The Lost Heir

Book Description
The lost heir to the SeaWing throne is going home at last.

She can't believe it's finally happening. Tsunami and her fellow dragonets of destiny are journeying under the water to the great SeaWing Kingdom. Stolen as an egg from the Royal Hatchery, Tsunami is eager to meet her future subjects and reunite with her mother, Coral.

But Tsunami's triumphant return doesn't go quite the way she'd imagined. Queen Coral welcomes her with open wings, but a mysterious assassin has been killing off the queen's heirs for years, and Tsunami may be the next target. The dragonets came to the SeaWings for protection, but this ocean hides secrets, betrayal -- and perhaps even death.

Prologue
A younger version of Tsunami picks out The Missing Princess from a scroll rack. Starflight asks "again?" as Tsunami requests him to help her read the hard parts. After he begins reading, she tells him to skip to the end. They then read the final paragraphs together.

Part One: The Edge of the Ocean
When the dragonets of destiny spot an island, they immediately land, where Tsunami is happy to smell the sea and fish. Clay, as always, felt hungry and imagined a huge feast full of fish and other seafood. Meanwhile, Starflight, who was always very protective of them, suggested that they hide under the trees just in case the SkyWings were still looking for the Dragonets. Tsunami and the other dragonets quickly assure him that they wouldn't be found. After the dragonets argue for some time on how Tsunami and the others would get to the Kingdom of the Sea, they hear distant wing beats. Glory camouflages herself, Clay buries himself in the sand, Tsunami dives underwater, and Sunny and Starflight hide in the trees. As Tsunami watches from the surface of the water, the group of flying dragons comes nearer. She sees one of the SkyWings open his mouth and mistakenly assumes that he was calling for help. Tsunami suddenly leaps out of the water and bit on the SkyWing's tail, and Clay joins the fight.

After the skirmish, they drag the SkyWing back onshore and trap him with a tree trunk on top, then the Dragonets fly to a cliffside cave to spend the night in. However, Tsunami thought that the others hated her for attacking the SkyWing, while she believed that she was protecting the others. She flew down into the water, where after several moments of exploring the sea, she spotted her first SeaWing since escaping from Queen Scarlet's palace. She watches as he meets up with a green SeaWing and exchanges flashes of light from their glowing scales. Afterward, Tsunami swam up to the first SeaWing and smiled at him. When he flashed some of his scales at him, Tsunami assumed it was some sort of test and flashed back at him. When she began to swim up to the surface, he grabbed her tail, and she swatted him away and quickly swam up to the surface. Just then, Clay appeared and started attacking the SeaWing, and so did Sunny. Tsunami quickly explained to the dragon that Clay and Sunny were her friends.

Back on the shore, the stranger introduced himself as Riptide. Tsunami explained to him that she and her friends were the dragonets of destiny. Soon, Riptide takes them to the Summer Palace, with Clay and Sunny blindfolded because the SeaWings might assume they were war enemies. On their way to the Summer Palace, the group encounters an advance guard. The dragon in charge of the group, Commander Shark, the Commander of Palace Defense and brother to the queen, was suspicious and questioned Riptide if Tsunami was really the lost princess. Riptide told Tsunami to light up her wings and explained to her that because she and Shark were royal, they had the same patterns on their wings. Shark reluctantly took the fact and commanded his soldiers to kill the other four dragonets of destiny, but Tsunami stopped him. The commander told all of the dragons to continue to the Summer Palace while twirling one of his talons to his comrades. The group of dragons then continue to the Summer Palace through a hidden underwater passage.

Part Two: Into the Deep
As the group emerges from the water, Tsunami is fascinated by the beauty of the pavilion. Riptide explains to her that there was a different purpose for each level and told her to wait at the top level. She agrees and flies up to the top with the other Dragonets to wait for her mother. Soon, Queen Coral herself arrives, and Tsunami is overjoyed to finally meet her mother. However, to her disappointment, she finds out that she has a sister, Anemone, who was also an heir to the SeaWing throne. Queen Coral says the exact same words as the queen in The Missing Princess, as she missed her daughter greatly.

