating Atacama, and Harmony laughed.

“Oh… well, there is a village you can probably stay at. Maybe four miles east of here? That’s where I was going to stop for rest, anyway.”

“Okay. We don’t really know our way around here, so… we might just go with you, then,” Atacama said.

“Sure, that’s fine with me,” Harmony said, and breathed smoke right afterwards.

“Wait… are you a steamscales?” Peaceflyt asked.

“Um… yeah.”

“That’s pretty cool,” he said. No intended joke there.

“Thanks. Anyway, I’m going to go to the village. I need to get some things as well as rest there.”

“Oh… I guess we do too.”

The village, from the air, had streets of dirt. It was across a large river separating the mountains from the plains next to the rainforest. “I’m going to meet with someone,” Harmony told them after they arrived. “You can explore and stuff… it’s not a big village, so if you need any help or something, just find me somewhere.”

Harmony hurried off toward one of the side streets with Horizon, avoiding running into any buildings. Once she was out of sight, Walnut edged up a tiny bit closer to Peaceflyt.

“Umm… so what do we do now?” Pelican asked.

Peaceflyt responded. “I dunno. Explore and stuff? We-”

“Actually, Peaceflyt, let’s get some food,” Atacama said hurriedly. “I haven’t eaten since… right after we left the school. I NEED FOOD I AM STARVING.” Behind her, Peaceflyt saw Pyramid and Sparrow silently agree.

“Um… let’s see here… there’s a stand, they’re selling… I think…” Peaceflyt got cut off again by Atacama.

“BY THE THREE MOONS, THAT STAND IS SELLING WAGYU!!” Atacama yelled, running toward a stand on their right. Peaceflyt stifled a laugh. “UM, CAN I-”

“Atacama, calm down,” Pyramid said. “Oh yeah, I want one.”

“Same,” the others said.

“Oh.” Atacama coughed and cleared her throat. “Um, can I have… just a second.” She counted all of the dragons behind her. “Can I have six- five wagyu? Please?”

“Sure,” the salesdragon said. “Wait, who are you guys?”

“Why’re you asking?”

“Aspire is a pretty small town, if you mean. Everyone here knows everyone personally.”

“Oh. Yeah. We’re visitors,” Pyramid said. “First-time visitors. Maybe last time too, haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh, okay. You’re always welcome here, though. Here’s your wagyu,” the salesdragon said and he handed them to Atacama.

Atacama immediately dug in to hers. “MNS I STRVEG,” she said through bites. After she finished, she gave the rest of the wagyu out to Peaceflyt, Pelican, Sparrow, and Pyramid. Walnut went to another stand and came back with a few talonfuls of different fruits.

“We should probably find a place to sleep,” Walnut said, after everyone finished their wagyu.

“Yeah,” Peaceflyt responded. They started strolling down the street. “What do you guys think would be a good place to-” he paused and looked back.

“Ssleeep?” Walnut finished, confused. “Why did you pause?”

A MudWing, a little bit bigger than Peaceflyt, came running toward him. Peaceflyt, surprised, smiled. “PEACEFLYT! What’s up? Why’re you here?” the MudWing asked. “Oh- who are all these dragons? Are you with them?”

“Pantanal, this is Atacama, Pelican, Walnut, Pyramid, and Sparrow,” he told the MudWing, gesturing to each one of them accordingly. “Guys, this is Pantanal. We’re in a band together. Why are you here?”

“Oh, just visiting some relatives. Why are you here?” Pantanal asked.

“Uh…” Peaceflyt stuttered. “I’m visiting someone. We’re stopping here on the way to rest,” He continued. “A friend.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Do you know if there’s any place to sleep? Here?”

“You can come visit the place I’m staying at. Although, it’s probably going to be way more cramped with six dragons,” he said.

“Come on.” Pantanal led them down some side streets, and winded up at a small building made of a mix of mud bricks. “Hi, Melospiza. I’m back,” he said, as he motioned with his tail for Peaceflyt and the others to go first.

Inside the building was a MudWing almost twice the size of Pantanal. “Hello, Pan-” the MudWing paused, visibly shocked by the fact six more dragons from four different tribes.

Pantanal, closing the door behind him, saw Melospiza’s face. “These dragons are Peaceflyt, he’s in a band with me. And… uh-”

“I’m Pyramid,” Pyramid spoke up. “These are Atacama, Sparrow, Walnut, and Pelican.”

“They’re friends of Peaceflyt,” Pantanal informed. “And Peaceflyt is a friend of mine.” He paused. “Is it okay if we can sleep here?”

“This is a small house, Pantanal. And I’m sleeping here. And Dogwood and Mudpool are also sleeping here.”

“I know. Where are they?”

“Oh, they’re just out hunting. I believe they’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” said Pantanal, walking toward the back of the house. “Here, you might be able to sleep here.” He pointed to a corner where three mats were laid out.

“Um, there’s only room for three dragons there. And we have six dragons,” Pyramid pointed out.

“Yeah… it’s the only place for sleeping that’s comfortable.”

“I call a mat then,” Atacama said.

“Same,” Walnut, Sparrow, and Pyramid said at the same time.

“You can get a mat.” Pantanal nodded at Peaceflyt. “Because I actually know you.”

“What?” Atacama yelled in protest. “Just because you know him the best?”

“Uh- yeah.”

“Okay, then I call this one.” She walked over to the mat next to Peaceflyt.

“Then I’ll get this mat!” There was a rush of talons to get the mat next to Atacama, and an angry yell outside of the building.

Oh no, what’s going on? Peaceflyt got off his mat, and was bombarded by angry yells inside and outside.

“Leave!” A familiar voice yelled.

“I’m sorry!” said another voice, presumably female. “It was an accident!”

“But look what you did to her!”

Pantanal immediately ran outside.

“Pantanal, no-” Peaceflyt cried, then glanced outside. It’s Harmony! Why’s she yelling at that MudWing? He gasped. Horizon’s wing looks broken! Did that MudWing break it?

“DOGWOOD!” Pantanal yelled, as he ran up to the MudWing. “What happened?”

“Um- I’ll explain later.” Dogwood replied quickly, and hurried toward the house

“Just great. The nearest good hospital is in Possibility.” Harmony grumbled, picking Horizon up, and flew off.

“So then, the SandWing dragonet flew under my wings as I was coming back, and you can guess what happened next.” Dogwood finished off his story, after Mudpool, the bigwings of Pantanal’s sibling group arrived.

“So then it wasn’t really your fault,” said Mudpool.

“Not really. I mean, it wasn’t MY fault the dragonet flew right where she could get hit.”

“I can still see why Harmony got mad, though. I mean, Horizon’s wing got broken, and I think she’s Harmony’s, like, companion or something.” Peaceflyt added.

“True, I guess,” added Pelican, and Peaceflyt saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Walnut came back into the building, with a basketful of some apples.

“Hi, Peaceflyt!” she said when she saw him looking at the fruits in her talons. “I was hungry, so I went outside to see if there were any fruit dragons were selling. I actually found this on a tree, though. Want any?”

“Maybe later. Save me a few, please,” he responded.

“Okay!” She sat down near the mats and ate quietly.

The rest of the day seemed to go by uneventfully, and nightfall came quickly. Peaceflyt and Pantanal went out for a flight just to stretch their wings and talk about their band.

“Have you seen Copper recently?” asked Peaceflyt, referring to the SilkWing singer in their band.

Pantanal laughed. “That’s what I was going to ask you. But no, the last time I saw him was during our last practice.” He paused. “Have you seen Arabian or Citrus?”

“I haven’t seen Arabian since our last practice, but I saw Citrus a few days ago in the rainforest.” Peaceflyt had a hard time believing that only three days ago he was in the rainforest, with barely any worries. Peak was still right there and alive. Peaceflyt didn’t even know if Peak was still alive or not. Please be alive, Peak. I miss you. And we’re coming to rescue you.

CHAPTER NINE

Pantanal and Peaceflyt flew back just as the sun went down over the horizon, and Walnut and Pelican were waiting for him.

“Hi, Peaceflyt. Hey, Pantanal,” Pelican greeted them. “We’re going to leave tomorrow in the morning.” He lead the way into the house, where Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow were in conversation, and Dogwood and Mudpool were playing what looked like a board game of some sort.

“Hey, Pantanal! You’re back! Want to play this with us?” Mudpool smiled and motioned to come.

“Oh. Um-” Pantanal glanced at Peaceflyt. “Sure.”

Peaceflyt, Pelican, and Walnut headed toward Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow and joined into their conversation, which was apparently about all the ways they could torture Deneb and whoever captured Peak. They were having so much fun talking that they didn’t even realize that it was practically midnight by the time anyone noticed. Peaceflyt only noticed because Atacama and Walnut slowly fell to the ground and started snoring slightly.

“Um.” Peaceflyt stifled a laugh. “I think I should probably go to sleep.”

“Good point. We’re going to probably even be more tired tomorrow,” Sparrow pointed out.

They all settled out on their mats. Pelican slept in Atacama’s vacant spot, while Sparrow was struggling to get onto Pyramid’s mat. Peaceflyt was about to drift off to sleep, when a burst of pain shot through his head. He screamed, waking up everyone else.

“Three moons!” Pelican yelled. “Peaceflyt! Are you okay?”

“What in the moons was that?” Pyramid and Atacama said at the same time, and Walnut yelped, “Peaceflyt!”

But he didn’t respond. He collapsed to the floor and his eyes were slightly blank.

“What’s happening? Peaceflyt! Can you hear me?” Walnut asked desperately.

Peaceflyt breathed in, and out came an ominous voice, louder than what had happened in Jade Mountain.

Hidden away

A lost tribe prevails

If no one can stop them

No one will avail.

Those unexpected

Will take the challenge

That many seek to avoid

If then they fail,

All will be lost

And lives will be destroyed.

Peaceflyt’s eyes returned back to normal. He looked up and saw everyone staring at him worriedly. “Peaceflyt! Are you okay?” Walnut asked, concerned.

“Um… Peaceflyt, was that a PROPHECY? That sounded a lot like a prophecy. Yep, definitely a prophecy,” Pyramid said.

“Oh… uh… yeah. It probably was,” Peaceflyt said in between deep breaths.

“You never told us you could tell PROPHECIES!” Atacama exclaimed.

“Yeah. Right. Um… so basically I was born under three moons, right? And I’m part NightWing, you could probably tell that because of my wings. So that gives me the powers of mind-reading and prophecy. But according to my parents, the second moon was partly blocked out. So they didn’t think I’d be able to tell prophecies, and honestly I didn’t either after hearing that. But obviously it’s wrong, because I just did.”

“Wow,” Walnut said under her breath. “I kind of wish I could do that.”

“Not really. It’s kind of painful, actually.”

“I could tell,” Atacama interjected.

“Anyway, I’m probably going to go to sleep.” Peaceflyt closed his eyes, but sleep was a long time coming.

The next day, Peaceflyt was surprisingly awake as they launched off, saying their goodbyes to Pantanal and his siblings. They were up in the air again, flying northeast, toward the Mud Kingdom. They got within a mile of Queen Moorhen’s lake within one and a half miles, and the sun was glinting off the lake, making it hard to see.

Pelican dove into the lake and came out with six fish in his bright blue webbed talons.

“If you want more, you’ll have to go get some more.” He gave three to Peaceflyt, who promptly ate them.

“It’s fine. I think I’ll have some other food, anyway.” He walked over to a tree and smacked it with his tail. About a dozen apples fell from it, as well as a large branch that hit him on the neck. He yelped in pain, and immediately thought of how dumb that would have looked. He looked around, and luckily no one had seen it. He grabbed the apples from the ground and walked over to Walnut.

“Hi, Peaceflyt!” She smiled.

“Hey, Walnut. Here. You can have these if you want,” he said, handing her three quarters of the apples he had just knocked off the tree.

“That’s it? I mean, for you?”

“Yeah. I already had some fish.”

“Actually, this is kind of a lot, now that I think about it.”

“True. We could save some for another time.” Peaceflyt wandered toward Pelican, who had just finished eating the fish he’d caught, and Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow, who were all sharing a cow, and discussing what might have happened to Peak.

“I don’t think she’s dead, Peak’s definitely not the type of dragon to accept death,” Sparrow was saying.

Pyramid and Atacama laughed like Sparrow had said a joke. “Well, she won’t except death from anyone except herself.” Pyramid said.

“Definitely. I wonder if she’s wondering that we’re coming to rescue her. I bet she is,” replied Atacama. She paused, staying still. “Guys? I think I see some MudWings coming this way RIGHT NOW.”

“Wait, what?” Peaceflyt looked back. Sure enough, there were three MudWings walking their way, chatting about something. They were also holding spears, so he guessed that they were soldiers for Queen Moorhen, patrolling the lakes. He thought they wouldn't be very peaceable if they saw a group of dragons from all different tribes right across from their queen's palace.

“We need to hide,” Peaceflyt said frantically, opening his wings to their largest. “Walnut, open your wings and go invisible. I'll do the same. Atacama and Pelican, get behind me. You guys, go behind Walnut.”

Pyramid and Sparrow hurried behind Walnut, crouching. They stayed still and the MudWings didn't seem to notice them, but Peaceflyt was still wondering if they could.

“Did you hear about that MudWing at that school? The one that got killed?” one of the MudWings asked, while fiddling with his spear.

“Oh yeah. I heard that there was this dragon, I don't know which tribe, who's daughter got killed by a MudWing. So they went out, but… they killed the wrong MudWing,” another replied. An image of Swamp passed through his head.

Peaceflyt's heart skipped a beat, and he froze. It was SWAMP? Oh no, by the three moons, WHAT, why is it Swamp, he is- was always nice and never deserved anything like that! That idiotic murderer, don't they know they just killed an innocent dragonet?

“Wait, someone at Jade Mountain is dead?" asked Pelican after the MudWings were far away enough to not overhear them. “Who in Pyrrhia is it? All the MudWings at Jade Mountain haven't done anything violence-related, and they're all kind.” He looked at Peaceflyt, who knew he probably overheard it in his mind.

“Oh. It’s- it’s Swamp,” he said sadly, not making eye contact with him.

“What? Really?” said Pelican, shocked. “Wow… I feel so bad.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Peaceflyt walked into the lake, and dove in. He heard the faint conversation above the water, where Pelican was telling everyone who had gotten killed.

From what he could hear from the faint conversation above, Walnut and Sparrow were surprised and also distressed. Atacama and Pyramid seemed to just be surprised, and didn’t seem to care very much. All they were thinking about now was where Peak was.

Oh, yeah. Where is Peak? He thought, momentarily distracted from Swamp’s death. I should probably use my location rock. After a few more minutes sulking in the lake, he reached into a small pouch wrapped around his arm, which contained his library card, a small piece of skyfire, and a few animus touched objects, including the small stone he enchanted to tell him where a certain dragon was.

“Tell me where Peak the SkyWing is right now,” he ordered, studying the rock carefully.

The last message on the rock disappeared, and a new message appeared. ‘Peak the SkyWing is currently in the middle of the ocean, between the Sea Kingdom and the Sky Kingdom. Obstacles have kept the exact location hidden.’

So basically the same message as last time, just worded differently. Thanks, rock. Peaceflyt put his face in his talons, and then lifted them off. Actually that might help a bit, because at least I know she’s in about the same place. So I guess we… just have to head toward the Sea Kingdom. Seems straight, unless some dragons come out and attack us or something. He flew out of the lake and motioned to Pelican and the others, who jumped up into the air.

Sea Kingdom, here we come.

