Flame and Ochre stood sullenly behind the giant NightWing, glaring at Starflight. He hoped they had had to spend the night in the dungeon.
Fatespeaker came bounding over to join them, followed more slowly by Viper and Squid. All around the dormitory, NightWing dragonets were poking their heads out of their blankets, watching. Fierceteeth looked openly envious; smoke rose from her snout and her tail twitched angrily.
Morrowseer didn’t even look at the other NightWing dragonets. “Let’s go,” he ordered. His tail nearly knocked Starflight over as he turned and swept out of the room.
“Where are we going?” Fatespeaker asked cheerfully. She seemed to have recovered from the news that either she or Starflight were slated for death.
“To see if it’s worth spending any more time on you,” said Morrowseer. “Certain dragons think we should lock you all up until we sort out our RainWing problem, but I think you need as much training as possible starting as soon as possible. So. Today we’ll have another test.”
“A test?” Starflight echoed, flapping his wings. “On what? We haven’t had time to study! Shouldn’t we review the material first?”
Morrowseer looked over his shoulder at Starflight. “Sometimes it is very hard not to bite you,” he growled.
Well, that’s hardly fair, Starflight thought, but he decided not to say anything else. Usually he was pretty good at tests. Maybe this was finally his chance to earn a place in the prophecy. Especially if it’s about history. I read all the history scrolls several times each.
He noticed that Flame was still glaring at him with resentful orange eyes. Carefully, Starflight maneuvered so that Fatespeaker was walking between him and the hostile SkyWing dragonet.
The six of them trailed after Morrowseer all the way to a roof of the fortress that faced the small island forest. Morrowseer spread his wings and narrowed his eyes at the sky, which was dark gray and flickered with faraway lightning. In the distance, the clouds seemed to be pouring down into the ocean. A storm out at sea, Starflight thought.
He shuddered, remembering the storm that had nearly flooded the cave in the Kingdom of the Sea. Clay had been chained to the wall, and Glory and Sunny had been so determined not to leave him. If Tsunami hadn’t come for them, they probably would have decided to drown along with Clay. Starflight wasn’t sure he’d have been able to do that. He’d been too scared to say anything, watching the water slowly rising toward them.
“Stay close to me,” Morrowseer growled. He jabbed Starflight in the neck with one claw. “Don’t try anything.”
And then he lifted into the sky without any more explanation or instructions.
It took Starflight a moment to figure out that they were leaving the island. Back to the mainland? He leaped into the air, his heart jumping hopefully at the same time.
“Wait,” Squid called in a complaining whine, flapping after Morrowseer. “We haven’t even had breakfast. You’re not going to make me fly on an empty stomach, are you? Because I will die. I will literally die.”
“You won’t, actually, not for a while,” Starflight informed him. “Most dragons can naturally survive for up to a month without eating, if necessary, according to A Natural History of Unnatural Dragon Abilities.”
“Listen to the scrollworm,” Flame said nastily. “Isn’t he clever?”
“I will never never never go a whole month without eating,” Ochre said passionately.
“Is one of the ‘unnatural abilities’ being really annoying?” Viper asked. “Because there should be a whole chapter on you and Fatespeaker.”
“You don’t even know me,” Starflight pointed out. “I was just trying to help.”
“I thought it was interesting,” Fatespeaker said. “And probably useful, if the NightWings keep feeding us the horrible stuff they’ve been bringing so far.”
“Oh, I have a theory about that.” As they flew over the forest and out across the ocean, Starflight told her about how the NightWings hunted and his ideas about the bacteria in their mouths, and how he and Fatespeaker probably didn’t have it, since they’d grown up eating live or recently killed prey and hadn’t developed the bacteria like the NightWing dragonets on the island would have.
“Wow,” said Fatespeaker, looking genuinely fascinated.
“Is this the test?” Viper asked. “Listen to you for as long as we can without dying of boredom?”
“Nobody’s talking to you, Viper,” Fatespeaker said. “Go be grumpy at Squid and leave Starflight alone.”
