Talons of Power

by Tui T. Sutherland

  Darkstalker took Stonemover’s head in his claws and forced the roaring dragon to meet his gaze. “CALM DOWN,” he said in a voice that shook the mountain.

  Stonemover’s voice dropped away. He stared back at Darkstalker.

  “I’m healing you,” Darkstalker said. “That’s all.”

  “Don’t,” Stonemover whispered. “It’s not safe.”

  “You don’t have to punish yourself for being an animus.” Darkstalker flicked his tail, frowning. “You’re allowed to be whole, to be happy.”

  I agree with Darkstalker, Turtle thought. Is that a bad sign?

  I don’t want to spend my life in terror of my powers. I want to be happy, too.

  Does that mean I’m in danger of turning out like Darkstalker? Would I rather end up like him or Stonemover?

  He couldn’t imagine willingly fossilizing himself … but he looked down at his clenched talons and wondered what he would do to stop them from hurting anyone. Did Stonemover have flashes of blood and screaming in his head, too, before he cast his spell?

  Stonemover rolled his eyes toward his tail, where more rock was crumbling away. “I can’t be free,” he said. “I don’t know what I might do. Cage me again. Leave me in stone. It’s the only way to be safe.”

  “He means it,” Moon said to Darkstalker. She edged around the pool of blood to catch some of the falling pebbles from the old dragon’s wings. “He’s terrified of his power, of his own claws, of any dark magic. His mind is shredding itself to pieces.”

  “Yeah, and it’s giving me the worst headache,” Mindreader complained.

  “All this fear,” Darkstalker said with a sigh. “I’ve seen it before.” He brightened. “Maybe I can fix it! The right spell could take away all his worry —”

  “No!” Sunny and Stonemover said at the same time, looking equally alarmed.

  “No spells on my brain,” Stonemover said, his voice rising toward panic again.

  “Why not?” Darkstalker asked with genuine bewilderment. “If it would make you happier?” He turned to Moon. “Isn’t it all right to make other dragons happier, if you can?”

  “Not if they don’t want you to,” she said gently.

  “But they should want me to,” he said. “It makes no sense.” He lifted his wings in a shrug that nearly whacked Turtle in the nose. “Fine, all right, I’ll leave him in his misery.”

  “And put me back the way I was,” Stonemover asked, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes.

  “Dragons who wallow in their own tragedy,” Darkstalker muttered. “So pointless.” He scooped up a talonful of rocks and crushed it in his claws, then blew the stone dust all over Stonemover’s wings, tail, and arms. A moment later, the cold gray of the cave began creeping over Stonemover’s scales again, embedding him into the walls and floor once more.

  “There you go,” Darkstalker said. “May you always be as thoroughly unhappy as you want to be.”

  “Thank you,” Stonemover whispered, relief printed all over his face.

  Darkstalker wrinkled his snout at Moon and she shook her head at him. Turtle wondered if they were communicating telepathically. Did Moon really like Darkstalker?

  If she did … did that mean Turtle was wrong about him?

  Healing Flame, saving Stonemover, protecting Anemone’s soul, giving powers to the NightWings. Darkstalker hadn’t exactly spent his day spreading evil and doom.

  Am I worrying about nothing?

  Sunny wrapped her arms around her father’s neck and hugged him. Blood from the healed wound smeared her scales, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  A few minutes passed in silence, and then they all heard footsteps coming up through the tunnels. Sunny sat up and arranged her wings as though she was trying to match an image of a queen in her head.

  “I found him,” Anemone announced, coming into the cave. A dragon edged into the space behind her. The sharp edge of the broken prey bone pressed into the crevice below his jaw, enchanted to threaten him forward.

  It was Flame, guilt and shame written all over his new, perfect face.

  Sunny stared down at him without comprehension for a long moment, not understanding who he was.

  “Flame?” Darkstalker said at last. “Why would you do this?”

  “Especially when Darkstalker just healed your face!” said Anemone. “I thought you’d be dancing and flying around. It’s not exactly normal to celebrate by killing some random old dragon.” She noticed Stonemover’s eyes open and jumped back. “Yikes! And you didn’t even do it right! You guys, the fossil is still alive!”

