The Dragon's Seer (Wings of Fire fan fic)

Part 15 - Escaping.

Hope you enjoy this chapter! Also, warning, if you haven't read the second arc of books yet (6-10), a part of this chapter won't make sense. Basically, spoiler alert. -B

"Rime!" I yell again, rushing towards my friend. I brush a tentative hand across his cold, pebbly scales.

Rime looks at me, then pauses, as if to consider my presence. Then, without a word, he punches me in the jaw and sends me flying across the room.

"OW!" I scream, my back landing painfully at the base of the bird cage. I see Scarlet chuckling, but I ignore her. I groan as I try to stand up. By the next day, my back will surely be littered with nasty bruises. I scamper up to Rime but keep a safe distance. "What was that for!"

He leans in, his freezing breath directly next to my ear, and I flinch. "That's for wasting a spell, little scavenger," he hisses.

"I'm sorry," I mutter. I'm sorry, really, I am, but I don't think I deserve having my poor body being thrown across the entire room.

He turns to look at Glory's tree. "That's awful, isn't it?" he says sadly, most of the bitterness gone from his voice now that he's confronted me.

I nod knowingly. "Yes... uh, she is asleep, huh?" I lie.

Rime shakes his head fiercely. "Glory would never. She's faking, surely."

"Mmhm." I mumble unintelligibly.

"How are you even here?" he wonders aloud.

I shiver. "Umm... well," I glance at Scarlet and lower my voice a little. "The spell brought me here. I don't know why."

Rime's eyes dart away from me. Weird. But then he looks at me and lets out a sigh. "I assume you're gonna ask why I haven't gotten us out of this situation yet."

 "Umm..." I say again. "Yeah. Pretty much."

Rime swallows hard. "I don't..." he looks at his claws and flexes them in a way that reminds me of the animus Turtle, when he's trying to check if his magic has made him go crazy. "I don't want to use my magic so soon. And, to be honest, I'm not sure what to cast."

"You done yet, scavenger?" Scarlet interrupts in a bored voice. "I'm still a queen, you know. I have lots of work to do and not so much time to do it."

Rime growls, but I shake my head at him and turn to Scarlet in a disgustingly diplomatic way. "No, not yet. Let me finish, will you? I promised you information, remember, but only after."

Scarlet sighs. "It would be just so much easier to torture it out of you instead."

"Shut up, you dumb-" I clamp a hand over Rime's mouth before he gets himself killed.

"I hate to ask you this because you just told me you don't want to do it," I mumble, looking at my hands. "But... please."

"I'm not casting a spell," he growls, shaking his head. "I won't let myself become reliant on... that. I've last five years knowing I could get us out of the mountain, but I never did. We turned out fine. Maybe we've been captured, but I'm not going to sacrifice my morals, sacrifice my soul, when we could easily rely on our own wits and strength to get out."

I purse my lips. It might be a good thing- if we had left already, Scarlet never would've been hurt by Glory's venom. So I turn to look at the queen, lifting my chin defiantly, and say, "I'm done now."

No sooner than the words escape my mouth do the guards rush over to the IceWing and drag him, kicking, out of the room. I look at him one last time, my eyes watering, as he locks eyes with me for half a second before the guards take to the skies.

"Tell me now," the queen says. My head whips towards her. She leans forward on her throne, her piercing eyes staring threateningly into my very soul.

I take a deep breath. How much can I tell her? The gears turning in my head, I begin.

"Your world has many secrets, and I, James Oliver Kalinfield, a lowly scavenger, know them all. Every secret you think you have kept in crypts can be revealed by my words. Every tribe has secrets. You? You turned your own daughter into someone else. Someone who's scales are the color of rubies, whose thoughts could never turn to the throne. You have a RainWing outcast who can't change his scales. You created a dragon, Pyrite, who never truly existed." I breathe out, staring at Scarlet's face. Her cocky demeanor had weakened a bit, sending a rush of satisfaction down my spine. "You are destined to be killed by someone you'd expect the least! They are somewhere you would never expect! They are sitting on that marble tree prison of yours, you little piece of-"

My words are interrupted by her screams as out of the corner of my eyes I see Glory, her jaws hinged open, her fangs dripping a sizzling black liquid, and right in front of me, a screaming, mess of a SkyWings queen. I wince at the sight of the melting scales and flesh and run over to Glory. She jumps off the marble tree just as the guards begin to react. There are only two, as the other two had to deal with Rime. They start forward, hissing and growling, spears at the ready, right up to the moment when Glory shows her fangs and hisses. Then they drop their spears and run.

Ha. Go figures.

"YEAH! LET'S GO, GLORY!" I shout, pumping my arm.

Glory smiles. "Hurry up. Let's go get the others."

"Okay!" I say in a way too excited voice, raising my arms like a child wanting to be carried.

Glory side-eyes me. "What are you doing?"

"You have to carry me. I can't walk on air, unlike you creatures," I counter, crossing my arms.

"Whyyyyyy," she tosses her head back elegantly, but crouches down so I can clamber on her back. Then, without waiting for me to settle, she launches into the air.

I screech and cover my eyes. "You're so much worse than Clam!"

"I don't know who Clam is, and I don't care either!" she shoots back.

"Clam was a sucky flier!" I yell, my voice blocked by the wind. I crouch lower down on her back, my fingertips digging into the gaps underneath her scales. Another gust of wind sends my head banging into her scales, and she dives down. I only now turn back to look behind us and understand why. God, I should have had a better plan.

There are at least twenty SkyWing guards following us.