Wings Of Fire; The Fate Begins: The Dragonet Prophecy

Chapter 12: Rescuing Their Last Three Friends And Discovered By Ex-Queen Saffron

Caribbean reared up on her back legs and began running her talons along the walls. "Look for something that'll move the boulder," Caribbean said.

Clay breathed out another burst of flame at the wall on his side. It looked like ordinary flat stone with a few fissures running from the to the floor. He scraped his claws through the cracks. Nothing happened except his claws tingled painfully.

He tried sniffing around the boulder, then shoved, but it wouldn't move any more than it had on the other side.

"I hope Brightglide's right," Clay said, pushing away the sinking feeling in his stomach. "I hope we can really open it from this side."

"We can," Caribbean said fiercely. "It'll be a lever or something..." She backed away a few steps, peering up at the top of the boulder.

"Or magic," Clay said. "What if it's a magic word? Or some kind of talisman that we don't have?"

Caribbean stared at the boulder for a moment, frowning, then shook her head. "They'd need an animus dragon to enchant it, and who even knows if they existed in the first place."

The only thing that Clay remembered about the lesson on magic and animus dragons was that they had power over objects. He remembered that because Brightglide spent the rest of the day sticking his nose in the air and insisting that DayWings were far more magically powerful than any mythical animus dragons.

"If they're so great, then why do the DayWings live somewhere mysterious where no one can find them?" Clay had asked.

"Easy," Brightglide said loftily. "It's because we have all these special powers, and we don't want the regular dragons to be inferior." 'Even though they are,' his expression implied.

Clay snorted. "Special powers like what?" Clay had asked.

"You know," Brightglide had answered, irritated. "Telepathy? Precognition? Invisibility? Hello?"

"You don't have invisibility," Clay had argued. "I mean, you're a cyan dragon. You're just hard to see in the glows or cyan shadows. That's not a power. I'd be invisible too if was lying in a mud puddle."

"Yeah, well," Brightglide had said, "we can appear out of nowhere in the light of day or dark at night! Swooping down as if the sky had just fallen on you!" He'd spread his wings majestically.

"Still not a power," Clay had said. "That's just you guys being creepy."

"It is not creepy!" Brightglide had cried, his voice rising. "It is magnificent and imposing!" He'd stopped and taken a deep breath. "Besides, we're the only ones with visions of the future so there."

"Well, I say until the DayWings come down off the clouds, all we have is rumors and a mumbo-jumbo prophecy that could mean anything." Then Clay had draped his nose off the rim of the ledge and peered across at Brightglide. "I mean, it's not like you've got any special mind powers, other then being way too smart."

"Well, I'll have powers eventually," Brightglide had huffed. "Maybe it's something that DayWings develop when we're older. You're supposed to be studying, not making fun of me!"

"I wasn't making fun," Clay had protested. It was true that he'd been trying to distract Brightglide from studying though. But of course that would never work for long.

Now Clay scraped at the floor under the boulder. He actually missed Brightglide. More than that, he was worried about him. How had Kestrel reacted when she couldn't find Tsunami, Starflight, Aria, Glaze, Bubble, Ember, Caribbean, Clay, or Glory? She wouldn't hurt Brightglide or Sunny...would she?

Suddenly his claws caught on something. He'd flattened himself to the stone floor and peered underneath the boulder. A long sturdy stick was jammed under the rock, holding it in place.

"Here," Clay whispered to Caribbean. He wrapped his talons around the stick and tried to yank it free. After a few tries, he realized that it wouldn't come loose, but it did move from side to side. He tried sliding it sideways, and the boulder began to roll. He stopped quickly and looked at Caribbean.

"What if Hvitur, Ebony, Robin, Seal, Webs, and Dunes are waiting for us?" Clay asked.

"They can't stop us, not all eleven of us—not if we all fight, although I'm against hurting Hvitur, Ebony, Robin, and Seal because they were so nice to us but we still should fight them. The only way they kept us in was by blocking the way out. Once it's open, we'll all be free." Caribbean let out a long breath.

"All right," Clay said, gritting his teeth. "Let's do this."

Clay shoved the stick as hard as he could. The boulder slowly rolled aside with a soft scraping sound. The central cave came into view, and a shiver ran along Clay's tail on how it strange it looked from the outside.

A forlorn little shape was huddled by the river, trailing her talons in the water. She turned as the boulder moved, her gray-green eyes went wide.

"Shh," Caribbean hissed quietly, bounding across the cave toward her. Sunny leaped up at the same moment and threw her wings open. She pressed her front talons to her snout, beaming.

"You did it!" Sunny whispered.

Clay glanced at the tunnel that led to the guardians' cave. Even if Caribbean was right that Hvitur, Ebony, Robin, Seal, Webs, and Dune can't stop them, he didn't want to stick around and find out. "Where are the others?" Clay asked quietly.

"I'll get Brightglide," Sunny said, heading for the study cave. "Glory—I don't know." She glanced up at the stalactites. Clay felt a stab of worry. Was Glory all right? What if something happened to her while she was camouflaged—would she have stayed invisible? What if she had fallen off a stalactite or flown into an outcropping and hurt herself? What if—

"Right here," a voice whispered in his ear. Soft wings brushed against his, and Glory's long shape shimmered into view. Her scales shifted from gray and black to a warm golden orange flecked with dark blue.

"You're all right," Clay said. In his relief, he twined his tail around hers without thinking.

Glory tensed, but she didn't pull away immediately like she normally would. Instead she nudge with her elegant snout. "Of course I am," she said. "I would have been fine on my own, you know."

Perhaps she felt his wings drooped because she added, "But thank you for doing insanely dangerous things for me anyway."

"Anytime," Clay said happily.

Glory stepped back and nodded at where Brightglide was staggering out of the tunnel.

"Kestrel was pretty furious," Glory said. "I just had to listen to her from my hiding place. Those two got the brunt of it."

Clay started forward, but Caribbean and Sunny were already on either side of Brightglide. For a horrible moment, he thought that Brightglide was limping—that he'd been beaten or burn or terribly injured by Kestrel.

Then he realized that Brightglide was moving oddly because he was carrying a giant sack of scrolls on his back.

"Oh, no you don't," Caribbean said, pulling it away from him. "We don't need these. And you've already read them all a thousand times."

"We might need them," Brightglide protested, yanking it back. "They'll tell us what's safe to eat and all the different tribal customs and how to fly in bad weather and—"

"You can tell us all those things," Clay said. "You're going to anyway."

"But what if I forget something important?" Brightglide fretted.

"Ha. You'd be much more likable if you ever did forget anything," Glory said.

"The only thing that's important is getting out of here right now," Caribbean said. "Before Hvitur, Ebony, Robin, Seal, Webs, and Dune wake up."

"And before Kestrel comes back," Glory added.

"What thrilling news. Kestrel is a part of this? I've been looking for her an awfully long time," a voice said behind them.

The eleven dragonets whirled around.

Ex-Queen Saffron was standing in the entranceway. Behind her, the tunnel was blocked by a row of SkyWings in different shades of flame—all of them large, all of them breathing small spurts of fire, and all of them angry.

But none of them looked as angry as the ex-queen of the SkyWings.