King of The Dragons (Wings of Fire X Monster Hunter)

Part 2: Chapter 11 & 12

(3rd Pov Sunny)

Somehow, eventually, Sunny slept, which she knew because she woke up to find Flower tugging gently on her tail and Smolder unlocking her chains.
She sat up slowly and stretched her wings, which still ached from all the flying she'd done in the last several days.

"What's happening?" she asked Smolder.
"Oh, I thought we'd go for a walk," he said wryly.
Sunny squinted at him. "Are you joking? Because I can't figure it out."
He threw his head back and laughed. "I have heard that before," he admitted. "There was someone who used to tease me about it. She told me she was going to assume everything I said was a joke, since that would simplify things. You can do that, too, if you like."
"All right," Sunny said. Smolder wasn't exactly the sinister prison guard she would have expected from Burn's brother. She much preferred this oddness instead, even when it was unsettling.

The last chain clattered to the floor and Smolder held out one talon so Flower could climb up onto his back again.
"Make sure to steer clear of Scarlet," he reminded Sunny, who didn't need reminding. "She's in a foul mood today."
"I HEARD THAT!" Scarlet roared.

Smolder rolled his eyes at Sunny and dove off the edge. She followed, catching a glimpse of the smoking orange queen as they whisked past. Scarlet sent a blast of flame into the air right behind them; Sunny felt the heat crackle along the scales of her tail and saw Flower press herself closer to Smolder's back.

Outside, it was early morning - barely sunrise, Sunny realized. 'Smolder didn't wait leave me locked up very long; he didn't even wait until midday to come get me. Maybe he's secretly kinder than he wants me to think.' The light slanted low across the courtyard and small brown birds hopped along the top of the walls, gossiping cheerily. The air smelled like roasting lizards and the sand was still cool under her claws as she followed Smolder to an archway on the left.

"Where are we going?" she asked.
"I've been investigating a mystery for the last twenty years or so," said Smolder. "Occasionally I ask other dragons what they think. Invariably, they disappoint me. But you seem unusual - more unusual than most - so I figured I'd try again. Ever hopeful, that's me."

"Twenty years?" Sunny said. "I hope it's not a very urgent mystery."
Smolder chuckled, then said, "Well, it rather is. But it's been resolutely impossible to solve nonetheless." He led the way through a room of pillars, all of them carved with odd rock-like whales that seemed to be in an endless battle, and into a long hallway lined with sparkling rust-colored tiles in a spiraling pattern. Sunny brushed one of the tiles with her wing, thinking that it was the first beautiful thing she's seen in this place.

The hallway slanted down and down until Sunny was sure they were underground, and finally it ended in a room with four locked doors.
Smolder walked to each door and opened them with large brass keys from around his neck, revealing four rooms of roughly equal size, with thick stone walls and plain gray stone floors. All of them were completely empty.

"The rumors about the SandWing treasure were never entirely accurate," he said as he did this, twisting the keys in his claws. "We were very wealthy, yes, but we weren't quite stupid enough to keep it all in one place. Almost that stupid, but not quite. We kept only out most prized possessions in our treasure rooms - along with a backup stash of rubies, diamonds, and gold in case we ever needed it. So it wasn't our entire wealth or a palace full of treasure that went missing. Only the contents of these four rooms . . . but they contained quite a lot."

He held up a talon for Flower to climb onto, then set her carefully on the floor in front of the treasure rooms. She looked even smaller next to the massive rooms. Sunny realized that Flower was probably small enough to squeeze under the doors.