Starflight glanced down at the waves rushing below him. The island was disappearing behind them, visible only as a red glow in the sky. Ahead of them was nothing but sea as far as the distant horizon. He had no idea how Morrowseer was navigating — there were no landmarks and the sky was still hidden behind the clouds.
I should pay attention so I can fly this way if I ever get a chance to escape.
Actually, what he should do was try to escape once they reached the mainland. Just fly away. Hide. Try to get back to the rainforest.
He could not in a million years imagine doing any of that by himself. Maybe with Tsunami and Clay and Glory and Sunny, but alone? It sounded much safer to stay with the NightWings and hope someone came to rescue him.
Rain began to fall. Or rather, they reached the edge of the storm, and Starflight realized that Morrowseer planned to fly right through it.
“My wings are getting wet,” Squid griped.
“Boohoo, you poor SeaWing,” Flame snapped.
Starflight wasn’t about to say anything aloud, but the rain made his wings heavier and it was much harder to fly. He didn’t have the strongest flying muscles anyway — being raised in a cave meant not much opportunity to practice.
He clenched his jaw and flew on. If this was the test, he refused to fail. He would fly until his wings gave out and he would not let anyone see how much it hurt.
Think of Sunny. Think about being the dragon you want her to think you are.
The sea kept getting closer, which he knew meant he was drooping. The rain pelted down harder and harder, battering his scales and making it almost impossible to see Ochre flying just ahead of him. Morrowseer was a dark blur in the clouds. Starflight hoped they didn’t lose him. He hoped Morrowseer wasn’t trying to lose them, because it wouldn’t be hard in this weather.
A bolt of lightning sizzled through the sky, followed instantly by the loudest thunderclap Starflight had ever heard. His whole body shook with the vibrations.
I hope we get there soon. I hope we get there soon.
He blinked away raindrops and realized with a sickening lurch that the sky ahead of him was empty.
Where are the other dragons?
For a horrible moment, he was completely lost.
Then Fatespeaker appeared at his side and nudged his wing. “Down there!” she shouted over the wind.
What looked like a small smudge on the ocean turned out to be a tiny, rocky island. Morrowseer and the others were perched there already. Starflight landed awkwardly next to Squid, who had his wings over his head and was muttering angrily.
“Halfway there!” Fatespeaker grinned at him.
Only halfway? Starflight’s resolution wavered, and he stared down at his claws. He was too exhausted even to ask all the questions brimming inside him. How had the NightWings found their island, if it was this far from the mainland? How often did they go to the mainland — and did they usually use the tunnel to the rainforest, or fly over the sea like this?
He guessed most of them would choose the tunnel if they could, rather than risk this exhausting flight.
Morrowseer allowed them to rest for a short while. He didn’t speak. His dark eyes glowered at all of them, and occasionally he glanced back in the direction of the volcano.
All too soon, he gathered himself and said, “Let’s go,” and then they were all flying once again.
Rain. Thunder. Aching wings. Raindrops filled Starflight’s eyes. Lightning blazed too close to his tail.
<
br /> Off to his left, Squid was complaining loudly, but no one could hear him over the storm, or else no one had any energy to respond.
Starflight was starting to think that drowning wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, after all, when he saw Morrowseer tilt his wings and begin sailing downward.
Land had appeared in front of them quite suddenly; Starflight hadn’t been able to see it through the clouds and rain. Now he saw a coast lined with jagged cliffs, steep and rocky and plunging straight into the sea. Behind them jutted sharp peaks like dragons’ teeth, some of them tipped with snow, extending in a relentless line across the horizon.
The Claws of the Clouds Mountains.
His heart sank. He’d hoped they were near the southern coast and the rainforest, but this had to be Pyrrhia’s northern edge, where the SkyWings ruled. Too close to Queen Scarlet’s palace. Too far for him to fly back to his friends … It would take days, and he’d have to travel alone through the Sky Kingdom and the Mud Kingdom.
