Part Two: Burn's Stronghold
(3rd Pov Sunny)
The outer walls of the palace were dripping with blood.
Sunny had ready the scrolls about the SandWings stronghold, and she'd seen it from afar, but nothing could have prepared her for the smell of the decapitated dragon heads that studded the top of the walls, or the gruesome stains on the stones below them.
They were still more than a mile away when the horrible rotting smell first reached her, making her choke and nearly driving her out of the sky.
Addax caught her as she faltered toward the sand.
"Shallow breaths," he advised. "You get used to it."
"Do you? Really?" Sunny asked.
He shrugged, which as far as she could tell meant "no."
Ostrich had been released during the night, shooting one last terrified look at Sunny before bolting back toward the distant fires of the Scorpion Den. Sunny thought that Addax had deliberately freed the dragonet while the Den was still visible behind them. Optimistically she thought perhaps he was concerned for Ostrich's safety; it seemed kind not to make her find her way in total darkness.
She could almost hear her friends laughing at her in her head. ' "That's right, Sunny, your kidnapper is a real sweetheart. He's handing you over to Burn out of the goodness in his heart, too." '
But he was doing this for his family . . . for someone he cared about . . . Sunny glanced over at the scarred dragon and thought, 'There's more to his story. There's always more to everyone's story, if you bother to find out what it is.'
The sun had cleared the mountains when they came to the sentries; a pair of SandWings carrying long spears. Relentless heat beat down from the cloudless sky, making the smell much worse. Sunny's wings ached from flying so long without stopping. She could see the brownish-yellow walls of the stronghold up ahead, stained and crusted with the dark red and black gore that dripped from the grisly decorations.
It was a vast palace, far larger than she realized when she'd seen it from a distance. The ramparts seemed to stretch across the horizon, and Sunny guessed that two or three Scorpion Dens could fit inside, or about a thousand of the caves she'd grown up in.
"Hold it," said one of the sentries, swinging the spear toward them. He squinted. "Addax?"
"Ho there," said Addax. He waved a claw, and the dragons behind him all paused, beating the air and craning to see past his wings. Except for the blindfolded one Sunny assumed was Stormcaller, of course.
"Picked up some friends somewhere, I see," said the sentry, half jokingly. "Are you invading, or what's all this?"
"Brought a present for the queen," said Addax. He flicked his tail at Sunny, and she hissed at him. "Recognize this one?"
Both sentries drew in a quick breath. "From the party in the Sky Kingdom," said one of them. "Scarlet was going to give her to Queen Burn."
'That's where I've seen Addax,' Sunny realized. 'Bowing and scraping behind Burn as she examined me like a deformed gemstone, Before he got his scar.'
"And now I've found her and I'm giving her to the queen," said Addax smugly.
The sentry looked skeptically at their entourage. "And you need eight dragons to transport this midget creature safely?"
"I'm terrifying when you get to know me," Sunny volunteered. She heard a couple of the dragons behind her chuckle, but Addax shot them a stern look and they subsided, save for one that Sunny assumed was Stormcaller.
"Wait," said the other sentry. "Doesn't that mean she's - I mean, she's one of-"
"Yes," Addax said. "So stop delaying and let us through, all right?"
The sentries flapped aside, both of them examining Sunny intently as she and her escorts flew past them. In all of Sunny's fantasies about fulfilling the prophecy and saving Prophecy, she'd never imagined there'd be quite so much staring.
And she certainly hadn't counted on getting locked up as often she she already had been.
As they swooped down toward the thick, forbidding wall's of Burn's stronghold, Sunny thought with a shudder that this might be the worst prison so far. Scarlet's palace had gladiator fights, but at least she hadn't kept the dismembered parts of her enemies on display.
' "And it isn't exactly easy to cut off a dragon's head," ' Sunny remembered Starflight saying, ' "even if it's already dead." ' They'd been reading in the study cave. He'd rolled out the scroll and tapped the drawings of the stronghold. ' "You have to be pretty brutal to get through the scales and everything else." '
Sunny also remembered that the outer walls had been added by Burn after Queen Oasis died. 'They look solid and imposing . . . but useless for keeping out dragons who can fly. The only creatures they'd really keep out for certain are scavengers.' A scavenger had killed Burn's mother, after all. 'Is Burn afraid of them?' From what Sunny had seen of her, it was hard to imagine Burn was afraid of anything.
