Heart of Fire

Chapter 4:

Emberice flew through the Sky Kingdom, taking the very route that her father had taken seven years before to her Mother's grave. She reached it. It was a small cave with rocks piled up over the entrance, but she scraped them out of the entrance one after another, allowing light to flood into the cave for the first time in seven years. Lying on the floor of the cave, covered in rock dust, was a SkyWing skeleton with a bag on the shoulder that was slowly falling apart from age. If she had read Dominus' entry correctly, this was the very cave that he had buried Sheer in after she was gone. The SkyWing skeleton was medium sized, with sharp claws and teeth, as well as long spiraling horns. Around the cave were scattered red scales, like long lost rubies glinting in the sunshine. Emberice walked over and picked one up, studying it.

If this was her mother's scale color, then prehaps she could draw the SkyWing, but there were no other clues as to the skeleton's scale color. Emberice noticed there were blue and red talonprints and spatters of red blood in various places in the cave. Some of the talonprints looked like Dominus' talonprints, but they were red. There were other talonprints, too, but not Dominus', and they were blue, which meant the dragon had probably given her father some horrible scratches.

She had often wondered where Dominus had gotten all of his scars that he had from the day she hatched, but never asked him. She walked out of the cave, and rolled the stones back across the entrance. Just as she finished placing the last stone over the entrance, a voice behind her hissed, "And what do you think you're doing, IceWing?"

'Great. SkyWings.' "Stay back." Emberice growled, turning towards a patrol of sixteen SkyWings, the leader of which had spoken. "I'm dangerous." "Oh, I bet you are. Well, we know what to do with IceWings. Especially loners who aren't supposed to be here." The leader flicked his tail, and the SkyWings moved towards her. "Stay. Back. I'm warning you!" The cracks in her scales started to glow like the last time, and the SkyWings stepped back, turning pale, as Emberice stepped toward them, steam rising from her scales. "Firescales! A firescales IceWing! Here! In SkyWing territory! We have to take her to Her Majesty." said one of the guards. "No, not totally. She isn't a total firescales. Look, the cracks between her scales aren't glowing anymore. Let's get her!" the guards swooped in, and she whirled, slicing several of the SkyWing's underbellies, causing them to howl in pain.

Then one of the guards swooped in and pinned her to the ground as her firescales died down. The guards held her mouth shut with their talons, and clamped some shackles on her ankles. They put a muzzle on her, and flew her to the SkyWing palace.