Talons of Power

by Tui T. Sutherland

  Oh, Turtle realized. I’m not his enchanted fish. He thinks we’re in some kind of detective team story. Solving crimes together; investigating strange behavior. Or maybe I’m his sidekick. But the sidekick doesn’t get sent on the crazy dangerous mission alone, does he?

  He was dangerously tempted by this vision. In detective stories, it was all right for one of the partners to be incompetent and unreliable, because the other one would make up for it. In that kind of story, Turtle’s character wouldn’t have to make all the decisions. No one would be waiting for him to save the day.

  That was the kind of story he might actually survive.

  “I might have something we could use,” he said hesitantly.

  He checked and triple-checked that Darkstalker was long gone from the hallways, then led Qibli back to his own lonely cave. Tucked under his woven-reed sleeping mat was the small satchel of belongings he’d brought to the school — a significantly lighter burden than Anemone’s sparkle extravaganza.

  Turtle tugged it out and shook the contents onto the floor.

  A broken piece of coral. A pair of small, cracked writing slates with a slate pencil. Three pieces of curved wood that slotted together to form a weathered, food-stained bowl.

  Qibli regarded the tiny pile with an extremely polite expression. “Well,” he said. “Honestly, I’ve seen weirder treasure in the Scorpion Den.”

  Turtle checked the corridor again. “These are the things I’ve animus-touched,” he whispered.

  “Oh,” Qibli said, his eyes alight. “What do they do? Protect your loved ones from harm? Smite your enemies? Make everybody love you?”

  “Er … no,” Turtle said awkwardly. He touched the coral. “This one helps me find things I’ve lost.” He assembled the bowl and tipped it toward Qibli. “This doubles the amount of food you put in it — I just drop it in and say ‘twice as much, please!’ Then instead of two mussels, I’d have four, or instead of a ladleful of clam soup, I’d have twice that amount — that kind of thing.”

  Qibli tipped his head to the side. “Aren’t you a prince? I thought that meant you’d have plenty of food.”

  “Well … yes,” Turtle admitted. “But I was still competing with all my brothers for it. And I’d get hungry between meals and wouldn’t feel like hunting. You know?”

  “All right,” said Qibli. “What about those?”

  The slates clattered like falling seashells as Turtle picked them up and passed one to Qibli. “With these, if you write a note on one, it’ll appear on the other.”

  He took the pencil and wrote “Hi Qibli” on the smaller slate. The message appeared simultaneously in his looping, scraggly handwriting on the other slate. When Turtle erased his slate, the message stayed in place on Qibli’s.

  Qibli turned his slate over in his talons, as though he were hoping to discover a better spell on the other side. “Huh,” he said.

  “So we can use these to communicate, I think,” Turtle said. “I’ve never used it across a really big distance before. Oh, and it only works one way. But at least I can send you panicked ‘help, he’s got maaaaarggghh’ messages.”

  “It only works one way?” Qibli echoed. His face seemed to be struggling with the concept of a world in which amazing magic could be given to a dragon like Turtle instead of him.

  “Well,” said Turtle, “yeah. I mean, I never thought I’d use it with anyone else.”

  Qibli, to his credit, managed to restrain his reaction to a slow blink. “Then … what in the world did you use this for?”

  “It’s a little embarrassing,” Turtle admitted.

  More embarrassing than a bowl that doubles your royal meals? said Qibli’s expression.

  “I used to think I wanted to be a writer,” Turtle said. “So sometimes when I was out hunting or training or whatever, I’d have a great idea or think of how I wanted to phrase something, but I’d always forget it by the time I got home. With these, I could take notes on the slate I carried with me, then erase it quick before my brothers saw it — but the notes would be there waiting on the other slate once I got home.”

  “I see,” Qibli said, finally looking sympathetic. “I had siblings who picked on me, too. A writer! So fancyscales.”

  “Oh, I gave that up a long time ago.” Turtle shook his head. “I wasn’t any good anyway.” He nudged the other items. “I keep these kind of for sentimental value. I don’t use them very much, since I don’t want anyone to notice me using them.”

