“Hmmm,” said the queen. “Well, luckily your opinion counts for nothing. The throne is mine again now, and Ruby can either accept that or fight me and die.” She cast a sideways glance at Prince Cliff, and a serpentine grin slipped across her face. “When is my hapless daughter scheduled to return?” she asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” said Vermilion. “She sent an advance messenger.”
“Excellent.” Queen Scarlet tapped her claws on the edge of the throne. “I think I’ll wait for her right here. Vermilion, make an effort to be useful and send up food from the kitchens.” She hesitated, then added with a growl, “Perhaps it’s worth noting to anyone involved that Prince Cliff will be tasting everything before I eat it.”
Oh, Peril thought. She’s afraid of being poisoned? She never was before …
Vermilion bowed again and stumbled out the door in his haste to be gone.
The night wore on with a procession of SkyWings skittering through the throne room, bowing and scraping and apologizing and extolling the wonders of Scarlet’s return. But Peril couldn’t help thinking there should be more of them. The halls were quieter than she remembered them being, and there was a general hush over the palace, as if half the dragons were in hiding, waiting for something to change.
Waiting for Ruby to return, presumably — waiting to see what would happen and who would win.
The ones who came in were betting on Scarlet, hoping that by throwing themselves at her feet right away, they’d be safe and perhaps even elevated in her renewed regime. Peril could see Queen Scarlet assessing them each, filing their faces away in her memory. Five of the biggest dragons were assigned to stand guard, filling the throne room the way it had always been filled.
And yet … Peril was sure she wasn’t the only one in here wondering how deep each SkyWing’s loyalty really went.
At least she has me, she thought. She stretched out her talons to look at them, feeling pleased. It’ll be worth it eventually, all these looks of hatred I keep getting, because soon they’ll know this new me. Soon Queen Scarlet will be back in power, safe and sound, and I can start changing everyone’s minds about me.
Still, there was something unsettling about the looks, as though her scales were thinner now that they weren’t firescales.
Or maybe the looks were different. There was something about them that said betrayal and backstabber where before it had just been normal fear.
Strange. Maybe she was imagining things.
Long after midnight, Queen Scarlet curled her tail in and fell asleep on her throne. Peril’s father, too, was already asleep, his big orange wings flopped out on the floor on the far side of the throne from Peril and Cliff.
The little prince was not asleep, though. He was tracing his claws along the grooves in the rock below him, singing softly to himself. At one point he sat up, looked up at the sleeping queen, and then glanced hopefully at Peril.
“Sorry,” she said, hoping her voice sounded kind, although to her ears it mostly sounded drippy. “I’m under orders to stay awake all night. Which means not letting you escape.”
He looked down at his claws again. “OK.” He poked the rock once more, then raised his giant eyes to her again. They were sort of the color of goldfish, a golden orange that was much prettier than Scarlet’s yellow eyes. “Want to hear a song?” he whispered.
“A song?” Peril said. “Really?”
“I made it up myself just nowish,” he said.
“All right, but quietly,” said Peril. “The queen would really hate to be woken up.”
“The quee — oh, you mean Grandmother,” he said.
Peril stifled a laugh. She didn’t think anyone had ever dared call Queen Scarlet “grandmother” before.
“Ready?” Prince Cliff flipped his wings back and stretched his long neck theatrically. “You the audience, so listen up:
We the dragons of the sky
We can fly and fly and fly
We go up so super high
We the dragons of the sky
And we know my mom is best
Better queen than all the rest
She come save us from this mess
We the dragons dragons dragons of the sky!”
Peril arched her brows at him. Cliff gave her a cheeky smile. “What you think?” he asked.
“I think maybe don’t sing that song to your grandma,” Peril suggested.
“I think maybe mess and rest don’t rhyme so right,” he said. “Test. West. Vest! Hmmm. I’m a good rhymer, Mommy says so.”
“You don’t seem all that scared anymore,” said Peril.
