𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄: The dragonet of two tribes | ✔️

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 39

✎ CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE ✎
FAMILY SECRETS REVEALED

PANIC SHOT THROUGH Clay, and he sped up, flapping his wings frantically. Glory soared up beside him. "Stop!" She whispered, "if we run, they'll know there's something wrong" Clay knew she was right, but it was almost impossibly hard to swing around and fly back toward the mudwing village and the voice that had called them. Five dragons were hovering in the sky, watching them intently. Clay realized that they were dragonets not yet fully grown as they got close.

The biggest one was a bit smaller than Clay, with warm golden amber eyes and a recent claw mark wound on his tail. The smallest was the dragon with the patch on his nose who had stared at Clay in the village "hey," Clay said to them. He hoped he sounded casual and nonthreatening "we were leaving," the mudwing dragonets glanced at each other. Finally, the biggest one said, "We heard you were asking about a blood-red egg from one of Cattails hatchlings" "that's right," Glory said, "do you know what happened to it?" The smallest mudwing blurted. Glory poked Clay with her tail before he could respond.

"Who's asking?" She said, "I'm Reed," said the biggest dragonet, "this is Sora, Pheasant, Marsh, and Umber" the smallest one, Umber had his eyes fixed on Clay again. The other three kept checking the sky with nervous expressions.

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"I knew it!" Umber yelped. "I knew he had a familiar feeling! I told you!" He bundled into Marsh and nearly knocked them both out of the air. "You're our brother," Reed said with a grin that warmed Clay to the tips of his claws. "You should have been with us all along." "He's not just our brother," Pheasant pointed out. "Look at him. He should be our bigwings."

The grin faded from Reed's face as he studied Clay from wing tips to talons. "That's true," he said. Clay wanted to bring that grin back. But unfortunately, he didn't understand what was wrong. He pointed to an unmistakable island in the marshes below. "Let's talk," he said. His brothers and sisters couldn't believe how little he knew about MudWing life, but they were happy to explain it all to him, their words tumbling over one another. The five coiled together naturally in the tall grass, tails and talons and wings entwined, with Umber climbing up their backs and standing on heads to make himself heard. They told him that MudWing dragons laid their eggs in warm mud nests protected by walls of hot rocks. They were so safe that the mother never needed to check on them, and the dragonets were usually born when she wasn't even there. The firstborn was always the biggest, and their first task was to help the other dragonets out of their eggs by cracking their shells from the outside.

As they came to this part of the explanation, Glory gasped. She turned to Clay. "That's what it was!" she said. "When we hatched — the guardians didn't know anything about MudWings, so they thought you were attacking us. But you were trying to help. Your instinct told you to get the rest of us out of our shells. Clay, do you know what this means? You weren't trying to kill us at all." Clay felt like he was filling up with warm summer clouds. Kestrel was wrong, all wrong about him, and she always had been. His strength wasn't for killing and violence; it was for protecting his brothers and sisters. He wasn't destined to be a monster. He wasn't a killer deep inside somewhere.

He was a bigwings. But what was IceMoon? Kestrel always meant that the hybrid dragonet was a monster behind all that kindness and protectiveness. But Clay didn't believe that. He voudnt. He crossed his tail over Glory's and smiled at her, too happy to speak.

"So, the bigwings take care of all the others," Pheasant said, nudging Reed with affection. "Some of them can be pretty bossy or too weak, but we got a good one." She stopped, realizing what she'd said. "I mean ... you would have been good, too, I'm sure. . . ."  Reed tugged up a clump of marsh grass and started shredding it without looking at Clay. "And then we all stick together," he said. "For always. We learn to hunt and survive together, grow up together, and live together for the rest of our lives. And when we're at war, we all fight as a group. Every MudWing troop is a hatching of siblings. Except for the ones who've lost too many, they try to find unsibs to form a new troop with." Pheasant glanced around at the others — wriggling Umber, silent Sora, nervous, twitching Marsh — as if she would rather die than replace them with unsibs who weren't her brothers and sisters.

"How many have you — have we lost?" Clay asked.

"Two," said Reed. "You, and our sister Crane, two days ago in the battle by the cliff." He nodded in the direction of the waterfall. Clay's insides twisted as he realized one of the dead bodies he'd flown over had been his sister. "That was our first battle," Sora said softly.

"It was awful," Umber added.

Reed sighed heavily. "I was not the bigwings I wanted to be."

"You were!" the others all protested at once. "You were amazing, Reed," Pheasant said firmly.

"We'd all be dead if it weren't for you," Marsh agreed. They all had the same expression as they looked at Reed. Clay could see it was trust — faith that their bigwings would take care of them, no matter what happened. "But it's all right now," Reed said. "Because you're back, and you should be our bigwings." He glanced sidelong at Clay, and in his amber eyes, Clay could see all the worries he'd ever felt himself ... all the fears for his friends, all the things he'd done and would do to protect them, all the ferocity of how much he cared about them. IceMoon esespasly . she was the one he loved after all. Likewise, Clay cared about his real brothers and sisters, although he'd only met them. He felt instinctive like they were extensions of his claws and wings. This was the family he'd always wanted. And if he stayed, it would tear them apart.

He could see it in their eyes — they wanted him and were afraid of him simultaneously. If he became their bigwings, what would happen to their loyalty to Reed? What would happen to Reed himself, forced to follow him but desperate to protect them his way?

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