Dangerous Gift

by Tui T. Sutherland

  * * *

  She is outside, recovering her fishing nets before the storm destroys them, when she sees a flare of golden fabric up in the rain clouds.

  She watches for a moment, and then sees that it’s attached to an unconscious dragon. The wind is blowing her in to shore, some ways south of Jerboa’s hut.

  Jerboa holds the nets in her talons, thinking for a moment, and then she hurries back inside.

  Darkstalker was defeated not long ago. No thanks to her; she did nothing at all. She had the perfect spell, but she was too afraid to use it — that it wouldn’t work, that it would backfire somehow and she’d be caught and lose all her freedom again.

  But she can’t stop thinking about it. Five animus dragons, all alive at the same time. It was so wrong. The universe was out of joint. Even with Darkstalker gone, how could the rest be trusted? What if they turned on one another and took the world down with them?

  What if one of them found out about her and forced her to use her magic?

  What if any of them were like her mother?

  Or, almost equally scary, there’s the new IceWing queen. Jerboa wishes she had met Snowfall in time to save Glacier. But she didn’t, and now she’s linked to this tempestuous, paranoid, terrified young queen who wants to use Jerboa’s magic all the time. She has ideas upon ideas for animus spells that will benefit her kingdom — or at least, keep them walled off and away from all other dragons forever.

  Jerboa doesn’t know how many times she can safely say no. What if Queen Snowfall brings her army next time? What if she locks Jerboa up and tortures her into doing magic? She could be on a path to becoming another Queen Scorpion — Jerboa remembers all those stories from her mother very clearly.

  She pulls out her scroll. “Who is the dragon that just blew in on the storm?” she asks.

  HER NAME IS LUNA. SHE COMES FROM PANTALA, THE LAND ACROSS THE SEA.

  Jerboa’s ears twitch. A dragon from across the sea? “Why is she here?”

  BY ACCIDENT.

  “Is she dangerous?”

  ONLY TO THOSE WHO THREATEN THE DRAGONS SHE LOVES.

  Jerboa likes the sound of that. “Is she my purpose?”

  THAT ANSWER IS NOT AVAILABLE YET.

  “Does she need help?”

  YES.

  “Does anyone else know she’s here?”

  A NIGHTWING HAS HAD A VISION ABOUT HER, AND WILL BE HERE TO FIND HER SOON.

  Jerboa is a little nervous of NightWings at the moment. But if she finds Luna first, if she introduces them — she could be part of something important. Bringing the continents together.

  Is that a good idea, though?

  “Does Pantala have animus magic?” she asks.

  NO.

  What if the animus dragons here decide to take over Pantala? They could do anything to them, with all that magic here and none over there.

  It’s time to use her spell.

  Time to fix everything.

  Dragons can’t be trusted with animus magic. Jerboa knows that better than anyone.

  She lifts a small glass candleholder down from a shelf. It’s curved and glittering, and she loves it, but sacrificing it will make the spell more powerful.

  “I hereby enchant this candleholder,” she whispers. “When I shatter it, I shatter the power of all current animus dragons. From now on, no new spells cast by any animus dragon alive today will ever work again. Also, from this point forward, I will grow old and die, like any normal dragon. I make this spell irreversible by any animus, including myself.”

  She cups her talons around the candleholder, then hurls it to the floor.

  It explodes into a million shimmering pieces, and Jerboa screams with pain.

  Her tail barb is gone. She guesses the price for such a big spell was necessarily higher than all the others she’s cast, but it’s hard to think through the agony.

  Jerboa drags herself outside, trying to stem the flow of blood and get to the pond.

  I did it. I think. I hope it worked. She is in too much pain to test it by trying another spell right now. With luck, that was my last animus spell ever.

  Tomorrow I will find Luna, bring her back here, and keep her safe until the NightWing comes for her.

  Then they can figure out how to unite the continents safely, without any magic at all.

  And I won’t have to be afraid of someone controlling me. I don’t have to be scared of what animus magic can do anymore. And no one will ever ask me for anything ever again.

  Snowfall was awake before anyone else the next morning, which surprised her, because she felt as though she’d been asleep for centuries. For two thousand years, to be more specific.

