Her tongue flicks in and out of her mouth, her obsidian eyes glazing over the Snarling River.

The "heart of salvation" has been planted.

This is good news. Wasp is sure. Her... ally, or whatever it is, has spread the fumes of the plant that allows her to control other dragons. It promises that now, she will be able to use SilkWings and LeafWings (...and GreyWings...) just the same as she commands her own subjects. She will finally be able to hurt the other tribes, to hold even more power in her talons than before.

She will finally be able to keep herself safe.

The queen of Pantala's army rises into the sky and begins flying across the river. Carnivorous plants claim the first few dragons, but she simply shies away from their minds as they scream in agony.

Then she senses something new — fire.

Oh, yes. I have the flamesilk now.

The queen slips into scared, sad little Blue. That is this puny excuse for a dragon's name, wasn't it? She watches through his sky-blue eyes as flamesilk spirals out of his wrists, and he takes it, waving it at any dragon who flies near him. This isn't him in control.

This is Wasp.

Feels good, doesn't it?

When will the other one be mi- ours? Wasp wonders, still ordering her HiveWings through the Jungle and keeping her enemies at bay with Blue's flamesilk with half of her mind. The other SilkWing, the one you said was... different.

Patience, Wasp. I've been waiting in the Jungle for thousands of yea-

There is a sudden, horrible, shuddering moment as the life of a dragon Wasp has never met flashes through her mind.

A thorn comes out of nowhere, but what matters is that it comes from everywhere, slicing easily across Hawthorn's throat, then pulling back and stabbing through his chest.

Blood tainted green gurgles out of the dying LeafWing throat as he clutches at the air, but it is too late. Hawthorn falls to the ground, dead.

The vines scream.

Wasp screams.

For a few moments, everyone is freed from the HiveWing queen's control. But she's learned to deal with pain like this — she quickly snaps back into attention and grabs the minds of her subjects the way she would grab sugar insects out of the royal kitchens when she was a dragonet.

Hawthorn, the other... host, or puppet, or ally, or whatever it was that the othermind calls them, was dead. This is a blow. This is the first real casualty. The othermind itself seems to be quite devastated. It had been growing quite fond of the LeafWing, not only his leafspeak, but perhaps his company as well.

Nothing it can't handle, though. Nothing that wouldn't be healed over with time. They are still at war.

Now, where was Wasp — ah, yes, the flamesilk, fighting off his own friends.

"Threaten us," she says through Blue's mouth, and the mouths of the HiveWings, and the mouths of Queen Sequoia and Swordtail and Nettle and everyone else caught in the fumes of the breath of evil, "And your 'barrier' goes up in flames."

Clearwing sat up.

She didn't scream. She didn't blink, or breath, or say a word. She just sat there, in silence, for a long while.

That was weird. She had always had visions, and read minds, but never this... going suddenly into the mind of another dragon. Into a dragon as they acted and thought and moved and breathed, even if they were half a world away (or however far away she was from Wasp right now). And she only ever saw things — she never saw out of another dragon's eyes, and felt what they felt.

A connection has been made.

Marb- Weave was still sleeping, but he stirred slightly, looking up at her with dull blue eyes.

Clearwing, his mind said, what are you doing up right now?

I saw Wasp. I saw her. Just now. And- and Hawthorn is dead. He wasn't before, and he went back to the SapWing village with a story about Willow and Sundew and the others catching up with more "heart of salvation", and they believed him, and he tricked them, and then Willow killed him, and-

Clearwing! Calm down, Weave said. You had a dream, that's all. Not all dreams are about the future, or about a dragon's thoughts. Sometimes I have normal dreams.

I don't, Clearwing replied firmly. I know what I felt in her mind.

"Go back to sleep," her brother whispered.

"Weave," Clearwing said. "The universe... time... something's wrong. Something I don't know if I can fix."

"Clearwing, sister, that's ridiculous." Weave rolled back over and almost immediately went to sleep. Clearwing lay back down, too.

But that wasn't the end. Clearwing couldn't sleep. She searched through the prisoner's minds — one of the GreyWings was up, and he paced around his cell furiously. Two of the LeafWings were talking to each other in whispers. The HiveWing sat with her head in her talons, crying silently. Cricket was sleeping, dreaming about books and sugar drops. But then Clearwing found the dragon she was looking for:

Coal.

The GreyWing queen loomed over Coal with a menacing look. "Why?" she asked simply.

He gulped. "Why... what?" he asked. But he had a feeling he knew.

"The SilkWing. WE are your kin, not that lowly scrap of a dragon. I am your QUEEN!"

Coal flinched so hard he nearly knocked himself over.

"She — she isn't a lowly scrap of a dragon," Coal choked out. "She is a dragon who I have known all my life, and has gotten me farther than I've ever thought I could go. Because that's her. I love her, and there is nothing you can do about it."

"There is something," Crystal mused. She slashed her blade-arm at Coal, who wasn't fast enough to move. A large gash, bleeding, appeared beneath his wing. He yelled in pain and tried to cover the gash, but blood was still dripping onto the floor below him.

"You will be dead by the end of the week. So if you really love that puny SilkWing, you may want to say goodbye to her."

Clearwing was thrown out of the vision and ran to the edge of the cage, reaching through the bars toward Coal, who was just a little bit too far out of reach. No, no, no, no! She thought, aware that Weave could hear her. Tears began welling up in her eyes.

Clearwing, calm down, Weave said, putting his hand on her shoulder. It's just a dream, nothing-

It was his past! She screamed at him. It wasn't just a dream! Crystal is going to kill him!

She might, Weave admitted. What's your point?

"Weave," Clearwing grabbed her brother's shoulders, speaking out loud. "For the love of Clearsight, that's the point! I can't let Coal die! I won't let Coal die! I love him, and I won't be able to stand it if he's gone."

She folded into herself, and for a moment, the world stopped.