Wings of Fire Book Three: The Hidden Kingdom (15 page)

Given a choice between the IceWing queen and a NightWing assassin, Glory wasn’t sure she’d actually prefer the IceWing queen. Imprisonment in the Sky Kingdom and in Queen Coral’s Summer Palace had been bad enough — if they wound up in Glacier’s dungeon, they’d probably all freeze to death by the end of the day.

“Let me go
right now
,” she said to Deathbringer.

To her immense surprise, he did. He stepped back, his talons raised to look harmless, and actually dared to smile at her.

“Time to go,” Tsunami ordered. “They’ll be here in about two minutes.”

“Oh, no, wait,” Blaze said. She spread her wings and waved at the incoming ice dragons. “You should meet Glacier. You’ll like her.”

“We can’t leave Blaze here with him,” Clay said, pointing to Deathbringer.

“That’s true,” Glory said. She narrowed her eyes at the assassin. “You have ten seconds to take off, or we’ll knock you out and leave you for the IceWings to deal with.”

“Shouldn’t we do that anyway?” Blaze asked. “I mean, he
did
try to kill me. Queen Glacier will be
so
mad. This one time, a SkyWing flew all the way here and nearly got me while I was getting some sun and Glacier literally ripped off his wings before she killed him. It was really gross but also kind of sweet, you know, like she really cares about me.”

Or she really cares about all the land she’ll get if you become queen
, Glory thought.

Sunny looked faintly sick. “Guess what I don’t want to see,” she said. “One dragon ripping the wings off another dragon. Not ever, thanks.”

“All right, I’m convinced,” Deathbringer said, backing away. “But you really should have let me kill her.” He paused with his wings spread and gave Glory a cheeky grin. “So when can I see you again?”

“Get out of here,” Glory said, glad that Jambu wasn’t there to loudly interpret the colors that were trying to shift through her scales.

Deathbringer bolted into the sky. Blaze followed him with her eyes for a moment, then seemed to lose interest. She turned to Clay and Tsunami with a winning smile.

“Please don’t go,” Blaze said. “Queen Glacier will be so grateful to you for saving my life. Now we can have that party I mentioned!”

“Sorry,” Tsunami said. “We are not sticking around to become captives again.”

“We’ll, uh — we’ll be in touch,” Clay said. “Keep applying pressure to this until a healer can look at it.”

Blaze rallied herself to stand upright and give them all a little nod. “It was delightful to meet you,” she said. “Even if you are missing a SkyWing. And some of you are a little funny-looking. I promise you’ll be pleased if you choose me.” She waved a wing weakly in the direction of the desert. “I can offer you whatever land you want. You could each have land enough for a palace of your own!”

“Quit giving away your territory,” Glory snapped. “I know the Kingdom of Sand is big, but life in the desert is tough, and your subjects need every oasis. And if you do become queen, you’ll need to rebuild your treasury somehow, so remember that, too.”

“Queenly advice from a RainWing.” Blaze giggled as if the pain in her neck was making her loopy. “Now I have heard every thing.”

Glory frowned at her, but the SandWing didn’t seem to notice.

“Come on,” Clay said gently to Sunny, urging her up.

Sunny held her bloodstained talons out, and Starflight jumped forward to take them between his. “You’ll feel better once we’re in the desert,” he said.

“Don’t let them follow us,” Tsunami said to Blaze as the others took off.

“They’ll be too busy rescuing me,” Blaze said, lying down in a graceful, melodramatic pose.

Glory and Tsunami exchanged eye rolls and lifted into the air. The IceWings were almost upon them; they had to fly as fast as they could.

Tsunami faltered for a moment as she went aloft.

“Does it hurt?” Glory asked, flying close to her. “Will you make it to the passage?”

“I’ll be fine,” Tsunami said through gritted teeth. “It’s just a cut.” After a moment, she added, “But yes, it hurts.”

Glory stayed alongside her as they flew through the cold, pale blue sky. She glanced back several times, but saw no sign of IceWings in pursuit. No sign of a NightWing trailing them either.

