Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret (23 page)

“It might work,” Greatness said desperately. “Give us a chance, please! I promise we can be better.”

“Shameful,” Battlewinner snarled.

“It’s not up to you,” Starflight said to the NightWing queen, and realized his voice wasn’t even shaking. He was right, he could feel it, and that helped him get past his fear. “You’re stuck here. We’re negotiating with Greatness now.” He turned to the NightWing princess. “Come on, let’s talk about this somewhere else.”

“No!” roared Battlewinner. “You can’t do this.
I won’t let you.
” She gripped the sides of the cauldron with glistening claws, and then, to Starflight’s horror, she heaved herself up and out of the lava. Her back talons crunched down on the edge of the cauldron. Her wings flared open, scattering molten orange droplets across the room. Her thick head swung back and forth, glaring at all of them. She was massive, as big as Morrowseer, and glowing horribly as lava dripped between her scales and claws and slithered off her tail.

“Mother, stop,” Greatness cried.

“Your Majesty!” Mastermind shouted. “You can’t come out! Wait — my experiment —” He scrabbled frantically at the armor around him.

“
I
will lead my tribe to safety,” the queen hissed. She landed on the rocky ground with a
thud
, but the aftershocks went on too long to be caused by her. It was an earthquake, a serious one, Starflight realized as bits of the walls began to crumble.

“We have to get out of here,” he said to Glory.

Queen Battlewinner took a step toward Glory and Starflight, then stopped, clutching her neck again. She hissed in a frightening, hoarse way and took another step. Her tongue flicked out and in and she started to shake. When she stared around at all of them, Starflight could see the icy blue spreading rapidly over her eyeballs.

“Mother!” Greatness yelped. “Get back in the lava!” She darted to her mother’s side and tried tugging on Battlewinner’s wing. Mastermind dashed up on the other side and started wrapping bits of metal around the queen’s limbs. But Starflight could tell that even if the armor would work, it was already too late.

With a bone-rattling shriek, Battlewinner threw off her daughter and Mastermind and surged toward Glory. Glory took a step back, and the NightWing queen collapsed on the floor in front of her. Her limbs twitched violently; her wings spasmed; her tail thrashed back and forth. White frost was starting to march between the scales of her neck, spreading rapidly across her body.

Lava dripped off Battlewinner, faster and faster as the ice started to win the battle for her body. Greatness pressed herself against the wall, whimpering, as far away from the dying queen as possible. Starflight wanted to look away, but somehow he couldn’t. He felt Fatespeaker bury her face in his shoulder.

The NightWing queen’s neck froze solid first, then her chest, her ears, her wings, her snout, all the way out to her claws and her tail. Within moments, the dragon’s entire body was encased in jagged whorls of ice. Her eyes were blue pools of rage. Her mouth froze wide open, as if she’d wanted to end her life with a howl of fury, but it was too late; nothing could come out.

Greatness and Mastermind stared down at the queen, disbelief and horror warring on their faces.

Then the entire island shook as if a giant dragon had pounded his talons into it, and Starflight felt his stomach twist with terror.

The volcano was about to erupt.

“We have to go
now
,” Starflight said, grabbing Glory and shoving her toward the door. He bundled Fatespeaker ahead of him, too, and they fled down the tunnel.

“Wait!” He heard Greatness yell as they ran, but when Fatespeaker tried to stop he pushed her forward. There was no time for more diplomatic conversation. Feet thumped behind them; Greatness would have to talk to them somewhere else, such as
not
in the middle of an exploding volcano.

The map caught on Starflight’s horns and ripped away from the wall as he threw himself out of the hole at the end. He rolled forward, wrestling the map off his head and bundling it in his talons. Without really thinking about it, he shoved it under one arm and carried it with him as he bolted for the door.

“Where are the dungeons?” Glory shouted.

“There’s no time!” Starflight yelled. Couldn’t she feel the volcano shaking? Ash was raining down all around them; cracks were zipping across the fortress walls like lightning.

“We are not leaving Deathbringer!” Glory grabbed
Fatespeaker. “Point the way and I’ll go by myself. Starflight, get out of here. Get everyone off the island.”

