But Orchid lifted her head, her eyes flooding with hope. A shimmering rose pink spread over her, starting on her chest and drifting out to her wingtips. I hope Glory survives, too. I hope my friends are planning to rescue me as well. Not a mind reader, then, perhaps. Maybe it is enough just to be smart like him. But Glory thought maybe it was only some of them, and perhaps she was right.
She closed her eyes. Half a lizard hung from one corner of his mouth, and his shoulders were almost too wide for his wings to fit through the door. This is my son. Strongwings gave Starflight a dubious look. So when do I get a helmet like that? He turned to Starflight.
This is a thoroughly imperfect solution. Without protesting, Orchid followed him out of the room. Why do you need venom-resistant armor? The RainWings would never have bothered you if you left them alone. For me, scientific discovery is reason enough. No one sees the queen. Not for the last nine years or so. Come back tomorrow and we can get to know each other better, yes?
I am so very proud. Starflight glanced along the row of doors, imagining tortured RainWings behind each one. Turns out we might be horrible. I did not foresee that at all. Or I was. I lived right in the Talons of Peace camp. No one was supposed to find us. How can we both be in the prophecy? So that we can decide which one. I should write that down and use it on Viper. It has always been our assumption that NightWing superiority is something every NightWing is hatched with. And you antagonized our ally.
Perhaps if you are the one chosen, we can reveal more. But all you should really need to know is how to follow orders. Starflight and Fatespeaker exchanged glances. It involves us! But both of us! King and queen? The dragonets scrambled up and hurried after him, tripping over each other.
Fatespeaker bounded into the lead, and Starflight was left trailing behind, his mind a whirl of confusion. Why are they torturing the RainWings? I can figure this out. Think, Starflight, think. His first guess was that the NightWings wanted to use RainWing venom themselves. As Vengeance had said, it was one of the most powerful weapons in Pyrrhia.
If they could somehow replicate the venom or adapt it for their own purposes, that plus their telepathy and precognition would make the NightWings unstoppable. Maybe their secret plan involved joining the war once they had this new kind of weapon for themselves.
Perhaps Blister had promised them something, the way Blaze was giving up territory to the IceWings in exchange for their help. Starflight stopped in the middle of the rocky tunnel as understanding flooded over him. More than anything, the NightWings need a new home. The NightWings were living under its threat every day. And the island was a horrible place to live.
They must be running out of prey, with hardly any freshwater to drink, no view of the sky through the thick cloud cover, and nowhere to go except through the tunnel to the rainforest. The rainforest, which was the opposite of here: the perfect place to live. Starflight clutched his head. Because the NightWings were planning to invade the rainforest and steal it from the RainWings.
But they were afraid of the RainWings fighting back. Even the famously peaceful tribe would surely have to defend their home. So the NightWings were figuring out how to protect themselves from RainWing venom, in preparation for the day when they stormed into the rainforest and took it over for themselves. Is that what Blister has promised them?
The RainWings were in awful danger. Glory was right, and Queen Magnificent was wrong. But he was just Starflight, the weakest, most cowardly dragon ever chosen for a prophecy. How could he save the RainWings?
How could he stop his own tribe from destroying them? Fatespeaker came charging back down the tunnel. All the pieces fit together too well. But now … what do I do about it? Red, green, brown, and white-gold.
They have a SkyWing, Starflight thought. And a SandWing who looks like a real SandWing. Is he going to be annoying like her? The SkyWing snorted and the SandWing rolled her eyes. I hope you thumped her. Or, oooh, into the fortress! But if the Talons of Peace had these all along, then why treat us the way they did?
Why keep us around? And why would the NightWings send an assassin after us? Pieces started to fall into place in his head. They wanted us dead so they could replace us with these five.
Then he thought about the timing, and a shudder ran through his scales. We had a chance until we angered Blister — until I angered her. It was after that when they decided to kill us. Because I failed to convince the others to pick her as the queen. The rest of you are still negotiable. He half expected Morrowseer to slash his throat right then. Quiet would be great. Fatespeaker gave them all an injured look. Poor Fatespeaker, he thought.