“Yeah,” he said with a small flick of his dark red tail. “Because Uncle Vermilion said Mommy’s coming in the morning, and she makes everything better no matter what.”
Peril wondered if she could actually collapse around the chasm that had suddenly yawned in her chest. She makes everything better. Peril had never felt that way about anyone. Queen Scarlet kept her alive, gave her a purpose, valued her … but made things better? No. Mostly Peril’s days were made worse whenever she encountered the queen.
So why do you follow her? whispered a tiny part of her brain.
Because what choice do I have? Peril whispered back. Who else am I going to follow? No one else wants me.
“Grandma’s kind of mean,” Cliff observed, watching Peril’s face closely. “Mommy said she was but I thought she couldn’t be because no one is ever mean to me but then she really was, did you see?”
“What did you think was so mean?” Peril asked curiously.
“She said I’s ordinary!” Cliff drew himself up to his full tiny height, looking outraged. “Me! I never! So mean!”
“What’s so bad about being ordinary?” Peril opened and closed her talons again, feeling her new secret prickle along her palms. “Sounds great to me.”
“WHAT?” Cliff’s voice was loud enough to make Queen Scarlet stir in her sleep and Peril shushed him quickly. He lowered himself into a crouch and whispered furiously, “Mommy says I’m special. Everyone say it. I be number one most beautiful singer in Pyrrhia one day! Friends with every dragon in the whole world! Mommy thinks I can do anything and great things and all things!”
“Wow,” Peril said. “Friends with every dragon?”
“Yup,” Cliff said proudly. “I gotta practice my ‘no, no, leave me alone’ face, or else everyone want to be with me ALLLLLLS the time.”
“Don’t wish to be alone,” Peril advised. “Alone is awful.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Probably. Better than ordinary, though.”
She shook her head. “You’re a weird little dragonet.”
Cliff’s eyes were hopeful again. “So … maybe escape now then?” He sidled toward the edge of the throne.
“Nope, no, sorry,” Peril said, waving him back. “We wait for your mother. And then she won’t be queen anymore — you know that, right?”
He hummed a line of his song. “We see.” He paced around the top of the throne for a moment before finally lying down and then, at last, quietly singing himself to sleep.
Peril did not sleep. She watched the stars creep slowly across the night sky; she watched a distant meteor streak between two of the moons; she watched the little prince’s breath rise and fall in small puffs of smoke. She watched the sun slide and sprawl lazily across the mountain peaks as it rose, and very soon after sunrise, she saw the shapes of a wing of dragons flying toward them at full speed.
Ruby knows, Peril guessed. Someone snuck out to warn her.
“Your Majesty,” she whispered to the queen. “Ruby is coming.”
Queen Scarlet was awake in an instant. She ran her talons over her spikes and flexed her claws. She made sure her jewelry was all adjusted perfectly. For a moment her talons hovered over her scarred face, as if she wanted to tear it off, but then they dropped and she lifted her chin, glowering defiantly out at the approaching dragons.
It wasn’t long before they swooped in through the opening — Ruby an
d more guards than Peril could count in a glance. But Ruby was in the lead, landing in a run that brought her nearly to the foot of the thrones before the five guards stepped in her way.
“Mommy!” Cliff cried. He leaped up, waving his wings joyfully.
“Not another step,” Queen Scarlet said in a voice of pure ice. “Or you know exactly what will happen to your precious dragonet.”
Ruby stood frozen, quivering with fury. The guards standing between her and the thrones had their shoulders hunched, a kind of shame sketched in the shape of their wings. But she wasn’t glaring at them or even at Scarlet. The full force of her anger was directed at Peril, who stood a step behind the prince.
“If you touch him —” Ruby choked out. “If you dare —”
“She won’t unless I tell her to,” said the queen imperiously. “But believe me, she will, the moment I give the order.”
Huh, Peril thought. Would I? If I still had firescales … and Scarlet ordered me to burn the prince … what would I do?
He’s so little.
And I don’t kill dragons anymore, rang a different kind of note inside Peril’s mind, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
She blinked. Don’t I? Why not?
