The Dragonet Prophecy (5 page)

“Oh.” Clay smoothed his crest and twisted around to look at her, the smallest and last-hatched of the dragonets. A pale lizard tail was disappearing into her mouth. She grinned at him.

“That was my fierce hunting cry,” she said. “Did you like it? Wasn’t it scary?”

“Well, it was certainly surprising,” he said. “Lizards again? What’s wrong with cows?”

“Blech. Too heavy,” she said. “You look all serious.”

“Just thinking.” He was glad Kestrel and Dune couldn’t read minds like
NightWing
dragons. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the idea of escape all through dinner.

Clay lifted one of his wings, and Sunny nestled in close to him. He could feel the warmth from her golden scales radiating along his side. Sunny was too small and the wrong color — tawny gold instead of sand pale like most SandWings — but she gave off heat like the rest of her tribe.

“Dune says we should go study for an hour before bed,” she said. “The others are in the study cave already.”

Dune, the maimed dragon who taught them survival skills, was a SandWing, and so was Sunny … more or less. There was something not quite right about the littlest dragonet. Not only were her scales too golden, but her eyes were gray-green instead of glittering black. Worst of all, her tail curled into an ordinary point like the tails of most dragon tribes, instead of ending with the poisonous barb that was a SandWing’s most dangerous weapon.

As Kestrel often said, Sunny was completely harmless … and what good was a harmless dragon? But her egg fit the instructions in the prophecy, so she was their “wings of sand,” whether the Talons of Peace liked it or not.

Of course, there were no “wings of rain” in the prophecy at all. The dragonets had all heard — many times over — about how Glory was a last-minute substitute for the broken SkyWing egg. Kestrel and Dune called her a mistake and growled at her a lot.

Nobody knew whether the prophecy could still happen with a RainWing instead of a SkyWing. But from what Clay knew of SkyWings, he was very glad they had Glory instead of another grumpy, fire-breathing Kestrel under the mountain.

Besides, if anyone was likely to mess up the prophecy, it was him, not Glory or Sunny.

“Come on,” Sunny said, flicking him with her tail. He followed her across the central cave.

Twisting stone tunnels led off in four directions: one to the battle area, one to the guardians’ cave, one to the study room, and one to the outside world. The last was blocked with a boulder too big for any of the dragonets to move.

Clay stopped and pushed against the rock with his shoulder as they went by. He often tried to open it when the big dragons weren’t around. Someday it would move when he did that. Maybe not a lot, but even a tiny shift would let him know he was finally getting close to full grown. He
felt
big. He was constantly bumping into things and accidentally knocking stuff over with his tail or his wings.

Not today
, he thought ruefully when the boulder didn’t budge.
Maybe tomorrow.

He followed Sunny down the tunnel to the study room. His enormous feet and thick claws thumped and scraped along the stone floor. Even though he’d lived under the mountain his whole life, it still hurt to walk on bare rock. He was constantly stubbing his talons, and they always ached by the end of the day.

Tsunami was strutting around the study cave barking orders. Sunny and Clay sat down by the entrance, folding their wings back. A breath of air drifted down from the hole in the roof, far overhead — the only window to the outside in any of the caves. At night, without the distant hint of sunlight, the room felt colder and more hollow. Clay stretched up and sniffed at the darkness that had fallen on the other side of the hole. He thought it smelled like stars.

A map of Pyrrhia hung on the wall between the torches. Tsunami and Starflight loved staring at the map, trying to figure out where their hidden cave was. Starflight was pretty sure they were somewhere under the Claws of the Clouds Mountains. SkyWings preferred to live high among the peaks, so anything could happen in the deep caves below without being noticed.

“All this history is so confusing,” Sunny murmured to Clay, swishing her tail back and forth. “Why don’t the three sides just sit down and talk out an end to the war?”

“That would be great,” Clay said. “Then we could stop studying it.”

Sunny giggled.

“Stop that,” Tsunami said bossily, stamping her feet at them. “No whispering! Pay attention. I’m assigning parts.”

“This is not proper studying,” Starflight pointed out. His black NightWing scales made him nearly invisible in the dark shadows between the torches. He swept a few scrolls between his talons and began to neatly sort them into stacked triangles. “Perhaps I should read to everyone instead.”

