Peril landed on the platform. Just as she suspected, the NightWing was Nightflame. Nightflame turned and faced Peril. "Peril!" Nightflame exclaimed. "The arena's not the same without you. Except, of course... it was."
Peril hated Nightflame's nerve. "What's going on?" Peril hissed. "Will Clay always be in this spiral? I worry about him, you know."
Nightflame put her talon to Peril's mouth. "Peril..." she purred, "Queen Scarlet won't have talk like that around the arena. She'll have you be... oh wait- she can't do anything to you. But I can."
Nightflame's words gave Peril a strange sense of Déjà vu- what on earth even was that phrase she'd just thought? The she realized what Nightflame had said. "Oh really? Like what?"
"You'll find out tomorrow!" The NightWing called out before going to sleep. Peril snarled and reluctantly went to do the same.
"Oh, good. You're finally up," Queen Scarlet said. "Late. On my hatching day, no less!"
"Apologies, my Queen," Peril stammered.
"A change of attitude, I see. Good," Queen Scarlet said. "Because that NightWing dragonet and that SeaWing just killed all of my scavengers. Also, the RainWing has been staring at me the entire morning. It's unnerving."
"So... what do you want me to do?" Peril asked.
"Really?" Scarlet asked dryly. "You're fighting to save your mother's life, remember? So get out there, now!"
Peril scampered into the arena. To Peril's horror, all the IceWing prisoners were dead. Both Starflight and Nightflame were gone, so so much for her 'doing something' to Peril. Then she realized- Scarlet mentioned her mother. Alive? Then she saw Clay, standing there nervously. And she had to fight him.
"Peril, go ahead." Clay whispered. "Take my life. I would never want to harm you, and Kestrel at least... she took care of us."
"Oh shut up and get on with it!" Queen Scarlet hissed.
"Why don't you quite down yourself?" The RainWing asked. Then she got up and shot some black liquid out of her fangs, straight at Burn. Burn pulled Scarlet in front of her, and the liquid dripped onto Scarlet's face. She slowly began to scream.
As Burn began to make her getaway, the RainWing did a long shot and Burn fell down in pain as well. But the RainWing- Glory, it was- didn't stop there. She kept shooting the venom at Queen Scarlet until her screams stopped, and the arena burst into chaos. Peril turned around and flew away, terrified for her life. The RainWing could probably kill her. And then Clay burst into the air after her. Peril noted that he had a mechanism in his talons that he used to cut through the wing clips.
When he noticed, he said, "Starflight made it." He didn't seem at all fazed by the sudden murder of Queen Scarlet. Then again, he'd been her prisoner. Why would he be? "Glory should've gotten Kestrel and Sunny by now."
Glory flew up with a tiny, weird SandWing, who looked ready to burst into tears. "Sunny?" Clay asked. "What's wrong? Where's Kestrel?"
Sunny gasped for air. "Gl- Glory killed her!"
Glory narrowed her eyes. "I'm only doing what's fair. She was going to kill me, after all."
Tsunami landed next to them. "Seriously, Clay? You had to bring along your psycho girlfriend? And I sort of agree with Glory."
"Oh, no. We're not-" Peril flushed.
"How about we focus on escaping once and for all?" Glory asked.
After some planning, the group decided to head down the Diamond Spray River and straight to the sea, since Queen Coral might provide protection. Glory mentioned it would be fair for Clay to visit his family, but he had no idea where they pull be. He mentioned that some SeaWing was the only one who would know or something like that.
Peril turned towards the ocean and realized she wanted to stay in the Sky Kingdom. Maybe Queen Ruby would be a decent queen.
You know, I never really liked Scarlet- she was always very pushy. SHe's the reason a lot of bad things happened, and I'm wondering if it would be better without her. It might be too late, though. And RIP Kestrel, but that was gonna happen anyways- nobody could save her, in the end.
