Chapter 1: Prologue
The dark grey Airclaw glided far above the slightly older one, who was sitting on a cliff far above the freezing water below. Her fins sensed him beating his wings to keep warm; well, either that or he was nervous and scared. She smirked. Probably really scared, she thought. Her dark grey scales blended into the night like a snake in the undergrowth; that was why at her dragonet ceremony she had been classified as a spy and assassin.
She stealthily dived down a few hundred metres then flung out her wings and hovered. Now she could see him, an ant-sized peck of grey contrasting against the dark rock. Currently, he was blowing small plumes of flame at a thriving rose bush, setting the blooms aflame. The dragon scowled; that speck of a dragon never had any respect for the living, or even inanimate, objects. A small pond was about 10 metres to his right, with nocturnal animals cautiously pattering out to get a drink.
She gave a small sniff; killing dragons wasn't her thing. If she was being honest, it would never be her thing. She didn't want to kill her brother, she was only doing this to him because he was accused of passing on information of the war to a younger Airclaw. If she didn't kill him, she would die as well, and she was the favourite sibling, so her mother would probably try to stop them from killing her, and that could lead to mother's death and she didn't want that. Also, Eagle had ordered her to assassinate this disobedient and treacherous dragon, and nobody ever disobeyed the tribe leader. She thought that was foolish. It will corrupt their tiny brains and scare them, her mind announced.
With a sudden flashback to a night in the Council cave, she realised she had repeated the exact words the council had said at their monthly meeting. Younger Airclaws weren't allowed to know about the war between the two tribes residing in Zeduin.
It was a disturbing topic, so younger Airclaws weren't allowed to be in the presence of someone going into detail about the numerous battles usually resolving in death. It could scare the little dragons. The dragoness scoffed. A dragon, scared of a bit of blood and bone?
The dragon remembered what she was here for. Not for questioning orders. She was here to kill a criminal. The soon-to-be only child folded her huge wings, and landed behind Stratus.
"Hello, brother."
"Huh?" Stratus whirled around, leaping back and flared his wings in fright when he saw his sister. "What - what are you…?"
"What am I doing here? Good question Stratus. I'd like to ask you the same thing."
"I'm just - meeting someone in this area." Stratus glanced at the small sheltered cove that he had instructed Skylark to meet him in.
"I do hope it isn't that dragonet you were talking with yesterday. Skylark's her name, isn't it?"
"Well, even if I was, which I'm not, I would just be meeting her to talk about…"
"The war? I do hope not, Stratus."
"Oh definitely not…"
The dark-grey Airclaw slammed Stratus into the cold stone. "You better not be lying to me, Stratus. You know that telling younger Airclaws about the war is breaking the rules, which is treason, and do you know what the punishment is for treason?"
Stratus desperately searched the corners of his mind for an answer that could get his sister's sharpened claws off his shoulders. He found none. "The council sentences them to imprisonment for half a year and then let's them off with a warning?"
His sister chuckled. "OF course you choose now to develop an actual sense of humour. Well, you would know quite well that that punishment is only for the first-timers. I believe you can relate to that experience? As you well know Stratus, the punishment is death."
The older Airclaw realised what was about to happen and lashed out with his back legs, slicing his sister's underscales. She winced but held her painful grasp in Stratus's shoulders. Stratus desperately shook and tossed, trying to get his sister off of him.
Instead of retreating, the charcoal-grey Airclaw now placed her back legs on his flailing wings, successfully holding them down. "Listen, Stratus. I'm sorry about this."
The light-gray Airclaw let out a single roar as his sister, with tears dripping onto his face, forced open his snout and let out a burst of flaming heat, which travelled down his throat and into his lungs.
Stratus shivered and writhed in pain before lying still, lifeless. Stratus lingered on the edge of the cliff before his slender body slid off and lay distorted on the piercing spikes of granite below before the ice-cold waves engulfed him and retreated, leaving no trace of the dead dragon.
The Airclaw wiped her eyes and walked over to the small pond to wash her talons and get a drink. Tears grew, almost blinding her, but she could still see the gentle ripple in the water wash away tears from her claws, but it was failing to wash away the river of guilt running through her mind. She thought of the horrible waste of life that she had been forced to cause. She felt a lingering presence in the back of her mind, distracting her.
Then, with her giant wings creating gusts of wind that swept loose rocks across the stretch of stone, Cyclone flew swiftly back to the council cave.