Darkness of Dragons

***Darkness of Dragons*** is the tenth book in the *Wings of Fire* series. The main protagonist of *Darkness of Dragons* is Qibli. This book was released on July 25, 2017, with 31 chapters and 385 pages. *Darkness of Dragons* is the last book in the second arc. Tui also said that a Wings of Fire fan could have their character in this book if they won an auction she held. The auction ended on May 2nd, 2016. A wiki user named TyphoonSeaWing won the auction, and the character they made that is in the book is named Typhoon, a SeaWing-IceWing hybrid.

*Darkness of Dragons* follows *Talons of Power*, and precedes *The Lost Continent*.

## [1]Summary

*Time is running out.*

Qibli knows Darkstalker must be stopped. And he knows he could stop him — if he had magic. With even a sliver of the ancient dragon's all-powerful scroll, Qibli could rewrite history the right way: end war forever, make every dragon happy, perhaps even cast a very small spell so that everyone would like him . . .

Instead, as Darkstalker's dangerous influence spreads across Pyrrhia, entrancing or killing every dragon in the seven tribes, Qibli can only grasp the small animus objects he's borrowed from Turtle. With some clever thinking, Qibli's talons finally hold the power to make a difference.

But prophecies are not easy to rewrite. Can Qibli be the magical force Pyrrhia needs, or will he be the one to bring Jade Mountain — and his family, his friends, his whole world — crashing down?

## Quote on Back of Hardcover

"Um," said Qibli, "wait. how exactly do we know Darkstalker is humble and unambitious now?"

"because it's obvious," Winter said, rolling his eyes. "it's not like he immediately demanded to be made king of the NightWings or anything."

with impeccable comic timing, the slate in Qibli's pouch gave a little jump. he waited until no one was looking, then pulled it out and hid it under his desk. the message from turtle appeared, agonizingly slowly.

*Darkstalker wants to be NightWing king. NightWing's deciding what they want.*

Qibli nearly laughed, but he didn't want to draw attention to the slate.

Oh, and also, it was too terrifying to be funny.

## Dedication

*For Elliot and Jonah, my heroes and my heart, who make me happy every single day*

*With thanks to Robert Doar and Aayush Srivatsa for Typhoon and to Amy Doar for supporting Lifting Hands International.*

## Plot

### Prologue

The prologue is from Palm's perspective. She is shown running away from Queen Oasis' soldiers, who are trying to take her back to the SandWing Palace and execute her for trying to hatch more heirs to the SandWing throne. She flees, running for hours, and tries to find her sister's home whom she hasn't visited in a year. On the verge of passing out, she finds her sister, Prickle, in her hut. Prickle reluctantly lets Palm in and they start arguing about Smolder. Palm begs her sister to allow her to stay even for a day. In return, Prickle takes Palm's earrings -her last connection to Smolder- as payment. Palm explains how she tried to elope with Smolder but was caught before the two could meet up. Prickle and Palm have a hunch it might've been the SandWing princesses.

After a while, the guards then burst in, arresting Prickle by mistake, since the sisters are almost completely identical and she was wearing Palm's earrings. Agave, who was one of the guards, recognizes the real Palm but doesn't mention it, as the two had been good friends when they were dragonets (because Palm had noticed how shy and scared Agave was), allowing Palm to escape. Palm lies and pretends to be Prickle for the sake of her dragonet, and they take Prickle away. Prickle swears that she will set the moons on fire and drop them on Palm's head, which, ironically, was how she died; from Skyfire falling on her head. Palm then decides to run away and travel to the mountains. As she runs away, she catches sight of three scavengers heading to the SandWing palace, but soon forgets about it as she plans to raise her child to show that the throne doesn't matter and to be ordinary, in the way Smolder couldn't.