  “Sure,” Qibli said. He tipped his slate up to the light. “But this is a great idea. I’ll hang on to this one, and you can send me notes on what Darkstalker is doing. Or anytime you need me. Or if Moon needs me. Or anyone, I mean, hypothetically Moon, but anyone. I’ll come flying, all right?”

  Turtle nodded. It made him a little nervous to let half of one of his animus-touched objects out of his sight — what if it fell into the wrong claws? On the other talon, it was reassuring to have someone he could call for help.

  I guess I just agreed to follow Darkstalker to the rainforest, he realized.

  A clatter of talons came from the hallway, followed by a whooshing sound, a yelp of fury, and the distinct smell of something burning.

  “Think I can guess who that is,” Qibli said with a grin.

  Turtle peeked out the door and found Peril jumping around trying to stomp out a small fire, except every time she touched it the flames got higher. A few sleepy faces peered out from their caves and immediately withdrew when they saw her.

  “Ack!” she yelped. “Stop! Buckets of gizzards! Go OUT already!”

  “Back back back,” Qibli said, hurrying over and flapping her away with his wings. “I got it.” He pulled one of the message chalkboards off the wall and smothered the fire, then trampled out the last few glowing sparks as they tried to scuttle away.

  “WHAT KIND OF JERK leaves scrolls lying around in the HALLWAY where ANYONE COULD SET THEM ON FIRE?” Peril demanded. “Someone is TRYING to pick a fight with me, is that it?”

  “Um … that was my homework,” mumbled a RainWing nervously from the nearest doorway.

  “Oh,” Peril said. She drew her wings back in, eyeing the hapless dragonet, who was half her size and a nervous fizzy green color. “Um.” She shot a glance at Turtle, of the “there’s a right thing to say here, isn’t there?” variety. “Well, next time, keep your mess in your own cave, all right?” she said, with what Turtle knew was about as much gentleness as she could muster.

  “S-s-sorry,” stammered the RainWing.

  Turtle cleared his throat. “I’m sure Peril is sorry, too,” he offered.

  She tilted her head at him.

  “For burning up this dragon’s homework. Which he probably worked very hard on.” Turtle tipped his head at the dragonet.

  “Ah, okay, sure,” Peril said, nodding vigorously. “I’m sorry your scroll got under my claws and met a fiery end,” she said to the RainWing. “On the plus side, at least it was a scroll and not, say, your tail.”

  He turned an even paler shade of green and vanished into his cave.

  “Good idea!” she called after him. “You shouldn’t leave tails lying around the hallways either!”

  “That’s our Peril,” Turtle said to Qibli. “Spreading a little terror before bedtime.”

  “Was I?” she said. “Hrmph. I thought that was a very nice apology myself.”

  Turtle liked the dragon he was when he was with Peril, although he hadn’t quite figured out how their stories fit together. He might be her sidekick, although she wasn’t exactly a normal hero. Or he might be her voice of reason, like the dragon assigned to take care of a mad prophet or something.

  The closest parallel he could think of, though, was this scroll he’d once read about a dragonet who’d been lost and raised by a pack of orcas. So when she returned to her tribe, she had to be taught everything about language and relationships and how to interact with other dragons, and occasionally she would have furious fits and bite someone. With Per
il, he sometimes felt like that wild dragon’s foster brother — a minor character, but one of the few willing to risk hanging out with her.

  He was pretty sure they were friends, though. Which was crazy; never in a million years would he have guessed that he might end up friends with the SkyWing queen’s deadliest weapon.

  She followed him and Qibli back into his sleeping cave, where he hurriedly scooted his sleeping mat to the far end of the room, away from Peril. He could move it to Qibli and Winter’s cave later. He packed the smaller slate, the slate pencil, and the coral into his pouch to take with him to the rainforest. The pieces of the bowl were too big to fit, so he repacked them in his satchel and hid it under Umber’s sleeping mat.

  “How was your meeting with Clay?” Qibli asked Peril.

  “Fine!” she blurted. “Fine, normal, great, weird, totally fine, why, what did you hear?”

  “Nothing at all,” he assured her. “Just wondering.”

