Wings of Fire Book Three: The Hidden Kingdom (22 page)

The Arboretum, it turned out, was the heart of the RainWing village. Vines and branches were woven tightly together to form a wide field high above the ground, open to the sky and surrounded by treehouses, walkways, and hammocks. Several of the treehouses around the edge appeared to be set up for trading fruits and flower garlands. Brilliant blue and coppery orange birds darted through the leaves, chattering and calling to one another like an audience gathering for a performance.

There seemed to be room for the entire village to gather around the edges of the circle — and it looked like the entire village had shown up. The rumble of dragon voices mixed with the chirruping of sloths and sent shivers through the wooden walkway where Glory stood, studying the green stadium in front of her.

Glory was reminded, uncomfortably, of the SkyWing arena where her friends had battled for Queen Scarlet’s amusement. From the way Tsunami’s tail was twitching, Glory guessed she felt the same way.

“This is unfair,” Tsunami grumbled. “If you win —”

“You’ll have to call me ‘Your Majesty,’ ” Glory said, grinning. “I know. Won’t that be hilarious?”

“Arrrgh, and your face will look like that
all the time
,” Tsunami said. “It’s going to be so hard not to bite you.”

“But if you do, my guards will throw you in my dungeons,” Glory said with an imperious wave of her talons.

“RainWings don’t have dungeons,” Kinkajou pointed out.

“There’s a surprise. Well, I’ll make one just for Tsunami,” Glory said.

“Maybe I should have let Starflight come to this instead,” Tsunami said. “Postpone my agony a little bit.”

Starflight and Clay were taking a shift watching the NightWing tunnel. They’d seen nothing come out of it yet — not so much as a puff of smoke. Glory found that both alarming and reassuring. Maybe the NightWings were afraid to fight RainWings. That would make attacking them a bit easier.

She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Starflight yet; he’d stayed out by the tunnel all night.
I’ll talk to him right after the contest
, she thought.
Telling him about Queen Scarlet ought to distract him from fretting about fighting NightWings.

And I cannot think about Queen Scarlet right now.

“
I
could have watched the tunnel,” Sunny said. “I don’t understand why no one will let me take a turn on guard.”

“Well, for one thing, I need you here to cheer me on,” Glory said. “Who could do that better than you?”

“I think I’m being patronized,” Sunny said. She poked at the wooden platform below them with the harmless point of her tail. “But I’ll cheer for you anyway. You’re definitely going to win. I’m not worried.”

Glory was a little worried. For one thing, her opponent had apparently multiplied overnight.

Queen Magnificent was waiting in the center of the canopy. Her scales were resplendently purple with scalloped gold edging on each individual scale, which was a color trick Glory had never tried. She had taken off most of her flower necklaces, replacing them with one small wreath of lilies on her ruff, which had the effect of looking like a lacy white crown.

Arrayed behind her were four more RainWings — all quite large, quite beautiful, and quite outraged, judging from their expressions and coloring.

“Who are they?” Glory asked Kinkajou.

“The other queens,” Kinkajou whispered. “I mean — you know, the ones who take turns being queen. I guess they don’t particularly want you to take their job either.”

“Are any of them better than Magnificent?” Glory asked. Maybe there was another option. It didn’t have to be her, as long as the RainWings had a queen who would take care of them.

But Kinkajou was shaking her head. “They’re all pretty much the same,” she said. She pointed to one of the queens, who looked like she’d eaten a few too many avocados and papayas during her reign. “That one’s Dazzling. She’ll grant anyone anything they ask if they bring her enough tribute. She has the throne before Magnificent; after Magnificent, it passes to Grandeur.”

Grandeur was a stately older dragon with half-asleep eyes and a sour expression. Her ruff was indignantly pale orange at the moment, but the rest of her scales were pale lavender and seemed to glitter with tiny dewdrops.

“During her reign,” Kinkajou said, “ she’ll only see petitioners once a week, for an hour. First come, first served, and if you don’t get in during that hour, you have to wait until the next week. The lines practically stretch around the jungle. And then she says no to pretty much every thing. She’s really, really old. She’s been one of the queens for as long as anyone can remember.”

Kinkajou pointed to the next dragon, who had two sloths flopped on her back and one more perched in the curve of her tail. This queen had scales the same silvery color as the sloths, with a soft shimmer to them that looked like wind brushing through fur.

