Wings of Fire Book Four: The Dark Secret

  “If we can save him,” Fatespeaker said.

  “Right.” He took a deep breath.

  “I wish we didn’t have to wake him,” she whispered.

  “I’ll do it.” He touched Flame’s shoulder with one wing. “Flame. Flame, wake up. It’s important.”

  The SkyWing blearily opened his good eye. He moaned at the sight of them and closed it again.

  “You have to come with us,” Fatespeaker said.

  “We know how to save you,” Starflight added. “But it’ll only work if we go now.”

  Flame mumbled something that sounded like, “Why would you save me?”

  “Because you’re my friend and it’s the right thing to do,” Fatespeaker said.

  “Hrrmph,” muttered Flame.

  Starflight poked him in the side. “Because we can use your tragic face to get us off this island.”

  There was a pause. Flame lifted his head and squinted at Starflight. “That sounds like a real reason,” he said in a stronger voice, although it still had a blurry sound to it, and his head wobbled like his brain was wrapped in sheep’s wool.

  Starflight held out his wing, and the red dragonet slowly slid off the bed, resting his weight on Starflight’s shoulder. Fatespeaker hurried ahead to the door, waved an all clear, and led the way to the nearest balcony overlooking the prison caves.

  Starflight paused on the edge of the balcony, looking out. Down there was the black-sand beach; down there was the tunnel to the rainforest. Down there was the gateway back to his friends. And down there were an unknown number of NightWing soldiers who might take one look at Starflight, Flame, and Fatespeaker and send them to the dungeon for life — or until the volcano erupted and killed them anyway.

  There’s no time to be afraid, Starflight told himself. This is the only thing you can do. And you must do it.

  Supporting Flame between them, Starflight and Fatespeaker launched themselves into the sky and flew toward the tunnel.

  It wasn’t hard to guess where the tunnel to the rainforest was. Once they reached the black-sand beach, the cluster of armed NightWings gathered in the entrance of a certain cave was a fairly strong clue.

  “Be confident,” Starflight said to Fatespeaker, thinking of Tsunami bluffing the SeaWing soldiers. “Act like we’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Not a problem,” Fatespeaker said. “I mean, we are.”

  Starflight guessed that she rarely had trouble with her confidence. Now he just had to follow his own advice. And he had to hope that the news hadn’t gotten here from the council chamber yet — that these guards wouldn’t know about the planned attack tonight.

  They landed just inside the cave mouth, staggering forward under Flame’s weight. The red dragonet slid slowly to the ground. He looked groggy and close to fainting.

  “Stay with us,” Starflight said to him, squeezing one of Flame’s talons.

  “What is the meaning of this?” growled the biggest NightWing guard. He paced forward to loom over them, glaring at Flame in particular.

  Here we go, Starflight thought. Maybe all those games of pretend we used to play will turn out to be useful after all.

  “Didn’t you get the message? I knew that would happen,” he said. He wanted to sound bold and authoritative, like Tsunami, but his voice sounded higher and more anxious than he’d hoped. So work with that. It makes sense that I’d be anxious about this plan. If I can’t be Tsunami, then try to convince them as Starflight — the nervous know-it-all. He pointed at Flame. “This is one of the dragonets of the prophecy. As you can see, he was slashed by a SandWing tail today.”

  Starflight peeled up the bandage a little so the guards could see the oozing wound underneath. All of them let out a collective gasp of horror and stepped back.

  Starflight straightened and folded his wings. “The venom is extremely deadly. The queen has ordered us to take him through to the rainforest and from there to the Kingdom of Sand to find a cure.”

  “You?” said the head guard skeptically.

  “I know, I was nervous about the whole idea, too,” Starflight said, hoping they’d believe that was why his talons were shaking. “But she said I’m the only NightWing who won’t be attacked or chased away by the dragonets in the rainforest. They know me. They’ll think I’m on their side. Can you imagine — a NightWing being friends with a SeaWing or a MudWing? Or a RainWing, of all creatures?” A few of the guards were nodding, but the biggest one didn’t look convinced.