Starflight shuffled his talons awkwardly, but Morrowseer cut him off before he had to answer. The SkyWing dragonet puffed out his chest. Morrowseer frowned at Squid. Starflight could sense that he found the SeaWing unusually irritating.
He wondered if that meant the NightWings might change their minds about Tsunami. Then again, Tsunami could be pretty unusually irritating, too. Two unsuitable NightWings. Two annoying SeaWings. But two perfectly fine MudWings and SandWings.
He thought Sunny was more than perfectly fine, of course. Who needed a poisonous tail when she was funny, smart, and kinder than any other dragon in the world? He glared at her. Your first test. The dragonets all stared at him for a long, awful moment. That was an order! I said kill him! And Flame made the fire-is-coming hissing sound Starflight remembered from his terrible training sessions with Kestrel. He knew better than to rely on those.
Wind whistled through his wings as he sailed down the cliff. The shouts of the dragonets echoed behind him. He had to find somewhere to hide. Starflight shot down the cliffside and banked toward the ocean. His eyes scanned the ground below him frantically. The bad news was, neither did he.
Right now he was on the other side of the volcano from the forest. Here, there were no trees. Everything below him was dark rocks or rivers of glowing lava — nothing to hide behind. Ahead of him there was a strip of black-sand beach that seemed to circle the island. He remembered Glory saying that the tunnel to the rainforest was in a cave above a black-sand beach.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the bright colors of four dragonets flash through the sky, much closer than he would have liked. Only four. Fatespeaker was nowhere to be seen. Disobeying orders? Or sneaking up on me some other way? Starflight twisted into a dive and swooped as close to the ground as he dared.
His black scales would make him harder to see against the rocks than if he were up in the sky. A blast of steam shot out of one of the vents in the ground and he flapped hastily aside, barely avoiding the heat. From this close, the rocks below looked even more like black dragon scales, but all melted and fused together.
Like mine will be if Flame and Viper get their claws on me. It was too risky to try to lose them in the water or the clouds, not with a SeaWing and a SkyWing among them. He beat his wings faster, trying to think. Use your brain, Starflight. There was only one place to hide: the fortress. Another blaze of heat brushed his tail, and he twisted to see where the steam had come from this time. To his horror, Flame was only a few wingbeats behind him, with fire curling out of his nose.
The sight of the SkyWing propelled Starflight forward, the dragonet beating his wings as hard as he could. Then he spotted the caves that lined the lava river below. The RainWing prisons! Glory had described hers in vivid detail. Suddenly a blast of thick smoke shot out of a vent in the ground below him. He dropped behind the smoke, hoping it looked as though he was still aiming for the fortress, and then spiraled tightly down and dove into the first cave he found.
A NightWing guard was lying across the entrance. Starflight shot over her head and tumbled onto the stone floor. Farther into the cave, Starflight heard scales shifting as the imprisoned RainWing peeked out at the commotion.
There were a few stories about dragonets in his favorite scroll, Tales of the NightWings. To his astonishment, the guard completely relaxed. All right, go ahead, just be careful. The RainWing prisoner was chained to the floor and the wall, and his snout was wrapped in an iron band like the one Strongwings had put on Orchid.
He watched Starflight with a resigned, mournful expression. His scales were gray and dark blue. Starflight wondered if extra chains had been added to all the dragons after Glory and Kinkajou escaped; as far as he remembered, Glory had been muzzled but not chained to the wall.
A commotion of wings sounded outside. Starflight turned to the back of the cave, which overlooked a huge, dark abyss. Glory had said that all the prison caves were connected by this chasm, which was how Kinkajou got from one to the other. The last thing Starflight wanted to do was jump into that darkness. Well, no. The very last thing he wanted to do was face Flame and Viper in talon-to-talon combat, so, given those choices, leaping off a cliff into the pitch-black was the clear winner.
