Hidden Wings

Prolouge

The tall, silver dragon spread her star-speckled wings and looked down her snout with authority. "I have made my decision," she declared to the room full of dragons, anxiously awaiting her next words. "He will stay with me. I shall raise him myself, and since his parents are no where to be found, he shall be like a prince."
Vycan drew his wings in closer, trying to will them to stop shaking. He remembered his parents. He hadn't told these dragons about them, though. He hadn't seen why it mattered, and he still didn't. They were gone, and now Queen Luna was giving the command for him to stay here, at the palace with her. He took a frightened step back, and his eyes locked with those of another dragon, back behind the throne. Her scales glittered light blue and rainbow, like opals and diamonds in the sunlight. She narrowed her eyes at him and he cringed. Princess Angelica would make sure he was miserable if he stayed here, he was sure.
Vycan felt the stares of the other dragons crawling over him like so many spiders. Feeling anger surge up inside him, he whirled around and bolted out of the throne room.
"After him! Don't let him escape! Kill him if you have you have to!" Vycan heard the queen's voice order. A hundred talons pounded along the stone behind him. He forced his muscles to fight harder, racing along the passages. He turned a corner ducked into a seldom used path ahead to rest, racking his brain to figure out how to get out of the palace. His ears twitched and heard the guards searching for him. The shadows wouldn't hide his black scales if they looked around the corner. Vycan crept down the passage and emerged into an open corridor. Realizing where he was, his heart lept. He ran up the hallway and turned toward the balcony that was his escape. His claws hooked over the edge of the stone and he pushed forward with his back legs, soaring into the air. He leveled off and swooped low over the rocks that covered the side of the mountain. He had almost reached the forest when he heard wingbeats and whipped his head around to see five dragons, scales ranging from crimson to cobalt, flying after him in hot pursuit. The guards must have split up, finding his dark scales hard to spot against the drab gray rock, especially now, when the sun was just slipping behind the mountian's peak.
He whipped around to hover, his face hardened in determination. If they think I'm hard to see here, they should try finding me in the trees. If he slowed the guards down enough to fly the three hundred yards down the mountain to the tree line, he was home free. If not, he would be stuck living in the dark, crowded palace with Queen Luna and the princess, maybe forever. So this was definitely worth the risk. Vycan growled.
The approaching dragons snarled back and three of them dove toward him while the other two circled back, trying to block his escape. He hissed, looking for all the world like a menacing black cobra. He dodged out of the way of the first dragon's talons and raked his claws across her back, ducking down as the second and third guards came at him. He spun to face the fourth guard, slashing his sharp claws at her wings. She dodged and grabbed the venomous tip of his tail as he tried to stab it at her. The other guards had managed to get themselves tangled together as they struggled to grab him. Vycan tucked his wings close and streaked downward, forcing his tail out of the dragon's talons. He heard her cry out in pain and felt the barb cut her scales as he ripped it out of her grasp.
He let himself plummet, then snapped his wings open and flew as fast as he could toward the forest. The shouts of the guards faded as he got closer and closer to his destination. Then a sudden thought stopped him. Vycan flung his wings out to slow his flight and turned his head to look up the mountain. The guard dragons were hovering in tight group far up the slope, so he couldn't see what they were doing. It wasn't chasing him, though.
"Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here, Vycan. What brings you so far from my mother's palace?"
A mocking voice asked.
Vycan whirled around, coming face to face with Princess Angelica. The dark dragon bared his teeth at her. "You know your mother doesn't want me, and neither do you," he snarled coldly.
The young dragoness laughed. "Oh, she does, trust me. As for me, I couldn't care less about what happens to you."
"You're wrong. She wants to keep me in her confining palace to keep an eye on me, doesn't she? She doesn't trust shapeshifters."
Vycan watched her expression turn to cold anger. "No, she doesn't. And you're certainly not helping that opinion change, now, are you?" The princess hissed.
"She would never trust me! Not if I obeyed her every command! Not if I worshiped her night and day! She would _never_ see me for who I really am!" Vycan's gold eyes flashed with fury in the dying light.
Angelica stared back, just as furious. "Maybe she would have if you'd given her a chance!"
The black dragon roared and leapt at Angelica, his claws slashing and his tail stabbing forward. The princess screamed as his talons opened a gash on her side. She made a grab for his neck, but he seized her head between his talons and his back claws caught her back legs and held them still.
"You say your mother is kind, hmm?" He hissed at her in a low voice, his face inches from her's. "You say she's trustworthy? A great queen?" Angelica winced, saying nothing as he went on. "No. If she were kind, she'd have treated me like it. If she were trustworthy, she'd see that I can be, too. If she were a good queen-" he paused and growled viciously- "she might have been able to raise more than the pathetic excuse for a daughter she has now."
Angelica's eyes filled with wrath and she opened her mouth, but Vycan moved one of his talons to clamp her jaws shut. "I could have been trustworthy. I could have wasted my gift in service to your mother. But she never wanted that anyway. So now I'll be something else. Something that will make the entire kingdom remember for generations what happens when a powerful dragon is kept in the cage she tried to put me in." A sly smile crept across his face. "And someday, they will all pay for what they have done."
He released her and dove down the mountain, disappearing into the trees before the princess could shout, scream, or even say a word.