“That’s Exquisite,” said Kinkajou. “Obsessed with sloths. She has about twenty more at home. Talks about them constantly, feeds them the best fruits, grooms them with her own claws, and whenever she’s queen, she has everyone build tiny hammocks for the sloths to sleep in and weave them tiny flower necklaces. No dragon is as important to her as those sloths.”

“Dazzling, Grandeur, Exquisite,” Glory muttered, adding those to the list of things she’d memorized in the last day. “And the last one? Let me guess — Splendiferous? Astonishing? Too Beautiful for Dragon Eyes to Bear?”

“That’s Fruit Bat,” said Kinkajou.

“All right,” said Glory. “Didn’t see that coming. Who picks the names for newly hatched dragonets, if no one has any parents here?”

“There’s a list we cycle through,” Kinkajou said. “Usually the ones with shiny names are more likely to want to be queen. Fruit Bat is an exception. She’s working on this experiment to see if she can take the scents out of flowers and make herself smell like them all the time.”

Glory wrinkled her nose. “Weird. But interesting, at least. What in the world does that have to do with being queen?”

Kinkajou shrugged. “It’s not going very well. She’s been working on it for something like thirty years. She started taking a turn as queen so that she could have access to the royal gardens, and by the end of her month, the gardens are always a wreck. My friend Tamarin is one of the flower caretakers and it drives her crazy.”

“Sounds like Magnificent might be the best of all of them,” Glory said, twisting one claw through a hole in the wood.

“Magnificent’s main problem is that she’s forgetful,” Kinkajou pointed out. “She can never remember what she’s agreed to do or what’s going on in the tribe or who asked her for what, and she doesn’t really care. We’re all pretty used to it by now.” She turned her dark shining eyes to Glory. “But if we had
you
as our queen instead — then every thing would be different!”

I hope so
, Glory thought.
I hope different in a good way. But what if I’m no better than they are?

She glanced across at Fruit Bat, who had her nose buried in a massive orchid necklace hung around her neck.

All right, I’m pretty sure I’ll be better than some of them.

The old dragon who had been in the queen’s treehouse slithered out to stand next to Magnificent. He squinted around and beckoned to Glory.

“Wish me luck,” Glory muttered, handing her sloth to Sunny. Silver burbled something anxious-sounding and clambered immediately up onto Sunny’s head for the best view.

Magnificent flattened her ruff and looked down her nose as Glory landed in front of her. The other four queens lashed their tails.

“So what’s the plan?” Glory said, shaking out her wings. “I have to defeat all five of you?” She’d chosen a summery gold color for her scales that matched the dragonflies darting through the treetops. She was determined to stay that color throughout the contest, no matter what Magnificent threw at her. Glory’s first goal:
Don’t let anyone see that you’re upset, or angry, or worst of all, scared.

“No,” Handsome interjected before Magnificent could answer. “That is not the tradition. The challenger competes only against the current queen.”

“But my fellow royalty didn’t want to be left out,” said Magnificent. “So I worked them into the competition.” She smiled in a way that made Glory want to strangle her with a hammock. “Which means you’re going to need a team as well.”

“I don’t have a team,” Glory started, and then stopped herself.
Well
.
.
. I kind of do.
She turned and glanced back at Sunny and Tsunami, who were watching with round eyes from the platform.

I don’t need to drag the others into this. Surely I can defeat the queens myself. What can five RainWings do that I can’t? And wouldn’t everyone be impressed if I beat all of them, all by myself, with no help whatsoever?

She flexed her wings, which were still sore from the ropes that had bound them tightly just one day earlier.

This line of thinking felt familiar. It was how she had convinced herself to go out alone as bait.

And I made it back, didn’t I? I could have handled that situation fine on my own.

But she knew it wasn’t true. Without Kinkajou, Clay, and Deathbringer, she’d still be stuck in a NightWing prison . . . or perhaps even dead, if the NightWings had had time to figure out who she was.

So don’t be an idiot. Winning the throne with help won’t make you any less of a queen.

“You get to choose your dragons,” said Magnificent. “Any four you wish.”

That makes it easy for me
, Glory thought. She had exactly four friends in the world, after all. She could ask Mangrove to go guard the tunnel and send back Starflight and Clay.

She opened her mouth to call him and hesitated.

Maybe a little too easy.
She studied Dazzling, Grandeur, Exquisite, and Fruit Bat. They looked ready, alert, and eager to compete. Not a look she’d seen on many RainWings before.

They’re convinced they’re going to win.

“Go ahead,” said the queen. “Call them out here. Anyone you like.”

Glory tilted her head at Magnificent.
This is a trick. She
wants
me to pick my friends.

