(3rd Pov Starflight)
Deathbringer shot up and out of the way as lava splashed all around the. Starflight didn't move fast enough, and a bright orange droplet splattered on his foot. Burning pain flared through him, and he thought he might faint.
Then a shape surged out of the lava - Vengeance, screaming and trying to escape as he was boiled alive.
Deathbringer's talons yanked Starflight into the air just in time. Lava sprayed in all directions as the dying dragon flared his wings.
"DON'T DO THIS! SAVE ME!" Vengeance bellowed.
The guards stepped forward with expressionless faces. They were wearing a sort of armor, including helmets and thick plates over their underbellies, and they were all carrying wicked pronged spears like the one Glory had brought back to the rainforest.
It was these spears they used to shove Vengeance back under the lava, and to hold him there until the thrashing stopped and the dark shape of the scarred dragon finally sank all the way below the bright gold-red surface and disappeared.
After a long moment, Starflight remembered to breathe again. He glanced at Deathbringer, hovering in the air beside him. There was an unusually somber look on the assassin's face, as if he'd just seen a glimpse of his possible future, and not in a magical prophetic vision sort of way.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Deathbringer said at last, bowing toward the hidden queen.
"Don't, Deathbringer," Greatness said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat and looked away. "We're not done with you." She addressed the guards. "Take him to the dungeon. We'll investigate the charges and then Her Majesty will decide what to do."
Deathbringer flew down to the guards and allowed them to push him out the door, only glancing back once to meet Starflight's eyes with a look Starflight couldn't decode.
'Maybe he expects me to have mind-reading abilities. Maybe he's trying to send to a message. If so - sorry, Deathbringer. You picked the wrong dragon.'
Greatness rubbed the ridges above her eyes, looking tired. "All right, we need a break. If it's your turn to eat this week, go do that now, and we'll reconvene tonight." She glanced around the room, leaned toward the screen again, and added, "The queen says to return at dusk with possible defensive and offensive ideas, Morrowseer, see if you can claw dome more information out of that dragonet before then. Legendseeker will accompany you."
Morrowseer dipped his head, flexing his talons. Starflight hoped uneasily that she meant "claw" in a metaphorical way.
Legendseeker nodded his head and made a few talon movements, saying something Starflight could not understand.
The NightWings began to disperse, most of them through holes in the ceiling. Morrowseer jerked his head, and Starflight reluctantly followed him back into the tunnel with Legendseeker not far behind him.
The mention of eating had reminded him of how hungry he was, although he couldn't really worry about food when he wasn't even sure if he was a prisoner or a spy or just a failure, And after what had happened to Vengeance, Starflight was pretty nervous about what the NightWings might do with a failure.
Morrowseer's wings billowed like thunderclouds as he stormed ahead of Starflight. Soon Starflight realized that they weren't going back to the dormitory - Morrowseer had taken a turn somewhere, and now Starflight could see dim grey light up ahead.
They emerged onto a shelf of rock that jutted from the side of the fortress. Below them was a weird landscape of rocks that looked like giant lumpy grey-black dragon scales with a fiery orange glowing underneath, filling in the cracks. 'A lava field,' Starflight thought.
He remembered a little about volcanoes from one of the scrolls he'd studied back under the mountain, what felt like a lifetime ago. But there weren't any active volcanoes on the mainland of Pyrrhia, so he hadn't memorized it like the other scrolls. It never occurred to him that the NightWings, who's written most of the the scrolls, might have firsthand knowledge; might, in fact, be living on one.
Starflight couldn't see any caves or a lava river like the one Glory had described, so he guessed they were on the other side of the volcano. But the air was smoky and gray as she'd said, and as hard to breathe. He still felt that raw scrapped feeling all the way down his throat.
Far overhead in the ashy sky, multiple strange creatures wheeled and circled, around and around, like vultures. They looked like large scaled bats as long as a scavenger was tall and their wingspan being double that. They had long, fanged beaks, and a small and straight crest sticking out of the back of their heads.
"Wha-what are those?" Starflight asked, having never seen the creatures before. He hadn't seen anything like that in all of the scrolls he'd read, including Stormcaller's.
