Epilogue

SUNSET DEEPWOOD IS A traitor.

Shadowhunter’s tail lashed restlessly, sweeping pine needles from side to side as he paced through the trees, a little way from the clearing where the two panda kittens and the fox-bear were gathered around the one called Plum.

Sunset Deepwood is alive, but he’s turned bad.

This didn’t make any sense.

He didn’t doubt the word of the second triplet. The Dragon had clearly sent her to them, across the impassable river, to rejoin her sister and deliver this news. But there was so much about all of this, everything since the flood, that still didn’t make sense.

Where is the third triplet? And why has the prophecy taken so long to come true?

He wanted to roar his frustration aloud, to snarl up at the Dragon Mountain for answers, but he restrained himself. It would only frighten the pandas, and they were going to need to trust him.

He returned to the clearing, where Plum was weakly sitting up while Leaf helped her eat the purple leaf. Rain was sitting nearby.

“I’m glad to help,” she said. “But listen, my mother’s name is Peony. It’s not Orchid. She’s alive, on the other side of the river. None of this makes any sense. You see that, right? Why would having the same colored paw pads mean we’re sisters?”

“Have you ever met another panda with the same pad?” Leaf challenged her. “Because I haven’t!”

“Well . . . I mean . . . no,” Rain admitted. “I haven’t. But it still doesn’t mean I’m going to believe I’m a Dragon Speaker. . . .”

“You will be a Dragon Speaker,” Shadowhunter said. Rain looked up and saw him, and he saw the fear and determination in her eyes even as she pulled herself up and turned to face him, as if she believed she could fight a tiger if she had to. “Whether you believe it or not.”

Shadowhunter saw a sudden flash of recognition and fear in the eyes of Plum, now that she was coming out of her fever, and dipped his head in acknowledgment. At his paws, he heard a small growl. He looked down into the face of Dasher, and felt his whiskers curl a little in an involuntary smile. The fox-bear was so tiny, yet here he was, growling at a creature he knew could and would devour him if they had met under other circumstances.

It is good that they have such a brave and faithful friend, he thought, however small. They will all need to be brave, before this is over.

It was difficult to leave them alone on the mountainside, but he knew he had no choice.

“Speaker Leaf, I must depart,” he said.

Leaf looked up. “Where are you going? To find our other triplet?”

“Yes—among other things. If you are in danger, make for Fang Top. And may the Great Dragon watch over you all.”

He turned to go, and heard Dasher and Rain both let out soft sighs of relief.

“Shadowhunter,” Leaf called. He looked back. “May the Great Dragon watch over you, too.”

Shadowhunter nodded once, satisfaction in his heart as he bounded lightly over the rocks and between the twisted trees.

She’s learning.

There was a reason the Great Dragon had chosen the tigers, the fiercest creatures in all the Bamboo Kingdom, to act as its Watchers. A tiger watched over every Dragon Speaker, made sure they lived to adulthood, and guided them finally to the lair of the Dragon, where they would come into their full powers. The succession had always gone quickly and smoothly, for countless generations . . . until now.

The Great Dragon must have a great deal of faith in me, he thought wryly, to give me three Dragon Speakers to bring to its lair all at once, and to scatter them across the kingdom.

Or is it four . . . ?

What could have happened to Sunset Deepwood, to turn him into a liar who would attempt to drown his own successor?

It felt like much more than a year since the night before the flood, when he and Sunset had met by the river. Sunset had been unable to stop pacing the bank, worry streaming from him in waves that made the tiger’s muzzle curl. He had told Shadowhunter that he was about to die. Shadowhunter hadn’t wanted to believe it, but Sunset had been too preoccupied with what would come afterward to accept his sympathies or his grief. He had told the tiger all about the prophecy, about the triplets who would come after him. He had all but begged Shadowhunter to protect them.

“No matter what happens, my old friend,” he had said, “promise me you will guard them with your life.”

Sunset, it seemed, now had other plans. But Shadowhunter had made that promise, and he intended to keep it.

No Watcher has ever failed their Speaker, and I will not be the first.

He would get to the root of Sunset’s behavior, and he would deliver the triplets to the Dragon to face their destiny.

But first he needed to hunt. He turned his muzzle to the sky, the stars glinting above him, and scented the air. Then he sprang from his perch and bounded away, toward the heart of the Bamboo Kingdom.