He could hear his parents’ voices echoing off the cliffs as he swooped down to the landing outside their home. They were arguing again, and as usual, he could see their neighbors peeking avidly out of their own windows, ears pricked. Everyone in the tribe was interested in every detail of the disintegration of the Night Kingdom’s most famous couple.

At least a few of them had the decency to duck back inside when they saw him coming. He shot a cold look at the two across the ravine. One didn’t even notice him; the other was only pretending not to as she fussed unnecessarily with her doorway vines. Stupid — everyone knew he could read minds. Maybe she thought a three-year-old’s skills wouldn’t be that advanced yet.

She doesn’t believe the rumors about me. He chuckled softly, but the smile dropped off his face as he touched down into the wave of fury and bitterness that was rolling out of his home.

“I’m not going to help her fight my own tribe, Foeslayer! I would never do that!”

“They’re not your tribe anymore — we are! And you could work for her some other way!” Foeslayer shouted back. “You don’t have to join the army, but you can’t keep saying no to the queen! She’s offering you a position at the castle! You love stupid castles and hanging out with royalty and all of that! You could stick your nose in the air all day long and fit in just fine!”

“She’s not doing me an honor,” Arctic growled. “You know what she wants. She wants my power. The gift I should have given the IceWings — she wants it for your tribe.”

“This is your tribe now, too,” Foeslayer insisted again. “No one is trying to use you. We’re just trying to give you something to do so you’ll stop slithering around the house complaining and moping and getting on my nerves all the time.”

Darkstalker stepped through the archway into their small, cramped living room and dropped the three hawks he’d caught by the door. His parents were in one of the back rooms — maybe his mother had been listening the last time he’d asked her to make their discord more private, although they were so loud it didn’t really help.

But his sister was huddled on the floor by the fireplace, wings over her head.

Don’t they know she’s here? he thought with a flash of anger. How dare they fight like this in front of her?

His father always behaved as though Whiteout was his only dragonet, his precious snowflake of a daughter, but he was completely careless of her feelings. He brought her special fish and paraded her around the tribe, and then they got home and he acted like she was a necklace he could hang in the corner until he needed her again.

“Hey,” Darkstalker said softly, crouching beside his sister. He spread one of his wings over her. “How long have they been doing this?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Well, if you’re SO MISERABLE HERE,” Foeslayer yelled, “why don’t you go BACK TO THE STUPID ICE KINGDOM ALREADY?”

“Oh, there it is,” Darkstalker said. Their mother’s favorite line, and the one that usually signaled they’d run out of breath for the moment. “That means it’ll be over soon.”

Whiteout nodded, but kept her talons over her ears.

Darkstalker had heard the whispers (and the thoughts — all the millions of thoughts) about his sister, so he knew he wasn’t the only one who thought she was the most beautiful dragon in Pyrrhia. Her scales along her body were black with hints of dark sapphire blue, but her wings were an icy bluish-white, as were the spikes all along her back and her sharp, curving claws. Instead of silver starlike scales under her wings, she had a scattering of black scales that gleamed like jet against the snowy white. Her head was narrow and elegant like an IceWing’s, and she had their father’s startling blue eyes.

It was easy to tell with just one look at her that she was an IceWing-NightWing hybrid. The other things that were different about her were harder to see, unless you were a mind reader.

Darkstalker had been in Whiteout’s mind often, but he still couldn’t figure it out. It was different from other brains, as if she thought in colors and waves instead of in words. He could sometimes guess what she was feeling, but he almost never knew what she was thinking. He’d assume it was so quiet in there that she must not be paying attention, and then she’d make an observation that he never would have thought of. She was the only dragon he knew who could surprise him.

Would that be different if she’d been moonborn? he wondered. If I had helped her out of her egg sooner, would she be more like other dragons?

He shook off the guilt. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t want her to be like other dragons. She was perfect the way she was.

Whiteout leaned into his shoulder and he twined his tail around hers.

“Maybe I should go home,” Arctic spat, his words crawling like frost centipedes across the walls and into their ears. “I’ve been offered amnesty. My mother says she’ll end the war and take me back — on one condition.”

There was a clattering sound, like a metal tablet being tossed onto the table.

“How did you get a message from Queen Diamond?” Foeslayer asked sharply. “This could be considered treason, Arctic.”

“Just read it,” he said.

A long pause followed. Darkstalker closed his eyes, tracking the thoughts of both his parents.

“What is it?” Whiteout whispered to him.

“Nothing,” he whispered back.

“It’s something,” she said. “You got colder and harder all along here.” She pointed to the line from his jaw to his heart.

“I’ll tell you later,” he said. When I come up with a lie that you’ll believe.