CHAPTER TEN

(Peak’s Perspective)

It had been three or four days after Peak had been taken by force and she, with her mind reading, had figured out that these dragons weren’t SkyWings. In fact, they weren’t any type of dragon that anyone knew about. They referred to themselves as StoneWings. Peak had hidden the fact that she was a hybrid the second she was on the island, as her scales were enchanted to do this on command. She was still the same red, just with tones of bright orange replacing the purple scales and a few visual switches with the parts of her that looked like a NightWing, she looked just like a SkyWing.

Peak heard in her guard’s thoughts that a NightWing landed on the island. Traitor! Peak thought. Why would anyone betray their entire continent for some dragons that you can’t trust! But Peak realized why the NightWing had betrayed her continent when she heard a familiar strand of thoughts. This NightWing was Deneb, someone who already suspected Peak of having animus magic, someone who Peak couldn’t currently do anything about, because the StoneWings had an enchanted artifact that sensed animus powers. Peak couldn’t use her magic until she could escape with the other prisoners. Peak realized that something had happened to Deneb from a strange line in her thoughts. I’ll kill all of those moon-blasted RainWings and SandWings after I get my power. This thought was followed by a flash of Peaceflyt shooting venom, and Atacama pinning her down to be kicked away.

So Deneb had a run in with my friends… And some venom… When I get free, that squirrel brained camel turd will pay… Peak knew that Deneb might recognize that Peak was someone of importance, if not that SkyWing who’s friends with Peaceflyt. But she couldn’t if Peak didn’t look like royalty. Peak changed from her usual aristocratic stature and slumped her shoulders and made herself look uninteresting and like a pacifist who didn’t care how unjust things were. She no longer looked like a relative of the Sky Queen, she looked like a SilkWing when they were under HiveWing authority. Peak silently wished that her powers were stronger, she had visions every few months and could only read the minds of dragons that were less than half a mile away from her, which, she realized, meant that this island is pretty small.

Get here soon Peaceflyt, and if you die I WILL incinerate you. Peak would rather die herself than have another dragon that she cares about die. There wasn’t anything I could do… She reminded herself, but she couldn’t believe that. She knows that she couldn’t have done anything, but she blamed herself regardless.

Peak knew that this island was pretty much made of tungsten, a metal that even a firescales cannot melt except for when it hasn’t been purified and made into something, which is what the armor that they wear is made out of. Peak was still in the dark about why firescales were so important to their secret plan that they would risk kidnapping two well known firescales. Why wouldn’t they just stick to their regular taking firescales dragonets soon after hatching? Peak wished she knew, but she knew about as much as most of the StoneWings about this grand plan, as all of the highest ranking StoneWings hid their thoughts well, the Queen especially. Peak couldn’t hear one of her thoughts.

Peak’s guard poked her with a tungsten spear while thinking, This job may be higher in rank than my old one, but it's nowhere near as enjoyable. Poking these worms and having them melt us a path through to nowhere doesn’t make any sense, but I’m sure that the queen has a plan. Peak found it slightly amusing that her guard was complaining about her current situation. Her guard brought Peak to the current end of the tunnel. Peak started to melt the stone, this part of the island wasn’t made of tungsten so the firescales could slowly melt the stone. Peak had her scales slightly cooler than most firescales, so that the stone would melt slower. She didn’t know the plan that the StoneWings was, but she would delay it as much as unnoticeably possible. Out of the corner of her eye, Peak saw Cinder, the only other firescales that really wanted to escape other than Peril. He was a bright candlelight orange, with bright turquoise eyes, that contrasted nicely her own bright violet eyes.

Cinder had been raised by the StoneWings for his entire life. I wonder how he survived in this awful place for three years. Peak knew that there were firescales who had lived here much longer, but they were fine with how their lives were, and they didn’t want to risk their situation. Peak found it both amusing and infuriating that some of the most feared dragons were spineless pacifists that couldn’t stand up for themselves. Some of those dragons were just awful company as well. Peak knew that, even without her magic, the firescales could break out, they just needed to have a motivation to come out of their shells, and fight for their freedom. It’s more likely that I’ll just use my magic.

After three more hours of her life that she had spent melting a path for no known reason that she couldn’t get back, Peak and the other firescales finally had their measly ten minute break while the StoneWings had their meeting.

“So,” Peril said, “when do we burn these dragons to the ground?”

“Peril!” Peak said, smothering her laughter, “Please do be quiet about our escape plan. If they know what our plan is, they can stop it.”

“Which we still need,” Cinder reminded them. “We need to work on that.”

“Please take me with you,” Blare, one of the firescales, interjected nervously as she dashed up to them. Peak made eye contact with her for a second. She had eyes that looked like liquid sapphires. Blair’s bright crimson scales clashed terribly with Peak’s burning ruby scales, but looked well with her tyrian underscales that were usually on her wings, back, neck and tail. “I… I want to leave.”

“We’ll take you and whoever else wants to come,” Cinder answered.

“We need all the help we can get,” Peak added. “Besides, we all need to get off this horrible island.”

“I still vote for incinerating all of these dragons.” Peril said, quieter this time.

“Peril,” Cinder reexplained patiently, “Even if we got through the armor, the StoneWings are pretty fire resistant on their own, and I certainly don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Agreed,” Peak continued, ”The only dragons that I kill attack me.” Or banish me… Her mind continued. Peak noticed the flecks of royal purple that were usually scattered by her tail and on the back of her legs were replaced oranges and looked strange, she was used to her normal colors and had forgotten that she still looked like a SkyWing. But Peak couldn’t see her normal colors until she escaped, Something to look forward to, I guess.

Peril sighed and nodded, finally agreeing. Peak was glad that they were all in agreement. Peak heard the thoughts of her least favorite dragon. Peak knew that Kindle was being lied to and manipulated, but she’d turn them over to the StoneWings immediately if she thought that there was an escape plan, or just some firescales that wanted to escape.

Oh, I hope that those stupid flamescales that didn’t aggravate their poor guards. They're just going to make our lives harder. Especially those stuck up idiots Peak and Peril. Poor Cinder, those two are such bad influences on him. Peak goes around walking like she’s royalty, I just cannot believe her. The StoneWings saved us. They didn’t take us away from loving families! They saved us from being killed after hatching!

Kindle’s thoughts were hard to listen to. Peak couldn’t understand why some dragons had to have their opinions set in stone. If only more of the firescales were open to the idea that that had been kidnapped and taken from loving families. Queen Ruby didn’t have the firescales hunted and killed, like Scarlet and Ember. Most SkyWings thought that firescales were disappearing because of certain SkyWings killing them off, but Ruby never found them, so it was never confirmed. Turns out, they were being kidnapped by psychotic dragons to melt a path. Be fair, it’s a very important path, Peak thought sarcastically.

Peak didn’t understand why everyone here referred to firescales as “flamescales”. It didn’t make any sense, why not just do some research?

The StoneWing’s meeting was almost finished, and still no escape plan. Peak knew that Peril, Cinder and Torch, Peak’s roommate, knew that she could read minds, and they had all sworn to keep her secret.

Meeting’s over. Cinder thought. He was much better at reading the StoneWings than the other firescales.

“GET BACK TO WORK!” One of the highest ranked StoneWings yelled. The StoneWing guards got to their assigned firescales and sent most off to the tunnel and a few to melt other ores for the StoneWings.

By the time that the firescales got to go to their sleeping caves, Peak really wanted to just storm the castle and kill the StoneWing Queen, but it was sadly much harder that Peril made it sound.

Peak curled up to sleep in the cave she shared with Torch, wishing that she had a dreamvisitor, or some way of communicating with Peaceflyt, who she knew was at least out of Jade Mountain. Peak suddenly had a splitting headache, and she saw Peaceflyt, Atacama, Pelican, Walnut, Sparrow and Pyramid flying to the island.

That was a vision. Peak thought bewildered. So I guess they are coming. They’d better come soon.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They flew up the river connecting the MudWing queen’s lake to the ocean, and continued toward the Bay of a Thousand Scales. Pelican swam ahead, to keep a lookout for possible dragons coming their way. They made good progress, going from the west side of Queen Moorhen’s lake to the first island they saw in the Bay of a Thousand Scales in only a day. Peaceflyt was glad the journey was uneventful; he didn’t really like being in the middle of action, and they had had a decent amount of it so far.

They settled on the first island, and rested there for a while, mostly chatting. Evening came, and Atacama said she was getting hungry again. “I’d really like some wagyu. Or lizards. Lizards would be nice, but so would wagyu.”

Well, crap. I forgot about that. Of course there wouldn’t be much food here other than fish. Peaceflyt thought. I mean, there might be other small animals here, but not as much as the mainland. Why did I not think of this? Wow, I’m so smart. This is why I don’t think I should be the one saving the world. But then a picture of Peak came into his mind, and he remembered. Right. I’m not saving the world, I’m saving my friend.

Pyramid pounced on a rock right next to Peaceflyt, startling him out of his thoughts. He could see a dead lizard on one of her claws. “I found one,” she informed Atacama. “I didn’t think there would be any lizards in the Kingdom of the Sea, but apparently I was wrong.”

“Apparently so,” Atacama said, as she took the lizard from Pyramid.

“I wonder if we’ll get to Peak today,” said Sparrow, joining Atacama and Pyramid. “We probably will tomorrow.”

Peaceflyt paused, feeling elated and afraid at the same time. We get to see Peak tomorrow! Finally! Unless she’s dead… DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT, PEACEFLYT. But I’ll probably be the one to actually go into the place she’s captured. Great. And I bet animus magic doesn’t work there somehow, because I’m 100% sure Peak would have used it to release herself by now.

An hour later, after Atacama had finished eating and the others had finished resting, they were all up in the air again, continuing along the chain of islands that were part of the Bay of the Thousand Scales. Peaceflyt had only been to the Sea Kingdom once, when his father, Seawatcher had taken him. However, Pelican grew up in the Sea Kingdom, as the youngest son of Queen Coral. Peaceflyt often asked why Pelican was born almost 30 years after the majority of his brothers, and his response was that the SeaWing queen wanted one more heir (which was his sister Princess Azurite), and he hatched with her.

Peaceflyt was pretty sure Peak was within fifty miles of where they were at the moment, and he could see another island in the distance. He glanced down, and saw Pelican motion that there was another dragon underwater right by them. He saw flashing scales, and he knew they must be talking to one another.

He flew down toward Pelican, and Sparrow, Atacama, and Walnut followed. Peaceflyt saw the SeaWing Pelican was talking to glance at each one of them as they neared the top of the water. The dragon’s eyes landed on Sparrow, and stayed there, narrowing.

A second later, the SeaWing launched herself at Sparrow, and dragged her under the water. Walnut screamed, and Sparrow’s eyes were full of panic, trying to fight while holding her breath underwater. Atacama and Pyramid rushed down, knocking Peaceflyt into the water.

“PEACEFLYT! Remember the fighting techniques Clay taught you!” Atacama yelled above the water, but he could barely hear her, because of one, the fact he was underwater, and two, adrenaline.

“Yeah, I know!” he yelled, and flashed ‘LET HER GO!’ as bright as he could at the attacker.

‘And what will happen if I don’t?’ The attacking SeaWing sneered at Peaceflyt, while still digging his claws into Sparrow’s back. He didn’t want to try to attack the SeaWing, as she was practically three and a half times the size of him.

‘Stop RIGHT NOW,’ Pelican ordered as he swam up to the SeaWing.

‘Yeah, sure. I’ll stop attacking this SkyWing because it looks like she’s already dead. Why not attack this feisty SandWing instead?’ the SeaWing grabbed Atacama’s tail and dragged her underwater also.

‘Get off!’ Peaceflyt and Pelican flashed at the same time. Sparrow was floating underwater near them, and Pelican grabbed her and swam up to the surface, so she could get oxygen.

‘Why do you care so much about these random dragons, hybrid?’ the SeaWing flashed. Atacama was somehow putting up a decent fight underwater (for a SandWing). However, the SeaWing simply smacked her with her tail, and she floated away, unconscious.

‘They’re my friends.’ Peaceflyt flashed, and saw the large SeaWing attempting to grab Pyramid. ‘And I’m not going to let you kill all of my friends.’

Peaceflyt extended his arm toward the attacker. ‘What in Pyrrhia are you doing?’ she asked, swimming toward him.

‘I said, I’m not going to let you kill all of my friends,’ Peaceflyt flashed, and almost immediately, the attacking SeaWing was blown out of the water, far away into the air. A few seconds later, he heard a faint splash about a mile away.

He swam over to Atacama, and carried her to the surface next to Sparrow. “Uh- You should’ve told that SeaWing that you were a prince,” he said awkwardly to Pelican. Pelican didn’t answer; he was staring blankly at Peaceflyt, as were Walnut and Pyramid.

Crap. Great, I now have to explain my animus powers to them. Peaceflyt thought sourly. Although I should probably heal Sparrow and Atacama before I do that. “Just a second,” he said, diving below the surface of the water, and grabbing some kelp that was floating around. “I enchant this kelp to fully heal whatever dragon it touches.” He flew above the water and placed the kelp on Sparrow, who immediately snapped awake, and, startled, flapped her wings to get above the water.

“What just happened? I- some SeaWing was attacking me for no reason.” Sparrow asked Pyramid.

“Uh…” Pyramid snapped back into reality. “I’ll explain later.”

Peaceflyt had just finished healing Atacama, who thanked him and flew up to join Pyramid and Sparrow.

“Peaceflyt? What in the moons was that?” Walnut asked.

“Some SeaWing power?” Atacama asked. “Just joking. That crazy SeaWing would’ve used it to murder me and Sparrow. Not like I would let that happen, though. Let me take a wild guess. You have animus powers.”

“Um-” Peaceflyt stopped, shrinking back a little bit and flushing.

“Wait… you have animus powers?” Pelican said.

“Oh. Yeah. Please don’t talk about it, it’s weird hearing other dragons talk about it.” Other than Peak, because she’s the only one I’ve told.

“Wow! You’re an animus. That’s amazing!” exclaimed Walnut.

“And you never told us?” asked Pelican.

“I don’t really want dragons talking about it,” Peaceflyt mumbled, starting toward the island.

“Why?” Atacama asked. “It’s like you have almost infinite power in your talons! Why are you keeping it a secret?”

“I dunno. Just because.” Because I have almost infinite power in my talons. Because I could fix everything in the world and I don’t. Because if any power-hungry dragon figured it out, I’d be their prisoner. Wait… Peaceflyt started to connect the dots in his mind.

Deneb is power-hungry, and she said that she would get revenge on me and Peak. I’m pretty sure she tried to get revenge on me in the cave, and… SHE PROBABLY CAPTURED PEAK! But why would she capture Peril? Maybe she had help… Yay. The last thing I want to do is meet Deneb again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

They landed on the next island and rested and talked there for an hour, and made a beeline for the next island, which was where the ruins of the Summer Palace were.

“I remember once, mother came here with Azurite, and she allowed me to come too,” explained Pelican. “I’ve only been as far as the shore, though, because she needed to do some ‘dangerous’ business.”

“How old were you?” asked Peaceflyt.

“I don’t know. Maybe two,” he estimated. “That’s probably why she didn’t let me come on too far. But AZURITE got to go with her, lucky squid.”

“Oh. So you won't be much of a useful guide anyway?” Peaceflyt smiled.

“I will,” Pelican protested. “I still might know the way around some of the wreckage, because Mother made me read about the Summer Palace before its destruction.”

