Part One: The Secret Plan
(3rd Pov Starflight)
'Where is she?'
Starflight suspected that he might be dead, except that everything hurt so much. Darkness pressed against his eyes whenever he tried to open them. His nose and throat ached in a fierce, raw way, as if they'd been scraped out a crocodile tail.
'Is she all right?'
He couldn't remember what he'd dreamed and what was real.
Perhaps he was still under the mountain. Perhaps his friends had never tried to escape their guardians. Perhaps Stormcaller and the ancient dragon stuff was just a figment of his imagination. Maybe this was one long nightmare that had started with the threat of Morrowseer's visit.
But Starflight was sure he could remember the large NightWing taking his aside. There was a lecture about how "NightWings have a reputation to uphold" and "NightWings are natural leaders" and "you must make the others respect you, fear you, and follow you, or you'll become the greatest disappointment out tribe had ever produced" . . . Starflight couldn't have conjured that from his own brain. That was all real.
He curled onto his side and felt jagged rocks press into his scales.
Was the SkyWing palace real? The dragonets capture before even tasting sunlight. The prison on the tower of rock. The baking-hot arena sands that smelled of blood and terror. Queen Scarlet's delight at capturing not one, but two NightWings out in the world, and her plans to have them fight other dragons, and her excitement about the prospect of watching them die.
No, that had to be real, because Starflight remembered being "rescued" by the NightWings. He remembered watching his friends turn into small dots below him, blue and brown and bright, and he knew it was real because it felt so much like this felt: as if he were a scroll ripped in half down the middle so none of the words made sense anymore. The one thing he remembered the most, was the terrifying look Stormcaller gave him before disappearing in the Sky Kingdom. That terrifying, lifeless, deathly glare was something Starflight would always remember.
'Will I ever see her again? I hope she's safe somewhere.'
"I think there's something wrong with him."
Was that a voice.
He tried to listen, but his dreams dragged him back down.
There had been another stern lecture from Morrowseer. It was essential for Starflight to be the leader of the dragonets; everything depended on him. And a new order: he must convince the others to choose Blister as the next SandWing queen.
"Maybe they killed him by accident. That'd be all right. Maybe I'll get to be in the prophecy instead."
"I don't think that's how it works, Fierceteeth."
And then there was the Kingdom of the Sea. No one would listen to him. He couldn't lead anyone. His friends practically laughed at him when he suggested to support Blister.
Another prison; another escape where Starflight did just about nothing to help. And then the rainforest and the strange unnatural tunnels: one to the Kingdom of Sand and one, apparently, to the secret home of the NightWings.
That Starflight remembered.
He remembered staring up at it - the dark hole in the tree that led to a home he'd never seen.
"I bet he'd wake up if I bit him."
"I bet Morrowseer would throw you in the volcano if he found tooth marks on his prophecy pet."
"I bet my mom would have him for lunch if he tried!"
He was definitely hearing voices - unfamiliar voices, very close by. The memory of the rainforest was blurring. Starflight tried to fix his mind on it - on those last moments, guarding the tunnel so the NightWings wouldn't come through and attack the RainWings. What had happened?
"Well, he'd better wake up and be interesting soon, or Morrowseer will take him away again before we get to ask him anything."
"Ooh, I have an idea."
Claws scrabbled on rock, and then there was quiet.
Starflight's eyes felt too heavy to open, as if extra scales were piled on top of them. He let the darkness drift over him again.
Right - guarding the hole. With Clay. Morning sunbeams flickered through the green leaves, octopus-blue flowers turning their heads up to the light. Sunny was back in the village, with Tsunami, watching Glory to try to become queen of the RainWings, of all things. Stormcaller was still missing.
Sunny had brought them food the night before, her golden scales brushing against his dark wings as she passed him strange little fruits.
'I love you,' he would never say. 'Don't hate me because of what the other NightWings have done. Don't think I'm like my tribe. Don't listen to Glory's description of my kingdom, the smoke and the fire and the smell and the death and the trapped, tortured RainWings and the cruel black dragons. Don't look at me like I'm one of them, like I could ever do what they've done, please.'
And then she'd glance up at him and smile, and in Sunny's eyes he could see himself as Starflight just fine the way he was.
Her friend.
Which made everything better and worse all at the same time.
"Careful! I'm not going back for more if you spill it, idiot."
"Get your honking wings out of my way then, fathead."
The voices again. Starflight caught at the memories, trying to remember the last thing that had happened before everything went dark.