### Part One: Storm of Sands

The book then flashes to when Moonwatcher, Prince Turtle, Darkstalker, and the other dragons following him are flying away from Jade Mountain Academy. Qibli notices that the dragons fall behind Darkstalker, despite him not knowing where the village was because he acts like their leader so they follow him. He notices different observations about Anemone and worries about Turtle. He wonders if he should go with them. Qibli flashes back to his time before the Scorpion Den and his life with his horrible mother, Cobra, and siblings named Rattlesnake and Sirocco. Qibli has a flashback of when he was a little dragonet and tries to steal a coconut for his mother. His mother yells at him for not worrying about his own survival and for caring too much about other dragons, drawing the attention of her client, Thorn, who becomes interested in Qibli. Thorn then takes him in after his mother sold him to her. She soon won his loyalty when she complimented him, as she was the first one to ever acknowledge that he did something right. He later has a conversation with Winter, stating mentally that it seems like 'his brain is wrapped in walrus blubber.'

Winter tells Qibli to stop moping in the next chapter, and Qibli protests, saying, Winter, is the one who is moping. Winter denies it haughtily. Qibli then modifies the term to "brooding", and Winter claims that it would be a better description, but he's not doing that either. He tells Qibli that it is time to go to History Class, but Qibli says they were in the middle of history right now and Winter scoffs, saying the excitement was in the rainforest now and they were just the footnotes, much to Qibli's disappointment. He gives up the argument and they go to the History Cave.

When they get there, Tamarin is tapping cave walls and sniffing the air and Qibli asks her what happened. She asks Qibli if he smells smoke and he denies it. Tamarin decides it's just that she hasn't been able to get the scent of smoke cleared from her nose since the explosion. Tamarin says she just worries about Kinkajou now and Qibli agrees. He thinks back to the talisman and wishes his friends had let him have it so Tamarin could see, Darkstalker would still be trapped, and Kinkajou would be healed. Also, that Moon would still be around him. Just then, Pike bursts in, asking where Anemone is and Winter responds that she went to the rainforest. Pike starts freaking out about Anemone alone and unprotected and that he must go after her so he doesn't get in trouble with Queen Coral. Winter says that Turtle was with her and Pike isn't in the least reassured. Qibli points out that Turtle would be great at protecting her, deciding to not reveal Turtle's invisibility spell. Tamarin adds that Anemone is an animus so she can protect herself. Pike decides to go after Anemone anyways but Webs orders him to stay and Pike protests to no avail.

Webs says that since the Jade Winglet and Gold Winglet had shortages in population, the Silver Winglet will be joining them. Qibli is excited as his friend, Ostrich would be joining him, however, Ostrich isn't among her winglet, much to his disappointment. Thrush asks if they can learn about Darkstalker, and Changbai agrees, saying he didn't seem like the legends. Boto is worried if Darkstalker is likely to murder them. Webs is irked, saying Darkstalker's legend happened 3000 years after where they currently were in their lesson, but Tamarin interjects, saying they desperately needed to know about him now. Winter snaps that they can see what Darkstalker's like without a history scroll, adding that he trusts his own instincts than a scroll. Sepia and Winter then start pointlessly arguing about who was more villainous, Icicle or Sora. Qibli interjects, saying Icicle did try to kill Glory and Starflight which doesn't help Winter at all. Webs finally gave in, telling what he knew about Darkstalker. Qibli receives a message on Turtle's slate saying that Darkstalker wants to be king. Sunny, then enters the classroom and asks to have a moment with Qibli, only for him to learn that Ostrich is missing from the school.