Addax led the way as they spiraled down onto the hot white stones of an enormous courtyard that encircled the old palace. Long, squat buildings had been constructed along the inner side of the walls; they appeared to be extra barracks for soldiers. Small gatherings of armed SandWings were visible in each direction, either cleaning weapons, sparring, or sleeping.
In the center of the courtyard, opposite to the palace entrance, stood an odd kind of monument: a tall black obelisk surrounded by a circle of sand wider than a dragon's wingspan. Words were carved into the sides, with the letters all painted in gold, but Sunny couldn't read them from where she was.
The odd palace within the walls was a lot more elegant than the parts Burn had added. There were slender towers and windows as tall as dragons and high pavilion landing platforms topped with domes and spires. Shapes were carved all over the stone - lizards and desert birds and suns, and strange creatures, mostly, as far as Sunny could see at first glance. It made the palace look for a moment as through it was crawling with life or shimmering with heat - an unsettling illusion of most ion, probably intended to make visitors uncomfortable.
The doors were open to the huge front entrance of the palace, and Sunny realized with a start that a dragon was standing just on the edge of the sunlight, staring at her from the shadows.
Her heart plunged as she thought, 'Burn,' and then the dragon moved and she glimpsed black diamond shapes on the scales. With an even stronger burst of fear, she thought, 'Blister? How could Blister be here?'
And then the dragon stepped into the light and she realized he was male, and not one of the three SandWing sisters after all.
He still looked horribly like Blister, though. He had the same narrow face and lidded dark eyes, the same black patterns on his pale yellow scales. His poisonous tail barb slithered along the stones behind him and his sharp claws made a tapping sound as he advanced toward them. He was a cluster of keys and pouches and bells on chains around his neck that clicked and jungled slightly as he walked. Some of them were plain iron, while others flashed with jewels or gold plaiting.
Addax bowed his head respectfully.
"Smolder," he said, "I've brought a gift for Queen Burn."
"I see," Smolder said. Sunny felt a little better; his voice didn't have the oozing, creepy, sinister quality of Blister's voice. He sounded just . . . normal, like one of her friends. "Who are you?" he asked her, and she liked that, too, that he spoke directly to her instead of over her head as though she was nothing but a piece of treasure.
"My name's Sunny," she answered. "Who are you?"
"I'm . . . the brother," Smolder said, and something in his expression said he had many thoughts about that, but wouldn't risk going into detail.
"Burn's brother? The only one?" Sunny asked, trying to remember what she'd read about the SandWing royal family.
"There used to be three of us, but the other two made the wrong dragons mad." He grimaced.
"The wrong dragons meaning your sisters," Sunny guessed. "So you're on Burn's side?"
"I'm here, aren't I?" he said, and it occurred o her that that wasn't much of an enthusiastic yes.
"Where is Queen Burn?" Addax cut in abruptly.
"She is not at home at the moment," Smolder said. He spread one wing and beckoned Sunny toward the main entrance. "She's out looking for a certain quintet of young dragons."
Sunny stopped, looking up at him with a shiver. If Burn was searching for her friends instead of fighting battles, she must really want to destroy them.
"Wait," Addax said. "I want to see her - I mean, this is my prisoner - she's one of the ones in the prophecy -"
"I know. I'll take it from here," Smolder said firmly. "You can wait in the barracks until she returns." He nodded at the courtyard. "Don't worry, you'll get all your pardons and your reinstatement." He flared his wing across Sunny's back and ushered her forward again.
"But . . . my reward . . ." Addax's voice trailed off as Sunny and Smolder stepped out of the bright sunlight and into the cool shadows of a vast hall, big enough for a hundred dragons. Far overhead, large fans shaped like dragon wings beat the air, and Sunny spotted a few small dragons pulling ropes to keep them moving. Tapestries woven in blues and golds and white covered the walls, echoing some of the same patterns in the stonework outside, and airy white curtains billowed at the long windows. A heavy table ran down the middle of the hall, loaded with food, and Sunny heard her stomach grumble.