He'd been staring at the hole, wondering what the other NightWings were really like. Wondering if they were all as scary as Morrowseer. Wondering if he went through and talked to them, whether they would listen. What if he could stop the NightWings and RainWings from fighting? What if his tribe understood him and believed in him; what if they thought it was better to be smart than brave? What if they didn't care he had no special NightWing powers, like Stormcaller?
'What would Sunny think of me then?'
'She'd probably think: who are you, and what have you done with Starflight?' Because there was no way he'd ever be brave enough to go through that tunnel on his own.
And then Clay had yelped, "Did you see that? I think it was a boar! I'll be right back!" And poor ever-hungry Clay had charged off into the trees, leaving Starflight to watch the hole alone . . .
In a heartbeat, dark wings had boiled out of the hole; dark claws had circled his snout; a dark voice hissed in his ear, "Silence if you want your friend to live." Another dark voice: "Better safe than sorry," although he hadn't made a sound, and he'd known it would hurt right before the blow struck his head and pain blazed through him, and that was the last thing he-
SPLASH!
Starflight jolted up with a yell. His eyes popped open. Freezing salt water cascaded over his snout and snaked down his neck, seeping into his scales. The muddled heavy feeling vanished in an instant.
"It worked!" cheered one of the unfamiliar voices.
"Drat," said another. "I really thought he was dead."
Starflight shook his head and the pain ricocheted around inside. He rubbed at his snout, trying to clear the ocean water from his stinging eyes.
Six or seven or maybe even eight dark blurry shapes surrounded him. Beyond them, glowing red light pulsed along the walls. The freezing water had cleared his nose for a moment, but heavy, smoky air was already pressing back in.
"What are you?" Starflight gasped, or tried to.
"Huh. I thought he might attack us," said a third voice. "That's what I would do."
"He doesn't look very dangerous," said another voice skeptically. "They should have picked someone bigger. Don't you think? Bigger and scarier and fiercer."
"Like me," said the voice who hoped Starflight was dead.
"You all have tiny RainWing brains," said yet another voice. Starflight was losing count. "He was still inside his egg when they took him. They didn't know if he'd be big or scary or even if he'd be male or female. Otherwise, of course, they would have picked a girl, obviously."
"Like me."
"Hello," Starflight coughed. "Hello?"
One of the shapes came close enough for him to make out the features of a disgruntled-looking dragonet a year or two older than himself. She poked at his mouth and peered at his teeth, jabbed at his chest so he coughed again, inspected his claws, and sighed huffily.
"Weak," she declared. "I'd have sent him back, too."
"You're just saying that because you're hoping they'll pick you instead," said another dragonet, pushing forward. He patted Starflight's head in an almost friendly way. "But prophecies don't work like that."
"We'll see," she muttered.
"That's Fierceteeth," said the friendlier dragonet to Starflight. "Don't mind her. Older sisters always think they can do whatever you're doing batter than you can. I know, I've got one, too. I'm Mightyclaws, by the way."
"Older sister?" Starflight echoed, blinking at Fierceteeth
"Yes, this is the touching family reunion part," she said. "Same mother, different fathers, we assume. How do you feel?" She eyed him from horns to tail. "Ill? Very ill? Dying, perhaps?"
"What part of brightest night are you having trouble with?" said another dragonet behind Fierceteeth. "Haven't you been listening in class? Events have to match the prophecies. Hi, strange dragon. I'm Mindreader. But don't worry, I promise I'll stay out of your head."
The older dragonets in the room laughed uproariously, as if this was the most hilarious joke in Pyrrhia history. The three dragonets who looked younger than Starflight rolled their eyes, like they were used to hearing jokes that made no sense from that group.
Starflight rubbed his wet scales, confused.
Now that his sight was clearing, he could see that he was in a long, narrow cave lined with indentations in the rock at regular intervals, all the right size for dragonet beds. He was curled on one of those, not far from a large archway that seemed to be the only exit from the room. Next to him on the floor was a large hollow stone, which was apparently what the dragonets had used to collect the seawater they'd just poured all over him.
"It didn't look like a prison. It looked like a dormitory.
Hot coals smoldered in alcoves in the walls, lending a red glow to the room. A skylight at each end of the cave allowed a bit of dim grey light to filter in.
There were at least fifty sleeping spots that Starflight could see, but only about eleven of them looked slept in. Several of them had rough blankets heaped on them in messy piles, while others were scattered with objects that looked like seashells and twisted bits of rock. A few of the blanket-covered beds had a scroll lying next to them, which made Starflight's claws itch with longing. But most of the beds were completely bare.