  “We know,” Fearless said. “Darkstalker saved him.”

  “Flame, why would you do something like this?” Sunny asked.

  “He lied to me,” Flame said through clenched teeth. “He could have healed me, but he chose not to.”

  “Oh, wow,” said Mindreader, squinting at Flame. “Moon, are you hearing this, too? This dragon seriously hates everyone.”

  “Stay out of my mind!” Flame shouted at her.

  Mindreader jerked back with a yelp.

  “But you are healed,” Sunny said to him wonderingly. “So why would it matter who did it? Enough to kill someone for it?”

  “He lied to me,” Flame growled, sinking closer to the floor.

  “That’s an interesting complaint coming from a dragon with his own secrets,” said Darkstalker. He beckoned with one claw, and Flame’s leather pouch ripped free and floated into Darkstalker’s talons.

  “Give that back!” Flame roared, but when he tried to leap forward, Anemone stood in his way, glittering with self-righteousness. The bone pressed itself harder into his neck, conjuring a jeweled drop of blood, and Flame stopped with a gasp of pain.

  “Wow, he is so angry,” Mindreader reported. “Oooo, he wants to horribly kill all of us!”

  Darkstalker shook the pouch and caught two objects as they tumbled out:

  Flame’s library card, and …

  … a blue sapphire, shaped like a long, elegant star.

  “The third dreamvisitor!” Sunny gasped.

  “That’s right,” said Darkstalker, holding it up to catch the light. “This is what I’ve suspected since I first heard Moon’s prophecy. Flame is the darkness of dragons … and he’s the stalker of dreams.”

  Beware the darkness of dragons … beware the stalker of dreams.

  A breath of cold air shivered along Turtle’s wings. Was Darkstalker right? Was one of the dangers of the prophecy seething under their noses this whole time?

  “I’m not any of that!” Flame snarled. “What does that tripe even mean?”

  “You must have stolen this from Starflight on the NightWing island,” Sunny said, pointing to the dreamvisitor. “But how did you hide it all this time? While you were injured and everything?”

  “I had help,” spat Flame. “Idiot help, but that’s all I had to work with.”

  “He’s thinking about a dragon with a weird name. Ogre? Okra?” mused Mindreader. “Who he also hates, by the way.”

  “Stop sticking your snout in my brain,” Flame hissed. “Or I’ll slice it off.”

  “I wish I could,” flared Mindreader. “You’re a miserable dragon and your thoughts are like nasty boiling tar.”

  “What are we going to do with you?” Sunny asked Flame. “I’ll have to tell Queen Ruby what you did … but until she sends someone for you, it’s not like we have somewhere to lock you up.”

  “Really? What kind of respectable school doesn’t have a dungeon?” Darkstalker asked. Fearless and Mindreader turned toward him with wide eyes, and he chuckled. “I’m just kidding. Sunny, I can take care of this for you.”

  “How, exactly?” she asked warily.

  Darkstalker took Flame’s library card and touched it to one of Flame’s front talons. Instantly it flipped over and outward, transforming into an iron band that clamped around Flame’s forearm. A thick metal chain sprouted from the band like a coiling snake. It plunged into the rock, trapping Fl
ame in place.

  Flame roared his fury, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t reach any of the throats he was clawing for.

  “There,” Darkstalker said. “He’s not going anywhere now.”

  He backed out of the cave. Turtle pressed himself tightly against the wall, closing his eyes, as the mass of ebony scales rippled by. Giant claws scraped the stone perilously close to his own pitifully small webbed talons.

  Sunny circled Flame, her expression uncertain, until she noticed that she was leaving tracks of Stonemover’s blood across the floor. With a sigh, she bowed her head and slipped away into the tunnels.

  “That was awesome!” Anemone danced out of the cave and spread her wings, looking up at Darkstalker where he stood in the rain. If she noticed Turtle as she went by him, she didn’t acknowledge his presence. “Let’s solve some more mysteries! Catch some more bad guys! Be even more awesome!”

  “You should have an early night,” Darkstalker said to her. He swept his wings toward Mindreader and Fearless, who were huddled under the cave overhang looking severely displeased about the weather. “You all should, because tomorrow we’re going to the rainforest, and it’s a long flight. Moon!” he called as she slipped out of the cave. “Come flying with me!”