"Take anything you like," Smolder said.
"No, thank you," Sunny answered politely. It seemed unlikely that the entire table of food was poisoned, but she didn't intend to make killing her any easier than it already would be. She tilted her head to study the tapestry closest to her and realized the old pattern of rust-colored spots on it was actually dried spatters of blood.
"The food is for the soldiers," Smolder said, sounding amused. "I promise it's safe to eat."
"I'm not hungry," Sunny said. "Um . . . when do you think Burn will be back?"
Smolder shifted his wings in a shrug. "I never know. She prefers not to discuss her plans." He lifted his claws and studied them thoughtfully, shaking out sand that was caught between his scales. "the real question is what to do with you. On the one talon, I assume she'd rather find you alive when she gets back, so she can kill you - or interrogate you and then kill you - herself. On the other talon, if I lock you up and you somehow escape, which I'm sure you'll try to do, I'll be in far worse trouble than if I just kill you right now. But on the third talon, if I successfully keep you captive, she should be quite pleased. it's a risk though. You're guaranteed not to escape if I kill you."
"But on the forth talon," Sunny said hurriedly, "how will Burn find my friends if she can't ask me questions? or use me as a hostage? Think about how valuable I am alive."
"Hmm," Smolder said with a little smile. A tiny brown mouse crept out from under the table and made a dash for the nearest wall. Smolder flicked his tail toward it, but stopped at the last minute and let the mouse vanish into one of the cracks. He looked back at Sunny. "All right, you talked me into it. You can live for now, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your escape attempts as feeble and ineffective as possible."
He started toward the doorway at the end of the hall and Sunny followed, wondering if that was supposed to be funny. Smolder had this odd way of talking that kind of made everything he said sound like a joke. But then, Sunny's life and death didn't seem particularly hilarious, at least if you asked her.
There were five doors leading off the main hall, plus a staircase that led up to a balcony with two more doorways. Sunny considered trying to memorize the layout of the palace, but as soon as they stepped through into the dark, winding passage beyond, she knew it would be hopeless.
The corridors of the old palace crisscrossed and twisted almost as often and confusingly as the streets of the Scorpion Den, and they were sometimes barely wide enough for two dragons to squeeze past each other. Short flights of steps kept taking them up to new levels and then down again, and every other turn brought them to a spot that looked exactly like something they'd just passed. Sunny almost wondered if Smolder was messing with her head, except that he seemed to be calculating something under his breath and barely paid attention to her as they walked.
The stone floors were wore smooth with the passage of many dragons, and the walls and ceiling were flat and usually bare as well, so Sunny felt as if she was walking through long, narrow boxes. It was eerie and claustrophobic, with no space to fly, except for the occasional glimpses of sunlight from the upper levels. And three times they passed open, sunlight courtyards, where dragons were lying with their wings spread wide open, soaking in the heat.
'I haven't seen any treasure,' Sunny realized. 'No gold talon prints, no pearl-studded pools - not even anything like the beautiful flowers that decorate the RainWing village, unless you count the tapestries. I wonder of that's because the SandWing treasure is really all gone. Or perhaps sparkly things aren't Burn style.'
She spotted a few carved statues of SandWings here and there, most of them with their wings tilted back as if they were about to take flight. After their experience in the Kingdom of the Sea, Sunny had to admit that all statues made her a bit nervous. Any of them could be animus-touched, enchanted to do something sinister.
"I think I should put you in the weirdling collection," Smolder said after a while, as if they'd been discussing her placement the entire walk. "It's as safe as the dungeon, but more comfortable. Also more psychologically destabilizing."
"What?" Sunny said.
"The idea that you might actually belong somewhere like that," Smolder said. "It's driven dragons insane."
"Oh," Sunny said. "Sounds charming."
Smolder rumble-chuckled and turned a corner, finally leading her out of the labyrinth and into one of the inner courtyards. This one was surrounded on three sides by colonnades and balconies, with a pit of sand in the middle. Sunny slid her claws through the sand as she followed him, thinking, 'What if this is the last time I ever feel sand under my talons?'