"We call them Wingdrakes," Morrowseer answered. "They're no good for eating, but they can be trained to deliver messages."
A Wingdrake swooped overhead, let out an annoyed warbling-squawk, and quickly flapped away back to the others.
So many questions filled his head. All his life, he'd been full of questions about the NightWings and their secret home, and now perhaps they can be answered. He took a moment to think. 'I'm here. This is my home. this is my tribe. This is what I was looking for.'
But it didn't feel true. This awful place was nothing like the NightWing utopia he'd always imagined. He'd pictured a beautiful hidden palace full or art and music and dragons who loved to read, with spires reaching to the clouds, and waterfalls and sunlight and a library around every corner. Not this - the smoke and stench and hostility and gloomy surroundings.
And even a million answers, even all the answers to all the questions her could think of, wouldn't be able to take the place of Sunny and the others.
Morrowseer and Legendseeker stared across the lave field. The larger of the two inhaled several times, his nostrils flaring and his tongue slithered in and out. He did this for so long that Starflight began to wonder if there was something wrong with his nose.
"Um," Starflight squeaked at last.
Morrowseer glared at him in the middle of a giant sniff.
"J-just, um," Starflight said. "I just want you to know I don't know anything else. Really. About the RainWings attacking." Almost immediately, his traitorous brain started clamoring. 'Except that Glory might be queen by now! And that RainWings are normally pacifists! And-'
He fixed his eyes on the mountain behind them and tried to think of nothing but lava.
Legendseeker snorted before making multiple talon movements. Morrowseer nodded in agreement. Starflight blinked at the two dragons for a moment. "What did he say?" he asked.
"He said you're the most useless spy he's ever met," Morrowseer said. "Now let's go."
He nearly knocked Starflight off the ledge as he leaped into the sky.
"Down there?" Starflight called, glancing at the molten cracks in rocks below them. "Is it safe?" He flapped to catch up to Morrowseer.
"Of course it isn't," Morrowseer snapped. "Several dragon have made the mistake of trying to land down there, only to break the crust and fall right through." He nodded at a white shape sticking out of the rocks. Starflight peered at it until he realized what it was, and then wished he hadn't. His stomach twisted as he spotted a few other: dragon skulls, their mouths open in an eternal scream.
"I wouldn't suggest a closer look," Morrowseer said drily. "We're going over there." he nodded to the far side of the lava rocks, where Starflight now saw a tangle of gray, ash-covered trees."
"So." Starflight cleared his throat. "When Greatness said 'if it's your turn to eat this week' - what did that mean?"
Morrowseer hissed. "There's a rotating schedule. All NightWings are allowed to or gather for about five days out of every month. Naturally, I am exempt."
"Naturally?" Starflight echoes, although he hadn't meant for it so sound so much like a question. 'Only five days a month? No wander they're all so thin . . . they must be running out of food on this island.'
The older dragon frowned down at him. "My role in the tribe's future make me indispensable."
Starflight heard Legendseeker grumble a bit, causing Morrowseer's ear to twitch.
"Why can't Legendseeker talker?" Starflight asked.
Morrowseer let out a huff. "When your RainWing friend escaped, she hit him in the neck with her venom. He was lucky to survive, but it was at the cost of his voice."
Starflight glanced back at the silver-gray NightWing, watching his eyes travel slowly from Morrowseer to Starflight. Starflight shuddered and looked forward.
As they got closer to the trees, it turned out to be a bigger forest than Starflight had expected, covering about a quarter of the island, from the edge of the lava to the ocean.
"I see," he said. "I wondered where you hunted." Surely there couldn't be much prey on an active volcano.
"Here, when we have to," Morrowseer spat. "For instance, when we can't get out to the rainforest or the Kingdom of Sand." His forked black tongue hissed in and out.
'Oh. That must be another reason they're so angry right now - they've been using the rainforest to find extra prey,' he thought. 'Like that sloth Glory, Clay, Stormcaller, and Mangrove and I found by the river.' He'd had trouble getting the stench of that dying sloth out of his nose. For a moment, Starflight thought the memory of it had brought the smell back, until he realized a similar smell of decay was coming from the forest below him.