  She hesitated. “Qibli and I told Starflight we’d help him clean up the library and look for more scrolls for you. Maybe later?”

  “Of course,” Darkstalker said. “No problem.” He watched her fly away, raindrops slithering down his sides. His expression reminded Turtle of someone, but he couldn’t think who.

  “I’ll go flying with you!” Anemone chirped. “I’m way more interesting than Moon and I’m not tired!”

  “You will be tomorrow,” Darkstalker said. “And we’re not stopping on the way to the rainforest. Thank you, Princess, but I’ll be fine by myself tonight.” He spread his wings, and Turtle realized who Darkstalker had reminded him of: the soldiers in the garden of the wounded. The ones who couldn’t swim anymore, who’d lost a tail or a limb or a wing and didn’t quite know yet how to go on living without them.

  That was the expression he’d glimpsed, very briefly, on Darkstalker’s face.

  The enormous NightWing turned and flew away, higher and higher into the gray, glowering clouds until the storm seemed to melt into his scales and swallow him whole.

  Turtle thought about following him, but his wings felt coated in thick sand. He hadn’t slept all night, and he’d spent the entire day before flying across the continent as fast as he could. His fear of Darkstalker had kept him awake for most of the day, but now his eyes were desperate for sleep.

  He hasn’t done anything terrible yet, he told himself as he flew back to the entrance hall. And I have to sleep sometime. He dragged his tail through the tunnels. I can’t watch him every second of his life forever.

  He paused in the doorway to his own sleeping cave.

  It was so empty. Like a giant, hollowed-out oyster shell, the walls rose around him, bare and scraped of all life.

  In the Kingdom of the Sea, the sons of Queen Coral were almost always together — they shared rooms, classes, prey. They filled the palaces with their wrestling matches and shouting games.

  So when one of them did something wrong — and if someone was paying attention to them long enough to notice — their punishment was almost always isolation.

  Sometimes it was imposed from above, by someone like their uncle Shark or cousin Moray. Sometimes it came from within, when the brothers banded together to exile one of their own.

  Turtle’s punishment for failing his father was chosen and carried out by his own brothers. The older ones caught wind of the news that Gill was furious about something, and they finally pried the whole story out of Octopus and Cerulean. Turtle was shut out completely for a month. Nobody spoke to him. He was left to sleep in an empty room, and his brothers all behaved as though he didn’t exist.

  Turtle had felt his sense of dragonhood drifting away, dissolving into the ocean like a mist of ink. If no one could see you, were you real? If no one spoke to you, how long could you go on existing before disappearing completely?

  Which was why he’d finally used his magic on them. An enchanted seagull egg, cracked into their fish stew one night, and forgiveness was suddenly his.

  But it left him with an unshakeable sense of doubt. Would they ever have forgiven him on their own? Or would he have been alone forever?

  He knew he hadn’t earned it, this beguiled friendliness, this false tide of mercy that had washed away his sins.

  Empty caves always reminded him of that feeling — first the loneliness, and then the guilt. He’d had trouble sleeping in his school cave ever since his clawmate Umber had run away with Sora. Umber had all the warmth and energy that Turtle didn’t have, and as a MudWing, he needed brothers and sisters around him, too. From the first night, they had dragged their reed mats together and slept back to back, feeling as if the world was really still there as long as there were other scales close by.

  Umber had felt like a new brother right away. Turtle missed him.

  He glanced along the hall, then slipped quietly down to Qibli and Winter’s room.

  It looked a lot bigger without Winter’s scavenger cage taking up half the space. Winter was tinkering with a new wire construction, muttering, while Qibli sat curled on a ledge, surrounded by scrolls, a pensive look in his black eyes.

  “Hey,” Turtle said, poking his head inside. “Can I sleep in here tonight?”

  Qibli snapped back to the world immediately. “Of course!” He jumped off the ledge and hurried over to Turtle.

  “Oh, hello, yes, there is another dragon in here,” Winter observed. “I wonder if HE has an opinion about extra snoring in his sleeping cave.”