Qibli and Sunny search Anemone's room and find animus enchanted bands that can control the weather, which Sunny takes. After searching the mountain with Sunny, Qibli realizes that Onyx is also missing and is upset that Ostrich is in danger because of him. Turtle sends him a message that says Darkstalker is the new NightWing king. Qibli then gets frustrated at Turtle for not adding more details. Then, Qibli tries to put his earring on Winter but Winter refused, saying it would clash horribly with his scales. Then, Qibli thinks of trying to multiply his earrings (that remove any of Darkstalker's spells from whoever wears it) with Turtle's bowl, meant for multiplying food. He gets the bowl and gets frustrated when he can't remember the command words. Peril comes along and along and joins in with insulting the bowl then gives Qibli the idea of asking the bowl politely. Then, Qibli starts to multiply the earrings. With the new earrings, he doubles them to Sunny, Tsunami, and the other Dragonets of Destiny. (Peril was unable to wear one due to her firescales) Sunny tells Qibli that by using the dreamvisitor, she saw Ostrich with a dragon covered with tattoos, who Qibli confirms to be his grandfather in the Scorpion Den. Qibli decides to go there, brings Anemone's weather bands, and prepares to face the terror of his grandfather to rescue Ostrich, and Winter insists on coming along.

They get to the Scorpion Den and meet Qibli's siblings, Sirocco and Rattlesnake, who bring him to his grandfather, Vulture. He greets Qibli and assumes he must be there to join him. He tells Qibli about the Talons of Power, a group lead by him made to combat the Talons of Peace. Winter and Qibli realize that might be what the prophecy meant by "beware the talons of power". He also shows them a MudWing witness who confirms that the MudWings are behind all the attacks on the Kingdom of Sand and that Thorn hasn't been doing anything. Then it is revealed that Cobra is being held captive. Qibli also discovers Ostrich, who was betrayed by Onyx and captured here. Qibli has the choice of freeing Ostrich and giving Thorn's secrets away or find other means of escape. He pretends to choose to join them and starts writing gibberish instead of secrets, and Cobra plays along by scolding him for misspelling "Capybara". Eventually, they have a chance to escape. Cobra knocks out the guards and Winter, Ostrich, Cobra, and Qibli escape (with Cobra's help since she knows the layout of the hideout). They confront the MudWing, and he turns out to be Peril's father, who was pretending to be a MudWing called Bog and is working for treasure as always. They also find the hideout treasury and steal the Obsidian Mirror.

Then they flee to Thorn's castle. Qibli finds Thorn and talks to her for a bit and then arrests his mother. Qibli says that she was meant to escape and then when inside Cobra would assassinate Thorn, so Cobra is then arrested. Thorn and Qibli discuss the trouble in the Ice Kingdom, and there is a plague that was caused by Darkstalker, so Qibli asks them to bring earrings to the IceWings. A SeaWing/IceWing hybrid named Typhoon volunteers. Just as they are discussing the IceWings, Winter comes inside curious about what's going on. As soon as he hears about the plague, he tries to take off to ask Darkstalker for help, but Qibli and the SandWing guards pin him down. Winter breathes ice on his arm, and Thorn manages to put his earring on Winter, but he and Qibli pass out. Qibli wakes up but soon after he does, they are confronted by Vulture. He says he has the Eye of Onyx and that means he should be in control of the throne, but Thorn laughs it off before revealing the real Eye of Onyx. She says that the real eye is an animus enchanted object which only those worthy can hold, and all others would die (implying Onyx or Vulture isn't worthy). Qibli notices not seeing Onyx there while the grandfather is threatening Thorn, which is strange. He warns Thorn just in time as Onyx tries to sneak attack her. It is revealed that Onyx is the daughter of Prince Smolder and Palm, which means she is of royal blood and can take the throne.

Thorn suggests battling for the crown and Onyx agrees. Qibli worries about Thorn's lack of royal blood and calls a sandstorm to interrupt the battle, but it becomes too big and everyone has to take cover so they don't die. Thorn reveals the eye does not discriminate against or the lack of royal blood, so Qibli did not need to worry. After the sandstorm finally clears up, the Talons of Power are gone. Qibli, Thorn, Six-claws, and Winter go down in the dungeons to see Onyx badly injured with Smolder by her side. Next to them is a "mad prisoner" who won't keep quiet. Onyx recognizes the dragon as Aunt Prickle. She had been trapped there and Oasis forgot about her, and Burn didn't care for her prisoners. As they are discussing, from the outside, Ostrich opens the window to the dungeon and gets rid of the darkness. The three dragons go back up, and just as soon as they do, Turtle sends a message to Qibli saying, "Darkstalker knows about me. Trapped in the NightWing Palace. Help!"