I’m sorry, Sunny. I can’t do it. I can’t find my way back to you.
His wings felt like glaciers, slow and heavy and dragging him down, as he followed Morrowseer and the others to the cliff top in the driving rain. Bare rocks scraped beneath his claws when he landed, and he bent forward, gasping for breath.
Squid sprawled out flat on his back, groaning with pain, and Ochre immediately began sniffing the rocks as if he were hoping to startle out some prey. Flame was the only dragonet who wasn’t breathing heavily.
Starflight looked up and caught Morrowseer studying the sea behind them again. He had a weird flash of intuition that made no sense.
“Is someone … following us?” he asked Morrowseer.
“That’s none of your concern,” Morrowseer answered. He spread his wings and pointed down the coast. Through the storm, Starflight could barely see the glow of firelight coming from a cave in the cliffside.
“What is it?” Fatespeaker asked.
“The most remote outpost of the SkyWing army,” said Morrowseer. “Their assignment is to guard against attacks from the north, in case Queen Glacier ever decides to try this approach to the palace. There are no other dragons for miles. This is your test.”
They all stared at him, uncomprehending.
“What is?” Starflight finally asked. The wind ripped his voice away.
“You want us to kill them,” Viper guessed. She arched her poisonous tail and flexed her claws. “All of them?”
“I don’t want to,” Squid whined. “What if someone bites me?”
“Shut up or I’ll bite you,” Flame said. He looked deeply rattled, as if he’d never expected to be asked to kill members of his own tribe. Starflight wondered suddenly where all their parents were, and whether these dragonets dreamed of home and family the way his friends had.
“No, you’re not here to kill them,” Morrowseer snapped. “You’re the dragonets of the great prophecy, remember? Your test is to act like it.” He pointed to the outpost. “Go in there, tell the guards that you are the real prophesized dragonets, and convince them to switch their alliance from Burn to Blister.”
In the shocked silence that followed, a hurricane-force wind came howling up and tried to throw them all off the cliff. Starflight dug in his talons and made himself as small as he could.
“Just — convince them,” Viper shouted at Morrowseer, raindrops flying as she shook her head. “A bunch of strange SkyWings. So instead of killing them, we’re going to ask them to kill us.”
“I foresee that this is going to go really, really badly,” Fatespeaker yelled over the wind.
“Me too,” cried Ochre. “Maybe I have special NightWing powers, too.”
“They’re going to kill me!” Squid shouted. “SeaWings and SkyWings are enemies! If you send me in there, I’m dead!”
Morrowseer’s expression suggested that he wouldn’t be terribly devastated by that.
“If you can’t survive this,” he rumbled, “then you’re useless for the prophecy anyway.” He pointed at Fatespeaker. “You, stay here. We’ll see how well that one does, this time.” He flicked a claw at Starflight.
Starflight wanted to melt into the rocks. He wanted to leap off the cliff into the sea. He wondered how far he would get if he bolted for the mountains right now. Would the journey to the rainforest be any worse than walking into a SkyWing guardhouse and announcing himself as one of the dragonets Queen Scarlet had lost not long ago?
“Won’t they just take us prisoner?” he asked Morrowseer. “And take us back to the Sky Palace?”
“Not if you’re convincing enough,” Morrowseer said, baring his teeth. “Now go.” He shot a blast of fire at Squid, who barely leaped out of the way in time.
“I don’t want to,” Squid complained again, but Viper and Flame were already shoving him forward. Ochre trailed after them and Starflight reluctantly brought up the rear.
He glanced back once and saw Fatespeaker huddled into her wings, a small drenched shape beside the vast bulk of Morrowseer. He hoped his friends would welcome her as the new NightWing when he was gone.
I’m about to die, he thought, and I never got to tell Sunny I love her. I’m going to die without saving the world, without stopping the war … without ever doing one brave thing in my life.
As they approached the firelight, Starflight’s dread grew heavier and heavier.
