Two SkyWing queens who both dislike me quite a lot.
I should hide. I should run. I should run and hide.
But if Scarlet was out there — and Clay was flying toward her …
Peril couldn’t let him face her alone.
Scarlet was still her responsibility.
She darted into the cave, barreling past Turtle.
“Where are you going?” he called. “What happened to stealth?”
“I have to protect Clay!” she called back, spreading her wings. She couldn’t hear his answer over her wingbeats as she shot through one of the skylights.
It was Scarlet. Peril recognized the curve of her wings instantly, and she could see the dark scar on the side of her face even from a distance. The former SkyWing queen was beating her way toward them, her whole body radiating fury and vengeance. Ruby and her soldiers were forming into a defensive wing to confront her.
Peril spiraled up into the clouds and hovered above the mountain peak indecisively. Should she fly down to join the soldiers around Queen Ruby and Clay? What if her appearance sent them into a panic or distracted them from fighting Scarlet? As long as Clay was not in immediate danger, maybe she should wait to see what happened before joining in.
Why was Scarlet even here? She couldn’t be planning to attack Jade Mountain all by herself, could she?
Perhaps this had something to do with the students who’d gone looking for her.
A group of four dragonets had gone in search of Scarlet about a week ago, right after Carnelian died. Peril knew from Clay that they’d been in the rainforest with Glory for a day, and then they’d flown away to find an IceWing that Scarlet supposedly had imprisoned somewhere.
But no one knew if they’d found Scarlet, and Peril sort of expected that if they had, they’d all be dead.
Was that why Scarlet was here?
Had the dragonets done something to push her over the edge, from caution to rage?
She felt a sudden compression of alarm in her chest.
Scarlet was carrying something in her claws.
It was too small to be a body, surely …
Scarlet wheeled about in the air suddenly, out of flaming distance of the wall of SkyWing soldiers facing her.
“Traitors!” she shrieked. “All of you! Disloyal cowards!” She lifted whatever she was holding and shook it at them. “I destroy anyone who opposes me! I will have my vengeance and I will get my throne back! This is just one of the dragons I’ll kill — and you’ll all be next!”
She flung the object at them as hard as she could, then abruptly whirled around and flew away, her enormous wings eating up the distance with powerful strokes.
One of the SkyWings lunged forward to catch the missile.
Peril couldn’t hold back her curiosity. She swooped closer as the SkyWing looked down at the thing in his talons, then turned, shuddering, to show it to Ruby and the others.
Sunny began to scream as though her heart was being ripped out of her chest. Clay reached to catch her before she fell out of the sky.
The SkyWing was holding the severed head of Queen Glory of the RainWings.
Tsunami’s roar should have flattened the mountains and ripped holes in the sky. She shot after Queen Scarlet, a blue blur against the clouds.
“Go with her!” Queen Ruby shouted at her soldiers. She grabbed the head from the dazed SkyWing who held it. “All of you! Go now!”
They obeyed in one glittering mass of red and orange, except for one who turned at the last minute to face Ruby.
“If we catch her,” he said hesitantly, “do you want to — do you want us to —”
“Yes, kill her,” Ruby said. “I don’t mind who does it.”
He nodded and wheeled around to follow the others.
Should I go with them? Peril wondered. Surely there were enough dragons chasing Scarlet without her. What she really wanted to do was take care of Clay. Knowing how he was about his friends … Peril guessed, with a stab of jealousy that she was immediately ashamed of, that he must be devastated.
Would he be devastated if that was my head?
Stop thinking about yourself, Peril. Worry about Clay.
He was half carrying Sunny down to a flat shelf of gray rock that angled out of the mountain below them. Ruby glanced at the head in her talons and then followed.
So this would be awkward. But it was clearly an emergency. Ruby would just have to deal with Peril’s presence, and if she didn’t like it, it was her own fault for standing so close to Clay when he was clearly suffering and needed Peril.
Peril dropped out of the sky, landing with a thump in front of Clay and Sunny.
Sunny was sobbing too hard to notice her, and at first, Clay didn’t seem to see her either. His brown eyes stared blankly down at the little SandWing, as if his brain had been incinerated.
So it was only Ruby who reacted immediately, recoiling with a hiss of fury at the sight of Peril.
“What are you doing here?” Ruby demanded. “In my mountains?”
“These are my friends,” Peril said, lifting her chin. “You can’t make me stay away from my friends.”
“Monsters don’t have friends,” hissed Ruby.
Peril gave Clay a sideways glance, waiting for him to say something like “she’s not a monster!” or “we are her friends!” but he still wasn’t even looking at her.
“How could she have killed Glory?” Sunny cried. “Glory’s amazing and indestructible and has magical death spit plus Deathbringer and a whole army of RainWings who would die for her! Clay, please, please tell me that’s not her.”
“Maybe it’s a trick,” Clay said, turning numbly toward the head in Ruby’s talons.
