The Dragonet Prophecy (21 page)

In any case, the trial was about to begin. Queen Scarlet beat her wings, and all the dragons turned their attention to her.

“Loyal subjects,” she said. “This dragon, Kestrel, once of the SkyWings, stands accused of the highest treason — disobeying
me
. Vermilion speaks for the prosecution.”

“Your Majesty,” Vermilion said, bowing and crossing his talons. “The facts are clear. You gave an order. Kestrel disobeyed you and fled the kingdom. She has been living under your mountains for the last seven years, aiding and abetting the Talons of Peace, who also refuse to follow Your Majesty’s orders. She deserves a long, painful execution. There is no need to drag this trial out.”

The dragons in the seats made their hissing fire-breath sounds and flapped their wings. Kestrel glared at the queen. Smoke seeped from her bound mouth and nostrils.

“Well said.” The queen nodded to Vermilion. “Now Osprey may speak for the defense. Or not, if he’d prefer to sleep through this trial, too.”

The crowd laughed appreciatively.

Osprey stretched his neck toward the queen, then toward Kestrel, as if he were trying to get close enough to see their faces from his boulder.

“Your Majesty,” he said in a voice creaky with age but still loud enough to carry to the prisoners up above. “I do have one or two words to say in this prisoner’s defense.”

Queen Scarlet’s tail lashed slowly behind her as she stared down at him. “Certainly,” she said. “That’s what you’re here to do. Go ahead.”

Osprey cleared his throat, coughing out a black puff of smoke. All the dragons were leaning forward to listen. Clay could feel Peril’s heat dangerously close to his scales as she tried to peek under his wings.

“Consider first the charge of disobedience. Kestrel did not do as you ordered — but then, didn’t you reverse the order after she was gone?”

What?
Clay could barely follow the old dragon. Was this not about Peril?

“Osprey,” Queen Scarlet hissed. “Speak plainly, or do not speak at all. And let me point out that one of those options would be much smarter than the other.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” the old dragon said, straightening his wings. “I must speak. Kestrel was one of your most loyal soldiers. She was sent through the breeding program, on your orders, and brought forth one egg. Upon hatching, it turned out to hold twin dragonets.”

Behind Clay, Peril gasped, nearly loud enough for the dragons below to hear her. Clay flapped his wings, trying to cover the noise, but no one looked up. All eyes were on the trial.

“We know all this,” said Queen Scarlet, yawning. “Skip ahead to the part where we execute her.”

“The dragonets were defective,” Osprey went on stubbornly. “One had too much fire. The other did not have enough. As per SkyWing custom, you ordered Kestrel to kill them both and stay out of the breeding program for the rest of her life.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Peril whispered behind Clay. He ducked his neck to look at her. She met his eyes, shaking with confusion. “I’m the only twin SkyWing hatched in the past ten years, but he can’t be talking about me. My brother was dead when we hatched.
I
killed him. Then my mother tried to kill me, and Queen Scarlet stopped her.”

“Or maybe that’s just what she told you,” Clay whispered back.

The queen rose to her full height and spread her wings so the sunlight caught on the rubies embedded around the edges. “Quite reasonable,” she said.

“But Kestrel tried to escape,” Osprey pressed on. “She took her two dragonets from the hatching cave and tried to flee with them down the mountain.”

“So you agree she disobeyed me,” said Queen Scarlet. “Then I think we’re done here.”

“You caught her at the Diamond Spray River,” Osprey said. “And there you issued a new order. You told her you would forgive her disobedience on one condition. She must choose one of the dragonets to die, and then you would spare the other’s life, and Kestrel’s own.”

“No,” Peril whispered.

“Then she did obey you, didn’t she?” Osprey said. “She killed the dragonet with too little fire, right there at the river. With her own claws.”

“And then I changed my mind again,” Queen Scarlet said. “I am the queen. I can do that.”

“You told your guards — I know, for I was one of them — to kill the other dragonet and take Kestrel back for trial. She tried to grab her daughter and fly away, but the heat of the dragonet’s scales burned her talons before she was a wingbeat into the sky, and she had to drop her. She fled, leaving her only living dragonet at your mercy.”