  “I’ll have to verify this order,” the big guard said, signaling one of the other dragons forward.

  “Of course you do,” Starflight said, letting his panic spill into his voice a little. “I said this would happen! She’s going to be so angry,” he said to Fatespeaker, then turned back to the guard. “I told them you’d delay us by sending someone back to the fortress. I told them this SkyWing would be dead before we got through! But nobody listens to me. Her Majesty said you’d take one look at him and understand the urgency, and that I shouldn’t worry.” He wrung his claws together. “But of course I was right to worry. I’m always right about worrying.”

  “Um,” said the guard. He was starting to look almost as nervous as Starflight felt. “He’s really that close to dead?”

  “It’s all right,” Starflight said, rubbing his head anxiously. “I’d do exactly the same thing in your place. She’ll probably kill all of us, but what else could you do?” He nodded at the messenger. “Go ahead. You can tell her it doesn’t really matter, since he’ll be dead by the time you return.” He nudged Flame with one toe. The SkyWing obligingly looked even more like a dying fish.

  “But he can’t die,” Fatespeaker jumped in, as if she’d been having this argument with Starflight the whole way here. “He’s the only SkyWing we’ve got. Without him, no prophecy, no plan, no rainforest home for our tribe.”

  The guards behind the leader were starting to mutter and crane their necks to peer at Flame.

  “But he has to check the order,” Starflight argued back. “What’s he going to do, just let two NightWing dragonets wander through the tunnel with a SkyWing? Why, we might — we might —” He paused, then looked at the guard. “What are you worried we’ll do?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said, shifting his spear from talon to talon. “I’m just following protocol.”

  “See?” Starflight said to Fatespeaker. “Protocol.”

  Flame wheezed in a dying-gasp kind of way.

  “We gotta let them through, chief,” said one of the guards. “The queen is right — this dragonet is the only one who can get into the rainforest. That’s where we grabbed him from. He can get that SkyWing to the cure. No one else can.”

  Starflight gave her a grateful look that was entirely heartfelt.

  The head guard flexed his claws with an uneasy expression. “No funny business,” he said to Starflight. “You fix that SkyWing and come back.”

  “We’ll be back by nightfall,” Fatespeaker promised. “Maybe we’ll even learn something about what they’re planning over there. They’ll probably tell this one everything.” She jerked her head at Starflight. “He’s got them wrapped around his tail, from what I hear.”

  “Makes sense,” said another guard.

  “Let ’em through,” chorused two more.

  Their leader glanced toward the fortress again, and then finally, warily, stepped back out of their way.

  Starflight heaved Flame up, flopping the dragonet’s red wing over one of his own shoulders, and then he and Fatespeaker dragged him down the long corridor to the back cave, where a dark hole in the wall radiated the wrongness that Starflight remembered from the tunnels in the rainforest.

  The NightWing guards stared at them as they went past. Starflight kept expecting one of them to yell, “It’s a trick! They’re lying!” He forced himself to concentrate on their story. Flame needs the cure for SandWing venom. We have to take him through to save him. It had the advantage of being true, whic
h helped.

  As they reached the hole, one of the guards stepped forward suddenly, and Starflight just barely managed to stop himself from flinching away. It turned out she was reaching to help them lift Flame into the hole. Starflight nodded to her, and then hopped up to join the SkyWing.

  We did it.

  But we’re not safe yet.

  In the tunnel, there was just enough space to fly. Fatespeaker went first, then Flame at a wobbly flap that felt excruciatingly slow to Starflight, and they began the winding trek back toward the rainforest.

  The air grew warmer and wetter and the sounds of insects and monkeys chittering began to reverberate off the walls. Fatespeaker twisted to glance back at Starflight with a grin. But he couldn’t force his mouth into a smile, not yet — not until he felt the jungle earth crumbling between his claws.

  Green sunlight shone up ahead of them. Fatespeaker twitched in a happy way and sped up without seeming to realize it. She shot out into the rainforest several lengths before Flame.

  Starflight heard her scream … and then the scream abruptly cut off.

