Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret (22 page)

“You said you saw Orchid in one of these caves,” Glory said to Fatespeaker. “Do you remember which one?”

Fatespeaker nodded and twisted into a dive, aiming for one of the caves closest to the fortress. As they approached, its two guards looked up. Although all they could see were two NightWing dragonets, one of them frowned a little as if he sensed something was amiss. Starflight’s stomach lurched as the guard reached for the gong that would summon the rest of the tribe.

Then the air beside Starflight’s ear went
zzt zzt
,
and the two guards wobbled and went down.

“That was close,” Starflight said, but after a moment he realized he really
was
talking to empty air. Below him, the two guards were dragged aside, and as he landed he heard the
thump
of talons hurrying to the back of the cave.

“I want to see this,” Fatespeaker whispered, darting inside. Starflight followed just in time to see Mangrove appear in front of Orchid, his gray and black scales shifting all at once to a joyful pink shot through with worried green.

Orchid let out a cry of joy that was muffled by the iron muzzle around her jaws. She reached toward Mangrove and he leaped for her, wrapping his wings all the way around her and twining his tail with hers.

“I’m here,” he said. “I wouldn’t give up; I’d never give up on you.”

She couldn’t speak, but the rose colors of Orchid’s scales said everything.

“Let’s get her out of here as fast as we can,” Glory said. “If
they’re all chained to the wall like this, we have extra work to do. Starflight, give me the spear.”

Starflight held the spear out and it was whisked away from him. A Glory-shaped shadow approached Orchid and carefully stuck the points of the spear into the lock on the mouth band.

“Liana, Grandeur, are you paying attention?” Glory asked.

“Yes,” two voices said from the air. Starflight jumped. He hadn’t realized the other two RainWings were with them.

“This is how you undo the locks,” Glory said, twisting the spear. The muzzle fell off with a
clank
, and Glory set to work on the chains that bound Orchid to the wall.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t care where I was,” Orchid said to Mangrove. “I thought you’d move on and find someone else.…”

“Never, never, never,” Mangrove said fiercely.

“Do you feel the earth shaking?” Orchid asked.

“I think that’s me,” Mangrove said, holding out his trembling claws. “Like all the happiness inside us is trying to burst out.”

Actually, I’m pretty sure that was a real earthquake,
Starflight thought. He’d felt the tremor in the earth as well, rumbling up through his talons before it stopped.

“Done,” Glory said, and the spear moved through the air as she handed it to one of the other RainWings. Orchid shook off the loose chains and spread her wings, beaming and glowing like a ball of pink sunshine.

“Orchid, this is our new queen, Glory,” said Mangrove. “She’s the reason we found you, and she’s the dragon who convinced everyone to come get you.”

“It was really thanks to Mangrove,” said Glory. “He’s the one who knew you were missing and wouldn’t shut up about it. If we hadn’t brought an army to save you, he’d have come over here and done it himself.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Orchid said with a half bow.

“That is
too weird
,” Starflight whispered to Fatespeaker. “Hearing my friend called ‘Your Majesty.’”

“I bet watching her lead an invasion is fairly strange, too,” Fatespeaker whispered back.

“Grandeur, Liana, disguise yourselves as NightWings, take the guards’ spears, and go to the other caves,” Glory ordered. “Show everyone how to free the prisoners. Move as quickly and quietly as you can. Then get everyone back to the tunnel. The most important thing is getting all fourteen prisoners home safe. Mangrove, you and Orchid take a moment to calm your scales down and then you can head back to the rainforest, too.”

“I should come with you,” Mangrove said. “If you’re going into the fortress, you’ll need backup.”

“I’ll have it,” Glory said.

I hope she doesn’t mean me,
Starflight thought anxiously.

“But we went to a lot of trouble to reunite you and Orchid, so go be happy with her for a little while. We’ll let you know if we need you.”

Mangrove and Orchid both bowed.

Wings brushed against Starflight’s shoulder and he started back for a moment before he realized it was Glory, heading up the tunnel to the lava river.

“Come on, Starflight,” she said from the darkness. “Let’s go have a talk with the NightWing queen.”