“Glory,” Tsunami said after a bit. “Can I ask you something? Why didn’t you use your venom on that assassin?”

Glory felt a tinge of embarrassed pink creeping along her scales and fought it back until she matched the sky.

“That wasn’t an invitation to disappear,” Tsunami said.

“I just didn’t feel like kill ing him,” Glory answered. “I don’t want to kill any more than I have to.”

“But he is literally on a mission to kill
you
,” Tsunami said. “Killing him first is kind of the definition of self-defense.”

“Maybe,” Glory said. “I just — it didn’t feel like he was trying to kill me.”

Tsunami shook her head. “All right, but so you know, from where I was standing, it certainly
looked
like it.”

“Whatever,” Glory said. “We’ll probably never see him again. The real question is why the NightWings are getting so involved. First they try to get us to choose Blister — and then they send an assassin to kill us? Don’t they want their prophecy to come true?”

“Maybe, like everyone else, they only want it to come true
their
way,” Tsunami grumbled.

“What’s their way?” Glory wondered. “What difference does it make to them who the queen of the SandWings is?”

“I have no idea,” Tsunami admitted.

“Well, if they have something to say about this war,” Glory said, “they can come on out and fight it instead of hiding and making vague predictions every few years.”

“And sending assassins,” Tsunami added. “Cowards.”

It wasn’t often that Tsunami and Glory agreed about something. Glory couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a conversation this long without arguing. It wasn’t that she disliked Tsunami — she didn’t even really mind her bossiness. But she did feel like
someone
needed to talk back whenever Tsunami started acting like the boss of everyone, just to make sure Tsunami’s head didn’t get too big for the rest of her.

On the other talon, Tsunami had been much better since their escape from the Kingdom of the Sea. Glory could see that she was trying to include the others more, instead of just telling them all what to do. And Tsunami never talked about her future as a queen anymore, when it used to be her favorite topic of conversation. Maybe she’d meant it when she said she didn’t belong in the Kingdom of the Sea. Maybe she’d really given up on ruling her tribe one day.

It was dark by the time they spotted Burn’s stronghold in the distance and the semicircle of cacti they were looking for. Glory and Tsunami spiraled down to the ground and found Starflight frantically digging in the sand.

“The hole is gone!” he cried. “It’s disappeared!”

A bolt of green panic shot through Glory’s scales. Trapped between the IceWings and Burn, with an assassin out hunting them, was not how she wanted to spend the night.

“It’s not gone,” Clay said firmly. “Let me dig.” He muscled Starflight aside, looked up at the cacti, and started to dig in a slightly different spot.

“What are you doing?” Tsunami called to Sunny, who looked like she was trying to tango with a cactus up the hill.

“You heard what Blaze said,” Sunny panted. “If we take this back, maybe we can heal Webs. Ouch!” She flinched back from the thorns, shaking her front talons.

“We don’t need the whole cactus,” Tsunami said, amused. “Break off one of those arm things and bring that instead.”

“That is what I’m
trying
to do,” Sunny said irately. Tsunami floundered up the sandy rise to help her. Glory noticed that Sunny had used sand to rub off some of the bloodstains, but there was still dark dried blood caught between her scales and talons.

“There,” Clay said. “Found it.” He swiped some more sand away from the entrance to the tunnel.

Starflight let out his breath. “Oh,” he said. “That must be why no one’s spotted it before. The wind covers it with new sand every day.” He edged toward the tunnel. “So . . . we can go?”

Glory checked the sky again as Sunny and Tsunami slid back toward them with a chunk of cactus. No dragons anywhere that she could see. She nodded at the tunnel and Starflight darted gratefully inside. The others followed, one by one. Glory went last, piling up as much sand behind her as she could.

As she came out of the tunnel into the dark forest, a ball of fur exploded from the tree above her and landed on her neck. The sloth wrapped her arms and legs around Glory’s neck and began warbling and chirruping furiously.

“I think I’m being scolded,” Glory said to Clay. She reached up and smoothed Silver’s fur.

“WRRRRB,” the sloth said sternly, snuggling in closer.

