Moon was a dragon who moved past her mistakes. She had felt regret and lived in her past for so long. How could she fall into a trancelike state and accidentally warn her father about the oncoming RainWing invasion? Because she was a seer. How could she learn every other dragon’s secrets? Because she was a mind reader. Was she doing it on purpose? No. None of that was her fault. So she was moving on from that. The RainWings had scattered after BattleWinner’s attack, years ago. She had only been two when she’d had the prophecy, but MorrowSeer had understood what it meant. His queen had gathered troops and preemptively ordered an assault on the RainWing village.
There had been almost no casualties, and the RainWings had mostly escaped, disorganised, terrified, and isolated. Moon felt awful for them. They were a village, a whole tribe, of fruit-eating pacifists. Of course, the NightWings needed the rainforest. They were dying slowly from breathing poison every second of every day under the constant threat of being buried in fire and rock. But that didn’t make it okay. Not any of it.
“Moon?” There he was. Her father. How had she not heard his thoughts behind her? Maybe she had, and she was just too lost in her own to notice. Not the dragon who lead the attack. But one of the many who had been forced to fight in it. How could she love a killer? More importantly, how could a killer act like such a good dragon, a good father, when Moon could almost smell the blood on his talons? And how could a killer be a dragon who had fought every step of the way to avoid becoming a killer in the end? “Are you still coming?” She nodded, walking faster down the dark wood floor of the corridor. Finally, as the wood corridor started to widen, she entered the room that was burned into her mind. She’d only been there three times before, but she saw it when she fell asleep and when she woke up.
The small table with the warm orange lantern. The deep rich brown wood of the walls. The sad mess of black chains and padlocks. Nervously, she stepped up to the cell, wrapping her talons around the cold bars. A dragon with anxious green eyes just like Moon’s, and a dark birthmark on her chest that reminded her of the padlock the door was held by. SecretKeeper. That must have been why she was named that, Moon thought sadly. She was always destined to keep a secret. An impossible secret. And she was always destined to be locked behind bars for it.
“Hello, mother. How have you been?” Moon tried to ignore the fear and helplessness that always bubbled up in her chest, like a padlock around her own heart, a broken patch of darkness just like her mother’s whenever she saw the old prisoner. MorrowSeer had always said that SecretKeeper was mad. To that, Moon would ask him why he’d married her.
She turned to her father, who was standing wearily behind her, eyeing SecretKeeper with sadness and worry. “Would you mind if I talked to her alone for a while?” He nodded wordlessly, stepping back into the corridor and shutting the window behind him with a satisfying click. Quiet, worried thoughts about what SecretKeeper would say, or worse: think, to her swam across his mind.
“Moon. How are you, my darling? You’re so much taller than I thought you would be. Just like your father, you know?” And I know you’ll betray me, just like he did. The undertone of bitterness in her voice was unmistakable, but the cold anger of her thoughts was so much worse. Moon sighed sadly. She knew SecretKeeper blamed her for everything, but it was always so painful to hear that knowledge affirmed in person. That was why MorrowSeer tried to minimise her interaction with her mother. Still, Moon always pestered him to let her go back. She felt like if SecretKeeper would just say that it was okay, that it wasn’t all Moon’s fault, that she had been wrong, it would all suddenly be true.