The fortress seemed eerily quiet as they flew toward it. The air felt thick with ashy smoke. Starflight’s nose and throat hurt even worse than before, and occasionally he heard Glory and Fatespeaker coughing behind him.

He rubbed his stinging eyes and stared at the fortress ahead, wondering where an entire NightWing army would assemble. Queen Battlewinner wouldn’t be able to lead it, since she couldn’t leave the lava. Greatness would have to really make some queenly decisions if she was planning to lead their attack.

Had Starflight’s absence been noticed yet? If not, surely at least Morrowseer would have gone to check on Flame and found him missing. How had he reacted?

Maybe he’ll think Flame tried to fly home to the continent,
Starflight thought.
We’d be in luck if Morrowseer tried to follow him
. He really did not want to encounter Morrowseer in the halls of the fortress.

“Please tell me there’s an invisible army with us,” Starflight said.

“I’m your invisible army,” Glory said cheerfully.

“I’m serious,” Starflight said. “We shouldn’t go in there alone, just the three of us.”

“Tell me something,” Glory said. “The dungeons you saw — how do we get them open? Will those spears work on the doors, or do we need keys?”

Starflight closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the dungeon. “We need keys, I think,” he said.

“So let’s start with the queen,” Glory said. “We’ll make her tell us where to find the keys.”

Starflight could not imagine making Battlewinner do anything at all, but then, Glory was a lot more persuasive than he was — and even more so now that she had a queen’s authority. He swerved down toward the entrance closest to the council chamber.

The three of them padded silently through the hallways. Loud voices rang out from a few of the rooms. Starflight caught snippets of an argument about who would get to wear some shared armor, a monologue about another battle the storyteller had been in, and a conversation about how killing RainWings would have to be easier than killing MudWings.

He’d forgotten all about the dead MudWings on the rainforest border.
Why would the NightWings kill them?
he asked himself, and almost immediately a possible answer came to him:
to keep the MudWings out of the rainforest. If they believe there’s a deadly monster lurking in there — that it’s not safe to go anywhere near it — they won’t be tempted to conquer the
rainforest themselves. Leaving it untouched and ready for the NightWings to move in anytime.

That explains the howler monkeys, too.
He remembered Jambu saying that the monkeys used to make a normal monkey sound, but then suddenly they started screaming like dying dragons instead.
I bet my dad is responsible for that. I bet he did something to the monkeys so their screams would scare the MudWings away.

Everything the NightWings did was part of their grand plan of taking over the rainforest. Starflight sighed and glanced at the map as he led the way into the room with the secret entrance. If only there were somewhere else the NightWings could go … but they’d clearly been all over Pyrrhia, destroying scavenger dens, for whatever reason, and if there had been somewhere else for them to live, surely they would have found it.

“Someone’s coming,” Glory whispered a heartbeat before Starflight heard claws tapping on stone and smelled the rank odor of NightWing breath.

Fatespeaker shot across the room to the map, but before she could lift the corner and duck underneath, scales slithered in the doorway and they all whirled to see Greatness staring at them.

The ground rumbled under their feet.

“What are you doing in here?” the NightWing princess asked. Her glittering diamond necklace was askew, as if she’d slept in it and had forgotten it was on. Her eyes looked
exhausted, red and raw from the smoke in the air. “Why aren’t you with the others?”

“We … got lost?” Starflight tried.

Greatness squinted at them. “Oh, you’re the two little prophecy dragonets. Morrowseer was looking for you in quite a towering rage earlier. Listen, like I told him, the prophecy is important, but it’s even more important that we win this battle tonight. So the whole tribe is going, no exceptions. Everyone else is in the great hall — if you follow this tunnel down and take the fourth left, you’ll be halfway there and someone can guide you.”

“What about you?” Fatespeaker asked. “Why aren’t you there?”

“I’m going to speak with the queen first,” Greatness said. Her eyes darted involuntarily to the map.

“Actually,” Glory’s voice said from the air, “we’re all going to speak with the queen.” Greatness stiffened and pulled in her wings; Starflight saw a flash of scales changing color as Glory’s claws rested on the artery in the NightWing’s throat.