“Arctic,” Foeslayer said in a tight, shaking voice. “If I thought for one minute that you’d consider this —”

“You should stop making threats,” he said, “when you know you can’t do anything to me. But don’t worry. I’m not planning to accept. I just want you to know exactly what’s on the table, so you can think about that the next time you tell me to leave.”

It’s time to stop this, Darkstalker thought. He tightened his wing around his sister for a moment, then stood up and went to the hall that led back into the other rooms.

“We’re here,” he called. “Both of us.”

Guilt from his mother, anger from his father — well, that was normal. At least they fell silent. He picked up the hawks and began tearing them into pieces to split among the four places at the table.

Foeslayer appeared first, taking deep breaths. How much did they hear? flashed through her mind.

“Everything,” Darkstalker answered her. “Especially Whiteout. She was here when I got here.” He didn’t hide his anger.

Even … she thought.

“No,” he said, glancing at his sister. “Only I know that.”

Foeslayer came to the table and moved a piece of hawk from her plate onto Darkstalker’s, then another piece onto Arctic’s. Darkstalker wordlessly moved the gift from Arctic’s plate to Whiteout’s.

I’m sorry, she thought at him.

“Say it to her,” he said.

Foeslayer went over to Whiteout and hugged her, just as Arctic came stamping out of the back rooms.

“Oh, hawks again,” he said bitterly. He didn’t look Darkstalker in the eye. He never did.

“I thought they reminded you of the Ice Kingdom,” Darkstalker said. In fact, he knew they did, because he’d seen that in his father’s mind every time he brought hawks home to eat. That’s why he looked for them particularly — because he knew they brought his father a little bit of happiness and a little bit of despair at the same time.

Stay out of my mind, moon-eyes, his father thought, glaring at him.

“Wish I could,” Darkstalker answered briskly. “Whiteout, time to eat.”

As the family moved to the table, he swept past his father into the back hall, acting as though he was going to wash his talons. But he had another mission in mind. He needed to see the message for himself.

There it was, tucked under a corner of the blankets on his mother’s side of their sleeping room. A hammered piece of silvery metal with words carved into it.

He’d read their minds correctly. Here it was, clear as starlight.

Dearest Arctic,

We want you to come home.

You must have realized your mistake by now. You must be growing to hate that insidious NightWing, the source of all your misery. You know she was only sent here to tempt you away. But now you have seen through her, haven’t you? You’re starting to realize that your mother was right all along.

So I’m giving you one chance to take it all back.

Come home.

We’ll call a truce with the NightWings. The war can be over. You can return to my palace, rejoin your tribe, and all will be forgiven.

And we have only one condition. One small, easy request that can save so many lives — and give you back your destiny.

It is this: Kill your dragonets.

Kill them, bring us proof, and you can come home.

A small price to pay for your life back, isn’t it?

I love you, Arctic. Despite your poor choices and terrible mistakes.

I hope to see you soon, back in the tribe where you belong.

Queen Diamond

Darkstalker slid the tablet back into its hiding place, thinking.

He knew from his father’s mind that Arctic wasn’t seriously considering this possibility — yet. True, Arctic was miserable in the Night Kingdom, where he had no friends and no status and the climate was all wrong for him, but he could also remember all the things he hated about the Ice Kingdom: the rules, the expectations, the way his life was completely planned out without any regard for his feelings.

Moreover, Queen Diamond had clawed too many of Arctic’s nerve endings with her comments about how she was right and he was so foolish. Arctic was too proud to go back with his head hanging, and most important, there was still a kernel of him that didn’t want to leave Foeslayer or Whiteout.

Darkstalker never worried about how his father hated him. It was mutual and instantaneous upon his hatching, so it didn’t particularly affect his life. Besides, he knew his father couldn’t do anything to him, considering Darkstalker’s powers.

But visions were flashing in his head where Whiteout was in danger. Unclear, muddled paths; he couldn’t trace them exactly, but he knew that something led from this tablet to a scene of pain and violence and his own helpless fury.

I need a better future-seer to help me figure it out.

I need Clearsight.

Darkstalker smiled, trailing his claws along the wall as he went to wash in the stream at the back of their cave. He hadn’t met her yet, but he knew it would be soon, and once he did his whole life would change for the better. It was almost impossible to wait this long, knowing his soulmate was so close by. But he’d managed it, for her. He saw that their relationship would eventually be stronger if he did. He was a master of patience.

When it came to his father, though, his patience was starting to wear thin.

Nobody threatens Whiteout, Darkstalker thought. Not the IceWing queen, not my father. I won’t let anyone hurt her.

No matter what I have to do to stop them.