And then the contest will involve camouflage or venom or something that only RainWings can do.

Not only that, but my future subjects will think I trust outsiders more than I trust them.

Which, frankly, I do, because most RainWings are hopelessly incompetent.

But right now I need their help.

“I choose . . . Kinkajou,” Glory said. She heard a loud squeak of surprise behind her, and a murmur ran through the watching dragons.

“A three-year-old dragonet?” said Magnificent archly. “This should be funny.”

“And I choose Mangrove,” Glory went on, ignoring her. Mangrove stepped out of the crowd opposite her and gave her a small bow. Orchid was still out there. He’d do anything to save her; Glory could count on that.

Now it got a little harder.

Glory closed her eyes and sighed. “I choose Jambu.”

“YES!” her brother shouted, leaping into the air. “That’s
me
!” He bounced across the vines toward her, grinning all over his goofy pink face.

Who else?
Glory ran through the dragons she’d met in the rainforest.
Liana. Bromeliad. Coconut.
Not a promising set. She didn’t know much about any of them, but none of them had impressed her as team players.

Kinkajou came up beside her, fidgeting excitedly and spilling deep purple-blue bubbles through her green scales. Glory remembered someone the little dragonet had mentioned when she was describing the queens. It was a risk, choosing a dragon she’d never met, but she couldn’t be worse than any other RainWing.

“And I choose Tamarin,” she said. All Glory knew about her was that she was friends with Kinkajou, she cared about her work with the flowers, and she wasn’t the biggest fan of Fruit Bat. Which sounded like three good features to Glory.

The crowd murmured again, sounding like waves rushing in from the ocean, and Queen Magnificent barked a startled laugh.

“Tamarin!” Kinkajou cried. “But — are you sure?”

“Too late,” said Magnificent. “That’s who she chose. Someone give Tamarin a shove in the right direction.”

A small dragon popped out of the crowd and stumbled forward a few steps, then stopped. She stood very still, with waves of pale green rippling across her scales. Her eyes were an odd light shade of blue and stared blankly past Glory at the trees.

“What is it?” Glory asked, glancing at Kinkajou. “Why shouldn’t I pick her?”

“You can,” said Kinkajou. “It’s just that . . . Tamarin is blind.”

Kinkajou hurried forward and whispered in her friend’s ear, then led Tamarin over to Glory. The blind RainWing moved confidently across the unsteady vine surface as if she knew where every leaf and every gap would be. She kept her wings up and out like an insect’s antennae.

“This is Glory,” Kinkajou said. “Our next queen.” She held out Tamarin’s front talons to feel Glory’s face and wings.

“Why would you pick
me
?” Tamarin blurted. She wore only one garland of flowers around her shoulders. The shades of red and pink and purple didn’t match at all, but they smelled amazing. It made Glory think of coconuts and honey without making her hungry.

“I told her about you,” said Kinkajou. Her voice faltered a little, giving away that she hadn’t quite mentioned every thing.

“I had no idea there were any blind dragons, except in old scroll stories,” Glory said. She fluttered a wing in front of Tamarin’s eyes, but the RainWing didn’t blink. “How do you fly between the trees? How do you land? Don’t you accidentally walk off platforms and fall out of hammocks all the time?”

“Not anymore,” Tamarin answered. The green was starting to fade from her scales as she relaxed. “The first year, yes. All the time.”

She lifted her wings higher to reveal an old scar twisting across her underbelly. Glory spotted a few others on Tamarin’s wings and neck. These weren’t like the battle scars the war had given to so many dragons. These told the story of a tiny dragonet crashing into trees, plummeting off walkways, and impaling herself on stray branches as she tried to learn to fly in total darkness.

“But everyone took care of me,” Tamarin said. “There was always a dragon watching me, helping me and teaching me.” Glory glanced at the watching tribe. She would have guessed that no one would take responsibility for a little blind dragonet. Instead, everyone had, which gave her hope. “And now I have the village memorized, so I know all the distances and obstacles.” Tamarin’s ruff folded down and then opened again, as if she was sensing the shifting wind currents.

Queen Magnificent unfurled her purple wings and stood up on her back talons. “Let’s begin!” she called. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

“We’re ready,” Glory said.

“No inspiring speech?” Jambu said, sounding disappointed.

Kinkajou and Mangrove tilted their snouts toward her expectantly. Tamarin’s ears twitched.

“I gave one yesterday,” Glory protested.