“Dear moons, anything but that,” Glory said from the ledge above him. “Maybe later, when we’re
trying
to fall asleep.” Her long, delicate snout, glowing emerald green with displeasure, rested on her front claws. Ripples of iridescent blue shimmered across her scales, and tonight her tail was a swirl of vibrant purples.

If it weren’t for Glory, Clay thought, none of them would know how many colors there were in the world. He wondered what it must be like in the rain forest, where there was a whole tribe of dragons that beautiful.

“Shush,” Tsunami scolded. “Now, obviously I’d be the best queen, but let’s make Sunny the queen, since she is a real SandWing.” She bustled over and pushed Sunny into the center of the cave.

“Well, sort of,” Glory muttered under her breath.

“Hsst.” Starflight flicked her with his tail. None of the dragonets ever talked about why Sunny didn’t look like a regular SandWing. Clay’s guess was that her egg had been taken from the sand too early. Maybe SandWing eggs needed the sun and desert sand to keep them warm until hatching, or else they’d come out half baked and funny looking — although personally he thought Sunny looked just fine.

Tsunami tapped her talons on the cave floor, studying her friends. “Clay, you want to play the scavenger?”

“That’s hardly fair,” Starflight pointed out. “He’s twice Sunny’s size. A real scavenger would be smaller than her, according to this scroll over here. It says that scavengers have no scales, no wings, and no tail, and they walk on two legs, which sounds very unstable to me. I bet they fall over all the time. They like treasure nearly as much as dragons do. The scrolls say scavengers attack lone dragons and steal —”

“OH MY GOSH, WE KNOW,” Glory snapped. “We were all here for the fascinating lectures about them. Don’t make me come down there and bite you, Starflight.”

“I’d like to meet a real scavenger!” Clay said. “I’d rip off its head! And eat it!” He pounded his front talons on the stone below him. “I bet it would taste better than the mouthfuls of feathers Kestrel keeps bringing us.”

“Poor, hungry Clay,” Sunny teased.

“When we’re free, we’ll go find a scavenger nest and eat all of them,” Tsunami promised, nudging Clay with one wing.

Sunny blinked at her. “When we’re free?”

Oops.
Tsunami and Clay exchanged glances. Sunny was sweet and trusting and absolutely terrible at keeping secrets.

“I mean, after we fulfill the prophecy, of course,” Tsunami said. “Clay, be the scavenger. Here, this can be your claw.” She swung her long tail in an arc and smashed a stalagmite loose. Shards of rock flew across the cave, and the other dragonets ducked.

Clay hefted the sharp rock spear in his claws and grinned wickedly at Sunny.

“Don’t
actually
hurt me,” she said nervously.

“Of course he won’t,” Tsunami said. “We’re just acting it out. And the rest of us will be the princesses. I’ll be Burn, Glory can be Blister, and Starflight will be Blaze.”

“I had to be a princess last time, too,” Starflight observed. “I’m not sure I like this game.” He stretched his wings and the scattered silver scales underneath glittered like stars in the night sky.

“It’s not a game, it’s
history
,” Tsunami said. “And if we had any other friends, we could play it differently. But there are three sand dragon princesses, so you have to be one, so stop complaining.”

Starflight shrugged and settled back into the shadows, the way he always did when he couldn’t win a fight.

“All right, go ahead,” Tsunami said, hopping onto the ledge next to Glory.

“Um,” Sunny said. She eyed Clay warily. “Right. Here I go, la la la, Queen Oasis of the SandWings. I’m
so
very important and, uh — royal — and stuff.”

Tsunami sighed. Glory and Starflight hid their smiles.

“I’ve been queen for ages and ages,” Sunny went on. She strutted across the cave floor. “No one dares challenge me for my throne! I am the strongest SandWing queen who ever lived!”

“Don’t forget the treasure,” Tsunami hissed, pointing at a pile of loose rocks.

“Oh, right,” Sunny said. “It’s probably because of all my treasure! I have so much treasure because I’m such an important queen!” She swept the rocks toward her and gathered them between her talons.

“Did someone say
treasure
?” Clay bellowed, leaping out from behind a large rock formation. Sunny yelped with fright.

“No!” Tsunami called. “You’re not scared! You’re Queen Oasis, the big, bad queen of the sand dragons.”

“R-right,” Sunny said. “Rargh! What is this tiny scavenger doing in the Kingdom of Sand? I am not afraid of tiny scavengers! I shall go out there and eat him in one bite!”