  He shoved Flame forcefully out of the hole and burst out into a glorious warm day. Magenta-pink flowers dripped from the trees and a number of silvery sloths poked their heads through the leaves to examine the newcomers. A bird with long blue tail feathers strutted by, eyeing him beadily.

  “Stop right there!” a voice yelled. “Don’t move and put your talons on your head and surrender and claws where I can see them!”

  Starflight wasn’t sure which conflicting order to follow. He twisted rapidly in a circle and spotted Fatespeaker lying next to the stream with an orange-gold RainWing sitting cheerfully on top of her, wrapping vines around her snout.

  Another RainWing materialized slowly in front of him, her scales changing color so she no longer blended into the background. “You’re my prisoner!” she cried. “Run for your life!”

  “Mango, you can’t just yell things at random,” said a familiar voice. Tsunami dropped down from one of the branches, frowning. “Try to think about what comes out of your — Starflight!” She interrupted herself with a cry of joy.

  At the same time, another dragon cannoned out of the foliage and crashed right into Starflight. Starflight found himself circled by strong brown wings as Clay nearly flung him into the treetops with delight.

  “You escaped!” Tsunami yelped, elbowing Clay aside so she could wrap Starflight in her own blue wings. “That’s unbelievable! How — how — how — how —”

  “I’ll tell you everything, but I have to see Glory right away,” Starflight said. He glanced around, hoping Sunny was also concealed in the bushes, but she didn’t appear. He turned to Flame, who had collapsed, unconscious. “And this SkyWing needs the cactus we got from the desert — he’s been slashed with a SandWing tail.”

  “Oh, poor guy,” Clay said, crouching beside Flame’s inert form. The MudWing gently lifted Flame’s snout and peered at the wound. He waved to the trees and six more RainWings popped into sight. In minutes, they had produced a kind of hammock net, which they tucked around Flame so they could carry him off toward the village. “To the healers, as fast as you can,” Clay told them.

  “Glory told us everything you said in her dream, which, by the way, is crazy, visiting a dragon’s dreams,” Tsunami said to Starflight, winding her tail around his. “Well, except she didn’t tell me about the stealth RainWing bodyguards she put on me. That was pretty hilarious. Everyone should suddenly have the air turn into seven bright purple dragons yelling hysterically whenever she gets attacked.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have minded something like that,” Starflight said. The sunlight felt as if it was melting through his scales, chasing away all the darkness that had started to gather around his soul. “You scared the moonshine out of those NightWings. It was amazing.”

  Tsunami beamed.

  “Who’s that?” Clay asked, nodding at Fatespeaker.

  “She’s my friend,” Starflight said, realizing guiltily that she was still gagged. “You can trust her. Her name is Fatespeaker — she’s the alternate NightWing I told Glory about.”

  Tsunami signaled to the RainWing to let her up, and Fatespeaker came bounding over to them, unwrapping the vines from her snout.

  “Hi! Hi! This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen!” she said as soon as she could talk. “I’ve never even had a vision of somewhere this pretty! No wonder the NightWings want to live here.” She seized Clay’s front talons and shook them vigorously. “What’s edible? I haven’t eaten in days; you wouldn’t believe how hungry I am.”

  Starflight felt his own empty stomach twist as she chattered on, but it was much more than food that was worrying him. War was coming to this peaceful rainforest, no matter what anyone tried to do to stop it. After tonight, would it be so beautiful? He remembered some of the awful things he and his friends had seen since leaving the caves — the violence in the Sky Palace arena, the dead MudWings lying broken in the swamp, the panicked SeaWings crushing one another as they tried to escape the fire bombs when the Summer Palace was attacked.

  It was hard to imagine any of that here — hard to imagine anyone burning these trees or hurting these harmless, happy-go-lucky dragons.

  But Starflight had seen the cruelty of NightWings, and he knew how desperate they were for a new home. He believed they’d do anything, no matter how awful, to escape their volcanic island.