  “Right,” she said. “He was very pleased to hear about Quee — about Scarlet.” She paused, looking like she’d swallowed an exploding cactus for a moment. “There was hugging!” she finally burst out. “I mean, he gave me a hug. No big deal. Normal stuff, I’m sure. Dragons probably hug you guys all the time.”

  Oh, Peril. Turtle kind of wished he could hug her, to let her know he understood.

  “Clay likes you, too,” Qibli said to Peril.

  “Really?” Peril glowed like molten glass. “He does? How do you know?”

  “I can tell. He just doesn’t know quite what to do about it yet,” Qibli said. “Give him some time to figure it out. Like, lots and lots and lots of time.”

  “I have lots and lots of time,” Peril said, exhaling. “That’s totally all right with me.” She beamed at Turtle. “Qibli thinks Clay likes me,” she said in a loud whisper.

  “I heard.” Turtle smiled back at her.

  “I was a little worried he’d hate me after I burned the magic scroll and released a giant bad guy,” Peril admitted, “but I guess Darkstalker’s not bad, so everything’s all right?” She squinted at the items Turtle was packing. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to follow Darkstalker to the rainforest tomorrow,” Turtle said. “Just … to see what happens.”

  “Oh,” Peril said, her wings drooping. One of them nearly caught on one of the scroll racks by the door, and Qibli quietly dragged it out of her reach. “You’re leaving?”

  “Only for a little while. I hope,” Turtle said. “I wish you could come with me.”

  Peril held out her front talons. “I wish I could, too. But no firescales in the rainforest, by order of the queen,” she said haughtily. “I’ll miss your boring face, though,” she said to Turtle. “Not, like, a LOT. But I’ll miss it a little bit.”

  “You won’t miss me at all,” he said. “You’ll have Clay to hang out with.”

  “True,” she said. “True true.” She tried to squash back her smile, but it kept sneaking out.

  I really do wish she could come with me, Turtle thought. Her unpredictable, hilarious company was the only thing that had made him able to leave Jade Mountain in the first place. He’d been able to think of their adventure as her quest to find Scarlet. No pressure on him. Nothing enormously major he could mess up. Nobody expecting anything of him.

  Not like tomorrow, when he’d be following Darkstalker to the rainforest alone.

  Without the option of using his magic.

  Alone, powerless, useless … this story couldn’t possibly end well.

  The rainforest was an ocean of leaves below Turtle, tossing and rippling in the wind like a dark green sea. A spray of bright yellow birds flew out of it, squawking and diving and looping back down again to sink beneath the surface. But the smell here was nothing like the ocean: wild fruit and monkey droppings, heat and rich dirt, and roots growing in thick tangles in place of fish, salt, wide open air.

  “I have no idea why you decided to come,” Anemone said, sweeping up on Turtle’s left. He started, then glanced around at Darkstalker, but the large dragon was far in the lead, scanning the forest below. Anemone had been so close to him all morning that Turtle hadn’t had a chance to speak to her — or try to convince her not to come.

  “I could say the same about you,” he pointed out. “Shouldn’t you be in school? Mother wouldn’t want you wandering around Pyrrhia like this.”

  “I can learn far more from Darkstalker than from a crusty old shipwreck like Webs,” Anemone snorted. “And Mother doesn’t have me on a leash anymore. I can go wherever I like.”

  “Wasn’t Pike worried about you leaving?” Turtle tried. His pouch thumped lightly against his chest as he twisted in the air to keep Anemone in sight. “I’m surprised he didn’t insist on coming with you, at least.”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell him,” she said, tossing her head. “He was sleeping outside my cave, which he often does, because he’s such a weirdo, and I snuck right past him. Not much of a guard, if that’s what he was trying to do! Ha ha!”

  Poor Pike, waking up to find the princess had disappeared on his watch. He’d feel like such a failure. Turtle knew what that was like.

  “But what’s your excuse?” Anemone demanded. “I thought you were terrified of Darkstalker. You said he doesn’t like you, but he never even looks at you.”

  “I just … want to see what he does,” said Turtle. His claws itched to reach for his pouch, to make sure the stick was still there, but he fought back the urge.