“That's good. At least someone knows the way around this vast blue nothingness of death,” said Pyramid.

“It’s actually pretty cool underwater,” Pelican suggested. “Although you’ll probably never see the underwater, though.”

“Peaceflyt… can you do your magic thing again?” interjected Walnut.

Peaceflyt looked at her, confused. “Um… no. Not unless it’s really important, like we’re all gonna die.”

“We might,” she said, and pointed down. Right by the island, Peaceflyt could see a SeaWing with a rip in his wing, and felt a chill down his back.

“Oh moons.” He turned invisible, hoping that the SeaWing wouldn’t see the wing of dragonets flying above her. He also saw Sparrow flinch and fly a little bit faster.

Coincidentally, the SeaWing on the shore saw them right as they were landing on the other side of the island. “Oh, rotten papayas,” Peaceflyt cursed under his breath, and dug out his piece of healing kelp from his pouch.

“WHY ARE YOU HERE AT THE SUMMER PALACE!?” the SeaWing roared from the other side of the island. “HERE TO DESTROY IT AGAIN?”

“WHAT ON PYRRHIA ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?” Atacama yelled back. Peaceflyt flinched. That was the wrong thing to say, Atacama.

The SeaWing ran as fast as he could around the island, teeth bared.

Peaceflyt picked up the nearest thing he could find, a stick, and thought frantically, Enchant this stick so that whenever it’s held in my talons, it creates a force field protecting the dragons I want to protect.

The SeaWing charged ahead, claws and teeth bared, toward Atacama and Sparrow. Sparrow screamed, and Atacama jumped in front of Sparrow with her tail barb up and ready. The SeaWing ran into the force field and stumbled back, yelping in pain as blood spurted out of her nose.

“Guys, what do we do now?” Peaceflyt asked quietly.

“Um… I don’t know,” replied Pelican, figuring out quickly Peaceflyt had done something with his animus magic to protect Atacama and Sparrow. “The worst thing that could happen is dragons from her side show up and fight-”

A wave twice as tall as Peaceflyt cascaded over the dragonets. Walnut and Sparrow screamed, while Atacama and Pyramid jumped back, trying to avoid getting wet.

Why does it seem like the whole Sea Kingdom is out to get us? Peaceflyt thought sourly, turning around and walking quickly. Pelican, move, it could be an enem- Queen Coral?

The queen of the SeaWings rose majestically out of the water, her eyes immediately landing on Pelican. “Pelican?”

“Y-yes?” he stammered.

“Why are you out of school?”

“Oh… I can explain…”

Her gaze then fell over Sparrow. “Pelican, explain why there are two SandWings, a SkyWing, and a RainWing in my territory. And an injured SeaWing.” This is really suspicious, and my own son was caught in the act!

“Well… it’s a long story.” Pelican looked at Peaceflyt, slightly worried.

“Here. Then explain it to me. Let’s go underwater, so these other dragons don’t hear or try to correct your story.”

Atacama yelled in protest. “Our stories will be the same!”

Coral ignored her. “They probably will,” muttered Pelican, and then said, “Fine, but can Peaceflyt come?”

“He’s that hybrid, right? The one you’ve been talking about sometimes?”

“Yeah. His father’s Seawatcher.”

“Oh. Okay, I think I’ve heard the name Seawatcher before,” Coral said. “Okay, Pelican. Peaceflyt can come too.” She motioned for them to get in the water, and she followed, pulling the injured SeaWing along with her.

“Pelican, explain yourself,” said Coral sternly.

“Oh. Okay,” Pelican said. Peaceflyt could see him trying to form the best explanation of what they were doing in his head.

“So… I was at school, but then a SkyWing Peaceflyt has known for his whole life and is his best friend went missing. So we figured that she might’ve… gone to the Sky Kingdom. So a few other of Peaceflyt’s friends came to try to rescue her. They’re all from Jade Mountain, by the way. So we came this way, because we thought she was on the shore.”

And… the SkyWing we were traveling with was just scouting her out, so we found out she was on the shore,” Pelican finished.

I’ll send out scouts then, because I would not want my son and his friends killed. Plus, Tsunami would probably be really angry if some of her students got killed.

Hearing Coral’s thoughts, Peaceflyt cut Pelican off. “I think we’ll be safe, because I already scanned the shore, and there were no SkyWings other than my friend there. I think it’s fine if we go-”

“My son is not going into SkyWing territory without a team of highly trained fighters,” Coral said, pulling Pelican into her wings. “He’s going to go back to school.”

“Mother-” Pelican protested.

“Oh, also before you head on your way, explain why… what’s your name?” Coral asked the scarred SeaWing.

“Seagrass,” the SeaWing grunted.

“Explain why Seagrass has a torn wing, Pelican.”

“Oh. So… Seagrass-” Seagrass scowled at Pelican. “Came and randomly attacked the SkyWing we were traveling with.” And she also knocked one of the SandWings unconscious and tried to attack the other one.”

“Because she could’ve been one of the SkyWings who attacked the Summer Palace!”

“Seagrass, that was over 20 years ago. And that SkyWing dragonet was no older than 5 years old. And why did you attack that SandWing, who did nothing?” Coral asked angrily.

“She was yelling at me,” Seagrass said under her breath.

“Here, Seagrass. Come with me and Pelican.” She grabbed Seagrass’ talon and dragged her along toward the Deep Palace.

“See you back at school, Peaceflyt. Good luck,” said Pelican, and Peaceflyt could hear the hint of sadness in his voice.

“See you,” Peaceflyt replied, and slowly swam up to the surface, where Atacama, Pyramid, Sparrow, and Walnut were waiting for him.

“Hello!” Atacama yelled at Peaceflyt as he waded onto the island.

“Where’s Pelican?” asked Walnut, walking up to the water and looking down as if she could see him hiding underwater.

“Queen Coral took him. She didn’t want him to go rescue Peak.”

“So now we’re like the five Dragonets of Destiny. I wonder if the number five is special to prophecies or something,” Sparrow said.

“Maybe,” Peaceflyt replied. So now I’m going to be the ‘unexpected’ hero in the prophecy. And if we fail on whatever’s going to happen, then lives are going to be destroyed. No pressure at all. “Is it just us, or is it including Pelican?”

“I don’t know,” said Pyramid. “But didn’t, like twenty years ago, when Darkstalker came alive, weren’t there six dragons that kind of fulfilled that prophecy?”

“Yeah. I think so.” agreed Walnut.

Peaceflyt looked up and saw Atacama already in flight. “Come on! Let’s get going!” She yelled, beckoning toward the sky. “We’ll probably get to that tiny island over there, if you guys actually move.”

“Good point,” said Peaceflyt, joining her in the air. I wonder if Peak can hear my thoughts, he thought halfway to the other island. Unless she still has her skyfire on, or she’s too far away to hear me. He stopped thinking, waiting to see if she would respond. Okay, either she’s too far away or she still has skyfire on. I hope she’s not underwater, that’ll mean I have to go myself.

Sparrow and Atacama landed on the island first, as the sun was starting to set. Peaceflyt, Pyramid, and Walnut followed shortly after.

“I hope we’re going in the right direction,” said Peaceflyt, trying to crush his worries about getting lost.

“Don’t you have visions or something? You should know if we’re going in the right direction,” Pyramid replied.

“I apparently only have them if they’re really important. So I can’t guide my way around here using visions if I had to.” I wish I could, though, that would be really convenient. Then I’d know how to not die.

“OW!” Walnut yelled suddenly, making Peaceflyt jump. “Moons… that kind of hurt…”

“Walnut,” said Peaceflyt, walking over. “Are you okay?”

She showed him what looked like part of a purple colored scale. Purple. “Did you get burnt?”

“Yeah, I was at first thinking this scale was Peak’s, but I don’t really know. I mean, there are a lot of NightWings with purple scales, so it could be anyone, I guess.

“It… I think it is one of Peak’s scales,” he said as Walnut gave the scale to him. “I’d recognize this shade of purple anywhere. Plus, it’s still kind of hot, so it probably came from a firescales, and I don’t really know any NightWings who come around here and… set their scales on fire, I don’t know.”

A grin spread across Walnut’s face. “That means we’re probably really close to her, Peaceflyt!”

“Yeah, I know,” he said quietly. But what if she’s dead? I don’t want to see the corpse of my friend STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT. Stay positive, Peaceflyt.

“Atacama, Sparrow, Pyramid,” he said. “Peak is near.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“REALLY!?” Atacama yelled as Pyramid and Sparrow also smiled. “We’re going to see Peak soon!”

“Wow… who would bring her to the middle of the Sea Kingdom, though?” wondered Sparrow. “SeaWings? Maybe that one SeaWing that practically murdered me is with them.”

“Peaceflyt, what happened with that SeaWing who almost murdered two of my friends?” asked Pyramid.

“Queen Coral took her away along with Pelican, to the Deep Palace, I think.”

Pyramid growled as the setting sun hit her light yellow and brown scales. “I’m asking because I want to do exactly what she did to Atacama and Sparrow to her.”

“Including the part where you get blown away?” a sarcastic voice behind them said. Pyramid whipped around with her tail ready and teeth bared.

“You were stalking us?” she said in a low voice.

“Why do your scales look so weird and… gray?” asked Atacama.

The strange looking dragon ignored Atacama’s question. “I was just on patrol, and then I saw some SeaWing flying through the air. So I came to investigate and found you group of dragonets.” The strange gray dragon was wearing a strange amber colored armor with spikes that was studded with small emeralds.

Please don’t ask how the SeaWing got blown into the air… Peaceflyt pleaded internally.

“How did that SeaWing even get blown into the air? How does that happen?” the gray dragon asked. Peaceflyt noticed an engraving just like the one in his vision of Peak on her armor, it read, “Syenite”.

Oh no. “The SeaWing queen… ordered her to be thrown into the air,” Peaceflyt responded quickly, avoiding the fact that he was an animus.

“Huh, weird,” the gray dragon said. “What tribe are you from?” He pointed at Walnut.

“Um…” said Walnut as she slid back. “You don’t know what tribe I’m from?”

“No,” the gray dragon said. It’s not like I go out into the continent much. Queen Marble doesn’t want me to, because I have to guard those firescales. I feel kinda bad for them.

Peaceflyt jumped a little in his scales of surprise. Wait, WHAT? Firescales? Did I hear that right? This gray dragon is guarding firescales? What if she’s guarding Peak? That means Peak isn’t dead!

The gray dragon started talking again. “Sorry, I can’t stay any longer and make funny sarcastic comments. I have to go.” What are these dragons even doing in StoneWing territory? I’ve only seen one SeaWing swim around here my entire life! There’s also that one NightWing that came around here recently that looks kind of like that SeaWing-ish one. Something about the colorful little weird one reminds me of Granite.

Peaceflyt felt like he was given all the answers to everything at school, but out here, he had to slowly piece everything together. “Hey! Guys, I just figured out something.”

“Really? Wow, good job,” Pyramid remarked sarcastically.

Peaceflyt ignored the sarcastic-ness in her comment. “That gray dragon knows where the firescales are at. She’s a guard for them.”

“WHAT?” Pyramid and Atacama screamed in twin shrieks of horror. “Where is she, how do you KNOW!?”

“Peak is near, because, well, first, we found part of her scale, and that gray dragon barely ever goes into the continent. She didn’t have any skyfire on, so I could hear exactly what she was thinking.”

“Is that literally all you heard?”

“Not really. There was something about ‘StoneWings’...” he said, racking his memory from what he heard.

“StoneWings? Is that a tribe? Like an actual lost tribe?” Walnut said excitedly.

“It could be. I mean, his scales were gray, so maybe the rest of her tribe… or group, or whatever has gray scales.”

“That’s actually kind of awesome!” Walnut exclaimed joyfully.

“A new tribe?” Atacama said. “I hope we don’t need to kill all of them while rescuing Peak.”

“It might be too late for that, they already captured Peak and a bunch of other random firescales dragons,” Pyramid pointed out. “But yeah, hopefully. I’ll make some poison just in case…”

“Okay, only just in case.” responded Peaceflyt. “But yeah, I guess if they try to murder us all, then sure.”

“You’re very non-violent,” Pyramid said.

“It’s not technically a bad thing,” Walnut said.

“Not really,” replied Peaceflyt.

“Peaceflyt? When we go to sleep, you should make a force field,” Sparrow said, glancing into the sky. “Just in case more weird gray stone dragons come to attack us.”

“Yeah, good point,” he said, pulling the force field stick out of his pouch. “I enchanted this to make a force field around the dragons I want to protect, so tonight I’ll just ask it to protect all of us.”

“Wow, that’s cool,” she said. “I wish I was an animus.”

Oh. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t an animus, so I wouldn’t have to worry about my soul. I guess there are positives and negatives to it.

“Actually, yeah, that would be kind of cool,” said Pyramid, while Peaceflyt was silently praying that no one would ask him to make them an animus.

He turned around, and Walnut was sleeping on the ground. She must be tired out from today’s flight. How far did we even travel today? Oh, right. He pulled out his force field stick and realized how tired he was. He laid down and fell asleep, Atacama, Sparrow, and Pyramid still chatting.

. . .

Peaceflyt awoke early the next morning, when everyone else was still sleeping. He looked out at the vast sea, wondering which direction the strange StoneWing had come from. Northwest, he remembered. Will anyone notice if I just do a little spying mission? I don’t think so, it’s still pretty dark.

His scales rippled against the background and faded from view as he leaped into the air, scanning northwest. He saw a rock in the distance, covered by the fog. It’s really small, though, but hopefully I can land on it and get a better view.

The night was windy, and it took longer than he thought to get there. Finally, he put his talons down on the rock, which were soaked with sea spray. A half mile ahead of him, he could see what looked like a gray building, but he wasn’t sure, as there was a lot of fog. He could only see one StoneWing, who was circling around the island. He checked to make sure he was still invisible, just in case.

I really don’t want to get caught, he thought.

Well, you might want to double check that your cousin isn’t a mind reader then. A familiar sarcastic thought rang in his head. Actually don’t worry, I already did.

Peaceflyt’s face lit up. Peak!

No, of course not, it's just the other mind reading firescales. Nice to see- well, hear your thoughts again. OH COME AT ME YOU MOON BLASTED SQUIRREL BRAIN. I WILL INCINERATE YOU!

‘What in the moons? I hope you’re talking to another dragon, not me.’

‘No, just my guard.’

‘If you’re wondering, Atacama, Pyramid, Sparrow, and Walnut are here with me too.’

‘Well, I knew about Atacama, but I had hoped that you brought others. Also, dibs on killing Deneb.’

‘Huh. Pyramid already said she wants to do it. But I honestly don’t care who does.’

It’s been pretty hard not just thinking and accidentally killing my guard with my animus abilities. Oh, speaking of animus abilities, the StoneWings have an enchanted object that shows where animus magic is being used on the island and where it is coming from, that’s why I haven't used mine. But I don’t know if the StoneWings have an animus or not. StoneWings are this tribe who’s obsessed with giant holes to nowhere, in case you didn’t know.’

Peaceflyt felt a little dizzy. ‘Wow. that’s a lot of information. Let me try to answer each thing you said. So… it’s good that their current animus doesn’t want to do anything. He’s probably kind of like me, who won’t use their animus magic unless it’s serious or… something. And have you ever thought about why they could be obsessed with giant holes to nowhere?’

‘Everyone who knows is a toadstooled fly who blocks their important thoughts. Literally, I’ve spent days melting a tunnel for no apparent reason. Even my guard doesn’t know.’