'Places for dragonets, but no dragonets to fill them.'
Starflight remembered something Morrowseer had said offhandedly, shortly after rescuing Starflight from the SkyWings. He'd said, "We can't afford to lose any NightWings, even peculiar little ones."
'Maybe there is something wrong with my tribe,' Starflight thought. 'Maybe they're losing dragonets somehow - or not having enough of them in the first place.'
Everything smelled like sulfur and decaying animals. As Fierceteeth leaned over and jabbed his stomach again, Starflight realized that a lot of the decaying smell came from the dragonets. They all horrendously bad breath. Morrowseer's breath had never been wonderful either, but this was much worse. It took all of Starflight's will power not to recoil when they spoke to him.
They were also shockingly then, everyone of them, with narrow chests, bloodshot eyes, and hacking coughs. 'Even the dragonets who survive are in pretty bad shape,' Starflight thought.
He stretched gingerly, eyeing the door. It didn't seem to be barricaded in any way; as far as Starflight could tell, he could walk right out into the caves beyond. 'There's probably a guard,' he thought. 'Or LOTS of guards. Or maybe something really creepy. Like Queen Coral's electric eels. Or a lava river like the one that keeps the RainWings trapped in their prison caves.'
A shiver of fear ran down his spine.
"What am I here?" he blurted.
The little crowd of dragonets exchanged glances.
"Because you failed," Fierceteeth offered. "A couple of big dragons dropped you here a few hours ago and you've been muttering and thrashing around ever since."
"Yeah, lots of worrying about Sunny. Who's Sunny?" one of the other dragonets demanded.
Starflight considered throwing himself into the volcano. "Another dragonet," he mumbled. 'I hope she's safe.'
"I want to hear about the mainland." Mindreader said eagerly. "Tell us everything. We've heard there are trees taller than dragons and that in some places the sky is blue. True? False? What's the coolest thing you've seen? What the best thing you've ever eaten?"
"You've never been to the mainland?" Starflight said.
"Dragonets aren't allowed to leave the island until we're ten years old," Mightyclaws said. "Apparently we can't be trusted to keep all the NightWing secrets until then."
Almost in unison, all the dragonets snorted impatiently.
"You're the only exception," Fierceteeth said in a voice dripping with scorn.
"Him and the other one," Mindreader said. "I heard my mom say there say there was another."
"I don't know any NightWing secrets," Starflight said.
"Oh," said Mightyclaws. "I guess that's one way to make sure you keep them!"
The scrabbled of claws in the hall outside heralded the appearance of a dragonet smaller than the others, perhaps three years old. She raced into the room and gasped, "He's coming!"
Immediately the dragonets scattered to their sleeping spots. Half of them dove into their blankets and pretended to be asleep. A few of them grabbed their scrolls and looked studious; other fussed busily with the objects around their beds. Fierceteeth sat down on her bed, folded her wings, and glared at the doorway.
Starflight wished he was unconscious again as he heard heavy footsteps tramping toward the room. He glanced perfectly up at the skylight, wondering if he could fit through it but knowing perfectly well he was too terrified to try.
With a scrapping, hissing sound, Morrowseer slithered into the room. He frowned at Fierceteeth, then looked coldly down his long snout at Starflight.
"Up," he snarled. "The queen of the NightWings wants to see you."
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Onto the next chapter
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(3rd Pov Starflight)
Starflight's experience with dragon queens thus far had not been exactly wonderful.
"M-me?" he stammered. "Now? You mean, right now? Shouldn't I - I mean, I'm not really prepared to, or, I - I don't really look - to see a queen, I mean - maybe -"
"Stop blithering and follow me." Morrowseer swept out of the cave with a growl.
"Go, go, go," Mightyclaws hissed, flapping his wings as Starflight hesitated.
Starflight's claws caught on small holes in the rocky floor and he stumbled as he chased after the giant NightWing. 'Volcanic rock,' he thought, peering at the walls around him. 'I wonder when it last erupted.' From the rumbling under his talons and the heat rising through the floor, it didn't seem like the most dormant volcano.
Morrowseer led the way up a winding tunnel without looking back.
"My friends -" Starflight started to say. "Sunny and the others - are they -"
The large black dragon didn't turn around.
Starflight kept walking for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and tried again. "When can I go back?"
His only answer was a snort of disgust. Starflight swallowed his questions and nervously tucked his wings in. The walls felt like they were getting closer.
