Wings of Fire: The Hidden Kingdom | ✔️

~ The Hidden Kingdom: Chapter Two ~

Hare's claws occasionally caught on small holes in the rocky floor, causing her to stumble.

"This is volcanic rock," Starflight told her, looking around. "It doesn't exactly feel dormant."

"What if it explodes while we're here?" Hare worried.

"I don't know," Starflight said honestly, shaking his head.

Morrowseer led the way up a winding tunnel. Hare raced up to the big NightWing.

"I want some answers," she demanded. "Now."

"I have no need to answer to you," Morrowseer rumbled.

Hare ran around him and stood in front of him, making the big dragon stop. "I want to know why we're here," she snapped.

"You'll find out soon enough." Morrowseer easily pushed her out of the way and continued walking. Hare narrowed her eyes and glared at him.

"It's probably best if we don't make him mad," Starflight said to her quietly as he passed.

"Well he's making me mad," Hare huffed, following her friend. She picked up on the sound of hissing and murmuring. It got louder as they got closer, and then she realized what it was. There were dragons up ahead talking, arguing.

Finally they stepped through an archway into a cave full of dragons. The walls were packed with dragon wings, with NightWings hanging from crags and rocks and the ceiling like bats. One by one, dark-scaled dragon heads turned toward them. The gathered NightWings fell silent.

A last voice cried, "We should attack now. We should have attacked yester -!" before cutting off abruptly as the speaker noticed the new arrivals.

A few steps into the cave, the rocky path abruptly fell away on either side, leaving only a thin strip of stone to stand on. Below Hare was a bubbling lake of glowing orange lava. She could feel the heat crackling along her scales. It was dreadfully uncomfortable.

Morrowseer stepped back to the safety of the doorway and prodded the two dragonets forward, so they were left alone on the spur of rock, surrounded by lava.

Lava and NightWings.

Hare looked around. There were about forty dragons present. All of them were really thin. Hare would've never expected the most powerful tribe in Pyrrhia to look so unhealthy. Deathbringer had looked pretty well-fed, what was wrong with the rest of the tribe?

There was a clear spot on the cave walls right across from her. It looked like a circle had been carved into the rock, as wide across as a full-grown dragon's wingspan, and then jabbed full of small holes, none of them bigger than a dragon's eye.

The other dragons kept glancing at this circle as if waiting for it to do something.

On a ledge beside the circle perched a dragon with a scar rippling down her chest. Her wings drooped in an odd way, as if they were weighted down with rocks, and she wore a cluster of diamonds around her neck. Another chain of smaller teardrop diamonds was wound around the horns on her head. Hare thought this was the queen; it took her only a moment of puzzling this out before she realized that there must be a dragon behind the screen, staring through those holes out at the gathered dragons. A chill sliced through her scales. Nobody could see her, but her presence filled the cave like heavy smoke.

"Greetings," Hare said, bowing slightly. "Under any other circumstances, I'd say it's an honor to be here. However, the way I was brought here isn't exactly what I'd call honorable."

"Well she's got a mouth," one NightWing snarled.

A NightWing with slightly lighter scales than the others crawled down from the ceiling and made his way over to Hare. He was smaller than Morrowseer, but larger than Kestrel. He looked only a little younger than Osprey. Despite the fact that she knew she was most likely stronger than this dragon, Hare couldn't help but feel intimidated by him.