‘Weird. Must be top secret. I hope they’re not like, trying to make a tunnel to Pyrrhia to take over the world.’ He shivered at the thought. ‘Are there any other firescales there, and what are their names?’

‘Oh, gods. I’ll only mention the ones worth mentioning. So there’s Peril, Cinder, Torch, Inferno, Blare and SunFire. Only Peril, Cinder, Blare and I are plotting escape. There are a few others, like Kindle who you have to watch out for. She’ll report anything suspicious. Like Peril’s first attempt of escaping. She told the StoneWings about her plan.’

‘What happened to her? Oh also, tell Peril that Clay misses her when you get the chance.’

‘Peril might explode the entire island to escape if I told her that.’

‘Okay. Then don’t, I guess,’ Peaceflyt thought.

Oh, no. You misunderstood me. Having that knowledge makes me want to tell her even more!’ Peaceflyt could practically hear the deviousness in her thoughts, and chuckled in his head, not to give his location away to any StoneWings.

‘Are there any StoneWings that are actually nice?’

‘They ignore us when they’re not shouting at us, so I can’t be sure. I also know a limited amount of StoneWings, you know, due to my being their prisoner.’

‘I guess that’s true. Wait… so how much firescales there do we have to worry about? Except that Kindle dragon.’

‘We’re freeing them all. I will personally drag Kindle out by HER EARS to make her come with us. There are 13 total firescales on the island.’

‘No… no, are any other than Kindle loyal to the StoneWings, or not?’

‘No one else is that delusional, so no.’

‘Okay, good.’

‘Any other questions?’

‘I don’t think so. I might come out here again with Walnut, to scout and stuff. Plus, the sun is starting to come up, so I’d better go back soon, or Atacama would think something suspicious is going on.’

‘Alright. Come back with her at sunset. See you then.’

‘Good with me.’ Peaceflyt thought, spreading his wings. ‘See you!’ He leaped into the air, heading toward the sunrise.

‘I’m only slightly surprised and disappointed that you didn’t ask about our nonexistent escape plan.’ Peaceflyt couldn’t hear Peak’s thoughts after that, as he was out of their thought range.

I finally found Peak, Peaceflyt thought. Finally, Atacama, Pyramid, Walnut, and Sparrow will be so excited.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“REALLY!?” Atacama and Pyramid roared in unison after Peaceflyt told them, and they were up.

Walnut opened her eyes tiredly. “What… Atacama? I’m still sleeping-”

“PEACEFLYT FOUND PEAK… kind of. BUT HE TALKED TO HER YESTERDAY.. Kind of… BUT NONETHELESS. WE FOUND HER!”

Walnut jumped up in excitement. “Whoa! PEACEFLYT! You found her? Kind of! This is so exciting! What did you talk to her about?”

“She told me everything- not everything, but a decent amount of things about stuff that’s happening at the island.”

“Ooh! Can you tell us?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sure. Let me see if I can remember everything she told me.” He told Atacama, Sparrow, Pyramid, and Walnut, who were listening closely, although Atacama snuck in a few sarcastic comments and threats.

“Those moons blasted StoneWings,” Pyramid growled under her breath. “And your murderous cousin is working for them. That’s pleasant.”

Walnut tugged at Peaceflyt’s arm. “Peaceflyt? I have to ask you something.”

“Uh…” Peaceflyt said as she dragged him away from the others. “Okay.”

“Next time you scout, can I go with you?”

Peaceflyt glanced back at the others. Atacama was mischievously smiling at them. What’s that for? “Oh. Um. Sure, as long as you’re invisible, because I would not want to see another one of my friends almost dying. I’ve had enough of that, thank you very much.”

Walnut smiled, and ran toward Atacama. “I get to go scout with Peaceflyt!” She excitedly exclaimed.

Yes, very fun, thought Peaceflyt. I absolutely love scouting and going into enemy territory, so fun.

“If she dies on your scouting mission,” Pyramid told Peaceflyt, “then I’m killing you. Just a heads up.”

Oh, great. Fun. he thought, and Walnut exclaimed, “I will NOT let you kill Peaceflyt, even if I’m dead. So don’t even think about it.” Atacama and Sparrow exchanged glances as though they got a joke that Peaceflyt and Walnut didn’t.

“Why are you guys making those faces?” he asked them.

Sparrow smiled. “We’ll tell you later.” Atacama, Sparrow, and Pyramid all exploded in a laughing fit at that moment.

Oh, moons. Peaceflyt thought. What in Pyrrhia are they thinking about? I hope it doesn’t involve me. Crap.

“What about we wait ‘till midday, Walnut, to go scouting,” he said.

“Yeah! Sure. I’m fine about that,” she said, picking up a rock and throwing it into the ocean.

“Here, Walnut,” Sparrow said, still slightly smiling. She threw a coconut at her, which she caught in her talons.

“Oh! Thanks, Sparrow.”

“Yeah,” she said, and walked over to Atacama and Pyramid, who were whispering and smiling, glancing at Walnut and Peaceflyt.

I really wish I knew what they were whispering about. I mean, I could always take off my skyfire, but I don't want to lose it, and I promised to not invade their thoughts.

Midday came quickly, and whenever Peaceflyt tried to ask Atacama, Pyramid, or Sparrow about what they were talking about, they always changed the subject, or exploded in fits of laughter.

“If you’re not going to tell me now, tell me later today, please, or I’ll take my skyfire off,” he said, irritated.

“Have you forgotten that half the reason that you wear you skyfire is because of my violent thoughts?” Atacama changed the subject once again.

Just tell me what the heck you’re talking about already! He thought. “Yeah, I guess that is true.”

“Peaceflyt, it’s midday,” Walnut reminded him. “We’re going scouting, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah. Right. Let me hide my skyfire pouch, though. So I can talk… exchange thoughts with Peak.” He flew up the one coconut tree on the island and hid it in between its fronds.

Peaceflyt darted toward the ocean, to be free of anyone else’s thoughts.

“Walnut!” he yelled, motioning for her to come towards him. “I'll show you the way towards Peak's prison. Oh, also I can hear your thoughts now, so be careful of what you think, if you don't want me to know it, but I'm going to do my best to block your thoughts out.”

“Okay,” she replied, catching up to him. “I don't think you'll mind my thoughts, but I'll try not to think as much as I normally do.”

They flew toward the rock Peaceflyt had stood on earlier. Walnut paused, looking at Peaceflyt. “It's fine, you can sit there, I'll go into the ocean.”

Is he sure? Peaceflyt heard her think, and he nodded. thanks

“It's kind of weird now! Because you never heard my thoughts before, and now you can!” Walnut laughed, and Peaceflyt dove into the ocean.

‘Peak, Walnut's here now. I can help you guys talk, if you want.’ he thought, and stuck his invisible head out of the surface. Walnut was mostly invisible, but he could see one or two scales on her underbelly yellow with excitement.

“Walnut, I'm trying to reach out to Peak right now,” he informed her quietly, and she jumped.

“Okay, but next time can you swirl the water around you or something when you talk?” She said, irritated, and paused. “Sorry if that came off as rude.” She looked down at her talons.

“That's fine. Wait. I think I hear Peak. Just a second.”

‘I do remember saying “Come back at sunset” not “bring Walnut around midday”, but this is a nice surprise,’ Peak thought. ‘We’re having our “break” currently… Cinder says that there’s about four minutes left out of the ten that we get. Oh! We can sort of introduce everyone to each other. Well, not everyone, I guess. Unless you brought someone else with skyfire, or someone who’s out of range.’

Peaceflyt laughed quietly. ‘No, I only brought Walnut. She's scouting with me because… well, we're invisible right now. And it would be weird if Atacama or Pyramid or Sparrow came, because then there would just be one random SandWing or SkyWing just… chilling in the middle of the ocean. The StoneWings would be so confused.’

‘They’d only be confused because their pea brains cannot understand that SandWings’ tail’s are very dangerous.’

Peaceflyt glanced upwards and a StoneWing was flying above them with a wickedly sharp spear that was an ambery color that perfectly matched his armor. He wished he could find a way to remind Walnut not to make any noises, but luckily, Peaceflyt heard her think that he was still talking with Peak, so she stayed quiet. Phew.

‘Peak, I can help you and Walnut talk if you want,’ he thought, as the StoneWing circled back onto the island.

‘Alright, I can help you and your gi- nothing, Walnut talk to Cinder, Peril and Blare.

‘My what!?’ Peaceflyt thought. ‘You were going to say girlfriend, weren’t you? I’m just her friend.’

‘What? Nooooo…’

‘No. I swear you were about to say girlfriend. Moons. That was probably what Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow were laughing about.’

‘Really? It could be about something else. Moons, are we lucky that Walnut can’t hear this conversation, she might kill me herself. Not literally, she’d just use strong words and that scares me more than anything the StoneWings have done so far.’

‘Yeah, true. Anyway, yeah, you can help me and her talk to the other firescales there, if you want.’ He thought, changing the subject.

‘Are we getting nervous now? Changing the subject suddenly?’ Peak teased him. It was startling sometimes, how good she could be at reading dragons she knew well.

‘Oh, please. Stop tal- thinking about that.’

‘Try and make me. You're lucky, because I’ve run out of time for banter. We have two minutes left. So, let’s introduce you and your- umm... Walnut to the firescales.’

‘They either think that I have a crush on Walnut, or she has a crush on me,’ Peaceflyt thought sourly and quietly. ‘By all the moons.’

‘Well, I’m quite certain that they could’ve figured that out by your expressions.’

‘I should've figured that out before,’ thought Peaceflyt. ‘Walnut probably has a crush on me. Anyway, let’s please stop talking about this. Plus, you only have two minutes left to introduce us.’

‘Cinder says hello. Peril says that you’d better get us out of here soon or- PERIL. I’m currently trying to get her to be less violent.’ Peaceflyt was slightly suspicious that Peak was changing the subject, but didn’t comment on it.

‘That sounds like Peril,’ Peaceflyt thought, as he’d seen Peril often at Jade Mountain. ‘So… I’m guessing you told them our names.’

‘Well, obviously. Cinder says to tell Walnut that she sounds like a very nice and friendly dragon. OOOOOOH! Peril just had a great idea! Since you’re both invisible, you could sneak in with my directions!’

‘Oh. Uh- Yeah, true. I mean, that would work.. But if we accidentally bump into one of the StoneWings, we’ll either have to get killed or wait for someone to fight them away, because we’re not great fighters. Oh, also we’re going to go on a few more scouting missions to see how to get in.’

‘A, you BOTH have venom. B, I can guide you through, into the tunnels.’

‘The problem is, I don’t know if you remember, but RainWing venom can’t melt metal, so that’s a problem. I mean, a well aimed shot could soak through the metal or something, but it would hurt less.’

‘I’m quite certain that venom hurts the same amount regardless of whether it sneaks past armor or not, but it's fine if you're too scared. Well, I’m fine with it. Peril might hunt you down to the ends of Pyrrhia, though.’

‘Sorry,’ he thought sadly. ‘I guess I just haven’t been through as much pressure as I am under now. I want to rescue a friend, but then again, I’m going into an enemy territory and could get killed and that would just make you even more mad… UGH.’

‘Peaceflyt, you’re clearly rubbish at reading dragons. Because I. AM. NOT. ANGRY.’

‘I know. I mean, then you would be angry at the dragon who killed me. I was just trying to make an excuse, sorry, I’M A MESS.’ He paused. ‘Okay,’ he breathed. ‘I’ll do it. When do you want us to come?’

‘The guards change posts every twelve hours, the next time is right before midnight. You need to come then.”

‘Alright. At midnight then.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As Peaceflyt grabbed his skyfire pouch from the palm tree, the sun was high in the sky, and Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow were chuckling.

“You’re laughing because you think Walnut has a crush on me. Peak said something about a girlfriend- well, she was going to say it, but stopped,” he said irritated.

“We don’t think Walnut has a crush on you,” Atacama explained while laughing. “She does have a crush on you.”

Peaceflyt felt like a palm tree had fallen on him. WHAT!? “Wait… really?”

“Yeah,” said Pyramid while laughing hysterically.

Peaceflyt tried to remain calm outside, but he was dying inside. They ship us. Except I don’t have a crush on her, she has one on me. Not like anyone cares, though.

He could almost hear Peak’s voice teasing him, “How didn't you figure this out? It was right in front of your face the entire time. I honestly don’t know if she could’ve been any more obvious.”

He almost shot back, “I always suspected that, but I never knew she actually did! I hoped she never did.” But, he stopped himself from yelling at a voice in his head. He tried to ignore the subject, as he didn’t want to be on it anymore.

He turned to Walnut, who had turned a light red with light yellow spots. Oh, moons. “One of the firescales there, Cinder, said that you sound like a nice and friendly dragon.”

“Oh!” She cupped her talons around her snout, as if she was calling out. “Thank you, Cinder!”

“Walnut,” Peaceflyt said as he casually walked away from Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow. Walnut followed. “So… is it fine with you if we wake up at midnight?”

“Why, what do you mean?” she asked, confused. Peaceflyt was glad that Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow couldn’t hear them.

“We’re going to see Peak today. She wants us to go and rescue her and the firescales.”

Walnut paused, her eyes wide. “Wait. WHAT! Really?”

Peaceflyt smiled. “Yes, really, we’re going to rescue her. At midnight.”

“Wow. Are you nervous? I’m a little nervous, haha.” Walnut laughed. “Especially because of the fact that you can’t use magic and not go unnoticed.”

“Yeah. That’s true.”

“Is it going to be only us?”

“Yup. Having a random SandWing or SkyWing just waltzing into a secret prison would kind of be a giveaway that something suspicious would be happening.”

“That’s true. Do we need to prepare or something?”

“I don’t think so. Unless we practice… fighting or something.”

“So like sparring? Maybe we should practice sparring. You can go against me, I can be tough if I want.”

Peaceflyt never thought of the little RainWing as tough, but their recent adventures had proved him wrong. “Okay, if you want, sure. I don’t mind,” he said, wondering if she didn’t want to hurt him.

“Good. I guess we might need as much practice as we can get,” she said, and grabbed his leg. Peaceflyt kicked her off, and she came back, slashing her claws at his tail. He swung his tail and she flew off, into the ocean.

Oh no. Peaceflyt ran over, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out of the ocean. “Sorry about that, Walnut.”

She laughed. Apparently not much water had gone into her mouth, because her laugh sounded normal. “Okay. Just don’t do that again.”

“I’ll be careful,” he said, checking to see if she got scraped by any rocks, luckily, she had come out unscathed.

“Hey, at least it’s a first for me,” she said. “First time fully submerged underwater. I wonder how much RainWings can say that.”

“Probably not many. Unless you’re including me. Then again, I’m not fully a RainWing.” He picked up a rock and lifted it multiple times, then threw it far into the ocean.

“Actually, this might seem weird, but I’m just going to practice my fighting techniques on the air. Because if I do this on another dragon, it’ll probably hurt a lot. Like I’m not going to just spar, if you know what I mean. Just in case we run into any murderous StoneWings.” I mean, it’s hard to think that I’ll kill another dragon, but if that dragon is going to kill me… then I guess I will. It’s still hard to think about it, though. Peaceflyt thought.

Sometime later after Peaceflyt had finished sparring the air and they had all eaten dinner, he found Walnut at the edge of the shore.

“Hi,” he said, staring into the sunset.

“Hi, Peaceflyt.” She paused, admiring the view. “I can’t believe that during the next sunset, Peak will finally be back.”

Or we’ll both be dead, or trapped on the island, he thought with a cold sweat. But hopefully not. “I know.”

