Wings of Fire: Blood Ties

Chapter eighteen: Fate

Rose was worried. Of course she was worried. This was all becoming too horrifyingly real. She seemed confident and put together when she was reassuring Caiman, but heading to the assembly with Rebutia, she now felt the gravity of the situation dawning on her.

What if we interpreted the prophecy wrong? What if we're not supposed to be here? What if Mosquito kills everyone, and it's all our fault!

Rose wrung her talons nervously.

Rebutia seemed to notice, and asked, "Are you alright? You seem a bit shaken."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just nervous, is all." Rose lied.

They made their way into the main hall, where a large gathering of dragons stood. Rose skimmed the dragons, looking for the MudWings. She saw no sign of Humus, or at least no dragon that looked close to Caiman's description of him. He must be disguised as another MudWing, or another tribe entirely.

Fury shot through Rose. By the moons, animus magic is the worst. If I could leech it from this world, I would. She stood there, clenching her talons into her palms and gritting her teeth. She wanted to hunt down Mosquito and rip her face off. Emotions whirled inside her. Fear, impatience, and fury, each contributed to the other. Waiting made her nervous, nervousness made her angry, anger made her impatient, which made her afraid and angry all over again.

As Sunny stood in front of the crowd of students, Rose could barely think. She felt cold and tingly all down her scales. She felt lightheaded, and her head started to ache, and suddenly she felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. The wretched hilarity of their situation.

She dug her long, sharp talons even deeper into her palms, drawing blood. She began to see blurry spots in her vision, but sat like nothing was wrong.

Rose looked around at all the dragons again. She almost wanted to grab them all by the face and scream at them "Which one of you is evil?" But that wasn't how it worked, she supposed. I would kill to have a mind reader right now.

She felt a familiar itching under her scales. Every second of every day, she always felt like she had something to do, even if she couldn't remember what it was. A constant feeling, like your muscles are aching to move. Constantly making plans for the next hour, next day, next week, next year, next decade. She was always planning.

For once in her life, this feeling that she had the world upon her shoulders was accurate. A slaughter at Jade Mountain Academy could potentially send Pyrrhia into another war. Tensions had already risen after the Darkstalker debacle, but this would be the last straw.

Rose scanned the crowd, and finally locked eyes with Fatespeaker, who gave her a small smile, then looked back up at Sunny making an entrance speech. Sunny spoke about peace and friendship between the tribes, and a strong bond that was to be forged at this school.

Sunny didn't know how fragile that bond was, that it could be so easily broken. One slaughter, and the world would devolve into chaos.

Rose had never fought in the war, but she knew what it meant. She had read the stories, heard the tales. She knew it meant tragedy, for every tribe.

She made her way around the edge of the crowd, whispering to Rebutia not to follow her, and finally made her way next to Fatespeaker. Sunny had managed to project her tiny voice loud enough through some kind of cone shaped metal thingamabob that it was easy for Rose to whisper and not be heard by the rest of the crowd.

"Fatespeaker?" Rose asked.

Fatespeaker turned and sushed her, turning back to look at the stage.

Rose rolled her eyes. She poked Fatespeaker's shoulder, and motioned for her to meet Rose in the hallway.

They walked away from the loud speech, into the silence of a nearby hall, mostly decorated with green and blue glass globes which scattered shards of colour across Rose and Fatespeaker's scales.

"What is it?" Fatespeaker asked, not unkindly.

"Sorry, I know this is an odd request, but I was wondering if you could show me the full winglet list?" Rose said.

"Is it urgent?" Fatespeaker asked, "Seems an odd time for something like this."

Rose sighed and decided to tell a partial truth. "I know we don't know each other well, Fatespeaker, but you know the dragonets of destiny. You know about fate and visions. Trust me when I tell you that it's vitally important. To the school, and all of Pyrrhia."

Fatespeaker's purple eyes scanned Rose for a second, as though she was attempting to read a scroll that was written in the Scavenger language. "Alright." She said finally, "Follow me."

She followed Fatespeaker through the tunnels and into an office with the words "Guidance Counsellor" written atop the doorway. She approached a desk, and opened a drawer in it, withdrawing a stack of papers. She grabbed one of them and handed it to Rose.

The office copy of the winglets contained each and every winglet, with an illustration of the student next to it. The illustrations came from the citizen files of each kingdom, presumably used to confirm the identity of the students.

Rose brushed her talons over the pen marks illustrating a MudWing named Crawfish, who was really Caiman. She had drawn the image herself, a crude approximation of his features, with an eyepatch covering the enchanted eye that would reveal him as a wanted fugitive. His papers were faked, with the help of Capuchin. Rose reminded herself to thank her father once all of this was over.

She looked at the other MudWings listed:

Mudskipper: Iron Winglet

Gnat: Gold Winglet

Strider: Jade Winglet

Sepia: Silver Winglet

Gallinule: Copper Winglet

Merlin: Quartz Winglet

She scanned the sketches. They were colourless, but got the general face shapes and features of the dragons down, as well as values of dark and light. Gnat was a strong-jawed female mudwing with dark scales and piercing eyes. Strider was a male mudwing with a handsome face, who looked like he's almost always on the verge of winking coyly. Sepia looked large and brash, though not extremely intimidating. Gallinule looked like a creature of perpetual boredom, and Merlin looked like a scrawny bird, as much as a MudWing could.

She made a mental note that there was still no sign of a MudWing with blue eyes named Humus. That meant that Tide was likely hidden somewhere in the school, and he could be any tribe. Rose frowned. Having Tide around the school in an unknown disguise was disconcerting, they would have to be careful to share nothing with other staff or students. But first, Rose had to figure out who Mosquito was hiding as.

Gnat has those same dark scales, strong jaw, and piercing eyes as Mosquito. Even the name is similar... but would she be that obvious? Caiman always mentioned her vanity...

Rose looked back up at Fatespeaker. "Do you have another copy of this? One that I can keep?"

Fatespeaker smiled, "Lucky for you, I do."

***

Rose made her way through the hallways, trying to make it back to Caiman's cave. As she approached, a loud gong sounded, echoing throughout the caverns and tunnels that made up the school.

Rose swore. For someone as studious as Rose, being late on the first day of school sounded like a nightmare.

Visions of her awkward late arrival flashed through her mind. I'll walk in, the sound of my talonsteps interrupting the teacher talking and the class. They'll all look back and watch me, judging me. Blank eyes, staring. "The dumb lazy RainWing, the unsocialized SkyWing, the weird hybrid". I'm going to sit down and my chair will squeak so loud, it's going to be mortifying. No one will want to talk to me after that, or worse: Mosquito or Tide will be there in disguise, see that I'm late, and suspect I'm up to something!

Rose felt herself on the edge of tears as she arrived in Caiman's dorm. She shoved the paper into his hand, and wrapping her tail around his, they both rushed to class. As they walked through the hallways, they passed a wooden statue, and Rose quickly knocked on it twice as they passed. Don't jinx it, Rose. She thought furiously, Don't let your imagination become a prophecy. Don't tempt fate.