"The whole island was like this when we got here," Morrowseer said.
"You mean covered with trees?" Starflight asked. "What happened? The volcano?" 'Stupid question. Of course it was the volcano.' He looked back at the mountain, which must have sent a river of lava this way that covered almost all the trees, turning the island into a mostly barren rockscape.
Neither Morrowseer nor Legendseeker answered him. They circled overhead once and Starflight spotted a few other NightWings prowling through the trees.
Legendseeker grunted, gaining Morrowseer's attention. the older NightWing looked down into the forest and noticed the two NightWing. He flicked his tail at Starflight.
"Quickly," he snapped. "Before one of them finds my prey."
"Your-" Starflight started curiously, but Morrowseer and Legendseeker had already tucked in their wings and were arrowing down to a patch of stunted trees not far from the beach.
The older dragons landed with a thud that sent gray dust billowing around their talons. Legendseeker broke into a coughing fit from the dust, while Morrowseer dropped his nose to the ground. With a horrible snorting noise, he charged across the clearing, taking in deep breaths and flicked his tongue rapidly in and out.
Starflight had never seen hunting like this. Dune had taught them what he could in the caves under the mountain, and sometimes it had involved sent trails - Starflight was always decent at those - but usually it also involved being quiet, waiting to spot your target, and then attacking swiftly, before they even knew you were there.
But from the noise Morrowseer was making, Starflight thought every animal on the island must know he was coming.
Him and Legendseeker - who had stopped coughing - followed the large black dragon. Starflight thought about Dune and his hunting lessons. Their SandWing guardian hadn't been particularly kind to the dragonets, although he'd never been as cruel as Kestrel. But he'd always noticed how hard Starflight studied and sometimes he gave special tutorials on scrolls that Starflight often found confusing.
Their other other guardian, Webs, had often made an effort to bring back more scrolls for Starflight on his trips outside. They'd both been more cautious with him than the other dragonets - perhaps wary that his NightWing mind reading mind reading or prophecy might suddenly manifest.
'Something I'm still waiting for,' he thought, hunching his wings.
Morrowseer made a guttural, triumphant noise and swiped a leafless bush out of his way. Underneath it was something half dead.
'More than half dead,' Starflight thought. 'Almost all the way dead.' It looked like a pile of gray feathers as big as a dragons head. When the giant NightWing hooked one claw in it to drag it out, it let out an awful pathetic squawk.
"What is it?" Starflight asked, trying to remember a bird like this from his scrolls. His curiosity had gotten the better of him. "It's bigger than any seagull I've seen."
Legendseeker raised a talon to say something, but stopped when he remembered that Starflight didn't know what he was saying.
"A giant albatross," Morrowseer said, flipping it over. "I was sure it would be dead by now." With a shrug, he sliced one claw across the bird's throat.
Starflight covered his snout with one of his wings. The toxic smell of the dead bird was almost overwhelming; he wanted to run to the ocean and bury his head in the salt water to make it go away.
As Morrowseer prodded it a few more times, Starflight spotted a bite on the bird's neck like the one of the dead sloth in the rainforest. It looked infected and disgusting, crawling with insects.
"Are you sure that's safe to eat?" he asked.
"I'm the one who killed it," Morrowseer growled. "I'm certainly going to eat it."
"But won't it make you sick?"
Morrowseer gave him a dark look and Legendseeker scoffed, or, at least tried to. The scoff sounded like it tried to flip around, go backwards, and go out through his throat.
"NightWings don't get sick," Morrowseer stated. "Don't tell me you have a weak stomach in addition to everything else wrong with you."
"N-no, I don't think so," Starflight said, hoping he wasn't about to throw up and prove himself wrong. "But look, there's probably horrible bacteria all through that wound."
"Of course there is," Morrowseer said. "How do you think it died? My bite infected it. "That's -" He paused, frowning at Starflight. "Isn't that how you hunt, too."