There was a heartbeat of silence.

“Sounds guilty to me,” Queen Scarlet said cheerfully. “We’ll execute her tomorrow. And while we’re at it, let’s execute him, too, for boring me.” She pointed at Osprey.

“No!”

Clay nearly fell off his tower as Peril exploded past him. He flapped his wings for balance as she shot toward the sands. His front right leg flailed free, and when he glanced down, he saw that Peril had accidentally burned through the wire as she flew away.

“It can’t be true!” Peril cried, landing on the sand beside Osprey. “Tell me it’s not true!”

Kestrel reared up with a muffled roar. From the look on her face, Clay could tell she’d thought Peril was dead this entire time.

“Oh, yes,” Queen Scarlet said maliciously to Kestrel. “Didn’t I mention she’s still alive? And working for me?” She turned her fierce yellow eyes on Peril. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“You lied to me!” Peril shrieked. “You said she was dead!”

Queen Scarlet sighed. “Look at the trouble you’ve caused,” she said to Osprey. “Peril, dear. Would you have wanted to know your mother was alive somewhere, raising other dragonets and wishing she’d killed you instead of your brother?”

Peril hesitated.

“She could have escaped with your brother,” Scarlet pointed out. “You’re the one who burned her when she tried to save you. She thought she chose wrong. That’s why she didn’t come back for you.”

Kestrel roared unintelligibly through the chains.

“Haven’t I kept you alive all these years?” Scarlet went on. “Finding you the black rocks, feeding you, making you my champion? Don’t you appreciate all the things I’ve done for you? Aren’t I a better mother than her anyway?”

“I want to stand for her,” Peril said, almost too softly for Clay to hear.

Smoke hissed from Scarlet’s nose, billowing up around her horns. “What?” she said slowly.

“I call upon the tradition of the Champion’s Shield,” Peril said. “It says the queen’s champion may stand forth for any dragon sentenced to execution. If I can defeat the next dragon you set me to fight, you must let her go free.” She looked into Kestrel’s eyes for the first time. “I want to stand for my mother.”

Queen Scarlet’s yellow eyes were small slits between orange scales. “Now where,” she hissed, “did you hear about
that
particular law?”

Peril shifted on her talons. “I read about it.”

“I bet you did,” Scarlet said. “With claws that burn right through paper when you touch it. Someone’s been telling you things too big for little dragon ears.”

“No!” Peril said too quickly. “Nobody —”

The queen was airborne before Peril could choke out another word. Queen Scarlet snatched Osprey up in her talons and shot into the sky.

“Stop!” Peril yelled. “It’s not his fault!” She leaped into the air and beat her wings, chasing them.

Clay watched the queen rise higher and higher above the arena. Osprey writhed in her claws, his tail hanging heavily below him. Scarlet had nearly reached the height of the wire net when suddenly she opened her talons and dropped the old dragon.

He plummeted like a stone. Clay had never thought about how a dragon needs his tail for balance while flying. Osprey’s wings were slow to extend, and when they did he lurched horribly, dragged down by the useless weight of his tail.

Peril darted at him, talons outstretched, but he twisted away from her and she stopped, helpless. If she caught him, the burns would kill him just as much as the fall would, perhaps even more painfully. Clay saw her claws reach out again anyway, but it was too late.

Osprey flapped his wings in one last burst of energy, but he couldn’t right himself. He hit the sand at an awkward angle. Every dragon in the arena heard the ripping and snapping of bones breaking and wings tearing as he tumbled. He collapsed near the arena wall. Peril landed beside him.

Queen Scarlet fluttered delicately back onto her balcony perch. “I hope this has been a lesson to any other dragons who were thinking of teaching my champion bad habits,” she said, glaring around the arena.

“He’s not dead,” Peril said, clawing at the sand.

