The beach was littered with corpses of dragons and sky-creatures alike.

Silver light from the moons shone upon them, casting an eerie glow on their lifeless forms.

Among the dead were MountainWings, OceanWings, TreeWings, ArcticWing, and VolcanoWings. A horrid, rancid smell permeated the petrichor in the night air.

For once, I had to admit that Coral was right about something.

Waves lapped on the shores, blood from still-bleeding wounds were pulled out to sea in long, thin red trails.

Coral hovered above the carnage, sweeping her head from side to side to study it. On her back, her sky-creature gripped her webbed spine tightly, even though it was secured to her with a contraption that wound around her neck.

The contraption resembled the harness I wore nearly two seasons ago to protect Wrack's egg, except that it was some sort of brown color and that when unrolled, multiple sky-creatures could be stabilized on it.

After Coral forced Eel to give up Silver as she rassled all the Communities together, I had one fitted for myself where the sky-creature would stay on me throughout the ordeal.

But the question was why?

Why was I fitted for one of these things and not Eel?

He had more experience with Silver than me. Plus, I was an heir, not a soldier.

I turned my head to see who was behind and beside me.

Eel was in the crowd, beating his green-yellow wings to hover. The sky-creature-stabilized contraption wasn't on him, yet a sky-creature was clutching a part of his webbed spine to stay alive.

Crystal was hovering beside me, and there was no sky-creature on her back.

On the other side of me was a MountainWing, and it wasn't any of the three I knew. It was a random dragon.

Behind me was a TreeWing. Yet again, another random dragon.

And behind that dragon was another dragon and another and another. A continuous wave of dragons after the other behind others.

I turned my head back forward to see Coral, who was now hovering over the water and flashing her tail stripes rapidly in such a random pattern it was hard to decipher what she was saying.

A moment of nothing, and then there was a rapid flashing of light from under Coral's position that seemed to outshine the light of the moons.

'Come', Coral flashed with her tail stripes, and then a dragon emerged from the waves.

It was Anemone, and an armored sky-creature was on her back. It looked like the same one that was with her when she found me and Peak on the beach that bloody night.

The pale blue dragon heaved her pink wings so that she lifted herself out of the water and hovered in front of Coral at a reasonable distance.

"Did they retreat?" the dark blue dragon asked.

Anemone shook her head. "They never really went away after the slaughter. I think they're hiding somewhere, preferably in the trees."

She then looked behind her sister and her dark eyes went huge. "You didn't actually- Please tell me-"

"We have no choice", Coral growled. "This is all that's left of Eukarya, and we're hanging on threads now."

"But they're-"

"I know that most of them are not fighters, but if they want to retain their freedom, they must fight for it, like – like our Undercurrents."

Coral choked on the last words as if a sentimental memory were continually haunting her before snapping back to her normal voice – which was deep like mine.

Anemone gave one last look at us, a sympathetic yet horrified expression permeated her snout, before looking back at Coral.

'All right', she flashed with her snout stripes. 'Send them out'.

________________________

I was assigned to a backup team, alongside Hillock, Blaze, Branch, and Bolt, who were four other dragons that were in the crowd.

Hillock was the brown dragon that hovered next to me as Coral and Anemone decided their next move. Branch was behind me.

Two out of the four had sky-creatures of their own – Blaze had a female sky-creature, while Bolt had a male sky-creature – and they also had the same sky-creature-stabilizing contraption on their backs.

We were stationed in the dark swamp, on one of its large trees with long, sprawling, moss-draped branches, close to where the VolcanoWings could be hiding, according to Anemone.

Other backup teams were stationed like so. Their purpose was to drag those in dire out of the battlefield and towards the Great Forest as urgent as possible.

Basically, the "backup teams" were actually rescue teams and never provided any real backup to the impromptu army.

As all of us watched the dark trees and the remnants of the world work on their last stand, I could only assume all our origins.

Blaze was a DesertWing that managed to escape the Flat Desert when the VolcanoWings invaded the Island of Talons one-and-a-half seasons ago. He was probably one of the lucky ones, like Sunny.

The same applied to Bolt, although I presumed that his "faith" in Caelum is what spared them from death.

Hillock was either one of those that managed to escape Alpine's City when a chemical spill burned it to the ground or a dragon that managed to flee the Ridges before the VolcanoWings took over.

Branch was probably like Alder, a Healer that fled from their Community before seeking asylum here in the swamp.

Everyone worked in the air, as it would take Turns to remove the corpses from the beach and we didn't have that many sunrises to do that.

The rotten scent of decaying corpses permeated everyone's snouts, and some of the flying dragons were audibly gagging at the stench. Others, like me, were taking in shallow breaths as compensation.

The sky-creatures were also gagging at the decay, but in a dragon-like way.

I turned my head around and saw that Silver had his long, metallic stick in one clawless talon, and that he had taken the upper part of the grey hide on his body, and covered his nose with it (while he still had it on).

The hides he wore were in a different shade of grey and black than when I first met him. The coverings on his feet stayed the same. I assumed that he changed hides every so often. But why? Why would sky-creatures change their hides every so often?

Were they like the snakes in the River of Beaks, who shed their skin every season to grow? Or the small crabs that scuttled along the ocean floor, gaining a new shell to call "home" when the old one didn't fit anymore?

Or did they all wear the same hides every sunrise, albeit they were just fading with the Turns?

He patted my neck with one of his clawless talons, assuring me that he was okay.

