Wings Of Fire: Sisters of Flame

Chapter 6

The next day, Phoenix was jolted awake by a scream—a piercing, dreadful scream that she recognized instantly as belonging to her sister, Queen Scarlet. The regal princess bolted upright, the urgency clawing at her insides, and barrelled out of her chambers. She burst onto the pavilion, where she was met with the harrowing sight of her sister writhing in torment.

Queen Scarlet's head was bowed, her majestic wings flapping wildly, as if battling invisible foes. Her eyes were squeezed shut against some unseen nightmare.

"Sister! Sister!" Phoenix cried out, plunging forward to catch the queen before she could tumble from the lofty platform.

"Scarlet, sister, you have to stop thrashing about—come here, I can take you to a healer if you want," Phoenix implored, her voice thick with concern as she struggled to calm the seizing form of her sister.

But Queen Scarlet was beyond reach, her powerful frame lashing out of Phoenix's desperate grip. "No, no, leave me alone! It burns; oh, it burns so fiercely!" she screamed, agony etched into every syllable.

Phoenix's frown deepened as she spun around, searching for the source of her sister's pain. Her heart stalled, her gasp caught in her throat when she saw it—the blackened flesh visible beneath the peeling orange scales. Something corrosive had struck her sister.

"What happened?" she demanded of a guard rushing past, about to take flight.

He halted abruptly, a grim shadow crossing his features. After a long moment, he spoke. "Our queen... our queen is lost," and with those heavy words, he departed, leaving a silence more profound than the roar of the flames.

Phoenix's gaze arrowed to the sands below where Clay and Tsunami were conversing with one of the dragonets—a RainWing, Glory, she recognized—and she hissed softly before letting her sister go and diving toward the field.

"You fools!" she bellowed, and the dragonets flinched under her accusation. "You have harmed my sister!"

 "Oh, grow up," Glory retorted, her ruff flaring out in a display of fiery reds, a clear sign of her disdain. "You know as well as we do that your sister is neither a great queen nor a good sister! We might as well end her reign and be done with it."

Phoenix glared hard at the RainWing. "You are dragonets of destiny, dragonets meant to bring peace, not killers of dragons," she snarled, her wings beating with raw emotion.

"You—you won't alert the guards about us, right? Where is Burn?" The question came from Sunny, the golden-hued dragonet with eyes full of innocence.

"No, I will not summon the guards, but you must leave now," Phoenix commanded, her gaze piercing as obsidian.

"Come with us," Clay implored, his massive talons extending toward her in a gesture of solidarity. "You know your way around this palace; you can guide us to safety. You can help us."

The weight of her decision pressed on her like the heat of the sun, leaving Phoenix torn between loyalty and the undeniable truth that lingered in her heart.

Phoenix cast her gaze up at the chaos from which she had extricated herself; her sister lay quiet now, surrounded by guards whose wings beat against the sky like thunderclaps. With a heavy heart, she etched a furrow in the sand with her claws.

"Fine," she relented after a weighted silence, "I have nothing left for me here, anyway."

The dragonets shared a look—Sunny and Clay with smiles of relief, Tsunami and Glory with parting glances, as curious as they were guarded. "How come you don't have anything to do?" Tsunami inquired, only to be cut off by a wave of heat that enveloped them.

"Phoenix, don't leave me," came a plaintive cry, and Phoenix turned to face Peril, the copper dragonet.

"Peril, dear," she cooed, cupping the dragonet's face gently in her claws, a sad yet affectionate smile gracing her maw. "I have to go."

In that moment, even as her path veered into uncertainty, Phoenix knew that the winds of destiny were unfurling their sails. Ahead lay a new horizon, and with it, a quest not just for peace, but for the essence of who she truly was, beyond the shadows of the throne.

Peril shook her head, her gaze clinging to the larger dragoness's claws. "You—you promised you'd never leave," she uttered, her voice trembling with the echo of betrayal. Her eyes, a swirling pool of blue spiked with tendrils of gold, mirrored Phoenix's own—yet they held a world of pain.

The heart within Phoenix's breast ached for the youngling. "You'll be fine, and hey, you can't stay here either," she reassured her, even as her own heart grappled with the weight of departure.

With a powerful beat of her wings, Phoenix took to the sky, the dragonets following her ascent. "Come with us," she called down to Peril, her voice a blend of hope and resolve against the vast expanse above them.

Peril wasted no time at all, launching herself into the air alongside the others as they left the Sky Kingdom behind, heading toward the distant Diamond Spray River and beyond, to the sea.

"Wait, we need to free my mother. If Scarlet recovers, she'll kill her first, just out of spite," Peril asserted, wings cutting through the air as they skirted the small mountains encircling the palace.

Phoenix hummed thoughtfully. "She's your mother, isn't she?" she inquired, her tone carrying the weight of understanding layered with cautious wariness.

With a solemn nod from Peril, the group veered off course, redirecting their flight toward the draconian stronghold of holding cells. Phoenix's breath hitched, caught in the granite of her throat as she witnessed the sight of the red dragons staring up, Kestrel among them—a vision of fierceness and defiance.

Peril approached, touched the bars of the grid, and before their astonished eyes, the metal hissed and disintegrated under her touch, giving way as if pleading for release. Kestrel rose, formidable and bristling with barely contained fury.

"You!" she snarled, directing a scalding gaze at the princess.

"Why in the three moons are you dragonets so impossibly dense? That's the queen's sister!" Kestrel barked at Clay and the others, her dismay a tangible storm cloud in the cramped cell.

Clay, undeterred by the outburst, stepped forward. "She's with us, Kestrel. She's a friend. She's the only one who showed us any kindness here."

A tangled web of trust, fury, and past grievances hung between them, a precipice spanning the gap of once-unbreakable walls.

Phoenix dipped her head in a nod of respectful defiance to Scarlet. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Kestrel, but we must hasten our departure before my sister or Burn dispatch their guards after us," she voiced, the undercurrent of urgency clear in her tone.

Kestrel exhaled a puff of smoke that spoke volumes of her reluctant agreement and bristling irritation. "Fine, let's depart," she growled in acquiescence.

Together, they took to the air, a spectral convoy gliding toward the river. There, amidst the murmuring waters and the sheltering arms of the wilderness, they would find the respite they sought, their flight streaking across the sky like the brushstrokes of an indomitable spirit painted on the canvas of the world.

For the moment, safety cradled them as gently as the river's current, but for how long could the tranquility last in the tumultuous dance of dragon politics and power?