When Sunny came forward and asked for the Dragonets to be protected by her, she notices Clay, who she thinks is with their war enemy the MudWings. When Tsunami explains that they are the dragonets of destiny, the queen reluctantly accepts the fact and commands several of her soldiers to take the other dragonets and put them in a cave. After they are taken away, Tsunami asks Coral is she could talk to her alone, but her mother told her that she didn't allow Anemone out of her sight. She then notices strange black stains on Coral's talons and asks her mother, who tells Tsunami that it was the "perils of her job."

The queen leads Tsunami, along with Anemone attached to her harness, down to a cave, where she calls for Whirlpool, the council member of Learning and Magic. Tsunami realizes that the stains, which were also on Whirlpool's talons, was ink. Afterward, Queen Coral showed her scrolls to Tsunami, including The Missing Princess. When her mother revealed to her that she was the one who wrote that, Tsunami was surprised. Coral let her daughter borrow several of her stories to read in her spare time. Just then, Tsunami's cousin, Moray, appeared and informed Coral that there was a dead SkyWing not far from the Summer Palace. When she added that the dead dragon was a SkyWing, Coral immediately jumped up and asked Moray to take her to the body, with Tsunami following closely behind.

When they arrived at the cliff where the scene was, while the other SeaWing soldiers and the queen were talking about the SkyWing, Tsunami spotted the body and realized that it was Kestrel, one of the guardians who raised the Dragonets. When they got back, Queen Coral told Tsunami and Anemone to wait in her chambers while she dealt with the situation. When she left, Anemone signaled for Tsunami meet her at the surface of the water. When Tsunami surfaced, Anemone embraced her sister, expressing how glad she was that Tsunami returned. After talking about each other's past lives for a while, Anemone felt a tug on her harness, bringing her and Tsunami to the surface, where their mother took them to a council meeting.

There, after Whirlpool gave his report, Shark announced that a war party had returned with "a worrying report." Two injured dragons came to the center of the platform, where they said that they were attacked by three groups of dragons, one of which seemed to be supporting Ruby, Queen Scarlet's daughter. When Tsunami mentioned that she and her friends were the ones who drove the Sky Kingdom into chaos, Coral demanded to know if she had seen Gill. When Tsunami admitted that he was dead (while leaving out the part about her being the killer), Queen Coral revealed that Gill was Tsunami's father, and dismissed her council to grieve.

After several moments where Tsunami thought of how she was the type of dragon who would kill her own father, Whirlpool tapped her on the shoulder, taking her down to the chambers for her first lesson. After they recited the first chapter of The Tragedy of Orca, Tsunami didn't think she would learn anything like that, so she swam off to find Riptide. When she arrived in a cave out in the storm, Riptide joined her and taught her several basic words and phrases in Aquatic, including "I will protect you". When Tsunami showed what Shark had done when Tsunami saved her friends from being killed, Riptide said that twirling a talon meant "Not right now, we'll finish later". Assuming that the commander meant to kill the other Dragonets later, Tsunami quickly left the cave to return to the Summer Palace and save her friends.

While swimming through the tunnel to the Summer Palace, a mysterious dragon attacked Tsunami and covered her face with seaweed. When she finally managed to fend them off, she emerged from the tunnel and told her mother that she had been attacked. Queen Coral realized that her last two eggs in The SeaWing Royal Hatchery could be in danger, so she quickly swam there with her daughters in tow. When they arrived, she found one of her eggs destroyed and the dragonet within killed. Tsunami snatched up the last remaining egg, vowing to protect it until it hatched.

Meanwhile, Coral exited the Hatchery and executed Tortoise, the hatchery guard, with her own talons in front of everyone. When she spotted Tsunami with the egg, Tsunami flashed back "I will protect" (the egg). When Coral mentioned the terrible floods that happened where Tsunami's friends were, she rushed there to find them half-submerged in the water, with one of Clay's feet chained to the floor of the cave. She ran to the cave where two guards held the key to the chains and convinced the guards, Snail and Herring, to give her the key. When she freed Clay, all of the dragonets moved to a higher cave. Tsunami explained everything that had happened during her time with Queen Coral, including being attacked by the mystery dragon, the smashed SeaWing princess egg, Tortoise's execution, and Tsunami protecting the last egg. Afterward, they all slept together in the cave for the night.