The far wall of the courtyard was curved, and when Sunny looked up, she realized that it was actually a windowless tower of red sandstone soaring up toward the sky. It had grooves stretching the whole length of it, like claws marks, and bands of carvings, all of hideous dragon faces. There were no holes in the tower apart from one door at the bottom, and Sunny was seized with a fierce, desperate longing to stay as far away from it as possible.
But of course this was where Smolder was taking her, and of course, she had no choice.
He unlocked the door with a plain silver key from a chain around his neck, picked up a bucket of water that had been waiting outside, and led her into the dark interior.
At first she thought her eyes were dazzled by the sun, but as they adjusted, she realized that the flashes of light around her came from small mirrors embedded in the walls, which caught the reflections of bronze oil lamps dangling at various heights on long wires from the ceiling far above.
A winding ramp led from the floor around and around, up to the top of the tower. And here was Burn's notorious, disturbing collection on display. Spaced at intervals along the ramp were the exhibits. Sunny caught glimpses of claws and misshapen tails and melted scales and thought with a shudder, 'I'm one of them now.'
Right at the bottom of the ramp was a wingless white dragon, its mouth twisted open in a roar of fury.
Sunny jumped back, nearly knocking Smolder over, before she realized the dragon was dead. And than that was actually worse, because it clearly had been alive, once, before Burn slit it open, let the life pour out, and the stuffed it so she could display it.
'Is that going to be me? Instead of saving the world - am I going to end of stuffed and mounted on a pedestal?'
The fear that flooded through her made her want to lie down, cover her head with her wings, and scream for days.
'Trust in the prophecy,' she told herself fiercely. 'I can't die here. The dragons of Pyrrhia are counting on me.'
But Morrowseer's voice was still there, whispering, ' "The prophecy isn't real," ' and as hard as she tried, Sunny couldn't quite find that faith that had once chased out every fear.
The white dragon wasn't entirely wingless, she realized. It had little stubs on its back that had never grown into wings. There was something eerily sleek and snakelike about it. The most truly horrifying part was the look on its face.
"Isn't it creepy?" Smolder said in her ear, and she jumped again. "Someone brought him to Burn ten years ago, claiming he was the forbidden offspring of a SandWing and an IceWing. Which is the right thing to say to her, even if it wasn't true - and who knows if it was - because she has, let's just say, some pretty strong opinions about tribe purity and not contaminating SandWing blood with cross-tribe breeding."
"Oh," Sunny though faintly. She thought of Starflight, who felt a million miles away right now. On her list of reasons why they probably wouldn't work out, she hadn't thought to include "contaminating SandWing blood."
"SMOLDER!" a voice bellowed suddenly from overhead. "I HEAR YOU DOWN THERE. If you don't bring me more water right now, I swear I will catch that scavenger of yours and EAT HER."
Sunny's heart plunged through the floor. She stared at Smolder in shock.
She knew that voice.
Queen Scarlet of the SkyWings was alive - and she was Burn's prisoner, too.
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Onto the next chapter
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(3rd Pov Sunny)
"Queen Scarlet is here?" Sunny whispered to Smolder. "Everyone's looking for her! There are dragons who think we're holding her captive!"
He scratched his nose with one claw and sighed. "My sister likes to keep a close eye on her . . . things," he said. "The SkyWing queen is a bit of a problem right now. Although mostly she's a problem for me, the unlucky dragonsitter." He glanced up at the dark ceiling way above them, then peered around the floor.
"Flower!" he shouted suddenly. "Flower!" He lifted a small bell from around his neck and rang it, letting the tinkling noise echo across the dark space.
Something pitter-pattered on the ramp above them, and after a moment, Sunny picked out a tiny figure scurrying down.
'That's not a dragon,' she thought with surprise.
It was a scavenger - alive and upright and chattering like a squirrel, bold as you please, right in the middle of the SandWing palace. it jumped down the last level to the floor and darted over to Smolder. For a grim, worrying moment, Sunny expected him to rip the scavenger's head off or offer the whole creature to her for something.