Legendseeker made multiple talon movements, gesturing Starflight once, and back to his own head a few times in a twirling motion. Morrowseer scoffed at whatever Legendseeker had said, but it looked like agreed with it.
Starflight glanced down at the horrible-smelling bird. He had a feeling he shouldn't admit that so far Clay had done most of the hunting since they left the mountain. But he also didn't want to admit that he didn't understand this at all.
'Use your brain,' he told himself. 'You can figure this out.'
"You bite your prey," he said slowly. "And then you wait for it to die. And then you find it and eat - once it's already dead and rotting. But doesn't it make you feel sick." He squinted at Morrowseer's teeth. "there's something in your mouth that kills them, even if the bite itself wasn't fatal. Is it venom?"
Morrowseer shook his head. "Some NightWings think so, but none of our scientists have been able to find any when they examine our tribes corpses. Nor have we had any success replicating RainWing venom shooting." He scowled at the bird and abruptly ripped off one of its wings. "You may have this," he said ungenerously, tossing it at Starflight
Starflight jumped back to avoid catching it, and the wing splatted to the ground in front of him. Several wriggly things crawled out of it and he closed his eyes quickly.
"Um," he said. "No thank you."
Morrowseer already had his teeth buried in the underbelly of the albatross. He tore off a mouthful and chewed for a moment, staring narrowly at Starflight.
"What do you think you're going to eat?" he barked. "This is the NightWing way."
"I'll catch something else," Starflight said. He glanced around. "A turtle or a lizard or something."
Legendseeker just watched the interaction with unmoving, eerie red eyes. The way his eyes seemed to bore a hole into Starflight made it no less terrifying; as if he was watching something inside Starflight squirm about under his serpent like gaze.
"I'm starting to see why you're so useless," Morrowseer hissed. "No one's ever taught you to be a NightWing, even that rogue one." It took Starflight a moment to realize he meant Stormcaller. "We assumed you'd be born superior like the rest of us but perhaps you're defective. Well, we don't have time for delicate sensibilities and a lengthy turtle hunt. Eat the wing or starve."
Starflight had been too intrigued by this strange biological phenomenon to register that he'd just been called defective as well as useless.
"Listen, it might not make you sick, but I think it would make me sick," Starflight said. He wished he could right this all down. Were there any scrolls about NightWing bites and what they could do to their prey? Maybe he could study the tribe and write the first one. "I'm not used to eating infected carrion. Scientifically I would assume it's something you have to adjust to overtime, as your dragonets will have done, growing up with a diet like this. But I won't have the correct antibodies to keep me safe. it's not worth the risk."
The enormous black dragon had paused midbite and was staring at Starflight with his mouth open.
Legendseeker made a few talon movements. Starflight did his best to understand them. He gestured to Starflight; used both his talons to draw a circle it the air, each talon making half the circle; he held up his right leg vertically, and spread all five of his talons; he pointed to his skull and tapped it thrice.
"Agreed," Morrowseer said.
All Starflight could make out was that it involved him.
"What did he say?" Starflight asked.
"He said he figured out who your father is," Morrow seer said, "and so have I."
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Onto the next chapter
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(3rd Pov Starflight)
The wind off the ocean seized the tree branches and rattled them fiercely. Starflight dug his talons into the ground. It wasn't that he'd forgotten to wonder who his parents were - it was more that he was terrified to hear the answer. A father like Morrowseer, Vengeance, or Legendseeker, or a mother like Greatness or Fierceteeth . . . perhaps it would be better never to find out, rather than have his dreams meet the inevitably awful reality.
But suddenly, the idea that a real dragon, somewhere on this island, was connected to him and might care about him almost too much to bear.
'It's what Sunny and I always talked about - finding our parents.'
"My father," he whispered. "Didn't you know who he was before?"
"There were a few possibilities," Morrowseer said grimly. "But only one other dragon I know talks like you."
'He talks like me.'
"Well, this is guaranteed to make him even more insufferable," Morrowseer muttered, shredding the other albatross wing and stuffing the scraps of meat in his mouth. Legendseeker nodded in agreement. "He's been claiming it was his egg for the last six years."
