Treacherous Skies

Chapter Six

Hunter stood on the ledge, watching the dragonets fly unsteadily through the air. It had been almost a year since the queen had taken Fire to fight for the delta, eight months since he had been in the cell.

One of the dragonets lost her balance in the air and began to fall. Hunter watched for a moment, and when the dragonet couldn't right herself, he leaped off the edge and scooped her up, carrying her back to the ledge. The dragonets weren't his, but he had been chosen to teach them to fly.

With some encouraging, the dragonet jumped off the ledge again, her wings opening to catch the air.

Hunter remembered when he and Fire had had to teach themselves to fly, and felt a pang of mourning in his chest. After Fire had died in the battle at the delta, Hunter had been enraged. He blamed the queen for her death, and had tried to kill her. Her brother Crimson had stopped him, and Hunter was thrown back in the cell. Eventually, Hunter had lost his will to fight, and had been tentatively released. At first, Queen Cerise had put three guards on him, but by now only one was necessary. Hunter hadn't fought her again. Fire was gone; and killing Cerise wouldn't bring her back. It would only throw the Sky Kingdom into chaos.

"You seem to be enjoying this," Hunter's guard observed from her post on his left.

"I suppose so," Hunter said. "Anything's better than the cell."

He shivered slightly in the cold. His guard stepped forward and brushed her tail against his. "I'm sorry about your sister."

"Why is that delta such a big deal?" Hunter said, his voice shaking. "The SandWings probably need it for the water; we don't. What does Queen Cerise want with it?"

"I... I don't know," she confessed. "Maybe for the territory?"

"Maybe to show the other tribes how strong she is, that she's willing to send dragons to their deaths for some- some pointless piece of land!"

"You shouldn't say that," she said quietly. "The queen wouldn't like it."

"So turn me in, Hawk. I'm a prisoner already. What more can she do?"

"She could kill you," Hawk offered.

"She could've done that before now. Why wait?"

Fire closed her eyes, wishing when she opened them, she would be somewhere else, anywhere else. But when she did open them, the same dark, unforgiving walls of sandstone greeted her. She hadn't stretched her wings in months. Her cell was too small for that. The windows were just wide enough to allow mocking rays of sunlight through, and to allow her to see other SkyWings soaring freely in the sky, the sky that she had not flown in for so long. Crimson was cruel indeed. But why keep her here? She had won them the delta, she and her killer scales, what more did they want from her?

She dug her claws into the stone, wishing it would burn away, but her claws only scratched the stone. She thought she had known despair. She had been wrong. She hated Queen Cerise, hated Crimson, hated the SkyWing tribe for their pointless squabbles over the worthless delta.

She swung her claws through the small divot in the floor that let a tiny bit of water flow through, sending up a cloud of steam. She hated herself most of all, the terrible, terrible things she'd done, all the dragons who were dead because of her.

It was for Hunter, she told herself. You did it for Hunter, so he would survive.

That thought didn't help. She slammed her claws into the wall, inciting a surprised grunt from the guard outside. The guards were more to keep other dragons away from her than to keep her in. She hurled herself against the wall again and again. She knew what the guards thought of her. She had heard them talking to each other. 'Insane.' 'Unstable.' 'Crazy.'

Maybe they were right. Crimson and Cerise had taken everything from her. She had nothing left to live for.

If I die, she thought suddenly, What would they do to Hunter?

She stared at the water, the cool, clear water, the only thing that moved in and out of her prison the entire time she had been trapped. She thought her seventh hatching day may have passed in the prison. She had no way of knowing. She had lost track of the days long ago.

Insane.

She stuck her talons in the water, watching it turn to steam around her scales. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she had lost her mind long ago. Was that so far-fetched? She had lost everything else. The only thing she had left was her life, which Crimson and Cerise would make sure was never her own. They would make sure she was never free, was never able to make her own choices. They may as well have killed her.

The sound of a door opening jolted Fire out of her misery. She turned in the cramped space and saw the dark shape of a dragon silhouetted against the bright desert sun. Squinting, she saw that it was Crimson.

"What do you want?" she croaked. "What more could you possibly make me do?"

"I can make you do anything," the prince of the SkyWings said triumphantly. "As for what we want, well, we want the rainforest."

"What?"

"The queen wants the rainforest," Crimson repeated.

"Yeah, I figured out that much," Fire growled. "Could you maybe elaborate on that?"

"Queen Cerise wants control of the rainforest, and you're going to help us get it."

Fire shook her head violently. "No. No, I won't. I won't let you make me kill more dragons to satisfy Cerise's need for power. I won't do it."

"All right," Crimson said affably. Fire looked up, surprised. "I see you'd rather have us kill Hunter," he continued.

"No," Fire cried. "No, please."

"Then come on out and help us take the rainforest."

Crimson stepped back from the opening, and as Fire stepped out of the opening for the first time in almost a year, she felt not relief but despair. She would be forced to kill again, to cut dragons down like flies, all in order to make sure that Hunter stayed alive, somewhere in the queen's dungeon.