“I knew it,” Ruby spat. “I knew you couldn’t be trusted, you firescales monster.”
“I’m just following orders,” Peril protested. “She was queen first, you know. And she didn’t banish me or wish me dead, unlike some dragons. I don’t know why you’d expect me to be loyal to you instead.”
“I don’t want your loyalty!” Ruby shouted. “But this — threatening innocent dragonets? Helping her, after everything? That’s not exactly the great peaceful new dragon you were claiming to be, is it? I knew you were lying. You have always been the reason for everything that’s wrong with the Sky Kingdom.”
“Me?” Peril cried, astonished. Ruby really did hate her more than anyone else; Peril wasn’t just being paranoid. But why? “I just do what I’m told! Like everyone else! I kill Queen Scarlet’s enemies, that’s all! What did I ever do to you?”
“Excuse me,” said Queen Scarlet from the top of her throne. “I feel like we’re getting off topic. I’m the one who’s here to take back the kingdom.”
“Those eggs on the brightest night,” Ruby said, clutching the floor. Behind her, Peril saw several of her guards nodding, frowning, remembering something awful and hating Peril for it when Peril couldn’t even remember it herself … or could she? She saw a flash of white eggshells turning to black between her talons, here in this very room.
What did I do? What did Scarlet make me do?
“And my sister,” Ruby hissed. “Do you even remember her, among the hundreds of dragons you’ve killed?”
Peril stared at her for a long moment, wracking her brain. “No,” she said finally. “Who?”
Ruby shrieked a long scream of rage, so apparently that was the wrong thing to say.
But high up on her cloud throne, Queen Scarlet was laughing.
“Oh, Ruby,” she said, shaking her head. “Ruby, you empty-headed princess. Is that what you’ve thought all these years? Have you been hating my poor little champion for the one terrible thing she actually didn’t do?”
A blistering hush swept over the throne room. Ruby was looking at her mother now, confusion starting to ebb between the lines of fury in her expression.
“What?” she said finally.
“Peril didn’t kill Tourmaline,” Queen Scarlet said airily. “She’s not even dead, actually.”
“She’s not?” said Ruby. “Where is she?”
“Let’s try to focus, shall we?” said the queen. “I’m here for my throne. Thank you for keeping it warm for me, but it’s time to give it back.”
“Mommy,” Cliff called. “Mommy, I have to tell you something. Mommy! Grandma is kind of mean.”
“I know, sweetheart, don’t worry,” Ruby said. She clenched her jaw, fixing her eyes on her mother again. “You can’t have the throne back. You can’t just saunter in here and claim it after being gone for months. A queen who abandons her throne has abdicated it forever.”
“Oh, really?” Scarlet said. “I don’t believe this question has ever come up in the Sky Kingdom before. So where did that convenient rule come from?”
Ruby lifted her chin, her eyes burning. “I decreed it. As queen.”
“Aha. I sssee,” said Scarlet. She leaned over the edge of her throne, arching her neck as a little burst of flames curled from her nose. “Then as queen, I undecree it. What are you going to do about that?”
“I am the queen,” Ruby said firmly. “And you can’t challenge me for it. Only sisters, daughters —”
“Yes yes yes blah blah blah,” Scarlet said, waving one talon in the air. “But my dear, you can quote rules at me all day long and it won’t change one particular important fact. I have your son.”
Ruby looked down at Prince Cliff again. He waved timidly, and she made a little gesture with her shoulders, which seemed to be a quiet signal to sit up and look brave, because that was what he did next.
Peril felt a brief, wild impulse to pick up the dragonet and throw him to the safety of his mother’s arms. I can’t do that. That would really ruin everything for my queen.
But is it the right thing to do? came that strange whisper again, as though her mind was haunted by some other version of herself. She poked one claw into her ear, scratching as if she could drag it out and examine it.
“So really there’s only one question,” said Queen Scarlet with all the self-important glee that had ever been mustered in Pyrrhia. “Which would you rather have — the throne or your dragonet?”