  That was the first time her visions had done that — dragged her from one into another, on and on through someone’s lifetime and then into a different dragon’s, hopping through time. But she understood why. She needed to see all of that to understand Jerboa, her Jerboa, and what she’d done.

  She made a small pile of snow and started sculpting it into a shape while she waited for Lynx and her guards to wake up. The sun was only a thin line of gold off to the east, and the morning air was gloriously cold. Everything was so quiet, so much quieter than the noisy rustling forest or the incessant background chatter of Sanctuary.

  Jerboa broke animus magic. Mostly because of me. It’s all gone because she was afraid of what I’d make her do.

  Snowfall knew there was more to it than that. She’d felt everything Jerboa had felt, and she recognized it. She knew so clearly what it was like to be that scared. She’d had her own nightmares about the idea that someone else could take control of you and you’d be powerless — the way Queen Wasp treated the Pantalan dragons, or the way Darkstalker had used his magic against the IceWings (and against his own NightWings, in fact).

  And she understood why Jerboa hadn’t told anybody. Snowfall herself would have been furious if she’d found out even a few days ago, before the dragons arrived from Pantala. Before I put on the ring.

  Now, though, she realized she wasn’t angry at all. She couldn’t imagine being angry at Jerboa anymore, now that she’d experienced a tiny bit of Jerboa’s life.

  And she wondered if Jerboa was right to do what she did. How could you be sure who could be trusted with animus magic? The first Jerboa had seemed like a good, normal dragon in the first vision, but the magic or the power had obviously changed her over time.

  Maybe it’s not so terrible if we have to figure out how to save the world without magic.

  She hoped they could do it, the dragons who were on their way to Pantala. She’d do what she could over here, preparing her army in case they were needed.

  And maybe soon she’d visit Jerboa, just to check on her. It seemed like she needed a friend.

  That had never even occurred to Snowfall — that Glacier and Jerboa had just been friends, rather than queen and animus dragon who served her. That maybe Jerboa missed Glacier as much as Snowfall did.

  “Hey,” Lynx said, wandering over to her and yawning at the same time. “What are you making?” She waved her tail at the little snow creature.

  “Can’t you tell?” Snowfall asked.

  Lynx peered at it.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to have you executed if you guess wrong,” Snowfall added conversationally.

  “Add it to my treason list,” Lynx replied. “Is it a snail?”

  “It is!” Snowfall beamed at it. “In honor of that absolutely ridiculous SkyWing.”

  “It is suuuuuuuuuuuuper cute that you keep thinking about him,” Lynx teased, and Snowfall threw a clump of snow at her. “All your guards are awake, by the way, and looking very embarrassed that someone wasn’t awake and on watch when you woke up.”

  Snowfall shrugged. “I was tired, too. I mean, let’s give them some stern looks, but I don’t feel like decapitating anyone this morning.”

  Lynx laughed.

  On their way back to the palace, Snowfall kept thinking about the two Jerboas — and the f
act that the ring had actually answered her question! That was exciting. Even if it had been slightly horrible to experience the first Jerboa’s gradual loss of her soul. Snowfall hoped she wouldn’t ever become like her, too far removed from other dragons to remember that they had feelings, too.

  I need to keep dragons like Lynx close by, to ask me things like: “Wait, is that maybe evil?” in case I forget to.

  They swooped down through the gates, and Snowfall waved at the guards as she flew by. They both looked startled, and a little nervous, but those were expressions she was pretty used to seeing on her own IceWings by now. She’d work on that.

  Low voices were coming from the throne room, so Snowfall headed there first. That was sort of suspicious, actually. Why would anyone be in the throne room while she was away?

  Don’t be paranoid, she reminded herself. Not everyone is out to get me. I am not Queen Wasp.

  She swept through the window and landed right in the center of the grand room. Conversation slammed to a halt all around her.

  On one side of the throne stood General Ivory, flanked by a few soldiers, looking fierce and bristly. On the other side were Tundra and Permafrost, calm and gleaming and toothy.

  And on the throne itself, wearing Snowfall’s hideous crown, was her little sister, Mink.