He didn't see any guards or rivers of lava. He didn't see any other NightWings at all.
But as they moved along the tunnel, Starflight heard something up ahead - a hissing, murmuring sound that grew louder as they approached.
Dragon voices, jumbled and arguing.
Dread prickled through ever scale on Starflight's body. If he hadn't been more terrified of what Morrowseer would do to him, he would have turned and bolted back down the tunnel.
Finally Morrowseer and Starflight 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 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 Starflight.
Starflight wondered again if he was dreaming, because this was his biggest nightmare come to life: a room full of angry NightWings, all of them glaring at him.
"Watch it," Morrowseer growled as Starflight stumbled into him, and then Starflight saw what lay ahead of their talons.
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 him was a bubbling lake of glowing orange lava. He could feel the heat crackling along his scales.
Morrowseer stepped back to the safety of the doorway and prodded Starflight forward, so the dragonet was left alone on the spur of rock, surrounded by lava.
Lava and NightWings.
"And they're all reading my mind,' he thought with another jolt of terror. "They can all see my thoughts. They know I'm terrified and weak and useless and that I don't think Blister should be queen and the I think this is a horrible place to live and -'
'Stop thinking about all the things I don't want them to see in my head!'
With a massive effort, Starflight focused on the details of the room around him. 'Think about what you need to see. Don't think about anything else.'
First, there weren't actually hundreds of dragons staring at him. He did a quick estimate, hiding his other thoughts inside mountains of numbers. Maybe forty. About forty black dragons filled the cave most of them as large as Morrowseer, which meant they must be quiet old. They were all as thin as the dragonets in the dormitory, and many of them had worn patches on their scales, sores on their snouts and wings, and traces of blood around their nostrils. These dragons looked like the tribal opposite of the colorful, healthy, well-fed RainWings.
All except for one of them. It was one of the shortest NightWings here, looking to be a little taller than Stormcaller. His body was long and serpentine like - similar to that of Stormcaller - and instead of black scales, his were a mix of a dark gray, and an even darker silver with. His eyes were and eerie red that Starflight didn't like. There was a patch of cloth stuck to his neck, just below the left side of his jaw. Around the edges of the patch, Starflight could see bubbles of deformed skin. The NightWing held himself high, and every now and then he would flick his tongue in and out of his mouth, as if to taste the air like a snake.
There was something about this NightWing that terrified him.
Starflight quickly shook his head and looked at other things around the cave.
There was a clear spot on the cave walls right across from him. It looked like a large circle had been carved into the rock, as wide as Starflight's wingspan, and then jabbed full of small holes, none of them bigger than a dragons eye.
The other's kept glancing at this circle as if waiting for it to do something.
On a ledge besides the circle perched a dragon with a scar rippling down her chest, Her wings drooped in an odd way, as if they were weighed 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.
'But that can't be the queen,' Starflight thought. She didn't have authority in her bones. She didn't radiate power all the way through her wingtips, like the other queens he'd met.
Only a moment later he realized there must be a dragon behind the screen, staring through those holes at him. A chill sliced through his scales. Nobody could see her, but the presence filled the cave like heavy smoke.
'The queen of the NightWings.'
The scrolls always referred to her as mysterious and unknown, but Starflight hadn't imagined that she would keep herself hidden even from her own tribe.
'Why?'
'Because it's extra-terrifying,' he answered himself.
"This is him?" Barked one of the dragons.
"Yes," Morrowseer growled. "We snatched him from the rainforest this morning."
Wings rustled uneasily all around the cave.
"Has he told us anything?" asked another dragon. "What do they know? What are they planning?"
"How soon will they attack?" growled another.
"And how did that RainWing escape?" another one shouted as several dragons began to speak at once. "We've heard reports that there was a MudWing with her. A MudWing! How did he get here? Why didn't we kill them before they got away?"
'They're talking about Glory and Clay,' Starflight thought with a shudder.
"That's the RainWing I warned you about," Morrowseer snarled. "The one the Talons of Peace got to replace the SkyWing they lost." He spat into the lava. "This is exactly why I told them to kill her."
"A RainWing, of all things," said the dragons with the diamonds. "What an unfortunate mistake."
"We had her," said a dragon with twisted horns. "Here. In out talons. And nobody killed her?"
The silver-gray NightWing made multiple odd movements with his two front talons with an angry expression on his face. He stopped making the movements after tracing one claws across his neck in a slicing motion. Starflight didn't know what he was doing or what it meant, but he assumed it involved killing someone. 'Glory,' Starflight shivered.