Sunny dove into the stream above the waterfall, washing Blaze’s blood off her scales. Glory realized that Jambu was gone, but Mangrove was sitting beside the stream. His wings drooped as he stared into the water.

“I assume you didn’t see any sign of the missing RainWings there,” Glory said to him.

He shook his head. “Nothing anywhere in that fort. I slipped in when a patrol of SandWings came out. I searched the whole place.” He kicked a clump of reeds. “Useless waste of time.”

“Probably,” Glory said, “but at least now we know.”

“How are we going to find Orchid?” he asked.

Glory stared at the hole in the boulder. In the dark, with only a sliver of moonlight slipping through the trees, it looked like a mouth, jaws wide open to swallow dragons whole.

“We heard something here a couple of nights ago,” she said. “Maybe if we lie in wait we’ll catch it again.” She turned and looked at Tsunami. “All we need is someone who can see in the dark.”

Glory shifted on her branch and sighed. The night clung to her wings like hot, sticky cobwebs. A vine of moon-colored flowers nearby filled the air with a smell like muskrats rolled in lemons. It was not pleasant.

“You didn’t have to stay,” Tsunami whispered.

“Yes, I did,” Glory said. “I know you. No matter what you see, you’ll leap out of this tree and attack it if you’re here by yourself.”

“I —” Tsunami paused. “Well. I still might do that.”

“Then at least I’ll be here to help,” Glory said, grinning in the dark.

They crouched like that for a while, listening to the creaking, chirping sounds of the rainforest at night. Some kind of insect was desperately announcing the end of the world in a shrill whine from the top of their tree. If Glory had been able to see it, she would have eaten it in a heartbeat, just to shut it up.

They’d spent the rest of last night and today in the RainWing village, recovering from their long flight. Sunny had squeezed the cactus juice into Webs’s wound and reported jubilantly that she thought it was working.

The others had stayed there for tonight; Glory thought it was unlikely that they’d catch the mystery monster on their first night watching, and they looked pretty exhausted. She’d also made Mangrove promise not to follow them again, and she’d left Silver with Sunny, because the only thing they knew for sure was that the monster ate sloths.

“What did you think of Blaze?” Tsunami asked in a whisper. “Should we choose her?”

“I don’t know,” Glory whispered back. “I didn’t really like her. Did you?”

“She really needed to shut up about SkyWings,” Tsunami said. Glory couldn’t agree more, but she was glad Tsunami had said it instead of her.

“She seemed much less sinister than Burn or Blister,” Glory said. “But also completely incompetent. Is it fair to give the SandWings a totally useless queen like that? And she’s certainly not going to win the war just by us saying she should.”

“That’s true,” Tsunami said. “She’d never survive in actual combat, especially against one of her sisters.”

“Anyway,” Glory said. “It’s not up to me. You guys decide whatever you want. I mean, since I’m not in the prophecy anyhow, so I shouldn’t get a say.”

“Stop talking like that or I will
thump
you,” Tsunami said in a loud hiss. Glory could feel her glaring even in the dark, and she felt obscurely pleased.

“Shhh,” Glory said, flicking her tail at Tsunami’s wings. “What was that?”

Snap.

Both dragons froze with their heads lifted. Glory’s ears twitched.

Snap. Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiither.

“That’s it,” Glory whispered. Her heart was pounding again. She tried to squint through the darkness at the boulder, but she couldn’t see anything moving. The sounds of something large rustled through the undergrowth. It was breathing heavily, snuffling in and out like a congested rhinoceros.

“It didn’t come out of the hole,” Tsunami whispered. “It’s on the other side of the creek, near the other tree. But I can’t — I’m not sure —” She leaned forward, trying to see under the branches.

Suddenly another noise reached them, as if from a long way away.

It sounded like . . .
whistling
.

Glory leaned forward, listening intently. It was the dragonets song — the one she’d last heard when the prisoners were singing it in the SkyWing arena.

“The dragonets are coming
.
.
.

They’re coming to save the day
.
.
.

They’re coming to fight
.
.
. for they know what’s right
.
.
.

The dragonets
.
.
.”

Someone was whistling their song.