  Snowfall raised her eyebrows at the gathered dragons. “Hello, Mink,” she said. “That’s way too big for you.”

  Mink reached up and clutched the crown to her head, her giant eyes blinking quickly.

  “We thought you weren’t coming back,” Tundra said in her slippery whale-blubber voice.

  “I said she was!” Ivory growled. “You wouldn’t listen!”

  “We thought it was highly unlikely that you’d leave a lowly soldier in charge rather than one of us,” Permafrost smarmed, flicking his tail between himself and Tundra. “So we assumed something terrible must have happened to you.”

  “You were wrong,” Snowfall said pleasantly, “and now something terrible is going to happen to you. Thank you for trying, Ivory. Mink, budge over, that’s my seat.”

  “No!” Mink yelled, bursting into tears. “I have to be queen! I have to stop the awful hateful terrible bad NightWings!”

  Snowfall squinted at her, then exchanged a puzzled glance with Lynx. “The what?” she asked.

  “The NightWings!” Mink sobbed. “I hate them so m-much! They’re going to hurt us!”

  Well. So this made no sense at all. Mink had never mentioned NightWings before, that Snowfall could remember. And Mink loved everybody. It didn’t even seem possible for Mink to hate someone, let alone an entire tribe.

  Was it something I said? Snowfall tried to remember, but she thought she would have noticed if she’d said, “the NightWings are the worst, Mink,” and Mink had said, “yeah! let’s hate them!”

  “Did you do this?” she asked Tundra and Permafrost. “Did you make her afraid of the NightWings?”

  Tundra lifted her wings. “We haven’t said anything about them. I don’t know where this came from.”

  Snowfall was inclined not to believe her, but Tundra looked as confused as Snowfall felt, and it was rare to see her aunt have an actual emotion on her face.

  “When did she start talking about them?”

  “The moment we made her queen,” Tundra said. “I mean … temporary queen, of course. Just in case you weren’t returning.”

  Uh-huh. A queen you could control a little better than me, I suppose, Snowfall thought. So where did Mink get this new fear of NightWings? If Tundra hadn’t said anything … but somehow when she became queen …

  Snowfall strode across the room and knocked the crown off Mink’s head. Mink yelped and tried to grab for it, but Snowfall held her at arm’s length with the crown in her other talon.

  “Aunt Tundra,” she said, “what do you know about this crown? When was it made?”

  “It’s been in the royal family for hundreds of years!” Tundra said, sounding quite scandalized. “It’s one of the most treasured IceWing heirlooms!”

  “Yes, yes,” Snowfall said, “but who made it?”

  Tundra looked at Permafrost, who scratched his neck and mumbled, “I’m not sure. I believe maybe it’s from the time of Queen Diamond?”

  “Queen Diamond,” Snowfall said. “As in, the one whose son ran off with a NightWing.”

  “Was KIDNAPPED by a NightWing!” Tundra objected.

  “The queen who happened to be an animus herself,” Snowfall said. “Correct?”

  “Oh!” Lynx cried. Tundra shot her a quelling look, but Lynx ignored her, taking a step toward Snowfall. “You think the crown could be enchanted to make every queen who wears it hate NightWings as much as Diamond did? But nobody knew it for all this time. That’s awful!”

  Permafrost flapped his jaw for a moment, as if a sealskin rug had come back to life and started questioning his moral authority. “It’s true Queen Diamond was an animus,” he said, “but — but she wouldn’t just — that is, she couldn’t use her power beyond her one gift to the tribe! She wouldn’t, I’m sure of it!”

  “Well, I’m not,” Snowfall said. “And I don’t like this thing anyway. So let’s be safe and fashionable and destroy it.”

  “Destroy it?” Tundra gasped faintly.

  “Oooooo, we can do that?” Mink asked. “Because I really really don’t like it either. Snowfall, it’s so heavy! It hurt my head, did it hurt yours?”

  “Yes, it hurt my head a lot,” Snowfall told her. “Ivory, would you take charge of destroying this for me?”