“Your Majesty,” said one of the dragons behind Ruby, and it took Peril a moment to realize he was talking to Ruby and not Scarlet. “We can fight. We will fight for you. Your supporters outnumber hers and we’re more loyal.”
“I know,” said Ruby. “But a hundred thousand SkyWings still couldn’t save Cliff in the next minute, if my mother sets her creature on him.” Peril felt the sting of Ruby’s bitterness from across the room, the confirmation that once again, Peril had ruined everything for her.
I’m just being who I am, Peril thought.
Although I’m not a creature anymore, actually. I’m only pretending to be dangerous for Queen Scarlet. So I’m not really being my new self at all.
But I promised to be loyal to her. Isn’t that an important part of me?
So why haven’t I been?
Something was shaking at the corners of Peril’s brain, shaking and tugging and pulling and trying to come loose, but she couldn’t sink her teeth into it … she couldn’t remember …
“All right,” Ruby said to Queen Scarlet. “You win. If you promise me that Cliff will be safe — I’ll give up my kingdom.”
“No!” exploded one of Ruby’s soldiers, stumbling forward. To Peril’s surprise, he was not a SkyWing — he was a MudWing, skinny and tired-looking and spattered with dirt.
“Peril,” he said, holding out his talons beseechingly. “What are you doing? You don’t want this. Nobody wants this. What would Clay think?”
Peril tilted her head at him. The thing in her mind was really flapping now, but it still didn’t have a shape or anything useful that she could pin down.
“Clay?” she echoed. “Who’s that?”
In the silence that fell, the only sound was Ruby inhaling sharply.
“It’s a spell,” she said. “What did you do to her?” She whirled toward Scarlet.
Behind her, in the huddle of SkyWing guards who were now flapping and whispering among themselves, Peril saw two of them slip out into the sky and wheel around to fly south. If they were up to something, she couldn’t imagine what it might be, so she decided she didn’t need to point them out to the queen, who was in any case quite busy giving Ruby an exaggeratedly shocked expression.
“I didn’t do anything at all!” Scarlet protested, batting her wings airily. “Peril is my most loyal subj
ect, just as she always has been. That’s why she’s my champion and you are going to be dead soon.”
“Peril would never just forget about Clay,” said Ruby. “How did you erase him from her brain? What kind of horrible animus-touched object did you get your claws on?”
“Hey, I’m not under a spell,” Peril interjected. “I just don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t have a great memory. No need to get all smoky and bothered.”
On the other side of Queen Scarlet, orange scales moved, and Peril remembered that her father was there, listening.
Her father …
“Clay is the dragon who changed you,” Ruby said. “At least according to you. He’s one of the dragonets from the prophecy who ended the war. Remember? You met in the arena. You saved his life in the Kingdom of Sand when a dragonbite viper bit him. He’s —” She stopped and looked down at her talons. “He’s the only dragon who was willing to give you a second chance.”
“Well, there’s me,” Scarlet said smoothly. “The dragon who gave you your first chance and never required a second. That’s all you really need to remember. I am the one who cares about you.”
That sounded true.
And not true.
“Wait. There’s Turtle!” Peril blurted. That was the one dragon she could think of who’d ever been friendly to her. He laughed at her jokes, even the ones that Peril hadn’t done on purpose. She remembered that.
And hang on, why would Turtle be friends with her if she was really Scarlet’s dangerous weapon?
He liked me with my firescales. But without my queen.
“Who’s Turtle?” her father said tensely. He glanced up at Queen Scarlet. “You never mentioned anyone named Turtle.”
“ANYWAY,” Scarlet said. “We were in the middle of a wonderfully peaceful transfer of power. Ruby, dear, since obviously I can’t trust you anymore, I’m going to have to lock you up until I figure out what to do with you. I’m picturing some kind of grand ceremonial execution, maybe to celebrate turning my arena back into an arena, the way it’s supposed to be.”