“That
is
coming from the hole,” Tsunami whispered. She crouched to peer through the leaves.

A dark shape appeared at the opening of the boulder. At the same time, the dragons heard thumping and crackling as the mystery creature fled back into the forest.

Glory cursed under her breath and leaped to her feet. “Should we go after it?”

But Tsunami had already launched herself out of the tree and flung herself at the boulder. She collided with the shape there and they both yelped with pain, rolling and grappling on the ground.

Glory sprang after her and seized the new dragon’s tail. The three of them wrestled until Glory and Tsunami had him pinned down and Glory could sit on his chest.

She was not particularly surprised to discover it was Deathbringer. The NightWing had sand between his claws and an unrepentant expression on his face, from what she could see in the ripples of moonlight that made it through the leaves overhead.

“What kind of assassin stalks his prey and
whistles
at the same time?” Glory asked him.

“We should kill him right now,” Tsunami hissed.

“You scared our monster away,” Glory said, poking his snout. “So now we’re extra-mad at you.”

“Yes, that, plus the trying to kill us,” Tsunami said.

“What monster?” Deathbringer said, a little too innocently. Glory peered at him with growing suspicion. Did he know something?

“Did you follow us through the tunnel?” she asked. “Or did you already know it was there?”

“How would I know it was there?” he asked.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” she said.

“Let’s take him back to the village and interrogate him,” Tsunami said.

“I don’t think that’s safe,” Glory said. “I mean, for the RainWings. Or for the others. We should keep him as far away from everyone as possible.”

Tsunami wrinkled her snout, thinking. “Or,” she said, “we go back to plan A. Kill him right now.”

“Tsunami, I don’t think you want to do that any more than I do,” Glory said.

That shut her up. Glory had noticed Tsunami getting queasier about kill ing other dragons after her experiences in the SkyWing arena. Self-defense was one thing, but they had Deathbringer trapped under their talons.

“All right,” Tsunami said finally, after a long pause. “You’re right. I don’t want to. But I was hoping
he’d
think we wanted to, so good job backing me up on that.”

“Sorry I couldn’t read your mind like a stupid NightWing,” Glory said. “Speaking of which, are you the mind-reading kind of NightWing?” She narrowed her eyes at Deathbringer. “What am I thinking right now?”

“That I’m much too charming, clever, and good-looking to kill?” he guessed.

That was actually a little closer to accurate than Glory liked. She flared her ruff and poked his snout again. “Wrong,” she said. “I’m thinking that you’re starting to be an awful lot of trouble. Have you decided to kill me after all?”

The rakish grin faded from Deathbringer’s face. He studied her as though he were seriously considering the question.

“Not sure I like the length of this pause,” Glory said.

“I’ve been wondering if there’s an alternative,” said Deathbringer. “But that’s not usually my call.”

“Whose is it?” Tsunami demanded. “The NightWing queen?”

Deathbringer made a peculiar expression which Glory couldn’t interpret. “I can’t say.”

“I don’t understand why any NightWings would want me dead,” Glory said.

“That has become ever more mystifying to me as well,” Deathbringer said, in a manner that managed to sound both gallant and truthful.

“So you’re mystified,” Glory said. “But you’ll still probably do it.”

“I wouldn’t say
probably
,” Deathbringer offered. “I’d say
maybe
.”

“I wouldn’t call that
reassuring
,” Glory shot back. “I’d call that
the opposite of reassuring.
”

He grinned at her again. He really needed to quit doing that. It was very distracting.

“So what do we do with him?” Tsunami asked her. “We can’t let him go. And we can’t take him back to the RainWing village.”

“We could tie him up, leave him in the forest, and hope the monster eats him,” Glory said. She squinted at Deathbringer’s face. He didn’t look even a little bit worried. “Did we mention the monster?” she asked him. “It’s been abducting or possibly eating RainWings around here. I bet it’ll be pretty excited to find you all tied up.”

“Oh, no,” Deathbringer said. “Please don’t leave me alone where a monster could get me.”