  “At once, Your Majesty,” Ivory said with a respectful bow. She lifted the crown out of Snowfall’s talons and flew out of the room with two of her soldiers.

  Snowfall climbed up on the throne next to Mink. It was big enough for a very old queen, so there was enough room for her to scoot in beside her sister. She put one of her wings around Mink, who snuggled into her side, closed her eyes, and sighed with relief.

  “I don’t have to be queen?” Mink whispered.

  “You are not allowed to be queen right now,” Snowfall said kindly. “I’m going to be queen for a long time.”

  “Good,” Mink said. “I’m sorry so many d-dragons keep telling you what to do, though. That was my least favorite part.”

  “It’ll be better if it’s the right dragons,” Snowfall said. “I just have to ignore the ones I don’t trust.” She shot a significant look at Tundra and Permafrost.

  “The crown was magic?” Mink asked. “Does that mean I don’t have to hate the NightWings?”

  “That’s right. It was just a spell.” Snowfall bopped Mink’s head with her snout. “It’ll wear off. I feel much better about NightWings after being away from the crown for a few days. Plus, I bet if you meet any, you’ll love them immediately just like you love everybody else.”

  “Oh, I’d like that,” Mink said. “I love you the most, though.”

  Snowfall laughed. “I met a SkyWing you would adore,” she said. “I didn’t realize until right now that he reminded me of you.”

  “Your Majesty,” Tundra said frostily, “as the wall has been neglected for a number of days, despite my best efforts, perhaps you would appreciate a few updates about the behavior of the palace IceWings in your absence.”

  “Ah, yes,” Snowfall said. “Thank you for reminding me. Mink, want to see something cool?”

  “I do I do!” Mink sang as Snowfall led her through the halls and out into the courtyard. Tundra trailed after them, protesting that the queen needed more information before she started rearranging names. Permafrost had made himself scarce, perhaps realizing that the farther out of Snowfall’s sight he was, the fewer spots he’d drop on the list.

  There were several IceWings out in the courtyard, gathered near the wall or on benches, chatting to one another. A hush spread through them as Snowfall swept by, and she saw a few starting to edge toward the nearest doors.

  “Mink,” Snowfall said, stopping beside the gift of order. “Do you kno
w what this is?”

  “Of course I do,” Mink said with wide eyes. “Everybody knows what the wall is! Look, there’s m-me.” She pointed to her name on the dragonet side. “I’m here, which means those dragons up there are better than me. But I’m still better than this dragon and this dragon and this dragon and this dragon and allllll these dragons,” she said, tapping one name after another below hers.

  Snowfall winced. It was somehow so much worse to hear something like that from someone as little and sweet as Mink.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” she said to her sister. “But it turns out, that makes no sense.”

  “It makes no sense?” Mink echoed, blinking up at her.

  “You might do better on a math test than this dragon,” Snowfall said, pointing to a name below Mink’s, “but what if he carves a better ice sculpture than you? Then who should be higher on the list?”

  “What?” Mink cried, outraged. “B-better than mine?! Where? I want to see!”

  “I just mean if he did,” Snowfall said.

  “Hmph,” Mink said. “Not possible. But I love you anyway, Polar Bear!” she shouted at one of the little faces peeking out of a window overhead.

  “What I mean,” Snowfall said, “is that if you spend all your time worrying about where you are on the list and who’s higher than you and who’s below you, you can’t focus on what you do well, or how everybody can do something important or kind or clever, no matter where they are on the list. And maybe you start to think the dragons below you aren’t as important or special as you are, which is silly.”

  “Hmmmm,” Mink said thoughtfully. She tipped her head up again and yelled, “Polar Bear, I think you’re very special and important!”

  “Thank you?” he called back.

  Snowfall wasn’t sure this lesson was going quite as well as she’d pictured it in her head. Maybe she should break stuff first, explain it all later.

  She called up the tiara’s strength and slammed her fist into the wall of names. Cracks shot out in all directions like bolts of lightning, ripping through every name on the list.

  Tundra shrieked in horror and tried to grab her arm. But Snowfall shook her off easily and did it again, and then again, smashing the wall until it was obliterated and she was surrounded by a rubble of broken chunks of ice.