“So now do one just for us,” Kinkajou said. Her scales kept shifting to match the dark green leaves below them, as if she was trying to hide whatever she was really feeling. Mangrove, on the other hand, was a resigned sky-blue.

“Um. All right. Do your best,” Glory said. “And thanks and stuff.”

Kinkajou stifled a laugh.

“Wow,” said Mangrove. “I feel so moved.”

Queen Magnificent beckoned imperiously and two portly RainWings flew up beside her, carrying a low table carved from a single log of mahogany. Arranged neatly on top were five nuts, each polished brown and about the size of a dragon eye.

“This contest has five parts, each related to the special talents of our tribe,” said Queen Magnificent. “You assign one team member per part, and whichever team wins three out of the five contests, wins the crown.” She pointed a sharp claw at the first nut. “Venom targeting.” She pointed to the second. “A flower hunt.” The third: “Treetop race.” The fourth: “Fruit gathering.”

The last nut she picked up and turned over in her front talons. “And naturally there must be a camouflage competition. We are RainWings, after all.” She set it down again with a toothy smile. “Let’s start with fruit gathering, so the competitors can work on it while we finish the other contests.”

“Certainly,” said Handsome. “Quite logical. It’s a very straightforward contest. Each dragon has an hour to collect as many different types of fruit as he or she can find. The one who comes back with the most variety wins.”

“Dazzling will compete for our side,” Magnificent said, sweeping one wing toward the portly queen. “And for yours?”

Glory studied her own dragons, beating back the anxiety that threatened to climb up her scales. The contests all featured RainWing skills, so on the one talon, she had outwitted Magnificent by choosing RainWings instead of her friends. But on the other talon, she barely knew her teammates. She had no idea what they were good at.

“All right,” Glory said to them, keeping her voice low. “Who should do what? Jambu, you teach tree gliding — are you fast? Can you do the treetop race?”

“Of course!” her brother said, glowing with bright pink enthusiasm.

“Give me the flower one,” said Tamarin. “If it’s about flowers, I can do it.”

Glory hesitated. “She said flower
hunt
, though.”

“I know flowers,” Tamarin insisted.

Give her a chance
, said a voice in Glory’s head.
It’s what a good queen would do.
“All right.” Glory glanced at the row of nuts on the table, thinking through the other contests. Her day of training hadn’t exactly left her feeling confident about most of these.

“I guess I should do the camouflage contest,” she said. “I have no idea where to find fruits in the rainforest, and I’m not exactly a venom expert.” She thought of the mess she’d made of every thing they’d put in front of her yesterday. “Mangrove, I know you’re a fruit gatherer. But Kinkajou . . . sorry, but I got the impression from Bromeliad that venom practice wasn’t going well with you.”

“That’s because Bromeliad is a slow old baboon,” Kinkajou said hotly. “I’m super-great at venom shooting! I swear! Plus Mangrove can carry more fruit than I can.”

Glory rubbed her forehead. She only had to win three of the five contests, after all. “All right,” she said, turning back to the waiting queens. “Mangrove will do the fruit gathering for us.”

Mangrove spread his wings and bowed to Dazzling. At a signal from Handsome, they both flew off into the trees, heading in opposite directions and sending up tornadoes of tiny crimson butterflies as they went.

“Now,” said Handsome. He glanced up at the sky and turned in a slow circle so that all the watching dragons could hear him. “Next! The treetop race, a test of speed and agility!”

Magnificent spun one of the nuts on the table. “Exquisite, that means you.”

“And me!” Jambu said delightedly.

Handsome grinned. “I’ll never forget the last treetop race I saw. Weren’t you in that?” he asked Grandeur. “Who was your challenger?”

“No one worth mentioning,” Grandeur said frostily. “Naturally I won.”

“But you’re too old for racing now,” Magnificent said dismissively. Grandeur gave her a wholehearted glare that Magnificent completely missed.

The sloth on Exquisite’s tail clambered up to her neck as the silver queen stepped forward. She dipped her wings so the other two sloths could slide off onto the vines.

Strong shoulders
, Glory noticed.
Big wings. I bet she’s fast.
Jambu looked like a bright pink monkey next to the sleek silver dragoness.

Handsome pointed up at the treetops surrounding the Arboretum. A small platform, about three dragons wide, was set in the high branches. Peach-colored flowers studded the dark wood planks, tied in bunches with strands of silver sloth fur.

“That is the start and end of the race,” he said. “You will fly three times around the Arboretum, staying outside the ring of trees. If you fly inside the ring, you will be disqualified. If you touch your opponent, you will be disqualified. As long as you stay outside the ring, you may take any path around, but you must touch down on the platform as you complete each circuit. Understood?”