Glory opened her mouth and then closed it. She’d just had a possibly brilliant and perfectly terrible idea. One she’d have to think about for a minute. She poked him in the snout again.

“Was that
sarcasm
?” she asked. “Tsunami, did that sound weirdly sarcastic to you?”

“Like he doesn’t believe in monsters,” Tsunami said. “Which I’m not sure I do either, just for the record.”

Or he’s in cahoots with it
, Glory thought.
Or at least he knows what it is and isn’t afraid of it.
She decided not to say this out loud. Tsunami’s enthusiasm for interrogation might spring up again, and Glory was fairly sure it would be a waste of time. They weren’t going to get anything useful out of Deathbringer by looking fierce and demanding answers.

Besides, now that a plan was forming in her mind, she wanted to try it out. Which meant she had to get rid of Tsunami.

“Let’s drag him away from the tunnel and tie him up,” she said. “Then you go tell the others, and we can take turns watching him until he decides to tell us who wants us dead and why.”

“And which of us,” Tsunami suggested. “He said he was sent to kill a few of us, not just you.”

“And also, you know, how to avoid it,” said Glory.

“You’ll have to wait awhile,” Deathbringer said. “I’m not allowed to tell you anything.”

Tsunami and Glory ignored this. They ripped vines down from the trees and wrapped the strongest ones around his wings. Tsunami tied his talons together so he couldn’t run, slid a rope around his neck, and prodded him ahead of them into the forest. After a short walk, they found a tree that Tsunami approved of and tied him to it with the tightest knots they could muster.

“He’ll burn through these vines the moment we walk away,” Tsunami pointed out.

“So we don’t walk away,” Glory said. “You go tell the others. I’ll sit here with my extremely deadly secret weapon pointed at him.”

“What’s that?” asked Deathbringer. “Wait, let me guess. Your rapier wit.”

“Try to escape and find out the dead way,” Glory offered.

He leaned back against the tree, looking perfectly comfortable and thoroughly uninterested in escaping.
Peculiar dragon
, Glory thought.

“Send back Clay first,” Glory suggested to Tsunami. “He can take the next watch.”

“I hope you hear how bossy you’re being,” Tsunami said. “I’m letting it slide for now, but I’ll remember this.”

“Oh, go away.” Glory flapped her wings at her until the SeaWing lifted off into the darkness.

As her wingbeats faded, the night sounds of the rainforest settled over them. An orchestra of insects warbled and chirped away as the trees rustled, night birds called, and frogs muttered in the background like a disgruntled audience.

“It’s so noisy here,” Deathbringer said after a moment. “So alive.”

“Is it not like that where you come from?” Glory asked.

“It’s a lot quieter in the Ice Kingdom,” he pointed out. “And the Kingdom of Sand.” He didn’t say anything about the NightWing home, but she didn’t really expect him to.

She stared into the trees, thinking hard. Once Clay arrived to take her place, she could slip away. No one would notice she was missing for a while. She could go out and look for the monster by herself, which was the best way to do anything, if you asked her.

“Don’t do it,” said Deathbringer suddenly.

“You better not be reading my mind,” she snapped.

“I don’t have to,” he said. “You have ‘I’m about to do something stupid’ written all over your face.”

“It’s not stupid,” she said. “It’s quite clever. And it might be the only way to catch the monster.”

“Maybe you should leave the monster alone,” he said. “Forget about it. Get back to the prophecy-fulfilling business.”

That stopped her for a moment. The prophecy — putting an end to the war — was important. Finding a few RainWings hardly compared. But she’d made a promise.

“I’m not even in the stupid prophecy,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “But I bet you’d still be remarkably good at making it come true.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “And the RainWings are my tribe. They need my help.” She felt a burst of certainty in her chest. “And I have to do this on my own.”

“Wait,” said Deathbringer, with a gratifying note of alarm in his voice. “Why? You have friends. Let them help you.”

Glory shook her head. “They can’t help me with this. The monster, or whatever is out there, isn’t going to approach a group of dragonets. It attacks RainWings who are out in the forest alone.”

“So you’re —”

Glory smiled at Deathbringer. “I’m going to use myself as bait.”