For the next week, Lolo and her team worked extra hard with Tamkhee to study and finetune Fortus’s battle plans and contingency plans, and think of every possible thing that could go wrong so they would be able to react quickly. The painful truth was, even with Tamkhee’s report and tactical data on troop deployments and such, they didn’t have nearly enough information to feel confident about anything. The biggest two points of concern were whether or not the Black Dragon’s toy soldiers could be killed and figuring out a way to destroy an ancient primordial spirit.

“Remind me again exactly what the Great Owl said,” Fortus asked Lolo for probably the fifth time in the last two hours. He was pacing frantically, working and reworking her comments to try and hammer out some practical information.

Lolo sighed and stood up to put on her best crazy Great Owl voice. “Blue Dragon, you’re certain that the dissident you’re fighting this cycle is your brother?”

Mimicking Jadu, Lolo said, “The dissident is demonstrating corporealization capabilities.”

Great Owl: “Hm. Sounds right. How daring of him! He must know that you will be looking to destroy him. He is the ring-leader of the rebellion after all.”

“Then you said,” Lolo pretended to be Fortus, “and how do we do that exactly?”

Great Owl: “Not sure, but I know it can be done. The five of you will likely need to work together. Kill his host to force him into the open, and then you should have a brief window in which to kill him right afterwards. But that’s risky. One if not all of you would be just as likely to be killed, especially if your hosts are injured or killed too.”

Fortus: “Will we need to use our ultimates?”

Irritated Great Owl voice: “Ultimates are for dealing with the flesh and blood. They won’t be of any use against another primordial spirit. Well, that's mostly true.”

Fortus: “Then what will be effective?”

Unhelpful Great Owl voice: “I don’t know. Collectively, you have to be more powerful than he is.”

Fortus: “And if we aren’t?”

Unconcerned Great Owl voice: “Then you die and the world ends.”

“Then Standig asked: and what about his fake soldiers? How do we fight them?”

Great Owl: “You have more experience fighting the Black Dragon than I do. You tell me!”

When Lolo had finished, Fortus groaned in frustration. “Why can’t we remember our visions?! I just know they held the answers.”

“Like I already said, Fortus, we need to try another group meditation.”

“We already tried that several times. It didn’t work.”

“Then we need to try again. Maybe we missed something!”

“Lolo, the battle is in three days! We can’t just sit around doing the exact same thing over and over hoping for different results.”

“You think stewing over the Great Owl’s comments is more helpful? You’ve been at it for days, Fortus!”

“I know! But I don’t know what else to do,” Fortus slumped onto the ground to writhe and flail, working out some of his anxiety.

When he’d finished his tantrum, Lolo decided to present her less than sane idea. “Fortus, this is a long shot, but hear me out.”

“Long shot or not, we need some fresh ideas. What’ve you got?”

“Concerning the group meditations, what if it’s not that we are missing something but rather that we are missing someone?”

“If you say we need to go on a frantic man-hunt for the Great Owl again, you’ve got another thing coming,” Fortus grouched.

“Not the Great Owl.... Tamkhee.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, think about it! He is the son of the Black Dragon’s host, his flesh and blood. Maybe there is something locked away in his memory that holds the key to this puzzle, or maybe adding him to the circle will jog our own memories.”

“Do you honestly think this stands a chance of working?”

“No idea. I just thought that maybe we were at the point where entertaining the insane was better than doing nothing.”

Fortus exhaled loudly. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it might be worth a shot.”

“Absolutely NOT!” Ulana rejected the idea instantly. “Merge my head with… with… with HIM?! I’m not crazy!”

“Ulana-” Fortus started to coax.

“Don’t!” she cut him off. “You cannot change my mind on this one. There is absolutely nothing in his head that I want to see and absolutely nothing in mine that I want to share.”

“That’s not how group meditations work, and you know it,” Fortus snapped.

“Still,” Ulana crossed her arms stubbornly, “the answer is no.”

Fortus opened his mouth to argue some more, but Lolo caught his arm and gently pulled him back. “Then we will have to make do without you, Ulana. I know it’s a sacrifice, but I really wish that you would reconsider. This would stand a much better chance of success if you were a part of it.”