  “In case he does something SUPER EVIL?” Anemone teased, pouncing at him. Turtle flinched away. “You jellyfish. He’s going to rescue his tribe, that’s all.”

  “Queen Glory already rescued his tribe,” Turtle pointed out. “They’re not on the volcano anymore. They’re perfectly safe.”

  “Right, safe to be the crushed seashells under the talons of the RainWings.” Anemone rolled her eyes. “Think about it, big brother. Imagine if Mother died and I was too spineless to take the throne, so all the SeaWings decided to go live in the Mud Kingdom and let Queen Moorhen boss us around. Is that any way for a self-respecting tribe to live?”

  Turtle noticed Fearless listening to them with a scowl on her face. He decided it might be a good idea to change the subject.

  “Did you get in trouble with Darkstalker last night?” he asked. “I mean, I heard he was looking for you.” He needed to know what was going on in Darkstalker’s head. Did he suspect there was another animus around?

  “Oh, that was the most ridiculous thing,” Anemone said with a laugh. “He asked me if I cast a spell without his permission. I said, ‘oh, PERMISSION, is that how this is?’ and he said, ‘without my brilliant advice, then.’ I said I didn’t think so, but sometimes I’ve used my power accidentally without noticing. Like, you’d think an animus would learn not to yell at her stuff, but sometimes I forget and do it anyway. I made a pearl necklace explode that way once. Anyway, no, of course I’m not in trouble! He knows I’m a princess and can do whatever I want.”

  Oh, does he? Turtle thought. But he didn’t have a chance to respond. Up ahead, Darkstalker shot a burst of flame into the sky and beckoned to Anemone and the NightWings. They darted over to him as though he was the sun and they all wanted to fall into it.

  “Time for our grand entrance!” Darkstalker announced. He dove into the canopy and the others followed, one by one.

  Turtle sighed and flapped along behind them. He wondered what would happen if Anemone figured out that Darkstalker couldn’t see or hear Turtle. She tended to accept that the world revolved around her, so it would probably be a while before she noticed.

  And then … will I tell her the truth?

  He dropped from the hot-sun sky down and down into dappled green light that reminded him of the Summer Palace, before it was destroyed. Long-limbed creatures of fur flurried out along the branches as he maneuvered carefully between the thick vines and grasping spider webs. The trees were interwoven like living nets, lying in wait for their prey. />
  Far below them, on the rainforest floor, the entire NightWing tribe was gathered in a clearing, looking up. All around them were grass huts and ramshackle wooden structures, many of them only half built. The scent of crispy boar meat rose from a fire pit that glowed in the center of the village, carefully lined with rocks.

  Queen Glory stood on a mahogany platform, facing the tribe. She was the only RainWing present, or at least visible, and her scales were set in an intricate overlapping leaf pattern of bright green, gold, and black. Beside her, as close as her shadow, was a NightWing with a worried expression. Turtle guessed that was Deathbringer, from the stories he’d heard about the young RainWing queen and her loyal, self-appointed bodyguard.

  Glory watched Darkstalker descend without a hint of emotion on her face, nor even the slightest color change in her scales. Turtle wondered if she’d ever been afraid of anything in her life.

  He perched on a branch overhead, where the tooth-shaped leaves matched the dark green of his scales. Below, Darkstalker soared down to land next to Glory, instantly dwarfing her and Deathbringer. A muffled gasp rustled through the crowd of NightWings. Deathbringer sidled a step closer to Glory, but the queen herself neither flinched nor moved.

  Anemone hovered for a moment at Darkstalker’s shoulder, but there was no room on the platform for anyone else. Huffing grumpily, she landed on the ground close by, then spent several minutes pointedly scraping all the muddy leaves out of her little patch of dirt.

  “Darkstalker, I presume,” said Glory. She nodded to Moon and the other three NightWing dragonets as they slipped into the tribe. Turtle saw each of them find their parents; he saw Moon’s mother wrap her wings around her daughter. He saw Mindreader whispering excitedly to a tall male NightWing, holding out her bracelet.

  “I see Sunny used the dreamvisitor to tell you we were coming,” Darkstalker said. “Even though I asked her very nicely not to. Interesting.”