Instead, the SandWing prince rested his front talons on the floor and the scavenger clambered right onto one of the, sat down, and resumed chattering a little louder, along with some vigorous paw waving.
"Oh my gosh," Sunny said, momentarily distracted from Queen Scarlet. "It's so cute." The scavenger looked kind of like a bigger, less hairy version of the sloths in the rainforest. It ran on its back two legs with easy balance, and its slender paws had no claws on them. A thatch of dark fur covered the top of its head and ran down like a mane onto its shoulders. It had a square of shite fabric tied around itself that look suspiciously as though it had been hacked off one of the main hall curtains, plus a sort of pouch bag made of the same material.
"I know, isn't she?" said Smolder. "That's what I've been saying. I have to watch her carefully, though. Several dragons would be perfectly happy to eat her if they caught her alone. This is the one place I figure she's safe." He lifted her up to his snout and the scavenger leaned forward to bump noses with him.
"Where did you get her?" Sunny asked. "And why do you call her Flower?"
Smolder reached around and set the scavenger on the back of his neck, where she grabbed on to his spikes and balanced as he started up the ramp. Sunny trailed after him, wondering if this might be a good time to make a run for it, but she was pretty sure the tower door had locked behind them.
"We had some visitors around twenty years ago - you may have heard about that," Smolder said in his sarcastic voice. "This is the one who didn't escape."
'Twenty years ago?' It took Sunny a moment to realize what he must mean.
"Wait - visitors, plural?" Sunny asked. "I thought it was just one scavenger who killed the queen and stole the treasure." They passed an opening that contained a singular, odd-looking skull sitting atop a very sturdy looking wooden table inside a glass case. The skull was large, large enough for Sunny to fit her head in its mouth and still have a little room. The skull looked nothing like a dragons; It had an enormously large chin that was covered in large teeth-like spikes, its upper jaw was also had the same spikes but it didn't have as much as the lower one. Sunny noticed a few red splotches of blood around the edges and complicated curves of the skull - fresh-looking blood. The thing that worried Sunny the most about it wasn't the skull itself; it was as if what ever this skull belonged to was still alive, and staring at Sunny with a hungry look.
"Nope," said Smolder, snapping Sunny out of her fearful trance. "Three scavengers and a felyne. Three escaped with the treasure, but we caught this one trying to hide just outside the palace. Burn was going to put her head on a spike on the wall and eat the rest, but I decided I wanted to keep her. And at the time, I had other dragons to back me up." He took a deep breath and folded his wings back into a tent over the scavenger for a moment, before tucking them into his side again.
"Blister argued that a scavenger head on a spike wouldn't impress anyone - in fact, it would just remind everyone of Mother's embarrassing death," he went on. "Blaze thought Flower was cute, too, and wanted to see if we could get another scavenger to breed them to make more pets. And my brothers said I should get to have one thing I wanted, now that Mother wasn't around to make me unhappy."
He paused, and Sunny glanced up at him. She got a feeling it wouldn't be a good idea to ask any questions about Oasis. But she had a different question.
"What's a felyne?" she asked. Smolder glanced back at her for a moment.
"It's a small, cat-like creature that walk on two legs like scavengers, and they're as smart as them, too. They're extremely rare," he explained. The idea of scavengers was already mind boggling to Sunny, but the existence of cats that are like scavengers was even weirder.
"SMOLDER!" Queen Scarlet bellowed again, and a burst of fire lit up the tower from an upper level.
"Coming!" he called politely, then carried on talking to Sunny as if there were really no hurry at all. "Anyway they voted to let me keep her, and by now Burn is used to her. I was going to call her Stabby - she was pretty fierce with this little sword she was carrying, before we took it off her. But then she found a tapestry with some flowers on it and kept pointing to them, and then to herself. So I think she wants me to call her Flower, although all her chattering noises sound the same to me."
Sunny glanced at a glass exhibit case as they walked by, and then really wished she hadn't. Although, it wasn't as bad as the strange skull from before. Inside were lots of parts of dragons - webbed SeaWing talons, a few tongues with three forks instead of two, half a wing that was speckled purple and gray unlike any dragon's she'd ever seen, a coil of tail with strange liches growing on it, and a number of oddly bent teeth and claws.
