Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret (24 page)

It looked as though the entire tribe might be gathered on the beach below him. Starflight flew in a wide circle, scanning the crowd, until he saw Greatness and Fatespeaker standing on a boulder, waving their wings and trying to get everyone’s attention.

“They’ll never let us through!” shrieked a NightWing with long scratches along his side. “We have to take the rainforest by force!”

“We can’t fight them,” yelled another. “They infiltrated the island, took out all our guards, and escaped with the prisoners, and we never even knew they were here. They’ll kill us the moment we step into that tunnel.”

The volcano shot another blast of fiery rocks into the air, and many of the black dragons flung themselves to the ground with cries of terror.

“Listen to me!” Starflight called, hovering above Greatness. “There is a way to escape safely. I promise you that the RainWings will show you mercy if you accept Glory as your queen.”

“How can a RainWing lead our tribe?” shouted a voice that Starflight recognized as his sister’s. Fierceteeth flared her wings and shook her talons at him.

“Better than Queen Battlewinner can,” Starflight said. “Since she’s dead.”

Shocked silence fell over the tribe; all of them stared at him in disbelief. Starflight spotted Mastermind, hopping agitatedly from one foot to the other, with his arms full of scrolls. And finally Starflight saw Morrowseer at the back, glowering at him. The look on the giant dragon’s face gave Starflight chills from his wings to the tip of his tail.

“But Greatness …” one of the NightWings said half-heartedly.

“I’ve already agreed to this plan,” Greatness called. “It is the only way for our tribe to survive.”

“Glory will take care of you,” Starflight said firmly. “She will be a fair and just queen, and you’ll be safe in the rainforest instead of trapped here.”

The smoke had gotten so dense that it was getting hard to see the dragons in front of him. Fine gray ash coated all their scales and made the sand slick beneath their claws.

The volcano rumbled ominously.

“I’ll do it,” Mightyclaws said from the front of the crowd. “It has to be better than this.”

“How do we know they won’t kill us all?” asked another dragon.

“I trust her,” said Greatness.

“And guess what really will kill you all,” Fatespeaker added, pointing. “That volcano. So, come on, let’s get out of here! All hail Queen Glory!” She took to the sky, flying toward the tunnel.

“Queen Glory!” shouted Mightyclaws, leaping into the air.

“Queen Glory!” shouted another dragon, and then another and another.

Starflight hoped that Glory could hear them. This had to be the strangest thing that had ever happened to her: the tribe that was always supposed to be so superior, now bowing down to the most “useless” of the dragonets.

He darted ahead of them to the ledge and found that the RainWings were gone. In their place were Clay, Tsunami, and Sunny, and he felt himself breathe a little deeper when he saw them.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Tsunami said to Starflight as he landed beside her. “This is a terrible plan. NightWings can’t be trusted.”

“I think it’s brilliant,” Sunny said warmly. “I think
you’re
brilliant. I think it’s the best idea in the world.”

Starflight hadn’t even thought about what Sunny would think of his idea — for once. He gave her a shy smile, pleased that he had accidentally done something she was so excited about.

“We’d better hurry,” Clay said, glancing up at the mountain, which was spitting bright orange sparks into the sky. “Come on, quickly,” he called to the approaching NightWings, holding out his talons.

Mightyclaws was the first to land on the ledge. “Queen Glory!” he cried, charging past them down the tunnel. Starflight followed far enough to see the dragonet leap into the hole and disappear.

Greatness was next, moving just as fast. She paused briefly beside Starflight, her wings filling the tunnel, her eyes darting anxiously back toward the smoldering volcano. “I’m so glad I won’t ever have to be queen,” she whispered to him, then hurried off.

Escaping ahead of the rest of her tribe,
Starflight thought,
instead of waiting to make sure everyone else gets away safely. The NightWings should all be glad she won’t ever be their queen.

He stepped back as a flood of NightWings started coming through.

“To our new queen!” he heard a few of them cry.

“Queen Glory!”

“This is so wrong,” somebody muttered.

“Think of all the food!” said someone else.

“And the smell of the rainforest — have you been there?” said another. “It’s amazing, like the air itself is full of water and light.”