It didn’t look like a trick to Peril. That was definitely the head of the RainWing queen. Peril remembered Glory clearly from her time in the Sky Palace, before she venomed Queen Scarlet. She also remembered her on the sands of Burn’s stronghold, holding Clay down while Peril burned out the snakebite poison in his leg.
She was the one who ruined Scarlet’s face. The one Scarlet hated the most.
But you’ll be next, she thought, glancing at Ruby. And then … maybe me.
Or maybe the other dragons from the prophecy. Was Clay on Scarlet’s list? If she dared … if she came anywhere near him … Peril felt molten lava rippling under her scales and curled in her tail with a soft growl.
Clay’s big MudWing wings trembled as he tried to reach out and touch the severed head. If only she could do it for him! Then she could examine it and tell him the horrible truth … but she couldn’t touch it at all, or it would turn to charred black cinders in her claws.
“It looks like Queen Glory to me,” said Ruby. “I’m sorry for you both.”
Sunny broke down, covering her face with her talons and curling into a ball with her wings over her head. Clay closed his eyes and his head dropped.
“Can I see?”
Peril and Ruby both looked up and found Turtle flapping down from the sky. He landed and carefully took the head from Ruby, studying it from all sides.
“Who are you?” Ruby asked. “Did you know Queen Glory?”
“No, I never met her,” he said. “I’m one of the sons of Queen Coral, and a student here. But I feel like … I don’t know, just … there’s something strange about this.”
“It is weird,” Peril agreed. “Glory was probably the best-guarded dragon in Pyrrhia. How did Scarlet get to her? Why go for her first? Killing Ruby first would make much more sense; then she could have taken the whole SkyWing army to attack the rainforest.”
“That’s Queen Ruby to you,” the red dragon snarled. “And I’m not that easy to kill either. No matter who you are or what your claws can do.”
Peril glared back at her.
Turtle squinted and held the head up toward the light. “Does she have something in her ear?” He tilted it toward Ruby, enough so that Peril could see a flash of yellowy white tucked inside the dragon’s ear.
“
A message?” Ruby guessed, taking it back from him. “More threats?”
With careful claws, Turtle reached into the ear canal and slid out a small rolled-up scrap of paper.
As he lifted it out, Glory’s head began to move.
The scales started rippling as though they were flipping over, from emerald green to brown. The snout widened and the brow went flat and the venomous fangs slid into the gums and vanished.
Ruby shrieked and dropped the head on the ground, where it bounced and rolled to a stop near Peril’s talons.
She peered down into a face that was now most definitely a MudWing and not Glory at all.
What in the name of all the moons …
Clay grabbed Sunny and nearly lifted her off the ground as he turned her to look.
“What happened?” he cried. “What happened to Glory?”
“Who is that?” Ruby demanded.
“Not Queen Glory after all,” said Turtle. “This is magic — an enchantment of some kind.” He held up the unrolled scrap of paper, then brought it close to his nose to read it aloud. “Enchant this piece of scroll so that whichever dragon wears it tucked inside his or her ear shall look exactly like Glory of the RainWings.”
There was a long, confused silence.
“It’s not Glory,” Sunny whispered, exhaling. “Clay! Glory’s still alive!”
“Alive,” Clay said. His whole face glowed with relief. “But we have to warn her that Scarlet’s definitely going after her.” He took a deep breath, his wings drifting down like falling leaves. “I wonder who this was,” he said softly, nodding at the head.
“Was Scarlet trying to trick you?” Turtle puzzled. “But why? I mean, you’d have figured out the truth sooner or later, once you heard from Glory.”
“No,” Peril said. “It wasn’t about tricking them. She just wanted to scare them. That’s her favorite kind of power.”
Ruby let out a hiss, and Peril met her eyes.
She saw it then: the new queen was scared of her mother — as scared of her as Peril was.
But Peril caught a glimpse of something else, something bitter and deep inside Ruby that had to do with Peril herself. She curled her talons in.
She’d been thinking of the ways Scarlet always terrified her … not all the ways Scarlet had used her to terrify others.
Ruby’s dark red wings flapped open and closed, like a rug briskly thrown over a body. “Wait,” she said. “An enchantment? Doesn’t that mean that Scarlet must have an animus?”
“No,” Sunny said, stretching her neck uneasily. “No. We’d all be dead already if that were true.”
Turtle pointed the piece of paper at the MudWing’s head. “But … uh … what else is this?”
Ruby whipped around suddenly to glare at Peril. “You must know. Is there an animus dragon working for her?”
“Why would I know?” Peril demanded. Argh, it would be so SATISFYING to just STOMP on this dragon’s tail and watch it burst into flames. “She didn’t tell me things! I was her — her weapon, not her friend. You’re her daughter, why don’t you know?”
“No one can stop an animus,” said Clay. “Right? Except another animus.” He exchanged a glance with Sunny that looked aggravatingly stuffed with secrets.
What was that? Do they know an animus? Why do they have secrets I don’t know about? Doesn’t Clay know he can tell me anything?