She shuddered and dragged her focus back to Smolder and Flower.
"I've never heard of an animal choosing its own name before," she said. "But then, I've never heard of anyone keeping a scavenger as a pet either. The only pets-" She stopped and clapped her front talons over her mouth in horror. She'd nearly mentioned the RainWings and their pet sloths, which could have given away exactly where her friends were.
'Stupid, stupid, stupid, Sunny,' she scolded herself. 'Be more careful about what you say.'
"The only pets?" Smolder echoed, giving her a curious look.
"The only pets I've ever heard of are kept by scavengers," Sunny said quickly.
"Ah, yes," said Smolder, and for the first time his voice was affectionate instead of sardonic. "Flower likes mice, and she's always feeding any birds that dare come down into the courtyards." He lifted one of his claws and the scavenger patted it, as if to reassure him she was still there.
"Does she . . . understand you?" Sunny asked.
"Of course not, but she's very clever," he said. "I trained her to come when I ring this bell, and I taught her to draw, so she can draw pictures of anything she needs."
"She can draw?" Sunny said, fascinated. She'd learned to write and draw with a paintbrush that was more than half this scavenger's size. "With what?"
"She made herself this adorable little paintbrush. She likes to make things," Smolder said proudly. "She's also made all these cute little costumes for herself, don't ask me why. It's like how birds build nests, I think - all instincts, but really endearing. Although Burn complains that she's worse than the moths, leaving holes in all out curtains. I'd call that resourceful, if anyone asked me."
'Resourceful? I'll say,' Sunny thought, remembering the burnt-out village as well. She gave the scavenger an appraising look, and the scavenger stared back at her with those dragon-like brown eyes, deeper and wiser than you'd expect. 'What's going on in that tiny head?' Sunny wondered. 'Her brain can't be any bigger than a grapefruit. But maybe it works in mysterious ways. Maybe scavengers are cleverer than they seem.'
Another dragon suddenly loomed out of the shadows, but Sunny was able to stop herself from flinching away this time. It was another stuffed specimen, this time a MudWing with striated red lines along his outstretched wings. He had no claws, no teeth, and a puzzled expression.
"Three moons," Sunny said. "What happened to him?"
"The seller said his egg was animus-touched," Smolder said. "Or rather, Animus-cursed. Some kind of vengeance thing, maybe. Who would want a dragonet without claws or teeth? How could he live? He was destined to end up here eventually."
'Like me,' Sunny thought despite herself. 'Weird-looking. No other use for me.'
'Stop that. You have a real destiny.'
She tilted her head at the sad, stuffed dragon. 'Animus-touched? Could that be what happened to my egg? Did some dragon do this to me before I was hatched? Deliberately? But who, and why?'
Her mind flashed back to the questions Thorn had asked the NightWings. She was looking for a NightWing named Stonemover . . . that sure sounded like an animus name. 'What if he did something to my egg?'
She was so preoccupied with the question that when they came within sight of an orange dragon, she assumed it was another stuffed specimen and barely glanced at it.
But then the dragon lunged at them with a furious hiss, and Smolder backed up in a hurry, nearly knocking Sunny off the winding ramp. She dug her talons into the cracks in the stone as her heart tried to leap out of her chest.
"Sssssssssssmolder," Queen Scarlet hissed. "Finally."
Coils of smoke wreathed around her horns, but they couldn't hide what was underneath - how the side of the SkyWing's face was melted into a hideous dark mess, revealing a glimpse of her jawbone underneath and pulling one of her yellow eyes down and out of proportion with the rest of her face. The rubies that had been embedded in her scales were gone above that eye, and so were all her earlier adornments - the golden chainmail, the medallions, the rings on her claws, the rubies on her wings. The only jewels left were the tiny rubies above her good eye, which glittered malevolently in the dim light.
The last time they'd been face-to-face, it had been through the bars of a cage. Sunny had been the prisoner and Scarlet had been one of the most beautiful, powerful dragons in Pyrrhia.
'No wonder she hates us,' Sunny thought. 'But Glory did this to her to save the rest of us. We'd be dead by now otherwise.'