### [2]Part Two: King of Shadows

Qibli starts panicking because Turtle didn't give any useful information like where the old Night Kingdom even is. Winter and Qibli then argue about rescuing Turtle. Qibli and Winter next use the Obsidian Mirror to see their friends. In the one of Moon, Moon is arguing with Kinkajou about her behaviour. Moon says that they should go back to Jade Mountain, and Kinkajou agrees. Winter remarks that Kinkajou is making more sense then Moon. They then move on to Turtle, who is coiled in a corner of what Qibli assumes is a cell. He hopes that this isn't their fault. They then move on to Darkstalker, who is praising one of his NightWing subjects for doing a good job with clearing the weeds from one of the derelict garden. Darkstalker says that he could give the dragon some master gardener magic, and the other dragon politely declines, saying he would prefer seeing the future. Darkstalker agrees, saying that he can see the future. He says that lots of gardeners would be great and that the other dragon could think it over. The other dragon hastily apologizes and accepts Darkstalker's offer. Thorn is surprised that it is that easy for Darkstalker to use his magic to give wondrous powers, and Qibli agrees. After listening to Darkstalker greet some more of his subjects, Qibli says there is only one thing they can do, and that is to go back to Jade Mountain. He says that Moon and Kinkajou should be there in a few days. He shakes his head, saying he wants to get Turtle now. He also thinks about how Moon and Kinkajou are in danger every second. Winter says to try Tsunami to see if she gave the earrings. Qibli says with a sigh that she is probably back at the academy, but he whispered the name to the mirror. This shows Tsunami yelling at a captor that she evidently cannot see. The chapter ends when Qibli, Thorn, and Winter realize Tsunami is not at Jade Mountain and is evidently a hostage.

The two set off to the Kingdom of Night, finding Anemone on the way, trapped in Darkstalker's spell to "shut up". Qibli frees her by giving the earring, and the three head off to find Darkstalker. At the Night Kingdom, Winter worries about not being able to return, but the spell is blocked because of the earring. The IceWings called that area "Darkstalker's Teeth". In the Night Kingdom, Darkstalker is testing out powers with the NightWings, all of them in an arena, fighting with each other. They realize that Darkstalker is planning revenge against the IceWings. They find Kinkajou but realize Bog is there too. They come up with a plan to take away his forms and Qibli approaches him when he turns into Shapeshifter. Qibli calmly tells Bog a lie that he ran into Peril in Possibility and she asked Qibli to buy a matching earring for him if they ever ran into him. Bog angrily accepts the earring, but he is reverted back into his normal RainWing form. He gets furious, but Kinkajou knocks a brick down from the tower, hitting Chameleon, and passing out. As they enter the library, Qibli finds Moon, and everyone reunites. Qibli offers Moon an earring to protect her. Darkstalker comes up to them and asks about the earring, suspiciously. He also introduces them to what seems to be Clearsight in the present time.

"Clearsight" is very monotone, and she doesn't seem to be interested in being a seer again. Darkstalker says that they are getting married and that she is tired, so they go away. Moon is very confused about this, as they go to their apartment where Winter, Anemone, and Kinkajou are at. Qibli gives her the earring, and Anemone gives Moon skyfire, but she says that she doesn't feel any different and that she genuinely likes Darkstalker. Winter gets angry about that, and yells at Moon, breaking one of the vases. Qibli tries to intervene, which causes more trouble. Moon and Kinkajou throw the broken pieces away, Qibli explains to Moon that Darkstalker created the plague that targeted the IceWings and locked Turtle away. They then both agree that Anemone and Kinkajou go off to rescue Turtle, while Moon and Qibli go to confront Darkstalker.

