Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret (13 page)

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.

Flame let out a small snort of fire and drew himself up as tall as he could get. “It
is
us,” he said. “From the prophecy.”

“The dragonets of destiny,” said one soldier in an awestruck voice.

“Wow, dragons actually call us that?” Viper said. “Lame. I hereby forbid anyone to use that phrase again.”

“Is that a roasted seagull?” Ochre asked, shoving his way forward and pointing at a half-eaten carcass on one of the
tables. “Is anyone going to finish that?” Without waiting for an answer, he snatched the bird and sank his teeth into it.

Behind Starflight, Squid let out a small whimper.

A few of the SkyWings exchanged glances, looking a little more skeptical than they had a moment ago. Starflight could feel panic rising in his chest. He had to speak up; he had to be convincing. But his jaw felt like it was welded shut.

“Why are you
here
?” asked one of the soldiers. “After you escaped — why come back? To here, of all places?”

“And what did you do to the SeaWings?” asked another. “No attacks, no raids, no sign of them since we destroyed their Summer Palace. We know plenty of them must have survived, so where’s the counterattack?”

“Do
you
have Queen Scarlet?” demanded a dragon leaning on the wall by the fire. “What have you done with her?”

Flame waved his front talons as if none of these questions were important. “We’re here to tell you you’re supporting the wrong SandWing.” He tilted his head arrogantly. “Burn isn’t going to be queen. Like the prophecy says, she’s going to die. We’ve chosen Blister.”

The uproar was immediate. Several dragons sprang to their feet, knocking over tables and scattering bones and ashes everywhere.

“How dare you?” somebody shouted.

“We’re not taking orders from some puny dragonets!”

“We’ll never let the SeaWings win!”

One of the guards shoved Flame in the chest. “Traitor!” The red dragonet stumbled back, stepping on Starflight’s claws.

“Blister killed my brother!” roared another soldier. “She will never be queen. Her fate is to die beneath my talons!”

“We’re the dragons from the prophecy!” Viper yelled over the din. “You have to listen to us!”

“No, you’re not,” said the same authoritative voice Starflight had heard from outside. An orange dragon with a long, scarred neck stepped forward, peering intently at the dragonets. Starflight had a feeling he’d seen this SkyWing before — probably in the queen’s palace.

The other SkyWings quieted as the soldier reached around Starflight, seized Squid’s ear, and dragged him into the middle of the room. Squid yelped with pain, flung his wings over his head, and sat down, gibbering.

“That is not the SeaWing we captured before,” said the orange dragon contemptuously. “You saw the marks she left on the guards she fought with. And I do mean
she
. Also
she
was
blue
. This sniveling creature is no dragonet of destiny.” He looked around at the others, his eyes gleaming with suspicion. “I say we kill him. Perhaps we kill them all.”

“No!” Starflight blurted. “I am the NightWing the queen held prisoner. I swear I am. Remember she had me fight scavengers? And then the other NightWings came and took me?” He held his breath.
Please believe me.

The dragon breathed a plume of smoke at him, then narrowed his eyes at Ochre, who had moved on to gnawing on a large leg bone he’d found on the floor.

“I suppose that could be the MudWing,” he muttered.
“And we never saw the SandWing or the SkyWing.” He studied Flame and Viper. “We assumed the queen was holding them elsewhere in the palace, in case they could be fixed and allowed to rejoin us.” His gaze stopped on Flame. “But perhaps living with the Talons of Peace will ruin any dragon, even from the best of tribes.”

He jabbed Squid sharply with his tail, and the small green dragon moaned unhappily. “If you’re the NightWing from the palace,” he said to Starflight, “what happened to the SeaWing who was with you before?”

“She’s —” Starflight felt hopelessly stupid. Why hadn’t Morrowseer guessed this might happen? Did he think this outpost was so remote that no one from the palace would be here? But if he really wanted to replace Tsunami with Squid, he had to know
someone
would notice and object sooner or later.

He knew he should act like Squid was the real prophecy dragonet, especially if they all wanted to get out of this cave alive. But he couldn’t bring himself to betray Tsunami, who, if you asked him, in all of Pyrrhia was the dragon most likely to fulfill a prophecy and save the world.

He braced himself and looked the orange dragon in the eye. “She’s gathering an army.” This was true. No need to mention that it was an army of RainWings. “We’re going to end this war.” He turned to the other SkyWings in the cave. “Soon you’ll be able to go home to your families. Soon you will all be safe. Soon there will be peace.”

He caught a look of longing on some of their faces. Even the fierce, bad-tempered SkyWing tribe wanted a chance to live peacefully, he was sure of it.

“Was that a prophecy?” one of the soldiers whispered to another.

Starflight shook his head. “It was a promise,” he said.

Viper let out a muffled impatient snort. Starflight knew even his real friends got fed up with the way he sounded like an epic scroll sometimes, but he couldn’t help it — when he thought about prophecies and acting like a hero, that’s how he thought they should all sound.

“But what about Blister?” asked the orange dragon. “Have you really chosen her? Is she the next SandWing queen?”

Several of the SkyWings hissed, rattling their wings.

Flame and Viper and Squid and even Ochre were watching Starflight now. He could guess that they were willing him to say the right thing here — to convince everyone that Blister was the choice of destiny, that she was going to win, and nobody could do anything about it.

But he remembered Blister’s menacing stillness and the glint of evil in her eyes. He remembered the way she manipulated the SeaWing queen, and he remembered that she’d killed Kestrel and tried to kill Webs, although there wasn’t any good reason why —

Oh.

He glanced at the alternate dragonets. If Blister wanted to pick and choose her dragonets of destiny, she needed the
original guardians dead so they couldn’t dispute her version of history. His mind was racing.
She knew about Glory when we met her — she even said she had NightWing friends. She’s conspiring with them.

Which meant she was almost certainly part of the plan to assassinate Glory and Tsunami, too.

He coiled his tail. He
couldn’t
make her the next queen of the SandWings. If his voice had any power, he couldn’t let her use it.

“No,” he said, wincing as his voice cracked. He sounded like a one-year-old dragonet pretending to be a queen. “We haven’t chosen anyone yet.”

“So choose Burn,” said one of the soldiers. Several others nodded.

“Burn is cruel,” Starflight said. “You know she is. She lives for war. Even if she wins, she won’t stop killing and fighting. She’ll probably turn on all of you and try to take your kingdom next.”

There was no uproar this time, only shocked silence. They may not have wanted to admit it to themselves, but what he’d said was true. Burn was not a safe ally to have, and she’d be a very dangerous queen of the SandWings.

“Yeah,” Flame said half-heartedly. “What he said.”

“So, was
that
a prophecy?” the same soldier whispered.

“Let’s take them back to the palace,” said the orange dragon decisively. “We’ll turn them over to Queen Ruby and let her decide. If they know anything about Queen Scarlet’s whereabouts, she’ll get it out of them.” He lashed his tail.

No,
Starflight thought, backing toward the door. Back to the SkyWing palace — that would be even worse than staying with the NightWings. Queen Scarlet had tried to make him fight to the death in her arena. He still had nightmares about scavengers with sharp weapons climbing his neck, determined to stab out his eyes. Or about a horde of IceWings descending to destroy him, even though Morrowseer had taken him away before that happened in reality.

But this wasn’t a dream. The SkyWing claws reaching for him were real, and his legs really were not moving, and he couldn’t remember a single training move that might help him fight back, and he was about to be captured and imprisoned once more.

And then the door burst open.

And the NightWings came blazing in.