“You’ll finally get to try a coconut,” one dragon said to another as they went by.

“Real trees,” a few of the dragonets were whispering to each other. “Real sunshine! Mangoes everyday!”

Starflight pushed back through the tide of black dragons until he reached his friends on the outer ledge. The sky was full of boiling dark clouds, and gray ash was raining down
like snow. A new rivulet of lava had snaked out of the top of the volcano and was bubbling down one side. The earthquakes were coming in waves now and getting stronger, like a giant dragon stamping its way toward them across the ocean.

“We’re making all of them say ‘Queen Glory’ on their way past,” Tsunami said to Starflight, grabbing one NightWing’s tail. “Hey, you, speak up.”

“Queen Glory,” he grumbled, and Starflight recognized Strongwings, his father’s burly lab assistant.

“Once more, like you mean it,” Tsunami prodded. “Or you can discuss it with the volcano up there.”

The volcano obligingly growled.

“Queen Glory!” Strongwings blurted loudly.

“Better,” Tsunami said, letting him go.

Starflight was startled to see one brown dragon approaching in the middle of all the black, and for a moment he thought it was Clay — but Clay was right next to him. Then, with a huge stab of guilt, he remembered Ochre, who had gone off to hunt earlier that morning, which felt like weeks and weeks ago.
I might have left him here. I didn’t even think to look for him.

“Uh, hey,” Ochre said, flapping onto the ledge and bobbing his head at Starflight. “So — I’m not sure what’s happening, but — it seems like everyone’s leaving? In kind of a hurry? And someone said something about bananas this way?”

“Just follow the others into the tunnel,” Starflight said. “We’ll explain everything later.”

“Sure, all right,” Ochre said. In a moment, he’d disappeared in the direction of the rainforest as well.

“Starflight, this dragon wanted to talk to you,” Clay said, tugging Starflight aside.

“Oh,” Starflight said, meeting his father’s eyes. “Clay, this is Mastermind. My — my father.”

The thin black dragon still had several scrolls clutched to his chest, and he was fidgeting with his claws anxiously. He tried to reach for Starflight’s talons, dropped a few scrolls, gathered them up again, and blurted, “It’s occurred to me, at this rather inopportune juncture, that our new hosts may very well, er — hate me. What do you think? Should I be concerned? Will they really let me live there? After everything? I’m afraid they might … have some grievances.”

Starflight sensed that his father wanted a reassuring lie, but he wasn’t about to give him one. “They probably do hate you,” he said. “I think they should, don’t you?”

“But,” Mastermind fretted, twisting a scroll between his claws. “But, but science — and my orders — and —”

“Don’t make excuses,” Starflight said. “When you get there, tell the queen you’re sorry and accept whatever punishment she gives you. That’s my advice.”

“Or don’t come at all,” Tsunami chimed in from behind him. “Take your chances on the ocean instead.” She nodded out to sea.

Mastermind flicked his tail with a worried expression, watching the NightWings pour past them into the cave,
faster and faster as the volcano’s rumbles grew ever more ominous and closer together.

“I’ll apologize,” he said with a deep breath. “To our new queen,” he added.

“All right, go on,” Tsunami said, stepping back.

“Take this with you,” Starflight interjected, realizing he still had the map with all the scavenger dens on it. He tucked the folded paper in among the scrolls in his father’s arms, and Mastermind hurried into the tunnel with them all pressed to his chest.

“Just like you when we had to escape the mountain,” Sunny said, bumping Starflight’s side. “Trying to take all the scrolls.”

“I hope we don’t have anything else in common,” Starflight said with a flick of his tail.

“Don’t give up on him yet,” Sunny said. Starflight thought she must be the only dragon in the world who’d be willing to forgive what Mastermind had done.

“Guys,” Tsunami said quietly. “Look who the last NightWing is.”

Starflight turned, already knowing the answer.

The last few NightWings hurried by, blurting “The new queen! Queen Glory!” as they ducked into the tunnel. And then the four dragonets were left standing on the ledge, facing Morrowseer as he landed.

He loomed over them, terrifying and menacing and furious, looking exactly as he had when they first met him under the mountain, only a few weeks ago.