They find Darkstalker testing his spells out on the dragon who appeared to be Clearsight, turning out to be Fierceteeth. Moon walks up to Darkstalker, saying that enchanting and doing this is wrong. She also tells him that he created the IceWing plague.

### [3]PPart Three: The Light of Dragons

The IceWings decide to attack the NightWings because of Darkstalker's cruel IceWing plague that killed 20 dragons, including their queen. The IceWings fly to Jade Mountain Academy to demand the whereabouts of Darkstalker and are confirmed to be the "ice" in the Jade Mountain Prophecy. The NightWings arrive shortly and a battle springs out between the two tribes. Qibli summons a storm using Anemone's weather bands to prevent the IceWings and NightWings from fighting.

The storm quickly goes out of control and Qibli realizes that the "thunder" that would bring down Jade Mountain in the prophecy was him. He gets Anemone to drive off the storm and tells the dragonets of destiny to evacuate the school along with the rest of the students.

Qibli then retreats back to Moon, Turtle, Kinkajou, and Anemone just as Moonwatcher receives a new vision about a strawberry picking NightWing. Anemone sends away the storm a few moments later. Moon suggests trying to talk to Darkstalker through his mind and Qibli agrees, despite the fact she may be overwhelmed with the ongoing battle around them.

After thinking over Moon's ability to connect with other dragons with her mindreading, Qibli devises a spell that connects the minds of all the IceWings and NightWings to realize the thoughts of the other side, and make both sides show compassion for each other, and then teleports them back to their own kingdoms. Anemone is the one to cast the spell using Qibli's library card and also takes off the love spell she cast on Kinkajou. The spell works and the two tribes are sent home.

Darkstalker swoops in and carries Qibli off to his original prison, which is under Agate Mountain. There, he asks Qibli if he wants animus magic under one term, he cannot harm Darkstalker. He then proceeds to show him all the wonderful things he could do to bad dragons if he were to have powers, using Vulture to show him. Darkstalker wants Qibli to be his best friend who will help guide him through tough times. The last thought he has before his choice is, "Say yes." Then, he looks at Darkstalker in the eyes, and tells him, "No". Darkstalker doesn't like this answer for in the futures where Qibli is not his best friend he continues to find clever ways to stop him and eventually ends up killing him.

Just as Darkstalker is about to rip off Qibli's earring and enchant him to be his best friend, he hears the sound of the soul reader spinning in Qibli's bag. When it finally stopped rotating, it was pointed at Darkstalker and showed him just how bad he really was, with the bottom half filled with white sand and only a few grains of black sand at the top. Darkstalker doesn't believe this because his soul is protected and enchants the soul reader over again. It again shows him that same results and Qibli explains to him that he lost his soul not because the magic ate it away, but because of his terrible actions.

Darkstalker suddenly gets a vision and is dumbfounded. He demands to know if Moon, who was hidden behind a camouflaged Kinkajou the whole time, can see it, too. It is revealed that the vision is about Foeslayer, who is waiting for Darkstalker on the peaks of Jade Mountain. They embrace and Darkstalker admits that the soul reader sees him as an evil dragon. Foeslayer proceeds to tell him that he should not try to get revenge on the current IceWing tribe and wishes that she could start over.

Moon then shares the vision she had of the strawberry picking NightWing dragonet. That dragonet is Darkstalker but with a new life that has no animus magic or NightWing powers. Darkstalker is reluctant about this future as he eats the strawberry Foeslayer offered him. He says that he is immune to all animus spells but Kinkajou says that there is one dragon's magic that will still work on him. Darkstalker says that she's wrong. Kinkajou says she's right and he asks whose. Kinkajou says his own magic will still work on him. The strawberry was enchanted to remove Darkstalker's memories and to turn him instead into a NightWing-RainWing hybrid with no powers. Kinkajou is revealed to be the mastermind behind the enchantment, using the scraps of Darkstalker's enchanted talisman, the ones Chameleon used to transform into his different dragon forms.

