The Silken Seer

Chapter 1

The Hive was burning.

SilkWings and HiveWings alike ran from the blaze, their faces twisted into looks of fear and terror and anger and fury as LeafWings emerged from the burned holes in the floor. Plants bursted from the ground, burning and spitting flaming oil and sending tendrils of thick smoke at the fleeing dragons.

"Get up," a voice said. Clearwing recognized it as Coal, her best friend. "Come on, Clearwing. We need to get out of here."

Clearwing took his talon and let him pull her up.

"Where do we go?" she asked.

"I don't know, but whatever we do, we can't stay here," Coal said. A LeafWing lunged for him at lightning speed, but Coal was faster, hitting them with his tail and giving them a small burn with his own fire. Clearwing glanced ruefully at her wingbuds, as if hoping they would turn into wings if she stared at them long enough.

Another LeafWing — this one a shade of mahogany brown with speckles of white along his wings — barrelled into the SilkWing dragonet, sending them both falling through one of the holes in the treestuff floor.

Clearwing woke up with a scream.

Clearwing was a dragon who didn't love everything the way it was.

She wished Lady Bloodworm was a kinder dragon, and she wished some of the annoying dragonets in her class would get bombardier beetles shoved up their snouts, and she definitely wished she didn't have two tiny black scales next to her eyes.

But there were some things she loved, such as Clearsight, and her friend, and her family, and her security. One of the great things about Bloodworm Hive (as there weren't many) was that no one ever invaded each others' privacy. Everything was perfect and orderly and straight and strict, and any dragons that stepped out of line were instantly whipped back into shape.

So Clearwing did her best never to walk past her boundaries. The same couldn't be said for some dragons, like her friend named Coal, but that didn't affect her. Really, her only problems were her black scales. It aroused suspicion from the HiveWings that she was a forbidden hybrid, and any possible friend candidates shied away from her. After all, SilkWings never had black scales. Never. A recurring dream of hers was of one day cleaning her face and having the blackness fall away like oil or dirt. It was a blissful dream, and one that as of yet had never come true.

Another thing that set her apart from the other SilkWings was that she could see things. Not just hear someone talk and know what they looked like, but she could look into their past and know who they were and if what they were saying was lies or the truth.

The truth is out there. She had no idea where she'd heard it, but it was fun to say and even more fun to test out. When she first realized her power, she thought it was something everyone had — but she saw that if she told anyone about it, things would end horribly. So she kept it a secret, which wasn't too hard when it was constantly telling her to be careful.

Clearwing often woke up from her nightmares screaming. In fact, her parents were so used to it by now that they barely even rolled over in their silk hammocks when it happened.

She decided to go for a walk, maybe to shake off her dream. It was the same dream she had every night now, so it was hard to get it out of her head, but walking was still calming at night.

Clearwing easily clambered down from the webs, planting her talons firmly on the top level of the Hive. Her scales caught the moonlight in cascading waterfalls of silver and pale blue and gold, her wingbuds shimmering with iridescence. The SilkWing dragonet blinked her deep blue eyes, wondering what her wings would turn out to be like once she had her metamorphosis. She wasn't even sure if she was scared or excited yet; it was still too early to tell.

Clearwing started down the tunnel, her talons thudding softly on the treestuff floor. She paused to look at a poster of Queen Wasp and Lady Bloodworm. Neither Hive ruler had smiles on their faces, and they sat beside each other with a Hive looming in the background. It was probably Wasp Hive, since Bloodworm Hive was tall and thin, with webs branching off nearly every level.

Clearwing started back on the path again when she bumped into a dragon. The SilkWing let out a yelp which was quickly muffled.

"Shhh," said Coal. "I'm trying to be stealthy." He looked serious, like he needed to get something from somewhere. The black dragonet was unlike any other dragon Clearwing had ever met. He had only two bat-like wings, which always earned him weird looks from pretty much everyone, his scales were strange and repelled spears like armor, and he was just about the only dragon who would gladly hang out with Clearwing. According to his adopted father who had rescued his egg from the savannah (he and Clearwing had only ever met once), Lady Bloodworm had wanted him dead. It was Queen Wasp who decided Coal could end up being "useful", whatever that meant.

"What could you possibly be looking for?" Clearwing asked when Coal let her talk. She tried — and once again failed — to look at his true motives. For some strange reason, she couldn't read this dragon like she could others. It was like looking at him in 2D, and she wondered how other dragons handled it.

"There's something that the teachers always talk about, but they keep it secret from the students for some reason. I was walking by the teachers' lounge earlier today and I heard them saying something about lamps. But the moment they heard my talonsteps they stopped talking. It has to be something important, so I'm looking for it." The dragonet looked at her with his strangely eerie and yet comforting gold eyes.

That made sense. Coal was constantly getting into trouble by putting his black snout where it shouldn't be. It had gotten him a bad reputation with Lady Bloodworm, but that just made him do it more often.

"How do you know you won't get caught this time?" Clearwing asked. This was how most conversations with them went at this time of night. But what she really wanted to ask was, Are you really sure that this is something important? Or are you just risking your own scales again for no reason?

"I've learnt how to stay away from the guards. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a secret to unearth."

Coal headed towards the level of the Hive that houses their school and Clearwing started to walk the opposite direction, but what the black dragonet had said lingered in her mind. What would the school hide from us? She wondered. And why? She didn't have the energy to think about it right now, but maybe she would in the morning.

A/N: Sorry for the late update, I was having some technical difficulties with the doc ^w^' TO make up for that, Chapter Two will also be posted today.