“Don’t call for help,” Glory said. “I’m not an ordinary RainWing. My venom is aimed at your eyes right now and
I
am not afraid to use it.”

“The dangerous one,” Greatness whispered.

“That’s right,” Glory said. “Now we’re all going up the hidden tunnel to the queen, and you’re leading the way, and you’re going to keep in mind that my fangs are right behind you.”

Greatness blinked and nodded several times, looking queasy. She hurried to the map and ducked into the tunnel.
The rustle of wings indicated that Glory had followed her; Fatespeaker and Starflight were right behind them.

The rocky floor felt hot under Starflight’s talons, hotter than it had before. Another rumble shook the mountain as they pressed forward.

“Um,” Starflight said as a horrifying thought struck him. “There’s no chance this volcano is about to erupt, is there?”

Up ahead in the shadows, the bulky figure of Greatness paused and looked back. “It shouldn’t,” she said. “Our scientists predicted that we have at least two more years before another major eruption.”

“How can they be sure?” Fatespeaker asked. “Did someone have a vision?”

Greatness turned around and kept walking without answering.

Starflight braced himself against another tremble in the ground. “I don’t like the feeling in the air,” he whispered to Fatespeaker. “I don’t know much about volcanoes … but I’m pretty sure it’s a bad sign when they start doing this.”

“Poor NightWings,” Fatespeaker said softly.

“Hmm,” said Starflight. “More like, poor
us
, if we don’t get out of here soon.”

They abruptly came around the bend into the queen’s cave. Queen Battlewinner was sitting erect in her boiling lava cauldron, glaring at them with fierce eyes that reflected the red light around them.

Starflight inhaled sharply as he spotted another dragon in the back corner of the cave: his father, Mastermind. The
scientist was fussing over several hunks of metal on the floor, and after a moment, Starflight remembered seeing them in the lab. All put together, they looked like a suit of armor that would fit over an entire dragon, with room to pour something in between the dragon’s scales and the metal.

Lava,
he realized.
This is how Battlewinner plans to get to the rainforest. Mastermind has been building her a portable lava device.
His brain immediately started taking apart the science of the idea.
But how would it stay hot, away from the volcano? Can any metal really contain it?
He also realized, tangentially, that his father had lied about not seeing the queen — he must be one of the few dragons who knew her secret, and was working to help her keep it.

Mastermind looked up as they came in and locked eyes with Starflight. His expression was startled, but in a distracted way, as if he was dealing with something far more important, and after a moment he bent back to the armor without saying anything to his son.

“Fool,” Battlewinner snarled at Greatness.

Greatness hung her head, looking less like a queen than ever.

“Preparations?” the NightWing queen hissed.

“Everyone is gathering,” Greatness said. “But, Mother, I can’t lead them into battle by myself. Can’t we postpone the attack? Mastermind says your armor isn’t ready …”

“It will be,” Battlewinner hissed. “Tonight.”

“I don’t think so,” Mastermind said anxiously from behind her. He dropped a curved tailplate with a loud clatter
and winced. “Your Majesty, I don’t understand why you have to go. I need more time to make sure this will work for you.”

“Must do this right,” Battlewinner snarled. “Can’t trust
you
to invade properly.” She cast a scornful look at Greatness.

“You shouldn’t,” Greatness said, fingering the diamonds around her neck. “I don’t know what you want me to do. So I was coming to ask you and then —”

“And then she ran into me,” Glory said.

Mastermind let out a yelp of fright as Glory’s scales shimmered into sight, shifting from the camouflage of the shadows to a bold royal blue shot through with veins of gold. She looked regal and out of place in this smoky red and black cave. “Well,” she added, “more accurately, she ran into my claws.” She flexed her talons and narrowed her eyes at Queen Battlewinner.

“And you are?” growled the queen.

“Queen Glory of the RainWings. I have come to give you one chance to end this war before we destroy you.”

The dragon in the lava made an involuntary scoffing sound that clearly hurt her throat. She paused for a long moment, clutching her neck, then dipped her whole body under the lava and emerged again.

“Funny,” she said finally.