"No," said the NightWing with diamonds. "No one is allowed in the rain forest until further notice."
"What if she saw what we were doing?" cried a dragon. "If she warms the RainWings what we're planning-"
"She can't possibly know that," Morrowseer said.
"She knows about the tunnels between our kingdoms," challenged a dragon from the far wall. "And that little one escaped with her. She'll have told her everything she saw in the fortress. What if they figure it out?"
A clamor of voices filled the cave.
'Figure out what?' Starflight looked down at his talons and wished they weren't shaking so much. He was half afraid that he'd tremble himself off balance and into the lava, but that wasn't even in the top twenty things he was wording about right now. 'What are they planning?'
He glanced up at the screen where the queen was hidden. She hadn't spoken at all yet. But he could feel her watching; from the way his skin prickled, he thought she hadn't taken her eyes off him since he'd entered the cave.
All at once, the dragon with the diamonds leaned toward the screen, tilting her head.
A hush fell instantly around the room. Nothing moved except the bloop-bloop of bubbles in the lava. Every NightWing present seemed to be holding his or her breath.
Starflight didn't hear anything - no queen's voice issuing really from her hiding spot - but the diamond dragon nodded and straightened up again.
"Queen Battlewinner says to shut up and ask him." To his horror, she pointed at Starflight. "That's why he's here. Make him tell us what they know and what they're going to do next."
The listening dragons all swiveled their heads toward him.
Falling into the suddenly lava sounded like a pretty great option.
"Um," Starflight stammered several times. "I - I - um -"
"Speak or I kill you right now," Morrowseer growled behind him.
Starflight pressed his front talons together and took a deep breath. "Her name is Glory" he blurted.
The dragons all hissed. This was not something they cared about.
"She - she said you have RainWing prisoners." 'Please tell me she's wrong. Tell me it's all a mistake.'
But no one corrected him.
Should he tell them Glory's plan? That she was trying to become queen of the RainWings so she could build an army to rescue their lost dragons? That they shouldn't underestimate her?
Would he be betraying his friends if he said all that to the NightWings?
Or would he be betraying his tribe if he didn't?
The close, smoky air of the cave pressed down around Starflight.
'What if I can't fix everything?'
'This is the chance you wanted. You asked Glory to let you talk to the NightWings. You wanted to give them a chance to explain themselves - you wanted to find a peaceful solution, so you wouldn't have to pick sides in a war.'
But now that he was here, facing their dark eyes, he couldn't find any of the brilliant words he'd meant to use.
Suddenly one of the nearest dragons snapped, "Just tell us if they're planning an attack!"
"Yes," Starflight blurted. "I mean - I think so."
This was met with such an uproar that Starflight had to sit down and cover his head with his wings. He'd said the worst this possible. He'd made everything worse for Glory and the RainWings, and he couldn't even bring himself to speak up and try that famous "diplomacy" he'd always thought was such a good idea.
'They wouldn't listen to me anyway,' he told himself, but he didn't know if that was true. He wasn't brave enough to find out.
"It doesn't matter," rasped a hoarse, wet voice. "RainWings are no match for us."
horribly disfigured dragon pushed past Morrowseer, slithered into the cave, and glowered at the other dragons. His snout was twisted and deformed by a terrible scar that had closed one nostril, melted several scales, and left a nasty oozing bubble along his jawline.
The dragon with the diamonds frowned. "Vengeance, you were not invited to this council."
"Yeah, I noticed," he hissed. "And yet I know more about any dragon about RainWings and what they can do." He gestured to his face. "And I can tell you that this was a fluke. RainWings are too stupid and cowardly to be dangerous. Most of you know I got this when I grabbed their queen - well, turns out, just one of their queens - stupid tribe - and she had no idea what she was doing or I'd be dead. She didn't even mean to spray me. They never do." Vengeance shook his head, breathing loudly through his mouth. "They have Pyrrhia's most powerful weapon and they're too pathetic to use it."
The silver-gray NightWing made some more movements with his talons, and gesturing to the patch of his neck multiple times, all while angrily lashing his tail.
'What's he doing?' Starflight wondered. He racked his brain for answers. 'Aquatic!' he thought. 'It's like Aquatic. But why use Aquatic? Can't he speak?'
A murmur of agreements ran through the NightWing council, agreeing with what the silver-gray NightWing was saying.