"Can I meet him?" Starflight asked.
"Oh, there's no getting out of that." Morrowseer's tail twitched. "I'm surprised he didn't track you down the moment you were dragged in. Must be in the middle of another experiment. Nose in his scrolls . . . probably hasn't even noticed we're about to go to war."
'He want to meet me. He'll be looking for me.'
"What about my mother?" Starflight asked. "Could - could I meet her?"
"No," Morrowseer said, plucking a feather off his tongue. "Dead. Died a few years ago."
"Oh." Starflight didn't understand the wave of sadness that seemed to punch him in the chest. He hadn't known her. She'd agreed to give up her egg for the prophecy, so she couldn't have been very attached to him. She was probably as bad as Coral, or Clay's mother.
'Still.'
"How did she die?" Starflight tried not to look at the mess Morrowseer was making of the albatross. Dune and Kestrel had always insisted on strict table manners and cleanliness, since they were all trapped under the mountain together, in just a few caves with nowhere to escape if someone ate their prey in a loud, annoying way.
"She got herself involved in a battle - tried to help a SeaWing who'd been attacked by two SkyWings." Morrowseer grunted. "Idiot. So obviously you didn't get that brain from her." He narrowed his eyes at Starflight and waved one of the bird bones at him. "Enough. I have a question for you."
"I really don't know anything," Starflight said in a hurry.
"How dangerous is that RainWing?" Morrowseer asked, ignoring him. "Our studies indicate that most RainWings care only about themselves and prefer everything to be easy. Accurate?"
Starflight nodded. He really desperately didn't want to betray Glory in any way. But he couldn't think of a way to avoid Morrowseer's questions or lie to him when Morrowseer was sure to read the truth in his mind.
To his surprise, Morrowseer's shoulders relaxed. "That's what I thought," he said. "So perhaps they won't do anything. Perhaps they'll roll over and go back to sleep."
Starflight realized that Morrowseer had misunderstood him - he'd only meant that laziness was true of most RainWings, but the NightWing had heard that it was true of Glory as well.
"Maybe," he said noncommittally. He tried not to think about how Glory would never let this go - how she would fight tooth and claw to rescue the RainWing prisoners. It had been strange seeing her like that, as if she'd borrowed Tsunami's ferocity for a day. For years Glory had acted as though she didn't care about anything, But apparently imprisoning and torturing members of her tribe was one way to get her attention.
He remembered what the council had said. "What plan was the council talking about?" he asked. "What is it we don't want the RainWings to know?"
He stumbled over the words, trying to say "we" as if he could be part of this tribe. But he wanted Morrowseer to feel as if Starflight was on his side, that he could be trusted. It was a trick he'd seen Sunny use a few times when Glory and Tsunami were fighting - "Why are we mad at Tsunami today?" "Now what has Glory done to us?" - and it often worked.
Not this time, though.
"The less you know, the better," Morrowseer snapped. "You'll get in less trouble that way."
That wasn't generally Starflight's philosophy. He'd say knowing more was always better than knowing less.
Morrowseer ripped the last chuck of flesh off the bird and spat out several more feathers. "If you're determined to starve," he muttered, and devoured the wing he'd thrown to Starflight in a few bites. "Very well," he grumbled, "let's go see Mastermind." He flung the remains of the bird into the bushes and jumped into the sky. "Then I'll take you to the alternates," he said over his shoulder. Legendseeker quickly followed after the larger NightWing.
"The what?" Starflight asked, but Morrowseer was winging away quickly and didn't look back.
Starflight followed him, still thinking about the way NightWings hunted. It explained a few things, including the bad breath on all the dragonets in the dormitory. Oddly, Deathbringer didn't seem to have the same smell. Starflight wondered if the assassin spent more time on the continent than other NightWings and had learned to prefer live prey over carrion, like most dragons.
Ahead of them, the NightWing fortress loomed, black against the grey sky. It was massive, built in layers that wrapped halfway around the mountain. But it also looked somehow precarious, as if one rock shelf could shift underneath and the whole thing might suddenly slide all the way into the ocean.