Suddenly, Walnut screamed, and Peaceflyt saw a rush of sandy yellow scales shake her. “Enjoying the romantic sunset?” asked Atacama, smiling mischievously.

“It’s not romantic,” Peaceflyt replied, annoyed. “But it is a nice sunset.”

“Awww, they’re so cute together, Atacama!” Pyramid walked up to her.

“Three moons, stop talking,” said Peaceflyt angrily.

“Ok, we’ll leave so you can have your moment together,” said Pyramid, and her and Atacama broke into laughter.

“They’re so annoying,” Peaceflyt muttered under his breath. “I’m going to go get a snack. I’ll be back soon.” He dived into the water, and he saw Walnut stare down into it as he descended.

He swam downward, and spotted a fish. He grabbed it in his talons and ate it with one bite. While he was eating, something caught his eye. On the seafloor, he saw a large blur of green and gray surrounded by stone on every side except for a small hole near the bottom. What could that be?

He narrowed his eyes, hesitating to move any closer, in case it was a trap. The fish swam away as they saw the dragon nearing them, and it revealed a small white dragon bone.

Weird, Peaceflyt thought, and didn’t give it much thought after that. He caught another fish and ate it, and paddled up to the surface of the water. Well, that’s creepy.

“Hey,” said Walnut. “You’re back.”

“Yep,” he responded.

“You know what? I might go to sleep a little early, given that we’re going to have to wake up at midnight.”

“That’s true.” Peaceflyt watched her walk away on the sand and choose a comfortable spot to sleep. “Maybe I should go to sleep, too, actually,” he said to himself.

Atacama watched them quizzically. “Why’re you going to bed so early? Actually, I don’t really blame you guys. Now that I think about it, I kind of want to lay down, too.”

Peaceflyt laid down on the warm sand, staring at the sunset. He felt so vast out here, all he wanted to do was go back home, with no worries. He knew he probably would have more worries than he normally would have anyway. He also knew he might be dead or captured tomorrow, so he tried to enjoy watching the sunset and looking around at his friends. His eyes drooped, and he started to drift into a dreamless sleep.

. . .

Peaceflyt felt talons on his shoulder, shaking him softly. “Peaceflyt? It’s almost midnight.”

He opened his eyes slowly, but they kept wanting to close. He stumbled onto his feet, still tired. “Okay,” he said hoarsely. “How long ago did you wake up?”

“Probably about a minute or two ago,” she said quietly. “One of Atacama’s wings just decided to fall on my face. It was really annoying, and then the inside of her wing got caught on my nose spike and then I got up.”

Peaceflyt looked at Atacama, and if she wasn’t asleep, she was doing a good job of pretending to. Pyramid and Sparrow were lying with their eyes closed near them.

“Are they awake?” asked Peaceflyt quietly.

“I don’t think so,” Walnut said. “Actually, I think Atacama might be awake.”

“Okay. Well, let’s still be quiet for whoever’s actually asleep.” They crept across the island. Luckily, the island at most could only fit ten sleeping dragons, so it didn’t take long.

“You ready?” asked Peaceflyt. He was really nervous, but he didn’t want to admit it.

Walnut smiled nervously at him. “Yeah. I think so. Just kind of nervous.”

“Don’t worry,” he responded, even though he was probably more nervous than her. He spread his wings, and Walnut followed suit. They leaped into the air simultaneously, made their scales invisible, and flew into the clear night sky towards the rock Peaceflyt had talked to Peak on a night ago.

He slid into the water, and heard Walnut’s talons quietly tap against the rock. Hey, Peak. We’ve made it. We’ve come to rescue you.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘And the others, I’m presuming?’ Peak thought at him.

‘Yeah. Not just you. I’m not that selfish.’

‘Where are you now? I need a description of your surroundings to lead you in.’

‘I’m still on the rock… well, in the ocean near the rock right now, but I see an area where we can land. Give us a second.’ He flew out of the ocean, and tapped Walnut on the shoulder. “Walnut, it’s me. We’re going to fly to that area over there,” he whispered, pointing his talon, now slightly visible, onto a small patch of rock. “Oh, can you carry my skyfire so I can talk with Peak?”

“Sure.” Walnuts voice whispered and Peaceflyt saw a shimmer of lily green in her direction.

Peaceflyt lifted out of the water, trying to be quiet while doing so. He heard Walnut beat her wings next to him. The flight to the island was surprisingly short, even though the island seemed far away. They both landed quietly on the hard gray rock with a small thunk.

‘What does the clearing look like? I asked for a description of your surroundings. Not a quick note of the surrounding area.’

‘I was just going to tell you that. So, right now, well, you know about the hard gray rock, so… there’s a small tree that only has a few leaves with a stone carving of a dragon’s face on it to the right of us and there’s a small grass patch by that tree-’

‘Turn around, and look at the tunnel you just flew over. Then go in and turn left. Wait for further instructions there.’

‘Okay.’ Peaceflyt turned to Walnut. “Follow me.” He turned around and saw a tunnel in the stone. Slowly, he tiptoed in, and Walnut followed suit. He tried to breathe as quietly as he could, but his heart was beating fast, so it was hard to. He saw a fork in the tunnel, and he walked to the left side. Luckily, he hadn’t seen any guards yet, so that was good. ‘I’m here. Still alive, so that’s a good thing.’

‘Alright, continue down the tunnel until you see a cave.’

‘Okay- AH!’ Peaceflyt spotted what looked like the guard they’d met on the island, except his scale color was a little darker and his snout was a little shorter. He froze, and Walnut ran into him. Oh no.

Peaceflyt frantically glanced around, and spotted a large rock by his tail. He hit his tail against the wall so the rock could fall out. Please let this work, please let him think that the noise came from the rock and not Walnut… He was in luck, as the guard grumbled at the rock and continued down the tunnel. Ahead of him was a cave that looked empty. He could see a few passageways leading out from the cave. ‘This is weird. Peak, we’re here. Well, we’re by the cave.’

‘Now go down the left side, I know, lots of lefts, to the third opening. Then go to the second opening on the right side of that passage, and you’ll be almost there.’

‘Okay, second opening, left side…’ Peaceflyt felt a burst of happiness, then realized he was basically in a prison that had captured a dragon that could murder an entire tribe if she wanted. Not like Peak would ever do that, though.

He went down the second opening, and he heard Walnut’s talons behind him. He could practically sense her excitement. ‘Next instruction?’ he asked Peak.

‘These are firescales caves. Mine is sixth on the left, Peril’s is second on the right, Cinder’s is third on the left, and Blare’s is sixth on the right.’

‘Okay. I’ll go to your cave first. Are there any guards in each of your caves?’

‘No, there are guards on the way out.’

‘Okay, good. So we’ll only see them while we’re escaping.’ He headed toward the thirteenth cave on the left. ‘Is anyone else in your cave with you?’

‘Just Torch, and I’m taking her with me. Whether or not she wants to go, she is.’

‘Okay,’ he thought. ‘Would she come anyway, if you didn’t force her to? Just wondering.’

‘The world may never know.’

Peaceflyt peeked through a crack in a large rock right outside Peak’s cave. He could see a reddish-orange firescales, which Peaceflyt guessed was Torch. However, his heart leapt when he saw Peak’s reds and oranges, though in her disguise she lacked purple.

‘I’m right outside your cave right now,’ he informed her.

‘Have Walnut go to Blare’s, then Peril’s. You get a key from one of the guards.’

‘Okay.’ He turned around. “Walnut, go to the… sixth cave on the right. You’ll find another firescales. Then go to the second cave on the right and you’ll find Peril.”

“Okay. I want you to come with me, though,” she murmured back.

“Um… sorry. But I believe in you, so don’t be too afraid. I know you can be stealthy,” Peaceflyt whispered, remembering the hide-and-seek game they’d played at Jade Mountain once. Walnut had found the other RainWings faster than anyone else.

“Bye.” She smiled.

“Good luck,” Peaceflyt replied quietly. Luckily, no one seemed to notice them whispering. He heard her tail slowly slithering away on the rock.

‘Do you have any idea where guards are at? The one I saw earlier had no key.’

‘The key is a sharp jagged rock. The guard with the sapphires or emeralds instead of the rubys should have it. The jewels are a status symbol. Ruby is for guards, sapphire is for the highest ranked guard in the group, emerald is for generals and white moonstone for royalty.’

‘Okay. Good to know. I guess I’ll just… stalk the guards then.’ Peaceflyt smiled. ‘Er, not the guards, just an enemy general.’

Peaceflyt walked out of Peak’s cave. Torch was still sleeping, and had no idea what was going on. ‘See you soon,’ he thought. He slowly walked out of the cave, and saw no guards. The only dragon he could see out of the cave so far was Walnut, who was in Blare’s cave. He sat down by the end of a tunnel, trying not to make any noise, and waited to see if any guards would come.

‘You should probably actually start looking for guards. I don’t think many dragons would come through here right now. I’ll go wake Torch,’ thought Peak.

‘Argh, fine,’ Peaceflyt grumbled and got up. ‘Where do guards- generals even hang out?’

‘It’s the dragon with the emeralds on the right side, where you saw guards before.’

‘Okay. Right side. Dragons with emeralds. Stealing something important from them. Okay.’ He took a deep breath, even though he was trembling. I’ve got this.

He walked toward a medium-sized cave on the right side of the large cave. He inched up the wall behind it and peeked inside. A large dragon with medium-dark gray scales was laying down inside. She was very grumbly in her sleep, talking about things like the queen’s plans. The queen’s plans! Maybe that has to do something with capturing the firescales. Maybe I should listen first. He could almost see Peak next to him, agreeing.

The StoneWing general’s brow was furrowed. “ARRRGH Marble why GRRR I don’t WANT to do that we don’t even KNOW if ARRGHH how are the bones even HELPFUL to the plan…” She started whispering gibberish after that and Peaceflyt couldn’t make out anything except the words ‘animus’ and ‘stupid’.

‘Something about a plan with bones.’ He narrowed his eyes to study the large gray dragon again. He saw a large jagged rock that was probably the key, but something that stood out on her was a name and birth year on the back of her talons. The name read ‘Breccia’, and the year was ‘5005’.

Huh. So she’s… 28 years old, he thought, as Breccia fell silent in her sleep. ‘Oh. This might be the best time to get the key.’ The small rock looked sharp enough to stab through someone’s talons, and it was on a string that was tied to Breccia’s neck.

How the heck am I supposed to get that key? he thought to himself. Yanking it off would definitely wake her up. I could use venom if I was careful, but I don’t want to risk it. Maybe I could just…

He spotted a piece of metal plate armor that looked like the same type of metal Breccia’s armor was made of. He spat a tiny bit of venom on it, and nothing happened. That’s good, he thought. Normally RainWing venom didn’t melt metals, but he hadn’t seen this type of metal on the mainland before.

He spat a little more venom on the metal plate and carefully picked it up, making sure he didn’t accidentally spill venom on himself. I’ve got this… he thought, scared but determined. His talons were shaking so much, he was afraid he would either drip venom on himself or on Breccia.

He slowly walked toward Breccia, who was still sleeping, and lowered the plate with the venom down toward the string with the key. I’ve got this… I’ve got this. But I swear, Peaceflyt, don’t mess it up.

He tilted the metal plate, and the venom slowly slid toward the string. Please don’t let this go wrong. The first drop of venom fell perfectly on the string, and the string, being fabricated from milkweed, slowly started to sizzle and melt. Peaceflyt stood still, letting the venom drip onto the string, until the sharp rock fell off. It fell right outside the venom, so Peaceflyt could get it without getting venom all over his talons.

I hope Breccia doesn’t notice until later, Peaceflyt thought. He quickly tiptoed out of the cave with the rock in his talons.

Suddenly, a piercing shriek came from Breccia’s cave, and Peaceflyt barely stopped himself from screaming in surprise. He knew he was invisible, and he couldn’t make himself any more invisible, but he wanted to. He hid in a dark corner and stood still.

Walnut came rushing out of Peril’s cave. She was still mostly invisible, but he could see one or two of her scales turn green with fear. Peaceflyt let a few of his scales flicker back to their normal color so Walnut could see where he was.

Walnut saw them and ran into him. She fell over, and Peaceflyt worried that any guards or other firescales would hear her, however, Breccia’s screams drowned it out.

He thought he saw Peak peek her head out of her cave. ‘What’s happening, Peaceflyt? Did you mess it up? I swear if you get killed, I’m going to incinerate your remains.’

‘No! I’ve got the key. I thought Breccia was still asleep… Wait. Give me a second.’ He quickly and quickly walked over to Breccia’s cave, signaling to Walnut to stay where she was.

He peeked his snout into her cave and saw that she had lost a claw. It was the venom! The venom had slid quietly toward Breccia, touching her middle claw on her right talon. It was now gone, and was slowly starting to dissolve her talons. If it wasn’t for her armor, the venom would’ve already melted through her neck and face.

Breccia shook her talon, well, the remains of it, violently, and a tiny drop of venom fell just over an inch away from Peaceflyt, who jumped away from it.

‘I used venom to melt off the key, but some of the venom leaked away onto her talons. So now she’s going insane, and venom flew off her and almost melted through my tail.’ he informed Peak.

‘Being careful is apparently a foreign concept to you.’ Peak observed jokingly.

‘Well, sorry. I didn’t spray that much venom so I didn’t think that it would totally melt her whole talons. Plus, I’ve studied how much RainWing venom can melt different parts of bodies. Maybe StoneWings are dif-.’

‘Just start freeing the firescales already, we’ll come back for the rest later.’

‘Oh yeah. What should I do with the key, though? Open the doors?’

‘Yes, Open the doors.’

‘So. I don’t see any doors. Are they those rocks or something?’

‘The weird spot on each rock that blocks the entrance.’

‘Okay.’ He walked over to one of the rocks that had a horribly carved dragon head on it (that looked suspiciously similar to a NightWing) and saw an oddly shaped small hole in the rock. He was glad he saw the hole, at any other angle he wouldn’t have seen it. I’m guessing this is the entrance. And exit. By now, Breccia had stopped screaming bloody murder, and was attempting to get up with only three talons. Peaceflyt couldn’t sense any other StoneWings coming to help Breccia.

He looked back at the firescales, most of which were awake. I’ve got to do this quickly, before any StoneWings come to… murder me.

His grip on the key tightened, and he shoved the key into the hole.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The rock slid slowly open, and Peaceflyt grabbed the key before it fell behind the rock. The firescales who were watching, Peril, Cinder, Torch, Blare, and Ignite, most of which through the cracks in their door boulder, were all surprised, other than Peak.

“Finallllllly,” Peak started, “No more being locked up. I mean the claustrophobia.” She strutted out, her posture clearly of someone of royal descent. “Fancy seeing you here, Peaceflyt.” She let her disguise melt away, and she once again looked like a hybrid.

Peaceflyt let his scales slowly fade into view, until they were just enough to be seen, but mostly invisible. “Hey,” he said awkwardly, knowing some of the firescales were watching them. He saw Walnut’s scales fade a little bit next to him. “I’m Peaceflyt, I think most of you already know, and this is Walnut.”

“Who some of you also already know,” added Walnut.

“That’s cool, actually,” interjected Cinder, behind the rock that blocked his cave. “The fading scales thing. I’ve been stuck here my whole life, so I wouldn’t know. Oh, I’m Cinder, by the way.”

“I think I recognize you two,” Peril said.

“Yeah. We’re from Jade Mountain,” replied Walnut.