NightWings are superior to every other tribe,
Starflight remembered him saying in their secret meeting.
You have to act like a leader to be treated like one. Don’t let anyone see your weaknesses. Don’t
have
any weaknesses.

All his life, Starflight had often felt like he was nothing but weaknesses … but after everything he’d done today, he was starting to think maybe he wasn’t so useless after all, powers or no powers.

“This will never work,” Morrowseer growled down at them. “NightWings will never bow to a dragon from another tribe, least of all a RainWing. Once we’re safe, we’ll turn on you all.”

“Then you’ll end up back here,” Tsunami spat, waving her talons at the ash-covered, blackened landscape behind him. “Or dead. Either would be fine with me.”

“We made you,” Morrowseer snarled. “You dragonets are only important because of us, and we can destroy you just as easily.”

“No, you can’t,” Sunny spoke up. “We have a prophecy to fulfill, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it from happening.”

Morrowseer barked a laugh. “Stop it?” he said. “I’ve been trying to make it happen for almost ten years.”

“Prophecies don’t work like that,” Sunny insisted. “You can’t make them happen the way you want. Whatever’s going to happen will happen — that’s the whole point of destiny.”

The volcano shot a plume of lava into the air and the
ground shook hard enough that all the dragonets had to clutch the rock walls to stay upright.

“On the contrary, I certainly
can
make my prophecy happen however I want,” Morrowseer said silkily, “considering I’m the one who made it up in the first place.”

The earth began to shake without stopping, a continuous tremor that jarred Starflight’s teeth in his head and made him feel as though the ledge was about to drop out from under him. The volcano growled again, and another fountain of lava shot over the side and started slithering down the craggy slope.

Morrowseer’s face was lit by the orange glow of the volcano, cruelty etched into every line of his snout.

“You
what
?” Tsunami said.

The prophecy isn’t real.
The words didn’t make sense in Starflight’s head. He couldn’t fit them into the way the world worked, the way his world had always worked.
The Dragonet Prophecy isn’t real.

“That’s not true,” Sunny cried. “You’re just saying that to be awful.”

The volcano let out a roar like twenty dragons having their tails stepped on at once.

“Oh, it’s completely true,” Morrowseer growled. “Queen Battlewinner and I wrote it together after the last eruption
destroyed part of the fortress. We knew we’d need a new home soon, and the prophecy was our plan to get it.”

“How?” Starflight asked, running the prophecy through his mind. “What does the prophecy have to do with where the NightWings live?”

“The idea was that we would control the dragonets,” Morrowseer said, “by including a NightWing, who, naturally, would be the leader of the group. Your abysmal failure in that department was our first problem. Then we’d choose a SandWing queen, and eventually the NightWings would join the war, with our strength in numbers tipping the balance so our ally would be sure to win.”

“And then your ally, whoever you picked, would help you take over the rainforest,” Starflight puzzled out. “It’s all about you, but not in a way that anyone would notice.
Darkness will rise to bring the light
— that’s the NightWings.”

“Exactly. The only really important part of the prophecy; we couldn’t be too obvious about it,” said Morrowseer. Behind him, dark smoke was pouring out of the volcano at an alarming rate. “The rest of it? Smoke and mirrors.”

“No!” Sunny almost shouted, making the rest of them jump. “The prophecy is real! We
were
born to end the fight — to end the war and save everyone!”

“Afraid not,” Morrowseer said nastily. “You’re just as ordinary as any other dragon.”

“Wow,” said Clay. “No wonder I’ve always
felt
ordinary.”

“But you’re not — you’re
not
ordinary,” Sunny said, her voice full of tears. Starflight had never seen her so upset. He
took a step toward her, reaching out with his wings, but she shoved him away. “What about the red MudWing egg? What about
my
egg, all alone in the desert?”

“There are scientific patterns to things like the appearance of blood eggs,” said Morrowseer. “We study them and use them in our prophecies to impress our less scientific inferiors. As for the SandWing egg, we planned to set that up, but as it happened, we got a tip that yours was there already. A coincidence.”

“No, it wasn’t, it — it was fate.” Sunny hiccupped.

