that he is flying towards the entrance of St. Aggies Academy. Wensel, Soren and Gylfie are then cornered by three owls flying straight towards them, sent by Nyra, but two Great Grays fight off the group, which includes Tarn, a Burrowing Owl working for the Pure Ones. In the Middle Kingdom, an alert page discovers a chamber littered with plucked feathers of the Blue Owls and realises that some owls of the Panqua Palace are defecting from the Middle Kingdom, learning to fly by plucking their extremely long tail-feathers. She reports this to the H'ryth on the Mountain of Time, knowing that the Panqua Court would not pay her any heed. Meanwhile Coryn, back at the tree, dispatches Otulissa and Cleve to the location provided by Dumpy, and Tengshu to the Middle Kingdom to ask the H'ryth for sanctuary to the Ember of Hoole. Otulissa and Cleve find a great massacre undertaken by the Blue Owls working with Nyra and the Striga. Another band of Haggish owls working with the Striga arrive at the point, and with Otulissa no match for them, Cleve surprisingly reveals his Danyar learning and immediately kills the Hagsfiend-like owls. Coryn and nest-maid Olivia travel to the Northern Kingdom to recruit other animals. The H'ryth, however, does not allow the ember to be kept in the Middle Kingdoms as he believes it will deceive Theo's teachings. Coryn decides to use the ember as bait for the Pure Ones and lure them to they beyond, where in the final battle he will later drop the ember in the Sacred Ring of Volcanoes and fight the Striga and Nyra with Soren at his side. The Rise of a Legend A prequel telling Ezylryb's backstory. In the time of Ezylryb's hatching, the Northern Kingdoms were torn apart by war, which had already killed his older brother and taken one of his mother's eyes. While still young, Lyze becomes jealous of a young snowy owl named Moss, due to him making milestones before Lyze, but attends a party in Moss's hollow and is shocked to discover he is shy. The two become fast friends and later meet Thora, who would later become the rogue smith of Silverveil, but who was then a runaway who could not stand her stepmother and wants to become the first female smith in the Northern Kingdoms. When Lyze is taken to observe the Kielian snakes,