Deathbringer?
Starflight opened and closed his mouth. He hadn’t realized that rescuing the NightWing assassin was even on Glory’s agenda, let alone that it was important enough to risk an erupting volcano for.

But she’s right. He risked everything for us — for her.

Fatespeaker pointed in the direction of the dungeons and Glory took off without waiting for any more arguments.

I can’t let her go by herself!
Starflight’s heart was trying to pound its way out of his chest. He remembered the NightWing skeletons in the old treasure room; he thought of the lava flow that had consumed the old forest and the skulls sticking out of it. He could feel the heat of the volcano as if it were trying to batter its way through the walls toward him.

All he wanted to do was fly as fast as he could to the tunnel and escape to the cool safety of the rainforest.

But Glory didn’t know where she was going, or what to do when she got there.

He whirled around and found Greatness behind them, wringing her talons again and looking utterly wrecked. “Where are the keys to the dungeon prisons?” he yelled at her.

“The — the — oh — there’s a set hidden in a coal niche on the dungeon stairs,” she said. “What are we going to do about the volcano? Is this it? The one that kills us all?”

Yes.
“Not necessarily,” Starflight said, trying to sound far less panicked than he felt. “Take Fatespeaker to the great hall
and tell all the NightWings our terms. If they’ll swear loyalty to Queen Glory, we’ll consider letting them live in the rainforest. Anyone who agrees, send them through the tunnel as fast as you can. Anyone who doesn’t, tell them to fly for the continent immediately. They need to get far away from here before the eruption — the lava and smoke could reach for miles.”

“But Glory didn’t say yes,” Fatespeaker pointed out.

“I’ll talk her into it,” he promised grimly. “Go, quickly.” He wrapped his wings briefly around Fatespeaker, feeling her scales slide against his, and then let go and ran after Glory.

He found her at the next intersection, looking around in furious indecision.

“This way,” he called. He ran past her, toward the stairs that led down to the dungeon.

There was no time to talk, and the rumbling of the volcano was now loud enough to drown out any attempt at conversation anyway. The heat increased as they went down, and the noise grew and the walls seemed to shake even more.

We’re going to die down here,
Starflight thought with absolute certainty.

He stopped at each niche on the stairs, feeling gingerly around the coals and singeing his talons more than once. Finally, in the last one, he felt something metal and heavy hanging from a hook inside the opening, and when he tugged on it, he found keys resting in his claws.

In the dungeon, Splendor was awake, shaking like a leaf in the middle of her cell, with her wings over her head.

“It’s all right,” Starflight called through the bars, trying keys in the lock one after another. “We’re here; we’re rescuing you. You’re going home.”

Splendor looked up, blinking. Her scales were bright acid-green and her expression was dazed with fear.

Starflight glanced around and realized that Glory had gone right past them. She was at Deathbringer’s cage, grabbing the bars. As he watched, Deathbringer reached his talons through the bars and wrapped them around hers, and they exchanged a look that said “thank you” and a whole lot more.

The lock finally turned under his claws and the door swung open. Splendor stumbled toward him.

“Wait here,” he told her, hurrying to Deathbringer’s door.

“Why aren’t we leaving?” Splendor wailed.

Glory grabbed the keys from him and started trying them. It was hard to tell whether her talons were shaking from nerves, too, or whether it just looked that way because the whole mountain was quaking now without stopping.

“You don’t have to do this,” Deathbringer said, his gaze fixed on Glory.

“Oh, I don’t?” Glory said without looking up from the keys. “That’ll save me some time; good luck with the volcano, then.”

Starflight glanced up at the ominous cracks appearing in the ceiling. He spotted a symbol at the top of Deathbringer’s cage — a symbol he’d seen on one of the keys.

“Try this one,” he said, reaching over and taking the keys from Glory. He stuck the key with the symbol on it in the lock and turned it. The door swung open.

Deathbringer yanked on his chains as they hurried into the cell. Splendor ran in behind them, flapping her wings in a frantic whirl of green.

“Something is coming through the walls!” she shrieked. “We’re all going to die!”