In fact . . . Starflight squinted. It was hard to see at first, black on black in the dark smoky air, but as they got closer he was sure. Part of the fortress had been swallowed by lava, clearly some time ago. A whole corner of the building, at least as big as Queen Scarlet's gladiator arena, was covered by a hardened mass of black rock bubbles. It looked like a giant dragon had reached out of the mountain and slammed its talons down over the walls.
Starflight glanced up uneasily at the plume of steam rising from the top of the volcano. Orange-gold fire glowed from inside, and he knew that streams of molten lava ran down at least one face of the mountain, toward the caves where the RainWings were trapped, if Glory's description was right. Surely another eruption could come anytime, endangering the rest of the fortress.
That thought made him even more nervous about following Morrowseer and Legendseeker back inside, but he didn't have much choice. The larger NightWings ducked into the mouthlike opening on the highest level of the fortress. The tunnel here were lit with hanging chandeliers of torches as well as the niches of coals Starflight had seen before. The stone under his talons felt smother and more polished, as if it was frequently swept or mopped, unlike the lower tunnels.
Starflight thought of the gold dragon prints in the Sky Palace, the emerald-studded throne in the Kingdom of the Sea, and the colorful flowers hat wound all around the RainWing village. There was nothing like that here - nothing to break up the monotony of the stone walls, nothing to showcase the wealth and power of the NightWings.
'Then again, I guess no one ever comes here,' he thought. 'Instead of trying to impress other dragons with opulence, they do it with mystery.' He could see how that would make sense. But it would have been nice to see something besides fire and rock in all directions.
As they turned a corner, Starflight paused and looked back. He thought he'd heard - but maybe he was imagining things. But - it had sounded like claws tip-tapping on the stone behind him.
He stared along the dark tunnel, and suddenly he had a shivery feeling of hope. 'Maybe it's Glory,' he thought. 'Maybe she's here and camouflaged; maybe she'd come to rescue me.' He couldn't imagine how she would have gotten past the NightWing guards who must be posted around the hole. In fact, if he were in charge, he'd have stuck a NightWing in the tunnel at all times, just to be sure no one could inviably squeeze by. But maybe the NightWings weren't that smart.
There it was again. Tap tap tap. Definitely talons. If only it were Clay! If only that big brown head would poke around the bend, see him, and grin. Starflight promised the universe that he would never, ever make fun of Clay again, if only the MudWing would suddenly be here, rescuing him.
"Keep up!" Morrowseer growled from up ahead.
Starflight realized that he was really being an idiot. If someone were to sneak up behind them to rescue him, it wouldn't be much help if Starflight stood there staring at them. He started to turn to follow Morrowseer - but just then a head did poke around the last corner.
It wasn't Clay. Or Glory or Tsunami . . . or Sunny. It was just a NightWing dragonet
She stared right at him for a started moment, and then he shrugged and turned away - but at the same time she yelped, "Oh my gosh, it's you!" and bolted up to him, grabbing his front talons.
"I had a vision about you," she declared grandly. He froze in the act of trying to pull his talons away. "Have you had any visions about me?"
"You did?" Starflight said, blinking. She appeared to be his own age. So if she was having visions, that meant dragonets did develop their powers before they were full-grown. Which meant Starflight should have something by now.
But he didn't. Whenever he tried to read minds or see the future, it was like staring into the night sky - empty and cold and meaningless.
He hadn't admitted it to Morrowseer yet.
Speaking of whom - the floor now trembled ominously as the older NightWing came thundering back along the tunnel to them with Legendseeker in tow. The larger NightWing's eyes nearly popped out of his skull when he saw the new dragonet.
"FATESPEAKER!" he roared so loud he thought the volcano might erupt right then. "I told you to stay in your cave with the others!"
"I know, I heard you," she said cheerfully. "But I got bored and I wanted to explore and I saw you flying by, so I thought I'd come by, too. I can't believe I'm in the NightWing fortress at last! I've had lots of prophetic dreams about it, you know," she said conspiratorially to Starflight. She still had his front talons pressed between hers. "Although in those dreams it was actually bigger and lighter and smelled way less terrible, plus it had a lot more treasure and seriously less grouchy dragons." She thought for a moment. "Hmm. Maybe they were just regular dreams."