Foeslayer decided to rename him Peacemaker and herself, Hope (Using Qibli's suggestion) and went to live with what remained of the NightWings in the rainforest.

### Epilogue

Peacemaker is growing up in the forest with Hope, Moon, and others. He is making mud pies and loves strawberries more than ever. Moon is thinking about making a decision of who she should love. She has been thinking hard for a long time and has finally made her decision. Winter (who is still hated by his family) decides to study scavengers in the wild. Peril asks Clay to go flying in the rain with her, and he agrees. Turtle reads a message from Coral and Auklet. Kinkajou comes up to Turtle and they start to joke around about Anemone's love spell which she put on Kinkajou. Kinkajou then tells Turtle that Anemone has a crush on Tamarin.

Moon visits Qibli and starts talking to him. She admits her feelings for him and Qibli says that she should be saying this to Winter right now. Moon seems confused and says that Winter will be fine without her. Moon then tells Qibli that she can't live without him and asks if they can be together, and Qibli says yes. Moon also says that she has been having a vision and takes Qibli to see if it is true. In a room, they find a dragon named Jerboa, and Qibli is very surprised. Jerboa is actually the daughter of the original Jerboa. She says that she wants to show them somebody; the first visitor from the Lost Continent, who happened to be Luna.

## Trivia

* The epilogue of this book is narrated by each of the "second Dragonets of Destiny", which are Moonwatcher the NightWing, Winter the IceWing, Peril the SkyWing, Turtle the SeaWing, and Qibli the SandWing, in the order these dragonets were featured in their own book (the second arc).
	+ This is the second mainstream book to have an epilogue where there are several different points of view and the only one with six total.
* The background in the cover is depicting the ruins of the Lost City of Night.
* It is the second book in the second arc of five books that don't include the protagonist's name in the title, instead, it follows *Talons of Power'*s naming pattern as the title is a line from the Jade Mountain Prophecy.
* It is also the first mainstream book to feature a full-blood SandWing, as Sunny is only half SandWing. However, counting Sunny and Six-Claws with *Deserter,* it is the third book to have a SandWing PoV.
* This is the first and likely only book to feature a WoF fan's character in a book.
* This is the third Wings of Fire book to feature the POV sitting or standing on a rock or other object rather than flying or swimming, the other books being *The Dark Secret*and *Winter Turning*.
* This is the third book where a dragon on the cover of the book has an accessory, the others being *Talons of Power* and *Escaping Peril,* with Turtle wearing his armband, Anemone is wearing a small silver earring (*Talons of Power*), and Scarlet is wearing a necklace and bracelet (*Escaping Peril*). Qibli is wearing his earring.
* In a few places (such as Target), the book was titled as *Storm of Sands*, which Tui confirmed in the *Winter Turning* live stream that Qibli's name meant "storm of sands." Additionally, the first part of *Darkness of Dragons*is called "Storm of Sands."
* At 385 pages, this is the longest of the WoF books, including Legends. Including the prologue, the book is 399 pages.
* This book does not start out when *Talons of Power* ended. Instead, it takes place before part 2 in *ToP,*because Turtle was not present when *Darkness of Dragons* took place in Qibli's point of view.
* This is the second book in the second arc not to have another character on the back cover, the other being *Winter Turning*.
* Qibli does not appear to have a scar across his snout, on the cover art for Darkness Of Dragons, though he's described as having one in the series.
* This is the first formal appearance of Qibli's family, except his father.
* This is the only book in the second arc that the protagonist does not make an appearance in the prologue.
* Darkness of Dragons is the only book (Besides *Darkstalker (Legends)*) to not have distant silhouettes of dragons flying around on the background of its cover