He spread his wings and hopped off the edge, flapping to lower himself down slowly. He kept thinking he was about to crash into something sharp and pointy, but only empty space yawned below him, as if it were trying to suck him down. Finally, several dragon lengths down from the top, he felt a shallow ledge below him and gently rested his talons on it, folding his wings in.
Even if someone peered into the chasm, his black scales should keep him well hidden in the shadows. Voices started shouting up above. A SkyWing! And a MudWing! Starflight hoped she had. Morrowseer has been trying to have Glory killed since the first moment he saw her, he thought.
As he should be. The crashing and shouting finally ended with sounds of what appeared to be several guards arriving and carting off Flame and Ochre. Starflight hoped Viper and Squid had met a similar fate, maybe searching for him in the fortress. Just in case, he decided to stay hidden for a while longer.
I could try to escape, he thought. Now, while no one is watching me. I could try to get back to the rainforest to warn Glory and the others. He closed his eyes, picturing the island.
Or I could fly away across the ocean. Just pick a direction and go. There was no way to know where the nearest land was, or how to find the mainland from here. Starflight wrapped his wings around his talons, rested his head against the rock wall behind him, and sighed. He froze. The shadows would hide him if he kept still. Crazy-brave is the opposite of me. Crazy-brave is Tsunami. Crazy-brave would have been turning around to fight all four dragonets at once, which is what she would have done.
Sitting in a dark hole? Waiting for someone else to deal with my problem? Fatespeaker sat quietly for a moment, but he could still hear her breathing. Hey there. Nothing weird, just talking to a pit. What do you think? Starflight, come on, get up here so we can talk about how to help all these sad dragons. I checked a few of the other caves and there are at least ten of them here, can you imagine? He would love to be present for that conversation. Morrowseer glared at her. One of their spears could have taken an eye out!
And when I told them I was a dragonet of destiny, they got even more mad. I want to go home. Whether you intended it or not. You delivered it; now you can sit back and watch it happen. Starflight felt sorry for her. Fatespeaker was getting it all thrown at her at once. Starflight guessed she was hoping to meet other NightWings — ones who might give her a better impression of the tribe than Morrowseer and Mastermind.
Nobody sees the queen. He suspected there was more to that story. But no matter how sympathetic she was, would she be willing to betray her tribe? There was no time to talk to her anyway. As soon as Morrowseer was gone, Starflight and Fatespeaker and Viper and Squid were swarmed by the NightWing dragonets who lived in the dormitory.
Make them stop! She brandished her tail until the NightWing dragonets got out of her way, then stormed to a sleeping spot at the farthest end of the dormitory and curled up on the stone. Exhaustion was starting to overwhelm Starflight. He missed his friends. He wanted to be eating boar with Clay, arguing with Tsunami, telling Glory about all his strange new discoveries and warning her about the NightWings.
But mostly he missed Sunny. He missed her warm scales leaning against his, her green eyes watching him while he talked. He wanted to tell her all about his father. And the alternate dragonets. And … His eyes closed, and sleep came for him. He was waiting by the cave entrance when Webs rolled the boulder aside and came in. He tossed it to Starflight, who caught it and turned it reverently between his talons. He carried it to the study cave and found Sunny curled in the small beam of sunlight that came through the hole in the roof.
His heart skipped a beat as she opened her green eyes and smiled at him. This must have been written recently. Like children of the Talons of Peace, it says. There must be some in the Sky Kingdom. The idea of that many dragons relying on him always made Starflight feel overwhelmed and anxious.
But for Sunny, the prophecy was a promise, not an order. Listening to her talk about it was comforting. I would never want to be queen. They both looked up as Kestrel burst into the room with Dune and Webs right behind her. He let out a cry of dismay as it tore between their claws. The SkyWing peered at the scroll, then whipped around to glare at Webs. Handing them any piece of trash you find on the beach?