Loud dragon voices spilled from the cave, along with a column of smoke that rose from a hole in the stone wall.
“What if someone’s on watch?” Starflight whispered when they were a few lengths away.
They all froze. Starflight searched the darkness around them with his eyes, trying to move as little as possible.
Lightning flashed, and Starflight’s heart seized up. Perched on a cliff top above them was a dragon with enormous wings, staring out to sea.
“There,” he whispered. Surely he could see them? Why hadn’t he called out to warn the other soldiers yet?
Starflight squinted at the shape, at the rise and fall of its shoulders and the curve of its neck, and he realized that the guard was asleep — despite the rain pouring down on him, despite the booming thunder, despite his whole job being to stay awake.
“We’re all right,” he whispered to the others.
They crept toward the cave, staying closer to the shadows now. A wooden door blocked the entrance.
“Wait,” Starflight whispered.
Flame paused with his front talons raised to knock. He frowned at Starflight.
“Let’s be smart about this,” Starflight said. “We don’t have to charge right in. Let’s listen for a minute and see if we hear anything that might be useful.”
“Fine by me,” Ochre said with a shrug.
“But it’s wet out here,” Squid grumbled.
Flame and Viper exchanged glances, and then, to Starflight’s surprise, they both nodded. Perhaps fear made them more agreeable. The two of them put their ears up to the wooden door, so he crept along the wall and crouched below the smoke hole. He tried to arrange his wings in a way that would shield him at least a little bit from the rain.
There seemed to be several arguments going on inside. Starflight could only catch snatches of one that seemed to be closest to the fire.
“If Queen Ruby says we can return to the palace, you better believe I’m going home,” growled one dragon.
“You’d be obeying the orders of a false queen,” snarled another. “Queen Scarlet is still alive, and she’ll have us all killed if we abandon our posts.”
“Then where is she?” challenged a third voice. “What kind of queen leaves her kingdom in chaos like this?”
“It’s not chaos. We have Ruby now,” said the first voice. “And she says we can leave.”
“But Queen Burn says we shouldn’t,” said another dragon.
“She’s not our queen,” snapped more than one voice.
“That’s enough. No one’s going anywhere today,” boomed someone authoritative-sounding. The
hubbub of voices stilled. “Not in this storm. We’ll discuss it again tomorrow.”
After a moment, a murmur of grumbling and muttering started, but nothing that Starflight could pick out. He crept back to Flame and Viper.
“Useless,” Flame hissed.
“Perhaps not,” Starflight said. “Did you hear how some of them are dissatisfied with Burn? We can press that, I think. If she’s trying to act like she’s their new queen, I bet a whole lot of SkyWings would be willing to reconsider their alliance.”
“Fancy talk,” said Viper, flicking her tail at him. “Now let’s see you actually do it.” She shoved Squid away from the shadow of her wings, where he was trying to huddle.
Flame rapped on the door before Starflight could think of another way to delay.
All the noise inside abruptly stopped. Stamping feet approached the door and it was flung wide open.
Starflight found himself facing a room full of SkyWings.
Most of them were clumped in small groups, eating or rolling prey bones in games of luck. Red, orange, and gold scales gleamed in the firelight. Savage-looking spears leaned casually against the wall, and a map next to the fireplace showed the continent of Pyrrhia, with an X where the outpost was located and arrows showing possible attack routes from the Ice Kingdom.
“What in the …” said the guard who’d answered the door. He trailed off, staring at them. The whole room — about seventeen dragons, Starflight estimated — turned to stare as well.
Starflight could easily imagine how they looked: five bedraggled dragonets, soaking wet and exhausted, in five different colors that were normally not seen together.
One of the SkyWings inhaled sharply. “It’s them!” he hissed.
“It can’t be,” said another.
For some reason, Flame, Viper, and Ochre all glanced at Starflight. But his power of speech had abandoned him. All he could think about was the cold spire where he’d been imprisoned by SkyWing guards just like these only a short time before. He wanted to cower behind the others’ wings the way Squid was doing.