Starflight looked out at the dungeon hallway and saw lava glowing in the cracks of the walls.

“She’s right,” he said quietly to Glory.

“You two go ahead,” she said, concentrating on the keys and Deathbringer’s chains. “We’ll be right behind you.”

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Splendor cried.

“One more minute,” Starflight told her. He held his breath as Glory tried key after key.

“We don’t
have
any more minutes,” Splendor sobbed. “We’re going to be exploded and covered in lava and melted and dead!”

A ferocious rumble answered her, knocking them all off their feet. Glory scrambled up and stuck the last key in the lock around Deathbringer’s chains.

“That’s it!” she cried as they fell off, clanking and clattering like living things on the quaking floor. “Come on!” She seized Deathbringer’s forearm and yanked him up. They took off down the hallway with Starflight and Splendor right behind them.

The mountain was shaking so violently now that it was hard to run; Starflight kept getting thrown into walls or the other dragons. He concentrated on the stairs up ahead.

“Watch your feet,” Deathbringer called. Hot coals were scattered across the steps where they had fallen from their niches. Glory swept several aside with her tail, wincing as even that brief contact burned her scales.

They raced up the steps, covering their heads with their wings as bits of rock plummeted from the ceiling. Starflight stepped on a coal and bit back a yowl of pain. The stairs felt endless, like they were staggering upward for days, but finally they burst out onto a level floor.

“This way!” Deathbringer hurtled down the hall in a direction Starflight hadn’t been before.

A loud crash sounded from the direction of the council chamber, and Starflight thought he heard a dragon screaming. He shoved Splendor ahead of him. Even Glory was green now; neither RainWing could camouflage their scales while their fear was so strong. They all raced after Deathbringer, twisting through the fortress labyrinth, until up ahead they saw the sky — or at least, the dense cloud of ash and smoke that now surrounded the volcano.

“Try not to breathe,” Glory said to Splendor. “It’s not far to the tunnel.”

Starflight flung his wings open and leaped off the ledge, flapping furiously through the thick air. He could see the lava river glowing and churning below him, faster and wider
than ever. He could also see a growing crowd of black dragons down on the beach, some of them fighting one another tooth and claw.

“We have to bring them to the rainforest,” he called to Glory, coughing and gasping. “Or else the whole NightWing tribe could be wiped out today.”

“Serves them right,” she called, but he could see from her face that she couldn’t let that happen either.

Chunks of fiery rocks were starting to shoot out of the volcano, blasting into the sky and slamming into the ground with explosive force. One came so close to Starflight’s wing that he felt the heat of it crackle along his scales.

Glory twisted in the air, scanning the caves below her. “I hope all my RainWings made it back safely.”

Starflight found himself making a decision that shocked him, but the words were out of his mouth before he could take them back. “You go ahead to the rainforest, make sure they’re all right, and prepare them for what’s coming,” he said. “I’ll gather the NightWings and bring them through.”

She gave him a surprised look, but didn’t argue. “We’ll have our spears and fangs and sleeping darts ready,” she said. “Come on, you two.” She flicked her tail at Deathbringer and Splendor, who sped after her. Starflight watched them all dive for the cave entrance, where green scales flashed as two half-camouflaged RainWings reached to welcome them in.

Now Starflight could see a cluster of spears bristling in the air by the cave, and he realized with a sinking sensation
that the RainWings probably weren’t letting any NightWings through. He’d sent Fatespeaker and Greatness on that mission, but the RainWings didn’t know them — they’d barely met Fatespeaker — and had no reason to trust them.

They would listen to him, though. If he could convince the NightWings to accept Glory as their queen … if he could lead them into the rainforest peacefully …

But if he couldn’t …

There were a million things that could go wrong. The RainWings might panic and attack the NightWings as they came through, even with Glory standing over them. Or the NightWings might lie to get to safety and then attack the RainWings anyway.

Or the volcano might kill them all before they got anywhere.

Another blast from the volcano sent sharp rock shards zinging around him. Starflight felt a stabbing pain in his side as one of them grazed his scales.

No more time for worrying,
he thought, tucking his wings and diving toward the beach.
We escape now, together … or we all die.