“Well, they are students at Jade Mountain,” Peak said at the same time.

“Jade Mountain Academy,” Cinder said wistfully.

“How has Clay been?” she asked, looking more excited.

“He’s been… kind of depressed, so he’ll be very excited to see you,” replied Peaceflyt. At that sentence, Peril couldn’t contain her excitement (“YESS”), but luckily didn’t run out of the door and burn everything down.

“Let’s get to the whole escaping part of the escape plan now,” Peak reminded everyone. “If you want to leave enslavement and eternal torment, come with us.”

“Yeah, true. We don’t want any StoneWings seeing a bunch of their prisoners- former prisoners escaping,” said Peaceflyt, walking quickly but quietly out of the door with Walnut, and then heard angry yelling inside.

“DON’T LISTEN TO THESE TRAITORS! THEY’RE TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED. THE STONEWINGS DESERVE THEIR POWER. THEY SAVED US!” Kindle was at it again, bursting out of her cave. That “at it again” came from pretty much every firescale’s thoughts.

“If by saved you mean enslaved, then yes. If you want to be brainwashed and stay on this miserable island forever, too bad. I. Will. Drag. You. All. Off. Of. This. Horrible. Island. Even if it takes away my soul.”

“Hand me the skyfire,” Peaceflyt whispered to Walnut, who gave it to him. “Thanks. Go to the island, to tell Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow. Remember, you go to the rock and keep going straight that direction.”

“Okay.” She spread her wings and leaped into the air. “Can you come with me?”

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m certainly leaving a trail of destruction in my wake.” Peril said.

“Fine. Peaceflyt, please do unlock the doors. Animus magic doesn’t work inside of them.” Peaceflyt jumped slightly, as Peak had just might have revealed that Peaceflyt was an animus. Luckily, the firescales didn’t have much of a reaction to it.

“You have access to animus magic, and you didn’t help the StoneWings with it! Wait. I forgot that I’m talking about the most stuck-up dragon here.” Kindle snapped.

“Sure thing.” He took out the key, which was enchanted to unlock the prison doors.

“Now, that’s not how one speaks to her princess, is it?” Peak revealed her royal lineage to all of the other firescales. “Nor is it how one normally speaks to an animus dragon. But then again, you were never very bright.” Peak made sure to let most of them think that she was the only animus dragon here.

‘They were going to find out about my magic when I managed to get Kindle of all dragons off of the island anyway, so I might as well.’

‘I guess so,’ thought Peaceflyt, shoving the key into the other locks. Kindle came out first, followed by Cinder, Peril (who ran out so quickly she almost ran into Peaceflyt), Blare, Torch, and Ignite.

Kindle was trying to get the StoneWing loyal firescales to join her, which, unfortunately for Kindle was only one firescales: Kindle herself. Firework, another firescales, didn’t seem to want to leave, but as soon as he saw that Kindle was rounding the StoneWing loyal firescales up, he quickly walked out his door. Peaceflyt guessed they were enemies, or didn’t like each other.

Once everyone was in the halway, Peak said, “I enchant you to teleport everyone in this hallway to the island where my friends Pyramid, Atacama and Sparrow are.” Peak was talking to an amethyest crystal, which had somehow appeared in her talons.

A moment later, all of the firescales, Peaceflyt and Walnut were all on the small island, near the StoneWing island. “WHO ARE ALL THESE DRA- PEAK! Please do explain this,” Atacama yelled at top volume.

“Well, we freed everyone… and teleported here. We’d better get going. Which way to the mainland?” Peak explained quickly.

“Um… I’m pretty sure we go south,” Peaceflyt told Peak.

“Then let's go, do try not to get too far behind us. But, then again, you know the way.” Peak said lifting into the air.

“Otherwise, you’d be flying into unknown land and getting lost in the Sea Kingdom. You lucky SkyWings, with your big wings.” Peaceflyt smiled and beat his wings hard, and Peak caught up in under three seconds. “See?”

Peak laughed, and called to everyone who was still on the ground. “Come on. Get into the sky!”

“Who are these dragons?” Cinder called, mentioning Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow.

“These are my friends. Atacama, Pyramid and Sparrow.” Peak said and pointed accordingly.

“Hello,” said Pyramid to the firescales, then turned to Peaceflyt. “I’m guessing that when you and Walnut snuck off into the middle of the sea, you rescued Peak and a bunch of other dragons.”

Peaceflyt’s wings almost stopped working for a second. “What? How do you know about that?”

“I was awake,” Pyramid explained. “So was Atacama-”

“And my wing is still a little sore, thanks to your nose spike,” Atacama interjected, shooting a look at Walnut.

“It wasn’t my fault!” yelped Walnut. “It was your fault that your wings got caught there.”

“I was trying to wake you up! You said something about waking up at midnight.”

“Well, then it was YOUR fault!” Walnut looked at Peaceflyt. “I think I’m done arguing.”

“Good for you,” he said, as Cinder flew over to him.

“Hi… Peaceflyt. That’s your name, right?” Peaceflyt nodded, and Cinder continued. “That invisible scales thing was cool.”

“Oh. Thanks. All RainWings can do that.”

“Whoa! That’s cool. I have a lot to learn about… pretty much everything. I hope I remembered that name right. Hey, maybe you can teach me about some stuff!”

“Hm. I guess I can teach you about some stuff, if you want. I’m not that good of a teacher, though,” Peaceflyt said truthfully.

“Oh. I don’t mind. The StoneWings were horrible teachers, and the only thing they taught me was how to be loyal to the StoneWings,” Cinder said. “Obviously, I failed at that.”

“Which is a good thing,” Peak reminded from ahead of them.

“True. Peaceflyt, can you at least tell me the kingdoms and tribes and queens and powers?” Cinder asked politely.

“Sure.”

“Cinder is a very curious dragonet, you’re not obligated to answer all of his questions.” Peak said.

They flew along the islands in the Bay of A Thousand Scales, and entered mainland Pyrrhia just before midday. Peril seemed very excited, Cinder seemed amazed, and the other dragons seemed to just be glad they weren’t flying over sea. Peaceflyt was just glad he was back on his home continent. “Wrong direction, Peak,” he called, as she started traveling southeast instead of southwest. She saw him and flew in the correct direction.

“Do you guys want to go straight to Jade Mountain?” asked Peaceflyt.

“Yes,” Walnut, Atacama, Pyramid, and Sparrow said at once.

“DEFINITELY,” Peril and Cinder yelled.

“Okay, that’s where we’re going, I guess, then.” I wonder how the teachers will react to 13 firescales just arriving at their school. Actually, I guess they’ll know two, so that’s only 11 unknown firescales.

They continued for some time toward Jade Mountain. The route Peaceflyt, Atacama, Walnut, Pyramid, and Sparrow had taken to rescue the firescales didn’t go straight from Jade Mountain to the Kingdom of the Sea, as they got lost in the mountains and then made a pit stop at a town. However, as soon as Peaceflyt saw a river flowing south, he recognized it as part of the river they had flown over to get to Aspire.

“Jade Mountain is just down this river,” Peaceflyt pointed out.

“Finally!” Atacama yelled. “I can finally go to sleep without worrying about everything!”

Peaceflyt saw two firescales head off, one bright red and one copper-yellow. “Who are those?”

“They’re Raptor and Spark, they made humor’s very existence a controversial subject,” replied Peak. “Hey, Firestorm, you should leave, too.”

“No. I’m not going to leave. I have nowhere to go, so I’m just stuck with you idiots,” The bright red dragon snapped.

Okay, mental note, stay away from Firestorm, Peaceflyt thought, and looked down. Under them was the town of Aspire, the town that Peaceflyt had met Pantanal, the town where he had recited the Lost Tribe Prophecy.

“Well, let’s get there sometime soon,” Atacama suggested.

“We’re almost there, Atacama,” said Peaceflyt. “See, there’s Aspire.”

“Um, didn’t it take two days to get there?”

“That’s because we got lost in the mountains for a day, remember?” Peaceflyt reminded her. “Oh hey, there’s Aswan.” The SandWing from the Jade Winglet was flying to Jade Mountain. Luckily, she didn’t see the wing of dragons, most of which were unfamiliar firescales. Peaceflyt thought that they were lucky a nicer dragon was there.

They followed Aswan back to the Academy. “Wow,” said Cinder, mesmerized.

Peaceflyt stared at the looming shape of the mountain. It had only been a few days, but it seemed like an eternity. All he was thinking about was how glad he was to be back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“I’m going to go in, because Clay’s in there, it seems like so long since I last saw him, and I’ll tell him all that happened and tell him that NEVER MIND, I’LL JUST GO AND STOP FREAKING OUT.” She flew happily over to the entrance of Jade Mountain.

“We might as well go, then. Oh, sorry, not you, Cinder, we’ll have to explain what happened first,” Pyramid said as Cinder beat his wings forward. He flew back with a shrug while Peaceflyt, Peak, Atacama, Walnut, and Sparrow followed.

He heard a yell of delight inside the main hall. “PERIL! Where were you? I was so worried!” That was definitely Clay.

“There’s a lot to explain,” Peril said truthfully. “First, I want to say that I was worried too, and that I would burn down the whole world for you, ESPECIALLY THOSE STUPID DRAGONS WHO CAPTURED ME. But I want to say that Peak and Peaceflyt and Walnut and… those other dragonets are back.”

“REALLY? Where are they?” Clay asked excitedly.

“We’re right here,” Peak said, stepping into view.

“TSUNAMI!” Clay yelled. “Those students are back!” Tsunami ran towards him from one of the caves with multiple students protesting.

“So. We came back. Like alive and stuff. With like 11 firescales. Have fun with that.” Peak told Clay and Tsunami and then turned a corner.

“She disappeared again, didn’t she,” Pyramid said, checking around the corner. “Yep, gone. She must be tired.”

“Wait, what’s happening?” Peaceflyt asked. The whole hall was full of ribbons and balloons. obviously, they want to see jade mountain burn, cuz you know all them firescales coming.

“Oh. Yeah, you guys came back right in time! We’re expanding Jade Mountain!” Clay looked at Tsunami, smiling.

“We’re adding one more winglet, and we’re also adding Pantalan dragons. Clay, I think I see some SilkWings coming! I’ll be back in a second.” She ran toward the entrance of the school.

“We’re so glad you guys are back, we’ve been wondering where you were! Pelican told us that you were going to rescue Peak and Peril, but we had no idea when you were going to come back.”

“PEACEFLYT! YOU’RE BACK!” Pelican ran out behind Clay and threw himself toward Peaceflyt. “I missed everything exciting, didn’t I?”

Peaceflyt laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Well, I mean, you were there for the part where I almost got killed, and for the part where Atacama and Sparrow almost got killed, but you missed the part where we actually rescued the firescales.”

“Moons!” Pelican snapped his claws. “Anyway, it’s been pretty boring here without you.” He leaned in to whisper in Peaceflyt’s ear. “One of the only entertaining things was how Tsunami was freaking out over expanding the school.” Pelican glanced toward Tsunami, who was busy trying to keep excited students inside their caves.

Peaceflyt looked around the main hall. He saw Sunny up on a ledge trying to quiet the students, Starflight and Fatespeaker were below her, and Webs was in the history cave, poking his head out. There was also a big lump in the corner that was covered with a blanket.

“Well, Atacama and I will be in the art room if you need us.” Pyramid told Peaceflyt and Clay.

“Don’t need us,” Atacama amended.

“I’m coming too!” Walnut happily chirped in response.

“Okay, I’ll try not to,” responded Peaceflyt.

“I guess I’ll go too, since everyone else is going.” Sparrow decided.

“Okay, I’ll just stay here with Pelican, then,” he said. “Wait. Should I introduce the firescales to you guys?”

“Oh yeah! Clay, some of them are pretty kind, so don’t be worried,” replied Peril, who saw the hesitant look that crossed his face.

Clay coughed. “Oh. Okay. Go ahead.”

Peaceflyt ran out of the hall and nearly ran into Cinder, who was peeking inside. Cinder let out a shriek.

“Oh it's just you, umm hi, Peaceflyt.” Cinder said. “No I’m not explaining why I just screamed, so, uh, sorry about that freak-out.”

“It’s fine.” Peaceflyt smiled. “Except my left ear feels slightly deaf right now. But other than that, it’s fine. Oh, also, Clay said you guys can come in the school right now.”

“R-really?” Cinder’s eyes were full of wonder.

“Yep.” Peaceflyt looked at the other firescales. “Anyone else want to come with us?”

. . .

A few minutes later, Peaceflyt led Cinder, Ignite, Sunfire, Torch, and Inferno inside Jade Mountain. The other firescales sat outside, glaring at the ground and awkwardly staring around.

“If you have no home, you might as well come in,” Inferno said, beckoning them toward the inside.

“Yeah, like I want to be stuck inside some caves with little dragonets,” Firestorm grumbled. He picked up some dirt and threw it at a tree, but it missed and hit Firework.

“You annoying dragon,” he said angrily, and picked up a stick that immediately set on fire. He broke it in half, and threw one half at Firestorm, and one half at Kindle.

“HEY!” Kindle yelped. “Why’d you do that? I did absolutely nothing!”

“Not really,” mumbled Firework. “You’re kind of stupid.”

“EXCUSE ME? Why do you, out of all dragons, think I am stupid?”

“Shut up, idiots,” Sunfire yelled to them. “This is a great way of introducing yourselves to the rest of the world.” He paused, and then muttered, “This happened all the time in the StoneWing prison.” to Peaceflyt.

“Here they are!” Peril announced, really loud, as they walked in the door. Everyone turned toward the door, and Peaceflyt felt very awkward as every single eye in the school turned toward them. “Oh. Not all of them.”

“You’re back!” Sunny ran toward them. “We were so worried! You came back just in- who are all these firescales?” Her expression went from excited to worried in less than a second.

“Don’t worry, these are the firescales I was imprisoned with. Oh, yes, I was imprisoned, not dead or whatever you thought,” Peril explained, catching the look on Sunny’s face. “Luckily, these are all the firescales with decent personalities and they won’t burn down the school.”

“Okay,” replied Sunny, but she still looked skeptical. The fact that you can’t eaisely burn down a mountain seemed to consol her.

“I’m Cinder,” Cinder practically burst out. Peaceflyt could see him trying (and failing) to contain his excitement. “I don’t have any home on this continent because I was raised somewhere else. Can… can I please join the school?” He looked up hopefully at Sunny at Clay. They looked at each other.

“Well,” Sunny said. “That actually works, because we don’t have a SkyWing in our new winglet yet and because I don’t really want to talk to Queen Ember any time soon..”

“Thank you so much!” Cinder ran outside and did multiple delighted flips in the air.

“This is probably not the best time to say this,” Tsunami said, walking up to them, “but we have some bad news too.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

As it turned out, the thing in the corner covered with a blanket was a bronze statue of Swamp. The founders placed it next to four other statues of deceased Jade Mountain students. Two of the statues were of a SkyWing named Carnelian and a NightWing named Bigtail, both of which were killed in an explosion about 20 years ago. The statues to the right of them were of a SandWing named Barren, who apparently had drowned in an underground lake 17 years ago, and a SeaWing named Anglerfish, who died in his sleep about 5 years ago.

Clay and Tsunami stepped onto a rock ledge that they used as a stage, and Tsunami thumped her tail to get everyone’s attention.

“As you know, two days ago, the Gold Winglet suffered a casualty. Their MudWing, Swamp, got killed by a SkyWing right outside this school. No, Frigid, it was none of our resident SkyWings. It was a SkyWing who was planning revenge on a MudWing for killing their daughter, but they mistook Swamp for the MudWing they were targeting.” Tsunami looked at Clay, and he continued.