"Fatespeaker," Morrowseer hissed. "What did I say about keeping your visions to yourself?"
"You said 'Shut up about your visions. I'm not remotely interested,' " Fatespeaker answered, "But that doesn't mean these dragons aren't interested. Aren't you interested?" she said to Starflight and Legendseeker.
Legendseeker shook his head and frowned. Starflight, on the other hand, was interested, but he did not think it would be wise to admit that in front of Morrowseer, who had smoke rising from his nostrils. Starflight tried to study the dragonet without obviously staring.
Fatespeaker's black scales shimmered with underscales of deep blue and purple. Like Starflight's wings, hers were scattered with silver scales on the underside, so they looked like part of the night sky. But unlike his, Fatespeaker had several extra silver scales - one at the outside corner of each eye, a band circling one ankle, and a few lone ones sparkling along her tail like starry freckles.
"Anyway, I just know you're terribly important," she said to him, releasing his talons. "And that we have a great destiny together."
'We do?' he thought hopefully. Perhaps he was going to survive the NightWing fortress after all. 'Am I actually useful in this great destiny? Are my friends there? Am I with Sunny?' He wished he could ask her questions without Morrowseer breathing furiously over their heads.
"Go back to the others," Morrowseer ordered.
"Oh, can't I come with you?" Fatespeaker asked. She gave Morrowseer a pleading look. "I foresee that I'll be really helpful with whatever you're about to do! Also that I'll find it totally interesting!"
"I - don't think that counts as foreseeing," Starflight said. "It sounds more like guessing."
Morrowseer growled deep in his throat. "Very well. Keep your mouth shut and don't get in the way."
"As if I would!" Fatespeaker said happily, immediately tripping Starflight with her tail.
Morrowseer stomped away, muttering. Legendseeker followed him like he always did, silently. Fatespeaker gave Starflight an enormous smile that reminded him of Sunny. He wondered if Sunny missed him, and whether she felt anything like the ache that filled his chest whenever he thought of her.
"Oh my, sad face," Fatespeaker said, nudging Starflight wing as they walked. "Cheer up. What's your name?"
"That wasn't in your vision?" Starflight tilted his head curiously. He'd always wondered how much detail visions had. The prophecy Morrowseer had delivered was remarkably cryptic, but perhaps there was more information in the seer's head that he hadn't shared.
"Um . . ." Fatespeaker wobbled her head back and forth, squinting thoughtfully at him. "Oh, of course - Bigtoes!"
"What?" Starflight glanced down at his talons, a little offended. "No, no. It's Starflight."
"Oh," she said. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure."
She shrugged. "Well, I was close. Hi, Starflight! I'm Fatespeaker. You're probably wondering why you've never seen me before."
Starflight paused midstep and frowned at at her. "Am I?"
"It's because I didn't grow up here," she carried on blithely without noticing his reaction. Morrowseer's growl echoed down the corridor and they both started walking faster. "I only got to the island yesterday. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I was raised by the Talons of Peace!"
Starflight walked straight into a chandelier. He staggered back, his head spinning.
"Oh, ouch," Fatespeaker said. She patted his shoulder gingerly. "That looked painful. Anyway, so it turns out I'm part of that big dragonet prophecy everyone is so excited about. Can you believe it?"
'No,' Starflight thought.
"I'm the 'wings of night,' " she said proudly. "Morrowseer says it's up to me to stop the war. For some reason he seems kind of grumpy about that."
Starflight felt all his hope flicker and go out. He'd been praying quietly that maybe this was another NightWing intervention to point him in the right direction. He'd hoped perhaps he'd be given another lecture and then sent back to his friends.
But apparently Fierceteeth was right: he was here because he'd failed. And Fatespeaker was his replacement.
END OF CHAPTER
A/N
Hope you all like the chapter
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions
See you all in the next chapter
bye