Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret (5 page)

“My mission is not complete, it’s true,” Deathbringer said. “I need to return to the rainforest and —”

“And betray us some more,” Vengeance suggested. “I bet you do.”

Starflight noticed Greatness leaning toward the screen again, but most of the dragons were staring at Deathbringer and didn’t notice this time.

“I assure you I’m a loyal NightWing,” Deathbringer said, his voice rising. “Perhaps I think it’s worth discussing whether we really
need
to kill these dragonets, but —”

“You see?” roared Vengeance. “He’s —”

“Vengeance!” Greatness shouted, cutting him off. She stood up on her ledge and spread her wings, revealing the silver scales glittering underneath like echoes of her diamonds. She puffed up her chest and contorted her face as if she was trying to appear menacing and regal, but it looked like a performance. Starflight still couldn’t see a future queen in her.

“The queen has spoken,” Greatness said into the perilous silence. “Vengeance. You endangered the whole tribe. You disobeyed orders. You brought a viper to us disguised as a simple garden snake.”

“Wait,” Vengeance cried. “What he did was worse! I just grabbed a RainWing, same as always! How could I know — she didn’t look no different than the others!”

“And in addition,” said Greatness, “you are irritating the queen.” She flicked her tail, just the tiniest movement, at the guards in the doorway.

“NO!” shrieked Vengeance. His wings flapped open, but he’d barely lifted off when the four guards grabbed him. With one swift heave, before Starflight even had time to blink, they hurled the scarred dragon into the lake of lava.

Deathbringer shot up and out of the way as lava splashed all around them. Starflight didn’t move fast enough, and a bright orange droplet splattered on his foot. Burning pain flared through him, and he thought he might faint.

Then a shape surged out of the lava — Vengeance, screaming and trying to escape as he was boiled alive.

Deathbringer’s talons yanked Starflight into the air just in time. Lava sprayed in all directions as the dying dragon flailed his wings.

“DON’T DO THIS! SAVE ME!” Vengeance howled.

The guards stepped forward with expressionless faces. They were wearing a sort of armor, including helmets and thick plates over their underbellies, and they were all carrying wicked pronged spears like the one Glory had brought back to the rainforest.

It was these spears they used to shove Vengeance back under the lava, and to hold him there until the thrashing stopped and the dark shape of the scarred dragon finally sank all the way below the bright gold-red surface and disappeared.

After a long moment, Starflight remembered to breathe again. He glanced at Deathbringer, hovering in the air beside him. There was an unusually somber look on the assassin’s face, as if he’d just seen a glimpse of his possible future, and not in a magical prophetic vision sort of way.

“Thank you, Majesty,” Deathbringer said at last, bowing toward the hidden queen.

“Don’t, Deathbringer,” Greatness said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat and looked away. “We’re not done with you.” She addressed the guards. “Take him to the dungeon. We’ll investigate the charges and then Her Majesty will decide what to do.”

Deathbringer flew down to the guards and allowed them to push him out the door, only glancing back once to meet Starflight’s eyes with a look Starflight couldn’t decode.

Maybe he expects me to have mind-reading abilities. Maybe he’s trying to send me a message.

If so — sorry, Deathbringer. You picked the wrong dragon.

Greatness rubbed the ridges above her eyes, looking tired. “All right, we need a break. If it’s your turn to eat this week, go do that now, and we’ll reconvene tonight.” She glanced around the room, leaned toward the screen again, and added, “The queen says to return at dusk with possible defensive and offensive strategies. Morrowseer, see if you can claw some more information out of the dragonet before then.”

Morrowseer dipped his head, flexing his talons. Starflight hoped uneasily that she meant “claw” in a metaphorical way.

The NightWings began to disperse, most of them through holes in the ceiling. Morrowseer jerked his head, and Starflight reluctantly followed him back into the tunnels.

The mention of eating had reminded him of how hungry he was, although he couldn’t really worry about food when he wasn’t even sure if he was a prisoner or a spy or just a failure. And after what had happened to Vengeance, Starflight was pretty nervous about what the NightWings might do with a failure.

Morrowseer’s wings billowed like thunderclouds as he stormed ahead of Starflight. Soon Starflight realized that they weren’t going back to the dormitory — Morrowseer had taken a turn somewhere, and now Starflight could see dim gray light up ahead.

They emerged onto a shelf of rock that jutted from the side of the fortress. Below them was a weird landscape of rocks that looked like giant lumpy gray-black dragon scales with a fiery orange glowing underneath, filling in the cracks.
A lava field,
Starflight thought.

