Breath of evil

Biography

Pre-Series

Hundreds of years ago, the BeetleWings and LeafWings had flown across the ocean to Pantala to escape from trouble in Pyrrhia (although it is unknown what kind of trouble was happening in Pyrrhia, it is speculated that the Scavengers had a play in it) and when they arrived, they were having issues with insects, birds, and animals that attacked them in eerie unison, even ones that don't usually work together. They also noted that this plant, the Breath of Evil, grew in abundance all over the continent. By chance, they found out that as they cleared the plant out, the attacks waned. They continued exterminating it until only a small patch of it grew in the Eye of the Poison Jungle.

Many years later, before the Tree Wars, the last of the plant was found and nursed back to health by a LeafWing named Hawthorn in an attempt to mind control Queen Wasp into backing down from the war and stop deforesting Pantala. At the peace summit, Hawthorn slipped it into Wasp's food. They tried ordering her to back down but to no avail. The LeafWings realized their mistake many years later, they didn't ingest any themselves, so there was no link between their minds. After the summit, Wasp used the plant to inject into the eggs of HiveWing dragonets to be able to create a literal hive-mind. Hawthorn was punished by Queen Sequoia to remain isolated until he found a cure to the mind control, causing him to go somewhat insane from lack of socialization. However, Hawthorn modified the plant to only be effective on HiveWings, which is why Wasp's control was limited to her tribe.

The Hive Queen

It has a fairly minor role in The Hive Queen, showing up near the end when Blue and Swordtail are trying to burn down Wasp's greenhouse of the plant, after Cricket spies on Wasp while injecting HiveWing eggs with it.

The Poison Jungle

Sundew, Willow, Nettle, Mandrake, Cricket, and Bumblebee, are sent on a dangerous mission by Queen Sequoia to see if Hawthorn has found a cure to the mind-control yet. After traversing through the most lethal part of the jungle, they are attacked by Hawthorn's vipers, supposed to deter outsiders from finding the plant. Just as the vipers start to close in, he calls them off and invites the gang in for tea. After some conversation, they discover he has in fact found a cure to mind control, dubbing it the "heart of salvation". It turned out to be only the immature root of the Breath of Evil, and The Othermind (who was controlling Hawthorn because he ingested the plant during his experiments), had more the 'heart of salvation' in the chest that they were about to burn to free the HiveWings from Wasp's control. What's more, now many others, not just HiveWings were breathing the smoke of the plant. The entire continent was now in danger, as the Breath of Evil was out of its quarantine in the Eye, and would start spreading across Pantala. The Othermind also revealed it had broken Hawthorn's cage of only working on Hivewings, and can now infect anything on Pantala. This led \Sundew, Willow, and the others, plus the LeafWings and some SilkWings, to flee to Pyrrhia with Clearsight's map, with more Silkwings on the way.

Appearance

It has been described to have a dark red stem with bright green veins. The leaves are the opposite, bright green with dark red veins. Each one is the size of a dragon talon and has tough, jagged edges. Cricket has stated that the Breath of Evil would look perfectly creepy if it didn’t have clusters of tiny white flowers in between the leaves. Each flower contains a large dark red seed, almost black. Its roots, dubbed 'Heart of Salvation' by Hawthorn, appear to be pale brown with white skin that, according to Sundew, seemed "ghostly against the dark earth".

Trivia

• In The Hive Queen, it is said to smell horrible, as if it was rotting. It is also noted to smell slightly peppery.
• According to Sundew, the Breath of Evil is like a weed and will spread faster than normal plants.
• The Breath Of Evil can grow on any terrain and soil.
• The Breath of Evil has similar leafspeak to the rest of the Poison Jungle and can communicate with it, but it has to talk through a host to communicate verbally to dragons.
• Its effect appears to be very potent, as the protagonists considered putting it in the HiveWings' water supply, and its fumes can infect a dragon easily as shown in book 13 with Blue.

Gallery

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  Breath of Evil by Mirage Tree
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  Othermind by Mirage Tree