“Got it,” Jambu said, flexing his wings.

Exquisite didn’t answer. She had her front talons curled around her two sloths and was cooing at them as they clambered over her claws.

“Your Majesty?” said Handsome, and then caught himself. “That is — I mean, Exquisite? Do you understand the rules?”

“Of course,” she said, disentangling her pets. She set the third one down next to them and stroked their heads. “I’ll be back in a moment, darlings. I just have to win this race for Auntie Maggie.”

“Stop calling me that,” Magnificent said crossly. “I’m nobody’s
auntie
. Certainly not a bunch of sloths. And this isn’t just for me, you big furhead. It’s your throne, too.”

“There, there,” Exquisite said to the sloths, who had curled up into a sleepy pile of fur. “Auntie Maggie isn’t mad at you. She’s just in a bad temper because she has to actually do something today.” In a loud whisper that absolutely everyone could hear, she added, “Besides, she’s jealous that you all are so much prettier than
her
sloth.”

Magnificent snarled in a very unqueenly way and shot a dark look at the three sloths, as if she might throw them off the Arboretum while Exquisite was racing.

“Good luck,” Glory said to Jambu. “Please win.”

“That’s the plan,” he said cheerfully. He followed Handsome and Exquisite up to the platform, then leaned over the edge and waved at the crowd of dragons around the edges of the Arboretum. Sunny and several other dragons waved back. It occurred to Glory to wonder who everyone was rooting for. Did anyone
want
her to win? Did they know what that would mean, or about all the things she wanted to change about their world?

Her gaze swept across the RainWings — the tribe that might soon be
hers
. She tried to read their scales, but as far as she could tell, today most of them had chosen their colors for their looks, as though they were showing off at a party. The only emotions she spotted were bright yellow bursts of excitement in their scales here and there. And she had a feeling they’d be like that about anything new that happened.

Handsome stepped onto a branch shaped like a coiling dragon tail and spread his wings.

“Start when you hear the toucan call,” he said to Jambu and Exquisite. “Don’t forget the rules. Ready? And —
CAW
!”

Glory was so startled by the sound that came out of his throat that she missed the beginning of the race. Handsome had perfectly imitated the noises she’d been hearing from the big-beaked birds. If that was another RainWing talent, it was one she’d never even thought of trying before.

Exquisite shot ahead of Jambu, swinging smoothly from branch to vine to branch. Her tail was longer than Jambu’s, giving her a wider swing and farther reach. But his narrower wings helped him dive between some tangles of branches that she had to maneuver around, and by the time they got back to the platform for the first time, his snout was almost brushing her tail.

“Go Jambu!” Sunny yelled from her spot on the walkway. “You’re going to win! You’re the fastest dragon in the forest! Woo hoo!” Kinkajou nudged Tamarin, and they both started hooting and shouting as well.

Personally Glory thought that much noise would have been an annoying distraction, but it seemed to add wind to Jambu’s wings. He banked around a trunk, dodged a loop of hibiscus-covered vines, and shot past Exquisite on the outside.

Well, if it works
, Glory thought. “Yay!” she hollered. “Jambu is the best! Uh — you’re an awesome glider! Good, uh . . . flying! Yaayyy!”

She caught Tsunami giving her an amused look and stuck out her tongue at the SeaWing.

Jambu brushed the platform a second time with his claws and took off again. A few moments later, Exquisite thudded down in the same spot and gave chase. Her wings pumped and her brow was furrowed angrily.

Glory’s heart pounded as she watched them swerve through the trees. One more circuit — if Jambu could stay ahead just a bit longer, he’d win.
Hang in there
. She dug her claws into the vines below her, wishing she could be up there, giving him her speed somehow.

Jambu ricocheted off a tree and dipped through a hole in the branches. He veered around the last curve and suddenly flung his wings up to stop his momentum. He thrashed in place for a moment, and Glory saw a vine wound around his neck. He twisted backward, gasping for air, and flailed to the side.

With a horrible lurch in her stomach, Glory watched Jambu tip over, crossing into the ring of trees. At the same time, Exquisite whisked past him and landed neatly on the platform. She lifted her wings and turned in a triumphant circle as deep blue-purple waves whooshed through her scales.

But Glory had seen something else, too.

That vine hadn’t appeared out of nowhere. Something was scurrying away from the spot where Jambu had nearly strangled himself.

Several somethings, in fact, with shaggy silver fur.