"I'll have to agree with Legendseeker, here," said the diamond dragon. "That could have been before this Glory came along. And it's also you're fault they found out about us. You're the one who brought her here, even though Deathbringer warned us the dragonets were in the forest, and that we should stay away until they were gone."
"Deathbringer." Vengeance smirked. "Oh, yeah. How is your pet, Greatness? I've heard a very interesting story about him." He turned and beckoned with his tail.
Starflight recognized the NightWing assassin who was dragged into the cave by four guards. it was starting to get crowded on the ledge by the door. Vengeance seized Deathbringer's ear and virtually threw him onto the stone outcropping with Starflight, They knocked into each other and flung out their wings for balance.
Deathbringer wasn't much bigger than Starflight, after all - he'd looked much bigger when he was attacking Queen Blaze and threatening Glory. But here, in the same lava predicament as Starflight, with everyone looking just as displeased with him, he seemed a lot less intimidating.
"Ah," he said to Starflight in a friendly way. "You're here, too." His eyes looked as if he wanted to ask something but didn't dare.
"This dragon," Vengeance bellowed, pointing at Deathbringer. "This pet assassin of Princess Greatness was actually conspiring with the enemy. He is the one who brought the MudWing here and he helped them both to escape."
'Princess,' Starflight thought. 'So the diamond dragon - Greatness - speaks for her mother, for some reason.'
"Hang on," Deathbringer said, hopping neatly over Starflight's head so the dragonet was between him and Vengeance. He looked around at the other dragons and spread his wings with an innocent air. "Conspiring with the enemy? Do you have any proof?"
"Yeah, I have witnesses," Vengeance hissed. "Two of the guards she attacked one the way out saw you helping them, Legendseeker being one of them. And the guards you distracted from the tunnel so the MudWing could come through - they can tell us all about that."
A terrible silence followed. Starflight wondered whether they were all searching Deathbringer's mind to find out what was true. He kept his mind carefully blank, just in case.
"Deathbringer," said Greatness, twisting her diamond necklace in her front claws. "That kind of betrayal . . . the punishment is death."
The NightWing assassin spread his wings and bowed deeply toward the queen. "I swear I have only done what I thought would be best for my tribe."
"Oh, yeah?" Vengeance coughed wetly. "So why are all the dragonets still alive, then?"
Deathbringer glanced under his wing and met Starflight's eyes. There was a question in them, and this time Starflight guessed what it was. 'Are they? Are they all still alive?' Starflight nodded as imperceptibly as he could, and a look of relief fitted across Deathbringer's face, then it was gone.
"My mission is not yet complete, It's true," Deathbringer said. "I have only killed the rogue NightWing known as Stormcaller. I need to return to the rainforest and-"
"And betray us some more," Vengeance suggested. "I bet you do."
'Wait, Stormcaller's dead?' Starflight thought. It took a few moment for him to remember the last thing the older NightWing had said to him. ' "Pretend I died, killed back in the Ice Kingdom by the NightWing assassin, Deathbringer." '
'So he told Deathbringer the same thing back in the Ice Kingdom: to fake Stormcaller's death.'
So Stormcaller was faking his death to make sure the NightWings stop going after him. But why?
Starflight noticed Greatness leaning toward the screen again, but more of the dragons were staring at Deathbringer and didn't notice it this time.
"I assure you I'm a loyal NightWing," Deathbringer said, his voice rising. "Perhaps I think it's worth discussing whether we really need to kill these dragonets, but"
"You see?" roared Vengeance. "He's-"
"Vengeance!" Greatness shouted, cutting hi off. She stood up on her ledge and spread her wings, revealing the silver scales glittering underneath like echoes of her diamonds. She puffed up her chest and contorted her face as if she was trying to appear menacing and regal, but it looked like a performance. Starflight still couldn't see a future queen in her.
"The queen has spoken," Greatness said into the perilous silence. "Vengeance. You endangered the whole tribe. You disobeyed orders. You brought a viper to us disguised as a simple garden snake."
"Wait," Vengeance cried. "What he did was worse! I just grabbed a RainWing, same as always! How could I know - she didn't look no different than the others!"
"And in addition," said Greatness, "you are irritating the queen." She flicked her tail, just the tiniest movement, at the guards in the doorway.
"NO!" shrieked Vengeance. His wings flapped open, but he'd barely lifted off when the four guards grabbed him. With one swift heave, before Starflight even had time to blink, they hurled the scarred dragon into the lava.
END OF CHAPTER
A/N
Hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of book 4
Thanks for reading
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions
See you all in the next chapter
bye