“Let us have a moment of silence for Swamp.” Clay bowed his head, and all the other students did the same. Peaceflyt heard faint crying coming from near the entrance, and saw three MudWings huddled near each other. They must be his sibs. It must be really hard for them.

Peaceflyt’s head was filling with thoughts again. Why was it Swamp? Why does it seem like all the good dragons die or face really bad trouble? A tear fell down his face. And I was too busy on a mission to save one of my other friends. I could’ve saved him with my magic. I saved one friend, but I lost another. STOP BLAMING YOURSELF, PEACEFLYT. There was nothing you could do without losing a lot of your soul.

Clay lifted his head back up and sighed. “Well, enough bad news for the day. So… I’ll let Sunny take it from here.”

Clay stepped aside as Sunny took his place. “So. Some of the good news is that some of our students came back!”

“Which ones?” Tahiti, the SeaWing from the Gold Winglet asked.

“Um… Peak, Peaceflyt, Atacama, Walnut, Pyramid, and Sparrow. And another firescales.” Sunny counted on her talons

“Wait. Isn’t there only one firescales in this school?”

“Well… a firescales is joining the new winglet.”

“WHAT?” Svalbard yelled. “Not ANOTHER one! We already have one, and she’s horrible enough on her own!”

“You’d better shut up before Peak gets back. She’ll actually kill you for talking to Cinder like that,” Sunfire said from the doorway.

“WHY IS THERE ANOTH- WHY ARE THERE FIVE FIRESCALES RIGHT THERE? IN THE SCHOOL?” The IceWing was starting to sweat.

Then Peril let out a hiss and told him that it was in his best interest for his safety to speak kindly to others. Svalbard shot the firescales a glare and looked down.

“So… to get back to the Jade Mountain Academy stuff, I am going to announce the name of our new winglet,” Tsunami announced. “A few days ago, we had a vote for the name. So, the new winglet is going to be called the Sapphire Winglet!” There was some polite applause from the students.

“The new students in the Sapphire Winglet have already arrived. I’m going to announce their names and they’re going to come up in front of you all. I’ll go down the list. First is Snowfield the IceWing!”

A light blue IceWing, slightly shorter than Peaceflyt, walked up next to Tsunami, avoiding eye contact with anyone. Next up came a taupe MudWing named Hippo, who looked shy and only made eye contact with another MudWing by the door. She was followed by a kind-looking NightWing named Stormchaser, a RainWing with a serious face named Congo, a SandWing named Ra, a confident looking SeaWing named Azure, and Cinder, who smiled at Peaceflyt from next to the founders.

“And now, we’re going to introduce the Pantalan dragons to each of your winglets,” Tsunami said. “Each winglet is going to have a SilkWing, a HiveWing, and a LeafWing. Each of you, group into your winglets. Well, if you’re here, that is.”

Peaceflyt followed Pelican, who was walking over to Dragonfly and Ridge. Frigid looked like he wanted to walk away, but Ridge kept shooting him glares and pulling him back whenever he tried.

“All of the SilkWings, HiveWings, and LeafWings have arrived, and now we’re going to separate them into each of your winglets,” Tsunami announced. There was some excited murmuring from some of the students, a lot of them probably hadn’t seen any of those tribes before.

“First up! The new students in the Jade Winglet will be Tuscany the SilkWing, Ladybug the HiveWing, and Magnolia the LeafWing!” Tsunami motioned the brown-orange SilkWing, the light green smiling LeafWing, and the red HiveWing with black spots to where the current Jade Winglet was standing.

“Next up! In the Gold Winglet, let's welcome Turquoise the SilkWing, Tarantula the HiveWing, and Foxglove the LeafWing!” The turquoise colored SilkWing walked over to Swamp’s former Winglet, and was followed by the brown-yellow HiveWing and scowling LeafWing.

“In the Silver Winglet…” Peaceflyt was wanting to see what dragons were going to be in his winglet. I hope they’re nice and non-violent.

“In the Silver Winglet, let’s welcome Bluebottle the SilkWing, Centipede the HiveWing, and Aspen the LeafWing!”

Bluebottle, Peaceflyt thought. I swear I've heard that name somewhere before. He looked at the light blue SilkWing. She doesn't look familiar.

“Hey, everyone!” Centipede said excitedly. “This is SO weird! There's a bunch of dragons that look so… well, different!”

“These new dragons look 'so… well, different,” Frigid mumbled under his breath, but luckily Centipede didn't hear him.

“Centipede, please talk about your thoughts later, instead of right now when we’re in the middle of a ceremony,” Bluebottle said, irritated. Centipede frowned at her and shut her mouth.

“... Copper the SilkWing, Cockroach the HiveWing, and Hydrangea the LeafWing in the Copper Winglet,” Tsunami announced.

Wait. Copper’s here? Peaceflyt thought, and as if Copper had heard his thoughts, he looked his way and smiled. “Hey, Bluebottle! Hey, Peaceflyt!” Ohhh. Right. Bluebottle is Copper’s sister. That makes more sense. Peaceflyt smiled and waved back as Copper walked over to the Copper Winglet.

“Tortoiseshell the SilkWing, Stinkbug the HiveWing, and Oleander the LeafWing will be in the Quartz Winglet,” Tsunami droned on, as the green SilkWing, the excited HiveWing, and the leaf green LeafWing headed toward Walnut’s winglet. Peaceflyt noticed that she had come back from the art cave, and was now greeting the incoming dragons.

“And last but not least, Ray the SilkWing, Cerana the HiveWing, and Pine the LeafWing will be in the Sapphire Winglet,” Tsunami finished, putting down the paper in front of her. “Starflight, did I really have to read off that script? It seemed kind of boring, like something you’d say. But then again, you DID help write that script. Maybe you should’ve been speaking.”

Starflight looked slightly offended, but not as offended as Peaceflyt would look if he were him. He guessed that Starflight’s friends teased him a lot about that. “You are Head of School, Tsunami, so it only makes sense that the Head of School is speaking about the changes, not the librarian.”

“Librarians are important too,” Tsunami said, and swept the script away with her tail. “ANYWAY, today is going to be a free day, because of all the changes. I have other things to attend to, so you can explore and do whatever you do on free days.” She walked away toward a storage cave that the students weren’t allowed in.

His talons took him toward the art cave, but Walnut caught up to him before he could step foot in there.

“HI!” She said loudly, startling him. “We should go to the library. Just to hang out and talk.”

“Good idea,” replied Peaceflyt. I do need something to distract myself from all the evil things in the world, now that I think about it. Maybe I can find something good to read.

“Hi, Starflight!” Walnut said cheerfully.

“Hello, Walnut,” replied Starflight. “Who’s with you?”

“Peaceflyt.”

“Okay,” Starflight said. “My friends have been freaking out about you being gone. We thought you might’ve gotten kidnapped or something.”

“Peak got kidnapped,” Walnut explained. “And then Peaceflyt and Atacama and Pyramid and Sparrow and Pelican went out to look for her. I bet Pelican already explained it to you, so I don’t think I need to retell it.”

Starflight laughed. “You can if you want to,” he said, but Walnut shook her head. “It’s fine if you don’t want to, I’m assuming you shook your head. Tsunami’s helped me identify that one.”

“Walnut,” Peaceflyt said. “I’m gonna go look for scrolls.”

“Okay,” she replied. “I’ll come with you.”

Peaceflyt scanned the scroll racks, looking for anything interesting, although nothing really caught his eye. I should still read something, though, or else I would look awkward. He looked right and saw a scroll about firescales. I don’t remember seeing that one. Maybe it’s new, he thought as he grabbed it off the rack.

He tucked the scroll into his library card and skyfire pouch and headed toward the tables, and realized that an unfamiliar MudWing was there. He turned around, pretending that he’d wandered the wrong way, but as soon as he lifted up his talons to walk toward Walnut, he heard the MudWing say “Hey.”

“Hi,” Peaceflyt said, slightly startled. Why do I not recognize him?

“I’m Mudslide,” the MudWing continued. “I’m in the Gold Winglet. I just got here.”

Ohh, Peaceflyt thought. He must be the MudWing replacement for Swamp.

“You look like one of those overpowered dragons,” Mudslide said. “You know, the ones that are hybrids and have, like, a bunch of powers.”

ROTTEN CLOUDBERRIES. I HATE being called overpowered. “Oh. Yeah. I mean- I… I’m the RainWing in the Silver Winglet,” Peaceflyt stuttered, changing the subject.

“Huh. Cool,” said Mudslide, who seemed like he didn’t notice the change in conversation. He went back to his scroll and tapped his tail on the ground in what sounded like a beat to a popular song.

I guess I’ll leave now, Peaceflyt thought. As he turned around, he realized just how tired he was. Actually, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a nap or something. He searched around for Walnut, but wherever she was, she was out of his view. Carefully, he put the scroll about firescales back on the scroll rack where he found it and walked out of the library.

As he walked down the halls toward his cave, he only saw a few dragons, to his surprise, and most of them were Pantalan dragons. He did hear Peril explaining their adventures to Clay as he walked by the Great Hall, and saw Pyramid, although she didn’t see him.

He turned the corner to his cave. Ridge was against the wall, reading, and his bed was slightly messier than usual. Otherwise, the cave looked like it had before Peak got captured. Before anyone knew there was a secret tribe of dragons.

“Oh. Hi, Peaceflyt,” Ridge said monotonically, putting his scroll down. “I was wondering where you went.”

You were WONDERING? Peaceflyt thought angrily. I almost died, the whole school was freaking out, and an equivalent of a whole winglet was missing, and you were just WONDERING? Plus, that bored voice really helps. “Oh, yeah, we just, you know, were just rescuing Peak and a bunch of other firescales from a prison.”

Ridge looked up from his scroll curiously. “That doesn’t sound boring. You should’ve told me that so I could’ve come. I could’ve been quite helpful.”

“Yeah,” replied Peaceflyt. “Next time we go on an adventure like that, I’ll tell you.”

“Wait really?” Ridge took his scroll and walked happily out of the cave entrance. “I have to go, uh, bring this scroll back to the library to check it out again so I can finish it.”

Could he tell I was being sarcastic? Peaceflyt thought, settling on the floor. That's weird. Ridge isn't normally like that. Maybe he just wants to prove that he's important or something.

He closed his eyes and relaxed his wings, and fell asleep.

Peaceflyt woke up later that afternoon when Peak returned. “Peaceflyt, why is everyone sad and… why is there a statue of Swamp next to the statues of deceased students? Don’t tell me…” No, no, no, no, no, no. Peaceflyt realized with a jolt that she wasn’t wearing her skyfire.

“He… he’s dead. He got killed.”

Peaceflyt got sucked into Peak’s mind and saw a flash of blood, the face of an IceWing who looked upset at what they had to do, and horror inscribed onto the face of a dark red SkyWing.

What was that? Who are those dragons? Are those what her nightmares are about? Peaceflyt thought.

“I’ll… be back in the morning…” Peak told him. She then blocked her thoughts with a wall of fire, and clouded her emotions with smoke.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I’m surprised she didn’t even notice any of the Pantalan dragons, Peaceflyt thought as she left. Au contraire, she was imprisoned for a few days and just figured out that a student is dead, so I don’t blame her if anything else is on her mind.

He watched her walk down toward her cave with Atacama, who came out of the art room to follow her, and watched as Pelican came up to their cave.

“Hey,” Pelican greeted him.

“Hi,” Peaceflyt said, his eyelids drooping.

“You look tired,” Pelican observed. “You can go to sleep, I’ll try not to bother you.”

“Yeah. You know, crossing the continent twice in a few days is quite tiring,” Peaceflyt replied, now on the floor with his eyes closed.

Pelican chuckled. “Okay, I’ll leave you alone until tomorrow morning.”

“Thanks,” Peaceflyt tried to say, but he was already asleep.

He slept in late the next morning and practically ran into Peak, who was walking outside his cave.

“Well, you literally just slept in, yet you look like you haven't slept in days.”

“I know,” Peaceflyt responded. Some days I do look like that. “I’m going to the library before school starts. I saw this random scroll yesterday that I might read.”

“But I literally haven't slept in days and look well rested… How!” Peak questioned. “I’m serious, some thing make no sense.”

Because RainWings need more sleep than SkyWings? Peaceflyt answered, although he didn’t say it out loud.

“Well, I’ll go with you. There was a strange scroll in SkyWing history that I wanted to look up…”

“Cool. The scroll I’m looking for is also related to SkyWings, too,” Peaceflyt said, starting toward the library, and Peak followed.

“Hello, Peak and… Peaceflyt,” Starflight welcomed as soon as they entered the library. Peaceflyt could tell, even with his skyfire on him, that Starflight had guessed.

“Hi,” they both responded, looking over at him, and continued to walk toward the scrolls.

Peak went over to the SkyWing legends area, and Peaceflyt went over to the area where Starflight had featured some scrolls for the day. Peak almost immediately picked up three, and walked over to Starflight to check them out.

Peak grabbed her cloak out of thin air and put it on then proceeded to sit down and began reading as Peaceflyt found the scroll about firescales. He handed it over to Starflight to check out, and proceeded over to Peak’s table.

“Hi again,” Peaceflyt said, settling in and opening his scroll.

“There!” Peak exclaimed. “I knew I remembered something like this. “A NightWing using his animus magic attempted to conquer all of SkyWing territory and would’ve succeeded if it hadn’t been for the profit, the light grey dragon who convinced his brethren to rest with a curse yet uncompleted.” Yikes, and I thought that prophecies were vague. Oh, I read this when I was little.”

“Wait. What!?” exclaimed Peaceflyt, startled. “I never knew that! Wait… ‘a light grey dragon’... doesn’t that sound like a StoneWing?”

“That kind of does… But why would a NightWing be either stopped or even listen to some random dragon from an unknown tribe?”

“I have no clue,” replied Peaceflyt. “Wait. This might seem off topic, but when I was in the Sea Kingdom a couple days ago, I found a dragon bone. Anyway, that was off topi-”

“Wait you- WHAT NOW?” Peak interrupted.

“I forgot to mention it,” Peaceflyt mumbled. “There was a lot of stuff happening.” He opened the scroll and rolled it out until he saw a part that had been highlighted.

“Hey,” he said. “There’s something interesting in here.”

“What is it?” Peak asked.

Peaceflyt looked over at her. “It says ‘Firescales were used to drive out NightWings, when a group of them came to invade their kingdom. A firescales named Comet killed the leader of the invaders, so the SkyWings could finally push the NightWings out of their territory.’ Doesn’t that sound kind of interesting?”

“That is very interesting.” Peak replied.

“Hey- just wondering, where does your stuff go when you stash it into thin air?” wondered Peaceflyt.

“It’s umm an enchantment… I can’t tell you the exact wording… I didn’t make the enchantment.” Peak explained.

“Oh. Who enchanted it?”

Peak didn’t respond, but looked back down to her scroll, which was beginning to catch fire.

“Um-” Peaceflyt said, looking at her scroll. “Peak. Your scroll-.”

Peak immediately dropped her scroll and said, “See you when class starts.”

What? Peaceflyt thought, confused as he watched her walk quickly out of the library. Must be something secret, or else she wouldn’t have gotten hotter. Aw, crap, and I have to tell Starflight about the burnt scroll. He looked down by his feet, where the scroll laid, burnt around the edges where Peak had been holding it.