Filling their heads with questions and ideas? Why were the guardians so mad? Had he done something wrong? She pointed it at Starflight. Battle training, now. Sunny ran to the entranceway, then turned back to Starflight with a comically outraged look on her face. She came and sat in front of him, reaching to touch his tail with her own. You know that, right? Nobody knows how the prophecy will unfold. We just have to always do what we think is right and fate will take us in the right direction.
Like Clay and Tsunami and Glory. And, of course, me. Of all the caves in all of Pyrrhia — of all the eggs that could have been chosen — somehow his and hers had wound up here, and two dragons who never should have met were together. Starflight woke up to find a claw poking his snout. Everything was still and dark in the dormitory. The coals smoldered in the wall niches like the half-closed eyes of slumbering dragons.
The skylight looked out onto a night with no stars. The warmth from his dream faded instantly. Her wings rustled as she edged closer to him and poked his shoulder again. But really, she was right. Why should they get in trouble for acting like they belonged here? Besides, it was what Tsunami would do. He rolled off the bed onto the floor next to Fatespeaker, and they padded softly out into the tunnels. She picked a direction apparently at random and they started to walk the empty halls.
The only sound was the tapping of their own claws and the slithering of their tails on the stone. And then told himself again, a few more times. This is your tribe. This is where you could have grown up. He glanced at the bare walls, not so very different from the cave where he had grown up.
He stopped walking for a minute to take a deep breath, then hurried after Fatespeaker. All the torches had been extinguished, so the only light came from the glowing red coals in the walls.
The sky was too hidden by clouds and smoke from the volcano. Every once in a while, as they walked, they heard a quiet snore from the rooms they were passing. But they saw no one awake.
No guards anywhere. Does that happen to you? I really thought that was a NightWing thing. But I do feel more alive when the stars are out. Does that make sense? She paused at an intersection, thinking, and then purposefully turned right.
Mightyclaws told me it happened, like, eleven years ago. I guess it covered the part of the fortress where they used to keep their treasure, so they had to blast tunnels into it to get their treasure out. In lava rocks! Come on! What looked like thick black bubbles of rock filled the hall ahead of them. Chilly air whistled through the gaps in the walls, battling with the heat from the volcano below their talons. A tunnel just big enough for a dragon had been chiseled and blasted and dug out of the rocks.
Without any hesitation, she headed inside. What am I doing? Starflight asked himself. He really desperately wanted to melt into the shadows and stay there waiting for her.
And this time there was no Clay or Tsunami or Glory to do the brave thing for him. He was the only dragon Fatespeaker had. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to step into the small tunnel. Jagged rock pressed in from all sides, scraping his wings and the top of his head. The tunnel twisted quickly downward, so they had to dig their claws in to avoid sliding.
Fatespeaker breathed a small plume of fire, but all that did was illuminate the thick dark walls that encircled them. The air was hot and stuffy, and Starflight began to wonder if anyone had ever died exploring these tunnels.
Suddenly the tunnel turned directly down and dumped them out into an empty space. Still, he tumbled several feet and landed on top of her. He scrambled away, and they both lit up the air with their fire at the same time. The room was small but intact; the lava had crushed the upper floors but left this one preserved.
Starflight could see a small hallway outside the door, with more rooms beyond that. He looked up uneasily, thinking about the weight of everything above them. Fatespeaker was already hurrying to the doorway as their fire faded into complete darkness. He felt her tail flick against his snout accidentally as they both felt their way along the walls.
Or Blister. They were standing under a tall archway with two black metal doors, one of which was propped open just enough for a dragonet to slip through. It was so long and so boring.
I swear I nearly fell asleep and ended up in the sea a couple of times. He squashed himself through the door behind her and saw, in the plume of fire she sent out, a couple of wooden sticks on the floor.
He picked one up and lit it so they could look around more easily. But when he lifted it up, the first things they both saw were the shriveled corpses of two dead dragons. He glanced down at the two midnight-black bodies. A spear lay beside one of the NightWings, but it was an ordinary spear, not the creepy hooked-and-pronged kind all the guards carried now.