With that, Lolo led the four boys to the meditation circle and sat down. “Tamkhee you’re by me, and Jadu, where you are also a dragon, you ought to sit on his other side.”

Standig took a seat on Lolo’s right, and Fortus bridged the gap between Standig and Jadu.

“So what do I do?” Tamkhee asked.

“Have you ever meditated before?” Lolo answered his question with a question.

Tamkhee shook his head.

“Then I'll keep it simple. We’re going to hold hands and close our eyes. You are going to match your breathing with mine because I will be leading. Try to exist in the moment, allow your body to relax and simply feel. You may feel some interesting sensations. Just accept them and let it happen. Alright?”

“What’s supposed to happen here?”

“Any number of things,” Lolo shrugged. “You may hear and see things, you might not. Just let the experience do its own thing without trying to control it.”

Tamkhee nodded.

“Alright, is everyone ready?”

“Wait,” Ulana trudged into the circle. “Budge over, Fortus.”

Fortus cleared a space for her between him and Standig, and Ulana flopped onto the grass glowering at Tamkhee across the way.

“I still don’t like this,” she felt the need to make her final protest heard.

“I’m glad you could join us,” Lolo controlled her smirk.

Huo Lohse closed her eyes and took a moment to connect with her wolf spirit. Inhale. Exhale. Her breathing became steady and deep. Once everyone had synchronized, Lolo felt that familiar warm buzzing sensation creep from her chest outward to her fingertips. While the energy passed easily from her body to Standig’s on her right, Tamkhee seemed to be resisting it on her left. She felt the energy pass from Standig to Ulana to Fortus to Jadu and back to Tamkhee on the other side where it seemed to get stuck again.

Gently, Lolo squeezed Tamkhee’s hand which flinched slightly, but he seemed to get the message because painfully, agonizingly slowly, Lolo felt the energy begin to climb up his arms, meeting in the middle at his chest where a young dragon spirit was resting. Lolo felt Tamkhee’s dragon spirit stir. It seemed both fascinated and a little frightened by what was happening.

For a few minutes, the young dragon spirit seemed to bounce around, aggressively playing in the spiritual energy, not really understanding its purpose or what to do with it. Tamkhee, unaware of his animal spirit's activity, took an especially deep breath to soothe his nerves, and the dragon in his chest seemed to take a deep breath and calm down too.

Lolo was standing in front of the great Dragon King. They were both battered and bloodied after a great battle.

“I have failed. He’s gone for now,” the Dragon King was saying, “but he will be back.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“No, Silver Wolf. His body is dead, but he will find another. This is why I gave you the power to seek him out, follow his trail until he is foolish enough to return.”

“And when he returns, what then? How do we end this? The Black Dragon has the power to create an endless army.”

“You must destroy him. Destroy his spirit.”

“How?”

“Through the strength of your pack, Silver Wolf.”

“You mean my team?”

“Partly. You must create your own army, a stronger army, built from trust and strengthened by the love of a true pack. You and your team must train them well, fight by their side, keep them safe, and lead them to victory against the Black Dragon’s army. And you must hunt the Black Dragon. You must be the one to kill him, Silver Wolf. Only you have the strength necessary to do what it takes to protect your pack. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” she repeated.

He nodded. “This will help your spirit survive your encounter with the Black Dragon.” Placing a great claw against her forehead, the Dragon King passed her a new type of energy. It burned as it spread throughout her body. She didn’t know what it was or how it would help her, but it seemed to give her the authority to serve as the Black Dragon’s executioner.

She opened her eyes to see that the Dragon King had weakened. His body was tired and worn, and his wounds from the battle suddenly seemed more serious. “Your Majesty?” Lolo was deeply troubled by this turn of events.

“I’m alright, Silver Wolf. My body is worn, and this is a good death. I’ve passed on what I needed to, and now it is time for my spirit to rest. I will see you again when it is your turn.”

She realized for the first time just how ancient the Dragon King was. She bowed to him one last time as his body expired. Lolo lifted her head to send him off with her song and a river of silver light.

The merge ended, and Lolo looked around the circle.

“Lolo, are you alright?” Standig asked.

“How do you mean?”

“You’re crying.”

Lolo touched her face and found tears there. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying. I didn’t even realize.”

