Wings Of Fire; The Fate Begins: The Dragonet Prophecy

Chapter 3: A Change Begins

Suddenly there was thundering crash from the central cave. Clay heard the entrance boulder smacked back into place. From the squish-flap sound, he knew that it must be Webs.

"Something's happening," Tsunami said. She hurried to the door, her ears twitching and the spiny ridge along her back, standing straight up. "We have to go listen."

Brightglide spread his wings slowly. "I'm sure that we'll find out tomorrow morning."

"Don't be a worry wart," Aria said. "I want to go listen too."

"I don't want to wait that long." Tsunami spun around to jab his underbelly with her tail, and he tipped backward with a grunt. "Don't be a smoke-breather! Let's go!" She walked out of cave. Then Starflight, Glaze, Aria, Bubble, Ember, and Caribbean walked out of the cave.

Clay winced as his sore muscles sprang into action. He followed Glory to the central cave. Glory's scales were already changing to match the mottled gray-and-black rocks. In a moment, she'd be nearly impossible to see.

Brightglide slipped past her to join her, and the two of them hurried away toward the tunnel that led to the big dragons' cave. They vanished almost immediately into the shadows. Hidden by their coloring, they'd get as close as they could to eavesdrop.

But Clay, Starflight, Glaze, Aria, Bubble, Ember, Caribbean, and Tsunami had an even better shot of hearing if they hurried. Tsunami, Starflight, Glaze, Aria, Bubble, Ember, and Caribbean were already charging across the cave to the river.

"What about Sunny?" Clay called quietly. He could hear the little SandWing rummaging around in her sleeping cave, putting scrolls away.

"We'll come up with something to tell her later," Tsunami hissed back.

Clay felt sorry that Sunny was the only one who didn't know about their spying games, but they'd learned their lesson about trusting her with secrets years ago. Sunny hadn't meant to tell Dune about the pile of rocks that the dragonets were collecting. Their plan was to build a tower to the sky hole, back when they were too small to fly. They'd only wanted to stick their heads out and look around. But one day, Sunny forgot to be careful around Dune, and the next day, all the collected rocks were gone from their hiding place. That was the end of that plan—and of Sunny getting to know anything.

Tsunami disappeared into the river with a nearly soundless splash, followed by Starflight, Glaze, Aria, Bubble, Ember, and Caribbean. The pale green flecks under Tsunami's dark blue scales shimmered as she swam upriver, and the same with Bubble and Caribbean. Clay dove in after Caribbean, wishing that he could see in the dark like Tsunami, Aria, Bubble, Ember, and Caribbean but he didn't know that Starflight and Glaze could see in the dark too. Though, he thought that it was strange that Aria and Ember can breathe underwater and see in the dark because they're SkyWings. But at least Tsunami had remembered to activate her glow-in-the-dark stripes along her tail.

MudWings couldn't breathe underwater like SeaWings, but they could hold their breath for more than an hour. So whenever the dragonets wanted to spy on their guardians, Clay, Starflight, Glaze, Aria, Bubble, Caribbean, and Tsunami could use the river to get closer than the others.

He caught up to the seven dragonets as they were wriggling through the underwater gap in the cave wall. It made Clay every time, squeezing through such a small space. He wished that he hadn't eaten that extra cow at dinner.

His scrabbled on the rocks, catching in the crevices. There was a brief, terrifying moment as his midsection got stuck. Would he drown here? Would the prophecy be ruined because of an extra cow?

Then, with a whoosh of bubbles, he popped through and shot after Caribbean.

Tsunami's tail stripe went dark as they swam quietly into the guardians' cave. The seven older dragons hardly paid any attention to the river, except for Webs, who sometimes slept in the shallows. It would never occurred to them that seven pairs of dragonet ears might be poking out of the river, listening.