Neither of them wore armor either. Or heat, although dragons can withstand a fair amount of heat. My guess is they were guarding the treasure when the eruption happened and they were trapped here. Nobody could come find them until the lava cooled enough to make the tunnel we crawled through, and by then it was too late.
Bare shelves lined all the walls, reaching up to the ceiling, and large urns stood in the two back corners. He could imagine that they had once been filled to the brim with gold and jewels. He caught himself thinking, A giant urn full of gold and jewels would be kind of cool to have. Which was ridiculous — just his dragon instincts talking. What would he do with that much gold? Unless it could get him back to his friends or stop the war, it would be useless to him.
Starflight hesitated. A piece of treasure that was left behind? Something they missed, because who would want to search a corpse. But — he felt as if it was calling to him, as if it had been waiting for him these eleven years, hiding from anyone else who came along until the right dragon arrived. Now you sound like Sunny, with her faith in fate and destiny and signs and magic. Rough dead scales scraped against his, and he shuddered so badly he nearly dropped the gemstone, but instead he gripped it harder and jumped back, knocking against the shelves behind him.
The claws were left clutching the air, as if hanging on to the memory of treasure would have to be enough. The blue star-shaped sapphire glinted in his talons with a tiny inner spark of its own light. There were supposedly three of them in the world, all lost — all created hundreds of years ago by a SandWing animus dragon. A dream-visitor. He closed his claws around it. With this, he could see his friends again. Not even Fatespeaker could know about it. He put it in his mouth, tucked down between his teeth and his scales, and pressed his tongue over it.
On the way back to the dormitory, Fatespeaker asked why he was so quiet, but he just shook his head and mumbled that he was tired. She shrugged and headed off to her own bed once they were back inside. The heavy brown fabric caught on his horns and smelled like smoke, but it would keep him hidden from any eyes that might still be awake.
Perhaps I just think of the dragon whose dreams I want to visit? Surely Sunny would be asleep right now, in the middle of the night. He closed his eyes and pictured Sunny — her laugh that made everyone else laugh, too, her flares of temper that vanished as quickly as they came, her small claws and fierce protective face, her scales like rippled sunshine, the way she looked like no other dragon on Pyrrhia.
But no matter how hard he concentrated, his mind stayed firmly in the NightWing dormitory instead of finding her dreams. Maybe she was awake. Maybe she was in the rainforest somewhere, looking at the moons and wondering if he was looking at them, too.
He tried Glory next, then Clay, then Tsunami. Nothing happened. Starflight squeezed the dreamvisitor between his claws, grinding his teeth. This had to work. Try a RainWing. Starflight focused on her enormous dark eyes and quick-changing scales.
He pressed the dreamvisitor to his forehead, praying that this would work. And suddenly he was perched on a branch in the rainforest. Starflight took a deep, relieved breath, but he still inhaled the smoke of the dormitory.
Kinkajou was curled on a giant leaf beside him with her eyes closed. There was a bandage of soft leaves and moss wrapped around one of her wings, and piles of red and yellow and purple fruits all around her, like offerings to a statue.
Her scales were a strangely pale shade of blue in the moonlight, and she breathed shallowly, as if even in her sleep she knew a deeper breath would make something hurt. He turned to find another dragon staring right through him. For a startled, terrifying moment, Starflight thought the dragon could see him, but then he realized she was just watching Kinkajou.
Starflight turned back to Kinkajou. How could he get inside her dreams? He looked down at the dreamvisitor and remembered pressing it to his own forehead. But when he tried a second time, holding the dreamvisitor where he thought it should go, he felt a thrum of energy radiate from Kinkajou through the jewel to him and back again, and then he saw what she saw.
Glory was there, in the center of the bowl, but this Glory was impossibly big and impossibly beautiful, and a crown of orange hibiscus, gold chain, and rubies sparkled atop her head. This Glory smiled more, too, at least at Kinkajou. A crown, he thought suddenly. Does that mean Glory won? Is she now queen of the RainWings?