He remembered a little about volcanoes from one of the scrolls he’d studied back under the mountain, what felt like a lifetime ago. But there weren’t any active volcanoes on the mainland of Pyrrhia, so he hadn’t memorized it like the other scrolls. It had never occurred to him that the NightWings, who’d written most of the scrolls, might have firsthand knowledge of volcanoes; might, in fact, be living on one.

Starflight couldn’t see any caves or a lava river like the one Glory had described, so he guessed they were on the other
side of the volcano. But the air was as smoky and gray as she’d said, and as hard to breathe. He still felt that raw scraped feeling all the way down his throat.

Far overhead in the ashy sky, a pair of black dragons wheeled and circled, around and around, like vultures. Starflight wondered if they could see the mainland from up there. How far was the island from the rest of Pyrrhia? Did the NightWings have a way to get there other than the secret animus-made tunnels to the rainforest?

So many questions. His whole life, he’d been full of questions about the NightWings and their secret home, and now perhaps they could all be answered. He took a moment to think,
I’m here. This is my home. This is my tribe. This is what I was looking for.

But it didn’t feel true. This awful place was nothing like the NightWing utopia he’d always imagined. He’d pictured a beautiful hidden place full of art and music and dragons who loved to read, with spires reaching to the clouds, and waterfalls and sunlight and a library around every corner. Not this — the smoke and stench and hostility and gloomy surroundings.

And even a million answers, even all the answers to all the questions he could think of, wouldn’t be able to take the place of Sunny and the other dragonets.

Morrowseer stared across the lava field and inhaled several times, his nostrils flaring and his tongue slithering in and out. He did this for so long that Starflight began to wonder if there was something wrong with his nose.

“Um,” Starflight squeaked at last.

Morrowseer glared at him in the middle of a giant sniff.

“J-just, um,” Starflight said. “I just want you to know I don’t know anything else. Really. About the RainWings attacking.” Almost immediately, his traitorous brain started clamoring,
Except that Glory might be queen by now! And that RainWings are normally pacifists! And —

He fixed his eyes on the mountain behind them and tried to think of nothing but lava.

Morrowseer snorted. “That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “You’re just about the most useless spy I’ve ever met.” He spread his wings and inhaled once more. “Let’s go.”

His tail nearly knocked Starflight off the ledge as he leaped into the sky.

“Down there?” Starflight called, glancing at the molten cracks in the rocks below them. “Is it safe?” He flapped to catch up to Morrowseer.

“Of course it isn’t,” Morrowseer snapped. “Several dragons have made the mistake of trying to land down there, only to break the crust and fall right through.” He nodded at a white shape sticking out of the rocks. Starflight peered at it until he realized what it was, and then wished he hadn’t. His stomach twisted as he spotted a few others: dragon skulls, their mouths open in an eternal scream.

“I wouldn’t suggest a closer look,” Morrowseer said drily. “We’re going over there.” He nodded to the far side of the lava rocks, where Starflight now saw a tangle of gray, ash-covered trees.

“So.” Starflight cleared his throat. “When Greatness said ‘if it’s your turn to eat this week’ — what did that mean?”

Morrowseer hissed. “There’s a rotating schedule. All NightWings are allowed to hunt or gather for about five days out of every month. Naturally, I am exempt.”

“Naturally?” Starflight echoed, although he hadn’t meant for it to sound so much like a question.
Only five days a month? No wonder they’re all so thin … they must be running out of food on this island.

The older dragon frowned down at him. “My role in the tribe’s future makes me indispensable.”

“Oh,” Starflight said, not daring to ask any more questions.

As they got closer to the trees, it turned out to be a bigger forest than Starflight had expected, covering about a quarter of the island, from the edge of the lava to the ocean.

“I see,” he said with relief. “I wondered where you hunted.” Surely there couldn’t be much prey on an active volcano.

“Here, when we have to,” Morrowseer spat. “For instance, when we can’t get to the rainforest or the Kingdom of Sand.” His forked black tongue hissed in and out.

Oh. That must be another reason they’re so angry right now — they’ve been using the rainforest to find extra prey,
he thought.
Like that sloth Glory, Clay, and I found by the river.
He’d had trouble getting the stench of that dying sloth out of his nose. For a moment, Starflight thought the memory of it had brought the smell back, until he realized a similar smell of decay was coming from the forest below him.

“The whole island was like this when we got here,” Morrowseer said.

“You mean, covered with trees?” Starflight asked. “What happened? The volcano?”
Stupid question. Of course it was the volcano.
He looked back at the mountain, which must have sent a river of lava this way that covered almost all the trees, turning the island into a mostly barren rockscape.

Morrowseer didn’t answer him. They circled overhead once and Starflight spotted a few other NightWings prowling through the trees. Morrowseer glowered at them, then flicked his tail at Starflight.