Peaceflyt slowly bent down and picked her burnt scroll up and headed toward Starflight’s desk. “Starflight… um… so Peak accidentally burnt the scroll about SkyWing history.”

“Oh. Wait, what? She burnt it?”

“Y- yes.” Peaceflyt couldn’t see Starflight’s eyes, but he seemed slightly panicked.

“Oh,” he replied. “I’ll… I guess I’ll try to replace it.” He also sounded slightly panicked, so Peaceflyt guessed he was slightly panicked. “That was my only copy,” he said under his breath. “And I got it from Queen Ruby. Now I’ll have no copies of it. I’ll have to tell-”

Peaceflyt couldn’t hear any more because he had silently sidled away out of the library. He could hear multiple tails on the floor, which meant dragons were getting ready for the school day.

He turned down a hall that led to the self defense cave, glancing at the walls every now and then.

“Hi,” a voice said behind a wall right as Peaceflyt passed it, startling him. His scales immediately went invisible. “Clay.”

Oh. So they're not talking about me. That's good. He stayed invisible anyway. There was still about ten minutes until class started, so who could it hurt?

“How’s it going?” Clay asked. Peaceflyt noticed Fatespeaker and Starflight were behind him, heading toward the cave the other dragonets were in.

“Well, don’t you think it’s weird to have a bunch of other tribes here now? AND we’ve got a whole new winglet,” Tsunami’s voice said.

“Yeah,” Starflight said, probably walking in with Fatespeaker. “We may have to add Pantalan history, right?”

“Hi, Starflight! Hi, Fatespeaker,” Sunny’s voice said. Clay started talking again, but Sunny abruptly cut him off.

“So… since we’re all here, I've got some news to share to you,” she declared. “SkyWing stuff...” I bet if it’s about the queen, Peak will want to know.

“Since we're in SkyWing territory, and since we have a SkyWing here, I want to tell you something that Queen Ember said. About certain dragons,” Sunny continued.

“What certain dragons? Is it something to do with me and the other firescales?” Peril asked defensively.

“Um… yes,” admitted Sunny.

“ARRRGHH!” Peril yelled loudly, startling Peaceflyt and making a passing LeafWing jump. “She’s probably going to say something about how we're too dangerous to live and have to be killed, right?”

“Peril,” Sunny said slowly. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but yes. She did say that, almost to the letter. She ordered almost all of her guards to search and kill any firescales they see.”

There was silence in the cave.

I’d better go, Peaceflyt thought quickly, checking to see if anyone was watching the area he was standing in. When he saw that no one was, he un-camouflaged himself and started toward the self-defense cave again.

An sudden unholy scream came from the cave behind the wall, and Peaceflyt nearly leaped out of his scales. “Peril!” Clay’s voice yelled.

“NO. I AM NOT LETTING ANOTHER DUMB DRAGON CAPTURE AND KILL ME. I AM GOING TO INCINERATE THEM, AND THEN INCINERATE THEIR ASHES, AND THEN INCINERATE THEIR ASHES’ ASHES.”

“PERIL!” Clay yelled again. “Calm down. And please try NOT to incinerate them.”

“Fine! Fine. Yeah, I guess I’ll try not to incinerate them,” Peril said, calming down a bit. She opened the cave door (a large rock) and headed down the self-defense room.

Wait, she’s coming to self defense? Peaceflyt thought, slightly surprised. Peril had never been to the Silver Winglet’s self defense class in the time he was at school. I... guess I’ll just go in the cave before she gets there, then.

He ran quietly into the cave. No one was in there yet, as far as he could see. Not that there were many hiding places in there. Peril hadn’t seen him yet, so he camouflaged himself again. Now he could silently sit in the cave without anyone noticing.

Actually, maybe I’ll go out as soon as Peril gets in, so she wouldn’t see me suddenly materializing right in front of her. She’ll probably get surprised and maybe yell at me. She’s probably not in a good mood, anyway, from what I heard, Peaceflyt thought.

He silently ran outside the cave, and Peril passed him, even though she didn't know he was there. Peaceflyt could see her brow furrowed and he had a feeling she was struggling to keep her anger in.

Once Peril was inside the cave, Peaceflyt casually walked toward it again- and then he felt talons on his tail, followed by a yelp of surprise. He whipped his head around.

“What the-” Pelican started, surprised, as Peaceflyt changed his scales back to normal. “Oh!” He realized, laughing. “Hi, Peaceflyt!”

“Hey!” Peaceflyt replied, starting to laugh.

“Were you just standing out here?” Pelican asked, smiling.

“No,” Peaceflyt lied. “Um… I was just heading to self-defense.”

“I have a feeling you weren’t actually doing that,” observed Pelican. “Why were you standing there?”

Peaceflyt hesitated, flipping through his head for excuses. “I was waiting for Peak,” he settled on, which now that he thought of it, wasn’t that much of a lie. He did kind of want to tell Peak what he had overheard.

“Why? Do you have a crush on her?” questioned Pelican mischievously, but slightly seriously.

“No, no, no,” Peaceflyt said quickly, shuddering. Do I act like I have a crush on her? I hope not. “Let’s go to self-defense and talk there.”

“Okay, fine.” They both walked into the self-defense room, where Peril was glowering at everything.

“Have I told you I hate everything?” she said sharply to the two dragons, making them jump. “The STUPID new SkyWing queen wants to kill me and your friends. AGAIN! When will firescales ever NOT be a target?”

Peaceflyt and Pelican retreated backwards, as practically the whole cave was now seething with her smoke.

“I can’t see,” Pelican said quietly in his ear.

“Well, me neither,” replied Peaceflyt. “We just have to wait until she calms down. I think.”

All Peaceflyt could hear were heavy, angry breaths, and what seemed like talonsteps outside the cave. Talonsteps? Who is it? Peak? Atacama? Clay?

“Who did thi-” Clay’s voice said. “Peril? Are you there?”

The smoke slowly cleared. “Yes. Sorry.” She lifted her head to meet Clay's. “I’m just angry.”

“I know.” Clay limped over to her and put a wing over her, then noticed Peaceflyt and Pelican staring at them. His eyes went wide for a split second, and he then turned his attention to Peril and continued to reassure her that she was, in fact, a firescales, with good fighting skills and she could probably fight off captors sent by the SkyWing queen. This seemed to cheer her up a bit, but Peaceflyt’s mind was thinking of the few ways she could die.

“Moons,” Clay muttered, turning his head. Peak and Atacama were in the cave entrance, staring at him and Peril. “Sorry. I was getting ready for class.”

“Peak!” Peaceflyt ran toward her, leaving Pelican’s side. “I have something important to tell you.”

“Same,” Peril muttered, barely audible.

“Can you come with me for a second? If you don’t mind?” Peaceflyt beckoned to a corner of the cave.

Peak hesitated. “Okay, fine.”

“So… I was on my way to self defense,” Peaceflyt started as Peak arrived in the corner with him. “And then I heard the Dragonets of Destiny talking with Peril about your aun- the SkyWing queen.”

“And?” Peak questioned. “What did they say about her?”

“That... she is sending out guards to kill firescales.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“WHAT?” Atacama yelped. “AGAIN? WHY! I’LL KILL HER BEFORE SHE KNOWS I’M THERE!”

“How did you know!?” Peril loudly inquired.

“I- well…” Peaceflyt tried to come up with an excuse without saying he was eavesdropping, but obviously failed, as Peril was looking at him with a skeptical expression. “I accidentally overheard you guys. Don’t worry- I don’t think I heard the whole conversation.”

“Peaceflyt? What’s going on?” Pelican said, appearing right next to him.

Peaceflyt sighed. “Queen Ember wants to kill all of the firescales again. I really hope we don’t have to go on another rescue mission or whatever. It was kind of… nerve racking, I guess. AND I had to fly practically across the whole continent. I mean, I’m pretty sure Peak won’t be killed, with all of her powers.” Then again, she DID get captured and kept prisoner on a hidden island for a few days, a part of his brain thought.

How would she know that she would get captured? The other part of his brain thought.

“Oh no,” Clay said. “Not again. Why do firescales always have to capture everyone’s attention nowadays? Is there a new prophecy about firescales or something?”

Peaceflyt awkwardly glanced at Peak and Pelican and took his skyfire out of his arm pouch. ‘Should I tell him?’

‘Tell him what? Is there a prophecy? By who? I want to hear it,’ Peak responded.

‘Okay.’ Peaceflyt walked up towards Clay. ‘This probably isn’t going to go well.’

‘Good luck,’ Peak responded as he walked towards Clay.

“So. Actually. I guess I have to tell you that there is a prophecy,” Peaceflyt explained. “Um… I don’t know if it’s about firescales, but it’s about something kind of… ominous.”

“Oh no,” Clay said, anxiety spreading across his face. “It- I should tell the others. Wait, can you tell me what the prophecy is?”

Peaceflyt took a deep breath in.

“Hidden away

A lost tribe prevails

If no one can stop them

No one will avail.

Those unexpected

Will take the challenge

That many seek to avoid

If then they fail,

All will be lost

And lives will be destroyed.”

Clay stared at Peaceflyt with wide eyes. Peaceflyt could hear the rush of his thoughts, but could only make out a few of them. Is this serious? Oh no, it is serious. Wait, he can see the future?

“Oh. Um… kind of. I mean, I can kind of see the future,” Peaceflyt said. “I mean, I had a prophecy. But I normally don’t really… see the future.”

“Oh,” Clay said, calming himself down, but Peaceflyt could still hear the slight bit of panic behind his voice. “I’ll be back. You can… spar for now. We'll do something different tomorrow.”

“That’s fine with me.” Atacama shrugged. Frigid ran at her, and they instantly started sparring.

Peaceflyt looked over at Peak. “What are you going to do? I don’t want to see you get killed. Actually, I’m pretty sure you won’t, but you’ll still be in danger.”

“I think it’s pretty clear what I have to do,” Peak straightened her posture. “I didn’t think I’d be back home so soon. I guess it’s time to finally challenge her. ‘Those unexpected, Will take the challenge, That many seek to avoid’. I’ve been an outcast, banished most of my life, it’ll be unexpected for me to challenge her. The next phrase literally uses the word challenge. And the ‘many seek to avoid’ part, all possible challengers stay far, far away from my aunt. And if I fail, lives will be destroyed.” She took a breath. “Wish me luck. I’m going to go and kill my aunt.”

EPILOGUE

“You, animus. You are going to teleport us to those moons blasted flamescales.” The StoneWing queen was seething with rage.

“I, umm don’t know how… know how to… I’d need their name… uh, need their name because… um there are, so many and we umm don’t want to accidentally teleport to their, to their animus.”

“Remember Limestone used his powers to take over nearly all of the SkyWing Kingdom. All that you need is a name then, right?”

Please don’t make me. Please don’t make me. I want Cinder and his friends to be happy. Granite had only seen the beautiful glowing candlelight orange dragon a few times, but Cinder always looked so kind. I wish I was with him.

“Right.” Granite laughed nervously. “Maybe… maybe my powers aren’t as strong as his. Maybe.”

“You pathetic dragonet,” Queen Marble growled. “Why were you, out of all dragons, born an animus?”

“Luck?” He answered. Or lack thereof… his mind continued.

“You,” The terrifying dictator pointed at the one of her generals. “Go find the name of one of those hideous flamescales from one of their guards.”

Hideous! Granite thought outraged. At least they’re not the most monotone color of grey to ever exist! Wait, wait, I, wait. Thinking that is probably treason. Well, she is evil and I’m in love with the enemy so treason to StoneWings should be second nature to me.

“Your most powerful, glorious, majesty,” said the visiting NightWing (Denb? Dened? Dented? Deneb? Granite was unsure what her name was.) “Those locals on the continent call them firescales. Isn’t that such an odd name. I think yours is much better. But I think I have news that will interest you: The worst and most powerful firesc-flamescales is exiled royalty. She is my idiotic little cousin’s friend, Peak. She can-”

“Ummm wait! We can’t teleport to just any flamescales, and especially not a dangerous one, especially not a dangerous one. We… um we need to umm teleport to... teleport to that one who got her own room? Shouldn’t we ummm shouldn’t we go to her instead?” Granite stuttered. Peak… I think she’s one of Cinder’s friends. The smaller one maybe?

“Oh,” The Queen cooed, “Yes, we need Kindy... Kindle- maybe Kidney? Whatever her name is, that is the one we need. Good work, Granite. You’ll make such a good son-in-law.” She finished mockingly.

Granite was screaming inside his head. Why, why, why why do I have to be the unlucky dragon who has to marry Gneiss? I mean SHE HAS NO PERSONALITY! And… girls aren’t exactly my type…

Queen Marble’s mini-me was just as bland as the queen herself, even being the same muted shade of grey with the same dull eyes. In contrast, Granite was a very light, almost white dragon, with cool medium grey specs along the underside of his wings. Granite was aware that most dragons regarded him as handsome, but he thought that he just looked slightly above average, if above average at all. As the queen stared into his deep brown eyes, clearly looking for treachery, he stared the slightest bit defiantly, back into her own pale green-grey eyes. “Did you need something, your majesty?” Granite said, his tone barely passing as non threatening.

“Nothing until I know what that flamescales’ name is,'' Queen Marble said, her own tone not bothering trying to hide its hostility.

Treat me like this all you want. One day you will be the one who fears me, the one who fears me?… wait no. No. No. No. No. Granite didn’t like the dark thoughts that kept popping up as he continued to use his magic. I have to escape soon…

Once we get to the bones, I’ll have to resurrect him using the spell, using the spell he left that allows him to be brought back after his time. AAARRRRRRRGGGG! I don’t want to be responsible for the next evil animus back from the dead. I heard that happened a few decades ago from one the students at Jade Mountain Academy. That one firescales, the oldest one, was talking about it with Cinder. When I get out of here, I’ll go to Jade Mountain Academy, wherever it is. He silently promised himself.

The grand plan, was to find Limestone’s bones, and the tungsten carving of Limestone and his siblings in the cavern deep underground and have Granite use the enchantment that was carved on the underside of the miniature statue, that would complete the first step of the spell that Limestone had cast over a thousand years ago.

So I can lose even more of my soul. Great. Just great, so so so great. Does the queen even realize that the more of my soul that I lose, the more of a threat I become to her?

The general returned, “Queen Marble, you were correct as always,” The generals all sucked up to the Queen to get special treatment, “The flamescales name is Kindle.”

No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Granite was instantly set into an anxiety attack like he always was when he was forced to use his magic.

“Granite, go work on your spell now.” The Queen said dismissively.

“Of course, your majesty,” Granite said before leaving the Queen’s private discussions tower and going to his own room in the palace. He looked at the piece of cyanite his desk, it was a gift from Prince Alexandrite, and remembered would need to talk to his cousin, Cyanite, soon. She always calmed him down, and he hadn’t seen her since she went out for her border patrol. I hope she’s ok...

He went to his scroll, which contained all of his spells, he used this scroll to write down his spell ideas, then the scroll would have the spell rewritten how it would need to be written for it to work as intended directly under where he had written his idea.

“Take Granite of the StoneWings, Queen Marble of the StoneWings, and all of the generals to Kindle of the SkyWings’ exact location.” Granite thought that spell would work, but the scroll immediately wrote directly underneath it, “Teleport Granite of the StoneWings, Queen Marble of the StoneWings, and every StoneWing general to within a 15 meter radius of Kindle of the SkyWings.”

Granite would take this spell to the Queen in three days, by then she would have a plan of action to get the firescales back. And I will do everything that I can to make that plan fail.