Or is this a wishful dream? Kinkajou backed away from the stares of the dragons until she reached the far edge of the bowl. Suddenly she turned and leaped off, spreading her wings. But instead of soaring away through the trees, she fell, plummeting like a coconut toward the ground below.
Her wings flapped helplessly, and when she twisted to look at them, giant holes appeared all over her wings, spreading as though acid was eating them away. Kinkajou screamed and clawed at the air. Starflight watched helplessly from above as the greenery swallowed her up. Just a dream. Nothing you could do. The dreamscape around him shuddered and then suddenly went dark.
He wanted to hold on to the rainforest as long as he could. Stay asleep, he thought desperately. Please see me. I need to send a message to my friends. Now he could see faint outlines of shapes in the darkness, as if it was very early morning and the sun was rising far away.
In front of him, Kinkajou was curled on the leaf again, still asleep but twitching restlessly. A silvery shaft of moonlight lit up the expression of pain on her face. Starflight whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat. The SandWing was just landing on the branch beside the queenly RainWing.
Her golden wings folded in and she flipped her tail over her back talons the way she always did. A moment later, a glint of blue scales appeared through the trees behind Sunny: Tsunami, flapping down to land next to her. How is the queen? The queen — does she mean Glory? Glory thinks I betrayed them? Then he remembered telling the NightWing council that the RainWings were planning to attack, and his scales felt hot with shame.
Maybe Fatespeaker was the better dragon to save the world. Can you actually imagine how it could have happened? First, making a decision. Then, actually doing something instead of sitting and waiting for it to happen to him. And not just anything: jumping into a dark hole with angry dragons on the other side. Are you kidding me? He shivered and leaned toward her. He could almost imagine he felt the warmth of her scales as she went by. Sunny looked up at the two moons that were visible through the canopy, then back down at Kinkajou.
Yes, Starflight thought frantically. Tsunami lashed her tail so hard she nearly fell off the branch. General, I need a papaya! General, my claws are tired! General, look, a butterfly! He reached out, holding the dreamvisitor, trying to send her back into dreamsleep, but it was too late. With a wrenching sideways jolt, the rainforest — and Kinkajou and Tsunami and Sunny — was ripped away, and Starflight found himself lying on cold stone once again. The thick canvas lay heavy on his horns and the dim red light of the coals pulsed beyond it, making his eyes ache.
Sunny had been right there, inches from him. So close, and yet she might as well have been on one of the moons. He stared down at the dreamvisitor that glowed faintly in his talons. Seeing them had somehow been even worse than not seeing them. He closed his eyes, feeling lonelier than he had ever felt in his life. His breath was fiercely awful this morning.
At least, Starflight assumed it was morning, although the sky was barely lighter than it had been the night before. 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. His tail nearly knocked Starflight over as he turned and swept out of the room. She seemed to have recovered from the news that either she or Starflight were slated for death.
Usually he was pretty good at tests. Maybe this was finally his chance to earn a place in the prophecy. 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. He jabbed Starflight in the neck with one claw. 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.
Because I will die. I will literally die. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Only halfway? 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.
His dark eyes glowered at all of them, and occasionally he glanced back in the direction of the volcano. Aching wings. Lightning blazed too close to his tail. 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.
Now he saw a coast lined with jagged cliffs, steep and rocky and plunging straight into the sea. The Claws of the Clouds Mountains. His heart sank. 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.
Starflight looked up and caught Morrowseer studying the sea behind them again. He had a weird flash of intuition that made no sense. 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. There are no other dragons for miles. This is your test. The wind ripped his voice away. She arched her poisonous tail and flexed her claws.
Starflight wondered suddenly where all their parents were, and whether these dragonets dreamed of home and family the way his friends had. Your test is to act like it.
Starflight dug in his talons and made himself as small as he could. 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?
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.
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