“Did anyone get anything useful out of this?” Ulana asked. “I spent the meditation fighting a great primordial battle. I got some new ideas for aerial maneuvers, but that’s about it.”

Jadu and Fortus nodded. They’d had a similar experience.

“I actually fought the Black Dragon during that battle,” Standig said. “He was tough. But eventually I killed him. However, his spirit got away. The Dragon King was supposed to be there to finish his spirit off, but he was injured in the battle.”

“Well that’s something at least,” Fortus said. “How was he supposed to finish him off?”

Standig shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Tamkhee seemed deep in thought. “I saw something that was just weird that maybe seems related? Maybe it will mean something to you guys.”

“Let’s hear it,” Fortus said.

Tamkhee scrunched his face up trying to remember what he saw exactly. “I was in a giant blue tree that had been set on fire. I was watching someone above me fighting a huge black dragon, and I was trying to climb the tree to help them. The fighter took the battle to the skies, and the black dragon kept knocking the fighter around. At some point, the fighter grabbed the dragon by its wings, taking it down with them. They seemed to fall forever, but when they landed, the dragon was dead and the fighter… I couldn’t tell if the fighter was alive or not.”

Lolo stood up abruptly and left the circle. Her heart was suddenly hammering in her ears, and she was trembling. Tamkhee’s vision couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Lolo?”

Someone was coming after her, and in her panic, she wasn’t sure who it was. She needed time to think without distractions or interruptions.

“Lolo!”

Her brisk walk turned into a jog.

“Lolo! Where are you going?!” Standig’s voice.

She was sprinting. Where to? Away! It didn’t matter where.

“Huo Lohse! Stop! Why are you running?” Standig was sprinting after her. With his stupidly long legs, he was bound to catch her sooner than later.

She tore through the tunnel, jumped the cliff, landing with a roll that propelled her back onto her feet to sprint into the nearest patch of forest where she might have a chance at evading the great bear chasing after her. She lost him among the trees and found a place to hide as Standig tromped through the woods calling for her.

“Not again, Lolo,” Standig thought. “You’ve got to stop doing this. You’ve got to stop running away.” First, she came out of the merge in tears, then Tamkhee talked some nonsense, and then she left without a word. “Lolo! I know you can hear me!” He shouted. “Can we talk about this, please?”

As soon as Standig had moved sufficiently passed her, Lolo picked a different direction to continue running. She didn’t stop until she reached the apple orchard, out of breath and still shaking.

Lolo closed her eyes, remembering the strangely vivid dream she’d had after her injury during the Wolf Tribe exchange. She was fighting with a black dragon in a blue tree that the dragon had lit on fire. She realized she could fly, but the dragon flew better. She knew she couldn’t win, so she grabbed the dragon’s wings to bring him down with her.

The Dragon King may have given the Silver Wolf some kind of power to survive against the Black Dragon, but that power didn’t extend to Huo Lohse, her host. This was a suicide mission. “Only you have the strength necessary to do whatever it takes.”

She closed her eyes again. “Did you know?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was something that you had to discover for yourself.”

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Lolo felt the tears spill down her cheeks.

“Nothing is certain.”

“But what is certain is that we have to face the Dragon General, the Black Dragon. We have to be the ones to kill them, and we will likely be destroyed with them.”

“Yes. You’re frightened?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I made my decision a long time ago.”

“And now I get to make my decision?”

“You and I both know what you will decide, Huo Lohse, princess of the Wolf Tribe, queen of the Bear Tribe, friend of many, protector of all. It is your nature. This is who you are. This is why I chose you.”

“You chose me because you knew I would be willing to die to protect my pack?”

“Yes. I chose you because I knew that you’d be willing to die with me. And I knew that there would be many willing to die for you.”

“No,” Lolo shook her head, “no one is dying for me.”

“We must destroy him through the strength of the pack,” the Silver Wolf reminded her.

“Yes, because we draw our strength from our pack, from protecting our pack.”

“Our pack will be fighting the battle; we will be hunting the Black Dragon. We will not be alone.”

“And the faster we destroy the Black Dragon, the safer our pack will be.”

“That’s right. And if we succeed, the Black Dragon can never harm our pack ever again, not in this generation nor in any generation to come.”