"Seastar", Hillock breathed softly. I turned my head and saw that she was on a branch behind me. She gestured with one of her wings to come towards her.

I gingerly moved across the branches and I could see that her grey eyes were in slits – just like Peak's when Moraine was nearly assassinated.

"Do your antennae sense something?" I asked her. She nodded. "Dragons. In in the swamp."

She whipped her head around to everything that moved, everything that breathed in the darkness.

Where are you, lizards? I thought.

Snap.

Me and Hillock both whipped our heads in the same direction in the darkness, away from the moonlit beach.

One heartbeat.

Another heartbeat.

Snap.

We both gave looks at each other.

"Go down there", Hillock said, "I'll join you after I tell the others."

I gave her a look.

"You do know that-"

"I know. Go find them."

She turned around without another word and slithered across the branches to tell her suspicions to the others.

A dragon called in the distant on the beach, and a swarm of wingbeats hurried suit as I climbed down the tree. The damp earth of the swamp hit by talons as I landed.

I turned my head around to see if Silver was okay, and he did look pleased at how I landed.

Snap.

I whipped my head back around to the dark trees.

Snap.

It was getting closer.

Snap.

And closer.

Snap.

Closer.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

Then there was nothing.

Where are you?

I began making my way into the dark trees when...

Snap.

Silver's stick let out a soft whirr as looked down. An old, thin branch on the ground was now split in half from my talons.

There were several times when rainfall occurred during my recovery in the Community of Coasts, and the stronger ones ripped loose branches from the forest's trees, sending them pummeling to the ground.

I sniffed the branch. My scent was on it, but there was another scent on it, overpowering the others. One that was familiar...

Ashes.

She was here.

But what would be doing all the way out here?

"Trrrgh?"

I shot my head up.

A voice had come from the shadowy forest. And it was a familiar one.

"Trrgh?"

"Sunny?" I whispered. "Sunny?"

No response.

Was my head playing tricks on me?

Snap.

"Trrgh?"

There it was again.

Snapping branches and soft purring.

There you are.

Snap.

Snap snap snap.

"Trrgh!"

A small hatchling suddenly leaped out of the dark swamp and into my front talons.

It was Sunny.

I lowered my head to look at her, and she put her front talons on my snout; her dark eyes were filled with elation.

She was still wearing that harness the last time I saw her. The only question was, who was she harnessed to?

I looked past the small hatchling and saw that the cord that connected her harness to the adult harness snaked into underbrush of the swamp.

"Stay", I ordered her as I lifted my head and followed the cord's path.

Like most hatchlings, she didn't heed and followed me.

Nearing a brush of reeds, there was a snap behind me.

I turned around to see that the rest of my backup team was behind me.

"Anything?" Hillock said.

"Besides the dumb hatchling?" Blaze snorted, to which he got kicked in the side by Bolt.

I gestured to a random branch with one my claws, hoping that it was the same one.

"There's a scent of a VolcanoWing on that branch", I explained.

Blaze lowered his head and sniffed it dubiously. "That's a VolcanoWing's scent?"

"Does it smell like burnt rock?"

"No, it smells like you."

"Let me see", Bolt said and lowered his neck. His sky-creature was looked around the swamp as if he knew death had come for him.

"Oh, right", the grey dragon mused. "There is the smell of burnt rock here. But it's so faint because of the other smells. I think you were sniffing the wrong branch, sand-brain."

Blaze flicked his dark blue tongue at Bolt indignantly.

Now that that was settled, I turned around and saw that Hillock and Sunny were done, as if the swamp had eaten then behind our backs.

"Hillock? Sunny?" I called.

No response.

"Hillock?"

There was no response until talons wrapped around my shoulders and yanked me backwards into the swamp.

I heard Silver fired his metallic stick multiple times, and whoever grabbed me roared in pain.

Using the opportunity, I whirled around and saw a VolcanoWing clutching a side of their face, blood streaming down from their eye from whatever Silver shot at them.

I lunged at the black dragon, taking their head in my talons and twisting it, ending their life in an instant. I let the corpse drop to the ground, and saw that it was not Ashes. It was just a random dragon.

Footsteps padded behind me, and I turned around and flared my wings to face my next attacker.

Bolt, Blaze, and Branch suddenly stopped in front of me, with the TreeWing holding his green talons up to show he was harmless.

"You okay?" Bolt asked.

I nodded, and gestured to the black corpse.

"A VolcanoWing tried to nab me. Luckily Silver shot at them first so I could attack."

"So Seastars like you can fight", Blaze mused to himself while studying the body.

At this point, I wanted to claw anyone who called me a "Seastar". I hated that poisonous word, even if it was part of an average dragon's lexicon.

"Looks like you killed him swiftly", Blaze observed. "As if you wanted to execute him."

He placed a heavy emphasis on the word "execute", as if it were an undignified way to go out, which it was.

"Well, what was she supposed to do?", Bolt growled at the DesertWing. "Politely ask the dragon to not kill her?"

Blaze whipped his head towards Bolt, and his sky-creature let out a shocked squeak. He flicked his dark blue-nearly-black forked tongue at him.

"Stop barging in like a dragoness."

The StormWing's blue eyes went wide.

Branch seemed to be oblivious to what was going on, as his ears perked up.

"Did anyone hear that?" he said.

"Hear what?" Blaze spat.

"It's talonsteps, and it's–"

And then something long andblack like shadows snatched him into the dark trees.

Originally published: 08/16/2023 (typed up final manuscript of chapter 18, book 1 to page); edited: (WIP)