"Here's your water," Smolder said, setting the pail on a claw-scratched X on the floor.
The queen snatched at the pail, and Sunny realized that the X marked the very limit of her reach. Heavy chain kept her from moving any farther.
On the other side of the X, littering the floor around Scarlet's claws, were shards of glass and puddles of glowing green slime. Here and there in the puddles lay the corpses of peculiar insects - Sunny could see oddly bulging caterpillars, nine-legged hairy spiders, and a bright blue dragonfly whose back bristled with sharp needle spines.
"When are you going to clean this up?" Scarlet snapper at Smolder, her snout dripping as she came up for air from the bucket. "There's slime on my beautiful tail and I keep finding bits of horrible bugs between my scales."
He snorted. "Perhaps you should have thought of that before smashing up your host's prized collection." He nodded at something lumpy glittering in the shadows behind her. "Burn is going to be especially upset about her NightWing. They're not exactly easy to replace."
Sunny realized that Scarlet must have been chained up near a stuffed NightWing, which she had then clawed and shredded in a fit of rage. Sunny shuddered.
Sunny lashed her tail. "I'll get the rest of her toys, too, once I'm free."
"Scarlet," Smolder said patiently, "we're not keeping you prisoner, we're keeping you safe. If you were in your own kingdom right now, you'd be dead. You're in no condition to fight Ruby for the throne."
"That's Queen Scarlet to you," she said fiercely. Her gaze moved to Sunny, and then she swiveled her head to stare with her good eye. Sunny took an involuntary step back behind Smolder.
"I know her," Scarlet growled. "That dragon is mine."
"I am not," Sunny retorted. "I'm not anybody's."
"I know where your RainWing friend is," the queen snarled, pacing to the end of her chains and glaring at Sunny. "As soon as I am free, she is dead."
"Then I hope you stay locked in here forever," Sunny snapped.
"I have friends, too," Scarlet hissed. "I won't be here much longer."
Sunny looked up at Smolder, but his expression was more tired than worried. "Come along," he said to Sunny. "We have to fly around her. I know it's inconvenient, but I'm not taking responsibility for unchaining her - Burn can move her when she gets here, if she wants to."
She spread his wings and soared over Scarlet to the next level up, with Flower clinging tightly to his neck. Sunny follower, a bit nervously, her wings brushing the walls as she tried to stay as far out of Scarlet's reach as possible.
They landed close to the top of the tower, where the light was dimmest, and Sunny saw with a sinking heart that there were chains just like Scarlet's here, waiting for her. They lay collapsed on the ground like dead snakeskins, and they clanked horrible as Smolder picked them up.
Sunny curled her tail around her talons and looked at them for a moment, breathing deeply to calm herself. She looked up and met Smolder's eyes.
"Do I really have to stay here?" she asked quietly.
Smolder hesitated with the chains draped across his from talons. Flower looked from him to Sunny, then slipped of his back. To Sunny's surprise, the little scavenger came right up and patted Sunny on the side of her neck. She didn't have to be able to talk; the gesture said clearly, "Don't worry, you'll be all right" - as clearly as if the scavenger had had a tail to twine around Sunny's.
"It's not like I have much of a choice," Smolder said. "i can't imagine what else to do with you."
"It's just . . . really dark," Sunny said. Her scales were practically crying out for the sunlight right beyond these walls. But more than that, the thing she couldn't bring herself to say, was that she could already tell that being in here too long would carve out her soul one miserable moment at a time, until she'd be as empty and hopeless as one of the stuffed dragons.
"I know," Smolder said, and Sunny sensed the first hint of possible compassion in his voice. She wondered if it was partly because Flower felt sorry for her.
"Tell you what," he said with a pause. "I'll think about it tonight and see if I can come up with something else tomorrow. If not, I'll take you out for a bit at midday, at least let you stretch your wings in the sun, as long as you promise not to escape. Deal?"
"Sure," Sunny said. "Thank you." It wasn't much, but it sounded like the she could hope for.