  Fatespeaker was eating ravenously from the pile of fruit Clay had offered her, but Starflight didn’t think he could possibly eat until he felt that his friends were safe. Although that might be never, he realized ruefully.

  “I have to see Glory right now,” he said to Tsunami. “The NightWings are planning to attack tonight.”

  She gasped, and the trees around her all gasped at the same time. Tsunami turned to frown at the apparently empty branches.

  “I told you all you could go back to the village,” she said. “I don’t need a bodyguard. I can take care of myself.”

  Nobody answered. Tsunami sighed.

  “You’ve never seen instant loyalty like these RainWings have for Queen Glory,” she said to Starflight. “Don’t even try to convince them to disobey her. Never going to happen.”

  “That’s great,” Starflight said, pleased. At least one of us is fitting into her tribe.

  “For her war strategy, yes,” Tsunami said. “For the size of her head, no.” She waved over the RainWing who had been sitting on Fatespeaker. Fatespeaker eyed him warily, but his tangerine-orange face was cheerful and extremely nonthreatening.

  “Take these NightWings to the queen,” Tsunami said. “Clay and I have to stay on guard here,” she explained to Starflight. “Especially on a really sunny day like this, I’m afraid RainWings have a tendency to fall asleep all over the place.”

  “Sure,” Starflight said.

  “But if there’s any battle planning, I want to be involved,” Tsunami added fiercely.

  “Of course,” Starflight said, spreading his wings. How long did they have until dark? Would the NightWings even wait until midnight, once they realized that Starflight had come through? Surely Morrowseer would guess that Starflight would warn his friends. What if that spurred them to attack sooner? They might invade at any moment — they might even be on their way right now.

  He cast a worried look back at the hole. “Be careful,” he said to Tsunami.

  “I’m ready for them,” she said. “Don’t worry.” She curled her claws menacingly.

  Starflight and Fatespeaker followed the orange-gold RainWing up into the treetops, where there was even more sunlight. Fatespeaker ducked as a flock of tiny purple birds exploded past her head. She kept twisting to watch the shimmering azure butterflies that flitted by, and once she startled a large, spotted jungle cat so he nearly fell off the branch where he was sleeping.

  “I can’t get over how amazing this place is,” she said to Starflight.

  “The RainWing village is really cool, too
,” he said.

  “It makes me feel sad for the NightWings.” Fatespeaker tilted her head to catch more sunlight on her snout. “I mean, what if they had grown up somewhere like this? Would they still be the way they are, or would they be happy and kind, like the RainWings? It’s not their fault they hatched in such a miserable place. Maybe they could have been good — or, at least, better — if they’d lived somewhere else.”

  “Maybe,” Starflight said. “In fact, probably — but I think being a good dragon is about the choices you make no matter where you are or who raised you or how. The NightWings chose to kidnap and torture RainWings. That makes it hard for me to feel sorry for them.”

  “True,” Fatespeaker said, and lapsed into uncharacteristic silence for the rest of the flight.

  The orange RainWing led them to a tree house that matched the one in the dream Starflight had stepped into. The walls were mostly open to the outside, letting sunshine and fresh air pour in, and Glory stood behind a wooden desk, although there were no scrolls in front of her in real life. Three small RainWings were lined up before her in varying shades of green, apparently relaying reports from around the forest.

  Glory saw Starflight coming and flared her wings.

  “Starflight!” she cried joyfully. She jabbed her own forearm with one of her claws. “I’m not dreaming. You’re really here!”

  He landed beside her. “We found a way out — Fatespeaker and I — this is Fatespeaker — because I had to come warn you,” he said. His eyes drifted to the trees around them. “Where’s Sunny?”

  “Teaching a dragonet class how to read, or helping the healers with Webs, I think,” Glory said, waving her claws. “Warn me about what?”

  “The NightWings are planning to attack you tonight at midnight,” Starflight said. “Maybe sooner, if they figure out where I’ve gone and why.”

  “Tonight?” Glory rubbed her front talons over her head. “Go get me Mangrove,” she said to one of the small RainWings. “And you, find Grandeur.” The two of them nodded and flew off in a hurry.