Glory started giggling so hard she had to lie down and cover her face with her wings. Even Tsunami was making faces like she was trying not to laugh.

Clay swung his stalagmite in a circle. “Squeak squeak squeak!” he shouted. “And other annoying scavenger noises! I’m here to steal treasure away from a magnificent dragon!”

“Not from me, you won’t,” Sunny said, bristling. She stamped forward, spread her wings, and raised her tail threateningly. Without the poisonous barb other SandWings had, Sunny’s tail was not very menacing. But nobody pointed that out.

“Yaaaaaaah!” Clay shouted, lunging forward with his rock claw. Sunny darted out of the way, and they circled each other, feinting and jabbing. This was Clay’s favorite part. When Sunny forgot about trying to act queenly and focused on the battle, she was fun to fight. Her small size made it easy for her to dodge and slip under his defenses.

But in the end Queen Oasis had to lose — that was how the story went. Clay drove Sunny back against the wall of the cave and thrust the fake claw between her neck and her wing, pretending it went right through her heart.

“Aaaaaaaargh,” Sunny howled. “Impossible! A queen defeated by a lowly scavenger! The kingdom will fall apart! Oh, my treasure … my lovely treasure . . .” She collapsed to the ground and let her wings flop lifelessly on either side of her.

“Ha ha ha!” Clay said. “And squeak squeak! The treasure is mine!” He scooped up all the rocks and paraded away, lashing his tail proudly.

“Our turn,” Tsunami said, jumping off the ledge. She hurried over to Sunny, clasped her talons together, and let out a cry of anguish. “Oh, no! Our mother is dead, and the treasure is gone. But worst of all, none of us killed her — so who should be queen now?”

“I was about to challenge her,” Glory cried. She flapped her wings dramatically. “I would have fought her to the death for the throne.
I
should be queen!”

“No,
I
should be queen!” Tsunami insisted. “I am the eldest and biggest and would have challenged her first!”

They both turned to look at Starflight, hidden in the shadows. The black dragon looked as if he was trying to become even more invisible.

“Come on, Starflight,” Tsunami said. “Don’t be a lazy —” She caught herself just before saying “RainWing.” The teachers said things like that all the time: “If you don’t study, you’re no better than a RainWing”; “What’s the matter, someone replace your brains with a RainWing’s?”; “Still sleeping? Anyone would think you were a RainWing!” (That last one was mostly for Clay.)

But the dragonets all knew Glory hated it, no matter how much she pretended she didn’t care. It also seemed really unfair. Glory was the only RainWing any of them had ever met, and she studied and trained harder than anyone else.

“Er … dragon,” Tsunami finished awkwardly, with a quick glance at Glory. “Starflight, get out here.”

The NightWing shuffled forward and looked down at Sunny, who had her eyes scrunched shut. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said. “Well, now I should be queen. As the youngest princess, I could have the longest reign. That would be good for the SandWings. Also . . .” He paused and gave a long-suffering sigh. “Also, I am by far the prettiest.”

Sunny giggled, and Tsunami poked her to keep still. Clay swept his treasure rocks into a pile and sat on them.

“I should kill you both right now,” Glory snarled.

“You and what army?” Tsunami taunted her.

Glory stretched her neck up and bared her teeth. “That’s a great idea. I’ll go
get
an army — an army of SeaWings — and then you’ll be sorry.”

“You’re not the only one who can make alliances,” Tsunami said. “I’ll get the SkyWings on my side.
And
the MudWings! Then we’ll see who wins this war!”

There was a pause. They both looked at Starflight again.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “You do that, and I’ll ally myself with the
IceWing
army. Also, by the way, most of the SandWings want me to be their queen.”

“They do?” Sunny said, opening her eyes. “Who says?”

“Stop talking,” Tsunami said, poking her with one talon. “You’re dead.”

“There are lots of recent scrolls about it,” Starflight explained pompously. “Blaze is very popular with her own tribe.”

“So why can’t she be queen?” Sunny asked. “If that’s who they want?”

“Because Burn is bigger and scarier and could crush her like a bug if they actually fought claw to claw,” Glory chimed in. “And Blister — that’s me — is smarter than both of them put together. She knew she couldn’t kill Burn in a regular duel. It was her idea to involve all the other tribes and turn their SandWing throne battle into a world war. She’s probably waiting for the other two to kill each other.”