“Not very,” Glory said. “If you think an IceWing attack is hard to live with, wait until you experience a little RainWing venom. I’m afraid your lava bath won’t be able to help you with that.”

Smoke hissed softly through Battlewinner’s nostrils as she stared at Glory.

“Oh, three moons,” Greatness said anxiously, wringing her talons. “What do you want?”

“We’re taking our prisoners back,” Glory said. “You will never set foot in the rainforest again. You will leave the RainWings alone forever. We’ll destroy the tunnel between our kingdoms, you’ll call off the invasion, and we’ll never even sniff another NightWing near our village for the next twelve generations.”

Starflight cleared his throat a few times significantly and Glory glanced at him. “Also,” she added, “you will stop meddling with the prophecy dragonets — both the real ones and the fake ones. You’ll let them save the world and stop the war however they decide to.”

“Never,” hissed Queen Battlewinner. “Never.”

“Never what?” Glory said. “Because you don’t have a lot of options here.”

“I see one,” Battlewinner croaked. “You die.”

Glory bared her teeth at the NightWing queen, but Greatness interrupted, her voice pleading.

“Please listen. You’re dooming us to a horrible end,” she cried. “The volcano is not only a future threat — it’s killing us now. There’s almost no prey left. We’re all starving. Fewer dragonets are born each year. And we’re barely NightWings anymore. Don’t you see? The tribe is dying. We
need
a new home.”

“Well, you can’t have
ours
, you murderous entitled worms,” Glory flared.

“Why not?” Mastermind asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Because a whole tribe already lives there.” Glory’s scales were flashing to red and orange in places — hints of her anger showing through, although she quelled them quickly. “And if you try to hurt my RainWings, I will make you regret it.”

“Wait,” Starflight said. His brain was suddenly spinning forward — a new idea unfolding across his mind like a scroll rolling open. “Wait — maybe — maybe there’s a way to compromise. Glory, stop and think. There’s lots of space in the rainforest; the RainWings say so all the time. What if we let the NightWings move in and build their own village somewhere in the rainforest — but
only
if
they all swear to accept
you
as their new queen.”

There was a shocked pause.

“WHAT?” Battlewinner roared.

Glory tilted her head at Starflight, looking skeptical but intrigued.

“Think about it,” Starflight said. “A new home for the NightWings, safe and peaceful, and all they have to do is give up their cruelty and violence and obey you. You know you’d be as great at being NightWing queen as you are at ruling the RainWings.”

“Hmm,” Glory said. “There would be something poetic
about being the boss of a tribe that’s always called me lazy and useless.”

“NEVER!” Battlewinner shouted, then had to stop and double over coughing for a long minute.

Uneasily, Starflight felt the ground shake again, much stronger this time.

“We’ll never bow to RainWings,” Battlewinner snarled finally.

“Actually, Mother,” Greatness said nervously, “it sounds like a decent plan to me.”

Battlewinner spat out a shard of ice that sizzled into steam when it hit the lava. “You never wanted to be queen,” she rasped. “You’re a pathetic heir.”

“I know I am,” Greatness said. “Being queen is awful.”

Battlewinner hissed again, loud and long. Starflight realized that he was also hearing something else — a faraway rumbling that seemed to be getting louder and closer.

“What about our real queen?” Mastermind asked.

Starflight stared straight into the icy blue depths of Battlewinner’s eyes. “I think she knows she’s not making it to the rainforest. There’s nothing you can build that will work to keep her alive there. She’s going to die here, crushed by the volcano along with the NightWing home, and if she wants her tribe to survive, she needs to hand them over to Queen Glory.”

Battlewinner’s tail was thrashing hard enough to spill lava over the edges of the cauldron, splattering dangerously close to their talons. “I am their queen.
I
am,” she spat.

“Wait, Starflight,” Glory said. “I haven’t agreed to this. How could we ever trust the NightWings in our rainforest? These are the same dragons who’ve been abducting and torturing my tribe. How can we just forgive them? I don’t want them anywhere near us.” She shook her head. “I don’t think it’ll work.”

Mastermind looked sick at the words “abducting and torturing.” He turned away from Starflight, staring down at the armor in his claws.