“He will be soon.” Queen Scarlet waved a dismissive claw. “Now. I won’t argue with the Champion’s Shield. The champion has asked to stand for the prisoner. I will choose her opponent, and they will battle at the end of the games tomorrow. If she wins, Kestrel goes free. If not, well, I’ll have a dead champion, but at least we’ll get to execute Kestrel right afterward. All in all, a wonderfully bloody day for me and Queen Burn to look forward to.”

The cold wind whipped around Clay, piercing the wounds on his back and whistling through his scales. Burn was coming here. Tomorrow. And when she left, she’d be taking Sunny with her.

“All right,” Peril said, staring down at Osprey’s last dying spasms. “Tomorrow, then.” She reached for Osprey’s talons and stopped, her claws hovering over his, agonizingly close but not touching.

“Of course we’ll have to lock Kestrel back up,” said Queen Scarlet. “We wouldn’t want her to try escaping again. You understand.”

“Fine.” Peril turned and looked at Kestrel. They faced each other as Vermilion dismissed the crowd, and dragons began to pour out of the arena, buzzing with excitement.

When most of the crowd was gone, Kestrel pointed to the chains around her mouth. She wanted to talk to Peril.

“No,” Peril said as one of the guards stepped forward. She stared into Kestrel’s eyes. “You killed my brother. You
left
me here. And it’s your fault my friend is dead. I may not want you dead, but I don’t want to know you.”

She turned and left the arena. The guards dragged Kestrel away under Queen Scarlet’s triumphant smile.

Clay’s head was spinning. He tried to catch Tsunami’s eye, but she was storming around her platform, clawing angrily at the air. Across from him, Starflight was sitting up and looking at the sky.

Clay tried to think. If Peril succeeded in freeing Kestrel, surely Kestrel would try to free the dragonets as well. Maybe she’d go to the Talons of Peace for help.

But by then it might be too late, at least for some of them. Certainly for Sunny, who would be on her way to the SandWing stronghold in Burn’s clutches. And perhaps for Starflight, who would have to fight in the arena tomorrow. Maybe even for Tsunami and Clay himself, if they had to fight, too.

No, they couldn’t wait for Kestrel. They had to escape before the games tomorrow. Clay wondered if Peril would help them, now that she knew how the queen had betrayed her.

He waited hopefully for her to come back, but the day wore on with no more activity in the arena below. The hot sun baked the mud on his back until it began crumbling away into dust, while the wind yanked at his tail and his wings like a dragonet playing with prey. And Peril never came.

When the guard dropped off another pig at midday, Clay tried to ask him to take a message to Peril. But the guard snorted fire at him, scaring the pig right into Clay’s talons, and flew away without responding. The only good news was he didn’t notice the broken wire attached to Clay’s front right talon.

By the time the sun started drifting down over the western peaks, Clay was getting anxious. Was Peril all right? What if Queen Scarlet decided to get rid of her before she could fight for Kestrel?

Heavy wingbeats in the distance distracted him from his worries. He looked up as a score of SandWings appeared from the west, outlined by the red glow of the setting sun. The largest was in the lead, with the others fanned out in a V formation behind her. They swooped toward the queen’s palace, staying in perfect lines, and vanished beyond a distant wall, where Clay guessed the landing field for visitors was.

Burn was here.

She was the biggest and meanest of the three rivals for the SandWing throne. She held the SandWing palace stronghold. From what Clay could remember, she was the most likely to win the war — and the most likely to kill anyone who got in her way.

Dune had warned them that she was the most dangerous dragon in Pyrrhia, even meaner than Queen Scarlet. They knew the story of what she did to the SkyWing egg before they all hatched. Scarlet was bad enough, but Burn was the worst possible dragon to get her claws on the dragonets of destiny.

It seemed like only a few moments had passed when Clay saw the lead dragon come winging back over the wall toward the arena. As she flew closer, he could see her muscles rippling in her back like wind over sand dunes. Her poisonous tail was coiled up above her and her black eyes were staring straight at Clay.

He found himself crouching lower as she swept overhead. Her neck whipped around to keep her eyes on him as she flew in a circle, around and around just above him. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t read her expression at all.