He clamped the chains around her ankles, locking them with another one of the keys around his neck. Sunny turned her head away, unwilling to watch herself made a prisoner yet again, and spotted a large box tucked against the wall not far away, at the very end of the spiraling ramp.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Something new for Burn's collection," Smolder said, glancing up at it. "The dragon who came by to sell it claims it's something rare and priceless and the Burn will definitely want it, but that it might die as soon as we open the box. So I'm leaving it closed until Burn gets here, and she can decide what to do with it."
"You don't even know what it is?" Sunny asked. "What if it's an empty box?"
"Then I'll get yelled at," Smolder said, "but he'll get hunted down and killed, so I doubt he'd risk it. Dragons have tried to trick Burn before - sewing odd animal parts together, dyeing normal insects strange colors - and it has always proven to be a bad idea. Beside, he haggled so hard over the price, he nearly refused to give it to me. It must be something unusual. Also, it keeps making this strange high-pitched hissing noise."
He gave her a sharp look as he snapped the last chain on. "Don't get any ideas from Scarlet's bad behavior. My sister has reason to make you dead . . . so don't add to them."
Sunny nodded, not trusting herself to speak. This was the nightmare - the situation she and her friends had always feared. She was in Burn's clutches now, and she couldn't think of any possible way she might escape . . . Unless Stormcaller came to rescue her.
"I'll be back before you know it," Smolder said. He dipped his wings toward the scavenger. "Up, Flower."
The little creature looked up at Sunny with her thoughtful brown eyes, then patted Sunny's side again and sat down.
Smolder tipped his head sideways and peered at her. "Flower? Come along." He rang his bell and held out his claws.
Flower shook her head firmly and put one paw on one of Sunny's front talons.
"She wants to stay with you," Smolder said. "That's funny. Flower is usually extremely cautious around any dragon who's not me." He narrowed his eyes at Sunny. "If I leave her with you, will you be careful with her? No knocking her off the ramp, no stepping on her, and definitely no eating her."
"I wouldn't eat her!" Sunny protested. "I barely even like mean, except sometimes a lizard here or there. And I think she's being really sweet." There was something comforting about the idea of having someone with her in this dark tower, apart from Queen Scarlet - even if it was a scavenger.
"Well," Smolder said, fidgeting. "If you promise to be careful. Flower, are you sure?"
Flower kept her paw on Sunny and stared back at him without moving.
"All right." He sighed. "See you soon."
He lifted off the edge and flew in a gentle spiral down to the bottom of the tower. Sunny leaned out and saw the shaft of sunlight that spilled into the room as he opened to door - and then saw it disappear again as the door slammed behind him. The weight around her ankles suddenly felt even heavier.
She rested her head on her front talons with a sigh, curling her tail in close. Flower immediately tucked herself into the curve of Sunny's side, reached into her back, and pulled out a scrap of parchment paper and a lumpy stick of charcoal. In the dim light, she started to sketch, and Sunny, peering over her shoulder, saw a dragon's face appearing in rapid strokes. Her face, in fact.
"That's amazing," Sunny said. How could an animal create art like that?
Flower glanced up and did something with her mouth that looked exactly like a dragon smile. Sunny found herself smiling back, despite her fear and worry. At least she wasn't alone.
"Little SandWing," Queen Scarlet's voice hissed softly from below her. "You think Burn is what you have to worry about right now. She's not. I am. I'll be free soon . . . free . . . and I'll be coming for all my enemies . . . Think about that while you try to fall asleep . . . what I'm going to do to your friends when I get my claws on them . . . how messy and thrilling it's going to be . . . ."
Sunny closed her eyes and covered her ears, but the whispers continued inside her head.
'What if Burn comes tomorrow? What if she kills me right away? What if I never get to find out the truth about my mother and me egg? What if I never get to spend more time with her? What of the prophecy is fake? What if I really have no destiny - other than to end up here? What if nobody is going to end the war or save the world?'
And worst of all . . .
'What if I never see my friends again?'
END OF CHAPTER
A/N
Thanks for reading, everyone
Sorry that the chapter was late, I had to spend a lot of Easter weekend with family and didn't have access to a computer, plus this was a long chapter.
Also, happy late Easter.
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Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions
See you all in the next chapter
bye