“Quickly,” he snapped. “Before one of them finds my prey.”

“Your —” Starflight started curiously, but Morrowseer had already tucked his wings and was arrowing down to a patch of stunted trees not far from the beach.

The older dragon landed with a
thud
that sent gray dust billowing around his talons and immediately dropped his nose to the ground. With a horrible snorting noise, he charged across the clearing, taking deep breaths and flicking his tongue rapidly in and out.

Starflight had never seen hunting like this. Dune had taught them what he could in the caves under the mountain, and sometimes it had involved scent trails — Starflight was always decent at those — but usually it also involved being quiet, waiting to spot your target, and then attacking swiftly, before they even knew you were there.

But from the noise Morrowseer was making, Starflight thought every animal on the island must know he was coming.

He followed the large black dragon, thinking about Dune and his hunting lessons. Their SandWing guardian hadn’t been particularly kind to the dragonets, although he’d never been as cruel as Kestrel. But he’d always noticed how hard Starflight studied, and sometimes he gave him special tutorials on scrolls that Starflight found confusing.

Their other guardian, Webs, had often made an effort to bring back more scrolls for Starflight on his trips outside. They’d both been more cautious with him than the other dragonets — perhaps wary that his NightWing mind reading or prophecy skills might suddenly manifest.

Something I’m still waiting for,
he thought, hunching his wings.

Morrowseer made a guttural, triumphant noise and swiped a leafless bush out of his way.

Underneath it was something half dead.

More than half dead
, Starflight thought.
Almost all the way dead.
It looked like a pile of gray and white feathers as big as a dragon’s head. When the giant NightWing hooked one claw in it to drag it out, it let out an awful pathetic squawk.

“What is it?” Starflight asked, trying to remember a bird like this from his scrolls. His curiosity made him forget about being too afraid to talk. “It’s bigger than any seagull I’ve seen.”

“A giant albatross,” Morrowseer said, flipping it over. “I was sure it would be dead by now.” With a shrug, he sliced one claw across the bird’s throat.

Starflight covered his snout with one of his wings. The toxic smell of the dead bird was almost overwhelming; he wanted to run to the ocean and bury his head in the salt water to make it go away.

As Morrowseer prodded it a few more times, Starflight spotted a bite on the bird’s neck like the one on the dead sloth in the rainforest. It looked infected and disgusting, crawling with insects.

“Are you sure that’s safe to eat?” he asked.

“I’m the one who killed it,” Morrowseer growled. “I’m certainly going to eat it.”

“But won’t it make you sick?”

Morrowseer gave him a dark look. “NightWings don’t get sick. Don’t tell me you have a weak stomach in addition to everything else wrong with you.”

“N-no, I don’t think so,” Starflight said, hoping he wasn’t about to throw up and prove himself wrong. “But look, there’s probably horrible bacteria all through that wound.”

“Of course there is,” Morrowseer said. “How do you think it died? My bite infected it. That’s —” He paused, frowning at Starflight. “Isn’t this how you hunt, too?”

Starflight glanced down at the horrible-smelling bird. He had a feeling he shouldn’t admit that so far Clay had done most of the hunting since they left the mountain. But he also didn’t want to admit that he didn’t understand this at all.

Use your brain,
he told himself.
You can figure this out.

“You bite your prey,” he said slowly. “And then you wait for it to die. And then you find it and eat it — once it’s already dead and rotting. But it doesn’t make you sick.” He squinted at Morrowseer’s teeth. “There’s something in your mouth that kills them, even if the bite itself wasn’t fatal. Is it venom?”

Morrowseer shook his head. “Some NightWings think so, but none of our scientists have been able to find any when they examine our tribe’s corpses. Nor have we had any success replicating RainWing venom shooting.” He scowled at the bird and abruptly ripped off one if its wings. “You may have this,” he said ungenerously, tossing it at Starflight.

Starflight jumped back to avoid catching it, and the wing splatted to the ground in front of him. Several wriggly things crawled out of it and he closed his eyes quickly.

“Um,” he said. “No, thank you.”

Morrowseer already had his teeth buried in the underbelly of the albatross. He tore off a mouthful and chewed for a moment, staring narrowly at Starflight.

“What do you think you’re going to eat?” he barked. “This is the NightWing way.”

“I’ll catch something else,” Starflight said. He glanced around. “A turtle or a lizard or something.”

“I’m starting to see why you’re so useless,” Morrowseer hissed. “No one’s ever taught you to be a NightWing. We assumed you’d be born superior like the rest of us, but perhaps you’re defective. Well, we don’t have time for
delicate sensibilities and a lengthy turtle hunt. Eat the wing or starve.”