Gift or Curse?

Chapter Five

"So you hired an insane animus to get me back?" Cinder said incredulously. "Not that I don't appreciate the concern, but don't you think that was a little dangerous?"

"I didn't know he was insane," Kite said despairingly. "I didn't even know he was an animus. I wound up in his cave and, long story short, he offered to help. That's all I knew."

"If he's an animus, then he must have been a member of the SeaWing royal family," Cinder mused. She was arguing with Kite in order to take her mind off the dislocated wing Kite was about to fix. Her captors had not been gentle after burning her home. "I wonder what happened when he snapped."

"This from the dragon who knew that Queen Amaranth had firescales and fireless dragonets?" Kite said. She shifted Cinder's wing slightly. "I didn't recognize his name, but I read that Queen Seaweed had a cousin and a son who were both animus dragons. One of them- I'm assuming it was Sturgeon- used his animus magic too flagrantly. Everyone was afraid he would use it too much and go insane. Queen Seaweed was going to exile him if he wouldn't stop, but when she summoned him to give him the ultimatum, he killed her. Somehow, Seaweed's cousin or son– whichever one wasn't Sturgeon– drove him out and enchanted something to kill him if he ever came back." She grunted and shoved Cinder's wing back into place, then leaped backwards in case Cinder accidentally tried to hit her.

"YAAH!" Cinder yelled, barely avoiding setting fire to a dead bush.

"Did it work?" Kite asked from on top of a rock.

Cinder spread and furled her wings experimentally. "I think so," she said.

She turned to Kite. "What are we going to do about Sturgeon?"

Kite lowered her head in shame. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't think there's much we could do. He's an animus, he could kill us without a second thought, he's fully grown, and we're a pair of nonmagical dragonets who are now seen as traitors to the tribe. We have no allies."

Cinder made her 'thinking hard' face. "We could find Eagle's heir and give them their magic. Then whoever it is could cast the same spell as that other SeaWing animus, and then Sturgeon wouldn't be able to come back."

"Yes, except there's still that little problem that we still don't know who Eagle's heir is," Kite pointed out. "And, I say again, we've been deemed traitors. There is no one who will help us."

"Goose is dead," Cinder pointed out, and Kite winced. "The new librarian might not be part of this whole Talons of Anti-Magic thing. She may not end up kidnapping one of us in order to keep animus magic dead. Plus, they seemed kind of secretive when I was with them. They probably haven't spread the word far and wide about what we're doing. They may not have even told anyone about us being 'traitors'. The queen might not even know."

"And then again, she might," Kite responded. "For all we know, her royal guards are searching the kingdom for us. For all we know, the 'Talons of Anti-Magic' are working directly under her command."

"Yes, but the dragon who gave you that necklace said that she probably wouldn't ban animus magic, so I doubt that. I also doubt she's in on what they're doing, or he wouldn't have told you to return animus magic to the SkyWings while she was ruling the tribe. Plus, if Queen Amaranth was in league with them, then why not keep me in the palace?"

"Even so, there's bound to be more of them," Kite said, beginning to pace. "It can't be just those six dragons who have been committed to ending Eagle's plan. And they could be anyone. And they're definitely looking for this," she pointed at the amulet, hanging once again around her neck. "If they see it, we're good as dead."

Cinder sighed, then reached out and lifted the amulet in her claws. "This can easily be hidden. We stick it in a bag or something if we see another dragon."

Kite stared down at the amulet glinting in the fading sunlight. Suddenly, she wished she had never gone into that cave to eat the albatross, wished she had never found the dying dragon, wished she had never accepted this responsibility. It had brought death to the tribe already, and there were still no animus dragons.

"Let's just think about this in the morning," she said.

Kite kicked some leaves together into a nest and lay down, closing her eyes. She vaguely heard Cinder say something about keeping watch before the exhaustion of the day swept over her and she fell asleep.