The next morning, Blister found the dragonets, and Coral hosted a banquet for Blister and the dragonets to meet. When the SandWing asked about their secret weapon, Coral led her down to a training arena, where Anemone revealed herself to be an animus after enchanting several objects.

When she "accidentally" made a spear fly away to have Whirlpool go retrieve it back, she turned to her sister and quickly explained that Tsunami had to save her from going insane, briefly mentioning their ancestor Albatross. Just then, they saw movement within the canopy that hid the Summer Palace from intruders. Blister flew up and snatched a dragon from the canopy, which turned out to be Webs. After briefly begging for mercy, Coral denied his pleads and threw him in the prison with Riptide, his son, before planning for their execution. Blister also pointed out that they were the perfect suspects for the killing of Coral's eggs, which was another reason they were imprisoned. Because of this, Tsunami became even more determined to protect the egg until it hatched, and stayed in the Royal Hatchery to watch for the assassin.

Part Three: Out of the Egg
While guarding the egg in the Royal Hatchery, Tsunami began to hear creaking noises within the Hatchery. Just as she realized that the statue in the center wasn't facing the same direction several moments ago, it came to life and began to attack Tsunami. She used her spear to fight it, although it did minimal damage. During the fight, Tsunami managed to pluck out its gemstone eyes and trap the dragon by its mouth with her spear, just in time for her to hold her newly hatched little sister. When the spear trapping the dragon snapped in half, Tsunami rushed to the entrance of the Hatchery, where the dragon, in hot pursuit, turned back to solid, immovable stone.

Back on a beach, while the dragonets were playing with Auklet, the newborn dragonet, Queen Coral, Anemone, and Blister arrived and took a look at Auklet. When Tsunami mentioned leaving and going back into the world to search for Blaze and compare her with her other two sisters, Blister and Burn, Coral and Blister both opposed her. Coral said that the Kingdom of the Sea was where she belonged, and Blister said that the outside world was much more dangerous than what the dragonets thought. She also told them that she was the one who should be queen, and so the dragonets should choose her and tell the world. When Tsunami and her friends disagreed, Coral and Blister had no choice but to throw all of them in the prisons.

In the dragonets' prison, the dragonets talked about how everyone they met wanted the war to go their way, just because they were the dragonets of destiny. Starflight also realized that the creatures in the water, which turned out to be electric eels, charged the water with an electric force, including the water running down the sides of their prison "cell". Just then, Anemone came into the caves, and Tsunami sees that she is unharnessed for the first time since meeting her. Anemone enchants for Tsunami a spear to find the unknown dragon who tried to kill Tsunami in the entrance tunnel. The spear soon brings in Whirlpool, who admits to attempting to murder Tsunami so he could marry Anemone instead of her. Anemone grabs the spear and knocks Whirlpool into the water, where the electric eels swarm and electrocute him to death.

When Starflight says he thinks the electric eels needed time to recharge, Tsunami called a vote to see if her friends wanted her to go through the water "bars" to free the rest of them. Clay and Starflight said no, and Sunny and Glory said yes. As a tiebreaker, Tsunami decided to take the risk and go through the water. Upon landing safely on the other side, she told her sister to go back to their mother and promised to end the war. After she freed her other friends from the prison, they went to look for Riptide and Webs, who were in a separate cell. Suddenly, Starflight began to smell smoke. Within seconds, Tsunami smelled it too, and she ran out to warn her mother and the other SeaWings.

Suddenly, a flaming log crashed through the canopy just as SkyWings and several MudWings flew in. The dragonets shooed the prison guards away and ran in. After freeing Riptide and Webs, Riptide confessed to being in the Talons of Peace, to learn more about his father, Webs. When Clay spotted a huge MudWing standing in the entranceway, Webs recognized her as Crocodile, who turned out to have infiltrated the Talons of Peace and told Webs to go back to the Summer Palace so the SkyWings and MudWings could lay siege on the SeaWings. Glory asked Crocodile if Queen Scarlet was still alive. When the MudWing said that nobody knew, Glory told her that she was about to find out and sprayed her venom at Crocodile. She plummeted down the ledge and into the lake at the bottom.

Epilogue
Morrowseer and Blister stand over the smoking ruins of the Summer Palace, lamenting the parts of their plan gone wrong. He and Nautilus reveal the existence of the false dragonets, and the three discuss who they should replace.