  “What’s happened?” Qibli asked Turtle, ignoring his clawmate. “What have you seen?”

  “Not much,” Turtle said. “Darkstalker’s been really quiet all day. He read a bunch of scrolls, fixed Flame’s face, made talismans to protect his soul and Anemone’s, and then gave powers to the NightWing students. And then Flame tried to kill Stonemover and —”

  “Wait, whoa,” said Qibli. “That doesn’t sound like not much. Start from the beginning.”

  So Turtle told him and Winter as much as he could about Darkstalker’s activities that day. Both dragons looked horrified when they heard what happened to Stonemover, but Winter seemed even more horrified by the news that Darkstalker was handing out superpowers to the NightWings.

  Winter threw his silver-blue wings up in the air. “We only just found out that those powers were fake — and now they’re real again?”

  “You don’t have to worry, though,” Turtle reminded him. “You still have the skyfire, so no one can read your mind.”

  “I can be a little worried about superstrength,” Winter growled. “And whatever that other one can do.”

  “Make bananas,” Qibli filled in. “Absolutely terrifying. Run for your life.”

  Winter narrowed his eyes at his clawmate.

  “So what is Darkstalker up to?” Qibli said thoughtfully. “What does he want?

  “Seems obvious to those of us whose brains work,” Winter snapped at him. “He wants to make friends and help dragons.”

  “That is what it looks like,” said Turtle. “It’s really confusing … he’s only done good things all day.”

  “As far as we can see,” Qibli pointed out. “We don’t know what he might be doing in secret. That being the entire point of secrecy.”

  “Why do you have to be so suspicious?” Winter flared. “Darkstalker is the one who saved Stonemover! He’s a good dragon with a good heart!”

  “Also that,” said Qibli. “Does that sound like our Winter at all? Remember yesterday when he was yelling at Moon about how you could never trust Darkstalker? Wouldn’t he normally be more suspicious than anyone else?”

  “I’ve changed and grown!” Winter protested. “I’m a much more open-minded dragon since my parents decided to sacri
fice my life in exchange for my brother’s place on a wall.”

  “I’m sure you are, Winter, but still …” Qibli spread his front talons. “Listen, I’m just picturing myself as Darkstalker, right? So I pop out of a mountain, and yikes, here’s a fierce, smart, excessively shiny IceWing prince with an ego the size of an iceberg and a million potential great futures. I’m pretty sure I’d think, hmm, that dragon could be a serious threat. And then I’d think, first thing I’d better do is neutralize you. I’m just wondering if that’s what he did.”

  Winter fluffed his wings as though he wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended. “Well, stop wondering. I would know if I was under a spell.”

  “Right. Of course,” said Qibli. “With your … magic IceWing brain? How exactly would you know, Lord Genius?”

  “I don’t have to stay and listen to this,” Winter said, flouncing out of the cave.

  Qibli poked his head out the door to watch until Winter was gone, then came back inside and sat down in front of Turtle with a rueful expression. “I have a really bad feeling that he’s gone to tell Darkstalker about this conversation.”

  “He can’t tell him about me, though,” said Turtle. “Or if he does, Darkstalker won’t hear it. My enchantment hides me completely from him.” I hope. I hope I hope I hope. If I did it right. Which seems unlikely, knowing me. Ack.

  “That’s clever,” said Qibli. “How did you think of that?”

  “I used this brainstorming method called pure terror,” Turtle admitted. “It wasn’t so much clever as deeply cowardly.”

  “How does your soul feel?”

  “Like it’s still there,” Turtle said with a shrug. He wasn’t going to talk about the flashes of screaming Chameleon in his head. Or the way his heart sped up when he thought about how he’d do the same thing again to anyone else who hurt Kinkajou.

  “Would you be willing to do a couple more spells?” Qibli asked. “If I had any powers of my own, I wouldn’t ask …”

  “Oh,” said Turtle. “I mean, yes, I suppose so. The problem is I don’t know what. I’ve been thinking about it all day. I should be able to do something useful, shouldn’t I? If I can just figure out the exact right thing. Peril wanted me to kill Darkstalker, but I don’t think that’s possible, and I’m just … not the kind of dragon who kills other dragons. I don’t want to be.”