“On the one talon, you are the worst,” Tsunami said to Morrowseer. “But on the other, Sunny, think about what this means. We can live our own lives. We don’t have to follow some plan that the stars laid out for us. We’re free.”

“But I
want
to stop the war!” Sunny cried. “All those dragons out there — they believe in the prophecy. They believe in us! If we give up, who will save them?”

“No one,” said Morrowseer. “Now there’s no point — the NightWings are already in the rainforest, so we have no reason to join the war. It’ll drag on endlessly, and more dragons will die every day, probably for generations. All of them wondering what happened to the amazing dragonets who were supposed to save them, but obviously failed.”

Sunny let out a furious sob, then whirled, pushed past Starflight, and fled up the tunnel, disappearing through the hole to the rainforest.

Morrowseer took a step as if to follow her, and Starflight jumped into his way.

“You can’t come to the rainforest with us,” he said, his voice shaking as badly as the earth below his claws.

Clay and Tsunami closed rank on either side of him. “He’s right,” Tsunami said. “Even if you pretended to swear allegiance to Glory, we’d know you were lying. At this point we wouldn’t trust you about anything.”

“You should go,” Clay said. “Fly across the sea, as fast as you can. Maybe you’ll make it before the volcano really explodes.”

“Not that we care,” Tsunami added.

Morrowseer’s expression was incredulous. “And who’s going to stop me? The three of you?”

“Yes,” Starflight said.

“And me,” said Fatespeaker’s voice from behind Starflight. He felt her tail brush against his as she slid up next to him.

The giant NightWing snorted, as if that only made things more amusing. “Here’s all the dragonets I want dead anyway,” he said. “In one convenient place.”

He opened his mouth, hissing up a fiery breath.

And then the volcano exploded.

It was like nothing Starflight had ever seen or imagined. It was like the earth turned inside out, collapsing the top of the mountain and shooting a vast, billowing cloud of flaming smoke into the air, which rose to the height of a hundred dragons and then fell, sending all that fire and rock and ash and death charging down the slope toward them faster than any dragon could fly.

“Run!” Starflight yelled, turning and shoving Fatespeaker
in front of him. They tore down the tunnel with Tsunami right on his tail and Clay behind her. The heavy footsteps of Morrowseer thumped after them, but there was no time left to confront him.

Fatespeaker dove into the hole first. Starflight found himself turning and grabbing Tsunami, shoving her in next.

And so he was facing the cave entrance, and he saw the fireball come barreling at them, filling the tunnel wall to wall with bright orange flames. Morrowseer’s dark figure was silhouetted against the fire for a brief, horribly bright moment, and then suddenly the huge NightWing was gone, swallowed by the volcanic explosion.

A second later, Starflight’s scales were blasted with heat as if he’d fallen into lava. A stab of blazing agony went through both eyes, and he closed them with a howl of pain.

And then he felt wings wrap around him, and he realized it was Clay — Clay and his fireproof scales.

The MudWing lifted him, shielding him with his whole body, and shot into the tunnel.

Will the fire follow us?
Starflight wondered dazedly.
How does the animus magic work — will we cross over to the rainforest side halfway through and be safe or can it reach all the way —

Rain pattered down on his scales, sizzling softly, and he felt claws pull him from the tunnel and lie him down on wet moss. Cool wet leaves pressed against his face and he heard the murmur of hundreds of dragon voices against a background of rainforest night sounds, sloths chirruping, insects and frogs singing their night songs — and among the talons
he was sure he felt Sunny’s. He felt the warmth of her scales that he’d know anywhere, even with his eyes closed (
or … blind?
), and he felt her press close to him for a moment and whisper … But why did it sound like Fatespeaker’s voice …? “Starflight. You were so brave.”

And then the warmth was gone, and he wondered if he’d imagined it, and then pain flared all along his body and he opened his mouth to scream but it hurt too much.

Something jabbed him in the neck and he had a moment to think,
sleeping dart, what a good idea
, and then everything, everything — the pain, the worry, Sunny and Fatespeaker, the truth about the prophecy, the fear of the volcano — everything faded away, and Starflight dropped into darkness as black as a NightWing’s scales.