Chapter Seventeen

Aquarii Nerokouvalitís 

Aquarii’s life was, to put it gently, confusing. A more accurate word might have been infuriating.

But seriously. Her new almost/kind of/maybe friend had mysteriously vanished JUST after her long-lost BROTHER turned up. A war was churning, far beyond her wings. And, to top it off, just to push her over the edge, Kasmar wouldn’t tell her the location of Shadowwalker’s base of operations.

“But whyyyyyyy?” Aquarii complained, twisting one wing to swoop under Kasmar. He laughed and glided away.

“I told you, I’ll tell the queen. Then you can hear,” he ruled. She flopped her head down miserably. 

“Please tell me,” she almost begged. “I think it might be my fault Eridanus got caught. I-I kind of, like, alerted the whole kingdom to her being an EclipseWing. What if word got out to Shadowwalker because of that? It’s my fault. I could have shut up for once in my life, and then she’d still be here and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Kasmar’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t make sense. Sure, you told everyone that she was an EclipseWing, but Shadowwalker has probably been planning a kidnapping like that for months.”

He coasted gracefully closer to her and slipped his wingtip over hers.

“It’s not your fault,” he hissed. Fire glimmered in the back of his throat. “It is Shadowwalker’s fault. He abducted her. Not you. Are you an EclipseWing murderer with mind control powers and who prefers gull eggs over smoked kangaroo jerky?”

Aquarii giggled. Giggled! A weight seemed to lift off her chest at Kasmar’s words. “Thanks,” she whispered. 

Kasmar’s ears pricked up. “Oooh, Naĝanto, I just had an awesome idea! You know the eagle game?”

“Sabah?” Aquarii inquired, perplexed.

“Oh, yeah. It means ‘swimmer’ in the old language. Do you mind?” 

Aquarii smiled. She’d never had anything like a nickname. “What’s the eagle game?” she asked quickly.

“Oh, you don’t know it? It’s so awesome! My – my clutch mates used to play it with me. You fly up really high and lock your talons with the other dragon, and then you spiral downwards like the amber eagles do! It’s so cool!”

“That sounds terrifying,” Aquarii asserted, not entirely sure whether the jittery feeling in her gut came from the idea of spiraling uncontrollably towards the earth or holding Kasmar’s talons.

“Should we play?” Kasmar asked, charmingly oblivious.

Aquarii squirmed slightly.

Confession time: Aquarii Nerokouvalitís was mildly afraid of heights. Not terribly so, but bad enough to not want to free-fall directly towards those rather spiky-looking mountains below. She was a dragon of the ocean, and preferred that lovely feeling of cool liquid against her scales against cold, whipping winds throwing her off-balance.

So how was she going to say no to this mildly adorable dragon, looking at her with sad-puppy eyes and drifting on the air currents like a feather?

“Um,” she managed to get out, very cleverly.

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Kasmar laughed, and before she could actually register what was going on he had dived under her, grabbed her talons, and let his wings fall loose.

“AAAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!” Aquarii squealed. Wind snatched smoothly at her wings, and suddenly she and Kasmar were locked in a whipping spiral, twisting downward like a possessed butterfly.

To Aquarii’s surprise, it wasn’t half bad. The view was pretty awesome, spinning around and around like smeared paint. Pine trees and those too-spiky mountains spun around, blending smoothly with the clear blue sky and amber fields of honey creme.

This would make an awesome tri-frame scene, she admitted. A sponge or some cloth could duplicate this awesome smearing effect, and the sky was the perfect shade of blue, so flawless it wouldn’t seem real on canvas.

“Wow,” she whispered. 

She laughed and spread her wings, letting the cool winds slice over them. The change in posture changed the spiral, and their descent began to slow down. Kasmar laughed and disentangled his talons. They leveled out their flight and kept going, speeding towards Mount Naga and laughing in exhilaration.

They were circling Naga’s slopes far too soon, and Aquarii felt a tiny buzz of something – disappointment, maybe. No, that can’t be right. I need to drop off Kasmar so I can go back to my family and not have to be around all of this madness. He’s an EclipseWing. I’ve known him for maybe a day or two. 

Loud shouts of indignance were coming from the meeting room. Aquarii angled her wings to dive. 

The scene inside was, to put it kindly, bizarre. Adan, the FlameWing from the masquerade ball, was standing on the table, wings spread, screaming at the tribe leaders. The leaders looked flabbergasted. Sundancer was half up on the table herself and was shrieking unprintable words at the chiefs. A pear-green dragon was barely holding back beams of burning emerald light that hissed around her teeth in little green orbs.

And then, because that’s what you do in a situation like this, Aquarii leaped into the room and yelled, “WE KNOW WHERE SHADOWWALKER IS KEEPING ERIDANUS!”

A lovely uncomfortable silence spread in seconds.

Sundancer roared, “SEE?”

The leaders looked irritated. Here was a pickle to solve. None of them wanted to involve themselves in this war, as Shadowwalker had only declared war on Sundancer’s domain. None of them wished to get on Sundancer’s bad side either, which could mean the destruction of an alliance and valuable trade routes. Eabar bit his lip. “I will contribute soldiers, as you wish, but don’t expect any more than what you receive.”

He dipped his head to Sundancer and sat down with finality. If he hadn’t been a dignified chief, one might have thought that he was about to stick his talons in his ears. 

Beinthir stepped forward. “Bashwaram vill send that vich you vish you  need in moderation but the vest vill you vill have to get by yourself.”

Sundancer stuffed down the urge to correct him on pronouncing his w’s with v’s but she knew that wouldn’t help. “Thank you. I will have some of my pages bring parchment with more formal terms on them for you to sign.”

One by one, leaders, chiefs, kings, queens, and rulers stepped forward and offered soldiers, provisions, magic, and weapons.

In the corner, Aquarii looked very smug. The pear-colored dragon was doing a little tail-flicky dance.

The leaders flew out with their entourages after that, and Sundancer focused her eyes on Kasmar with a desperation Aquarii had never seen before on a dragon’s face.

“Where is my daughter?” she whispered hoarsely.

Kasmar stepped forward and Sundancer started as if she recognized him.

Oh. She probably thought he was Eridanus like I did. Poor Sundancer.

Kasmar looked slightly scared by Sundancer as if he thought she might bite him. “Shadowwalker is keeping Eridanus underneath Fearfire Peak, in the old catacombs.”

Sundancer stumbled. “That was his favorite place when we were dragonets,” she muttered. “I should have thought of that.” She nodded to the pear-green dragon, who trotted away, tail swishing. 

Then Sundancer turned back to Kasmar. Her eyes were brighter and clearer. A fog had been lifted from her consciousness, it seemed as she bit her lip and stared at Kasmar.

“Who are you?”

“Ah. Yes. So. Um,” Kasmar stumbled.