Peril flicked her tail irritably and Ruby leaped away from her, even though her tail hadn’t been anywhere near the queen’s precious scales.
“I thought the SkyWings didn’t have any animus dragons,” Turtle said. “Not for hundreds of years, if ever.”
“Not just SkyWings,” said Ruby. “None of the tribes. Animus dragons are so rare — I don’t think there’s been one in Pyrrhia in centuries.”
The next pause had an extremely strange awkwardness to it. Peril glanced from Clay to Turtle to Sunny and realized they all knew something she and Ruby didn’t.
“What?” Peril demanded. “What is it?”
“Um — my father,” Sunny said quickly. “Stonemover … he’s an animus.”
“The old NightWing who lives under this mountain?” Turtle asked. Judging from his tone of surprise, that wasn’t the secret he’d been thinking of. Peril wondered if she could threaten it out of him later.
Wait, no. This was one of those things Clay had to remind her about sometimes. Apparently, friends didn’t threaten to set each other on fire. Not very often anyhow.
“Yes,” Sunny admitted. “He made the tunnels that lead from the rainforest to the NightWing island and the Kingdom of Sand. But he doesn’t use his powers anymore.”
“He might have to,” Ruby said, “if there’s a new animus on the loose, working for Scarlet, and he’s the only one who can stop her.”
“Could it be another NightWing?” Turtle guessed. “Someone who escaped the volcanic island and went to team up with Scarlet?”
Clay shuddered. “That would be … not great for us.”
“I’m not afraid of any animus,” Peril blurted. “I bet I could stop it — him, her, whatever. I just have to sneak up on them and then POW, brain melted, claws a pile of cinders! No more creepy enchantments. Everybody cheers!” For me. Everybody cheers for me. Or at least, Clay tells me I’m wonderful.
Clay didn’t have his “you’re wonderful” face on, though. He looked all troubled and worried instead.
“But it might not be a bad dragon,” Sunny said. “This animus could be someone Scarlet has tricked or forced into working for her. We shouldn’t just kill them without knowing the whole story.”
“This is definitely not me agreeing with her,” Ruby said, flicking her tail at Peril, “but I think we absolutely should. Animus dragons are so dangerous — and more so the more they use their powers. According to our history, the SkyWing tribe used to kill them the moment we figured out what they were.”
“But —” Sunny looked aghast, as did Turtle. “You mean, when they were still dragonets? Before they’d even done anything?”
“Before they could do anything,” Ruby said. “That’s our policy with all dragons who are too dangerous to live.” She slid her narrowed eyes over to Peril, who had already figured out the subtext of this conversation, thanks very much.
“Oh, dear,” Sunny said in a small voice.
“That’s not fair,” Turtle protested. “Animus dragons can maybe do good things, too.”
“Let’s save worrying about it until we know she really has one,” Clay said. “And who it is. We have enough else to worry about already.”
“Like the rest of my winglet,” Turtle said, lowering his head. “Do you think Moon and the others are safe? Weren’t they going after Scarlet?”
“They were, but I don’t know what’s happened,” Sunny said, pressing her claws together anxiously. “I tried to dreamvisit Kinkajou and Qibli last night but couldn’t get into either of their dreams. I haven’t been able to since they left. Oh, I hope they’re all right.”
“They probably are,” Peril said. “Or else Scarlet would have been throwing their heads at you.”
She’d thought that would be very reassuring, but for some reason it made Sunny look even more ill.
“Someone’s coming back,” Clay said, standing up and spreading his wings to catch the attention of the dragons in the sky.
Three of Ruby’s soldiers swooped down, spiraling gracefully until they spotted Peril, at which point they all started flapping like insane pigeons on fire, until they finally landed in a thumping row between her and Ruby.
“Don’t you come near our queen,” one of them snarled.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Peril snapped back. “Do you actually think you could stop me if I was?”
“Peril,” Clay said softly, warningly.
BLAH. It wasn’t FAIR that they could be rude and she couldn’t set them on fire, or even growl back at them. But Peril bit her tongue, sat back, and folded her wings across her chest, making sure she too
k up as little of the space on the rock ledge as possible. Clay gave her a sweet, grateful smile, which almost made it OK.
“Ignore her,” Ruby ordered her guards. “What happened?”
“We overtook the SeaWing, but couldn’t find Scarlet,” said the tall orange soldier. “The rest are still looking, but we wanted to come back and make sure you were guarded, in case it was a trick.”
“It was, in a way,” said Ruby, nodding at the head.
“Someone has to catch Tsunami,” said Sunny. “We have to tell her it’s not Glory.”
“She,” Clay said. “She was somebody, even if she’s not Glory.” He took a deep breath and picked up the head. Peril wished she could turn it to ashes; she didn’t like the way the dead brown eyes were staring at her. Piles of ashes were much tidier and less horrifying than stray body parts.
“Wait. If we can figure out who she is and where she’s from,” Ruby said suddenly, “it might be a clue about where Scarlet is hiding.”
“You’re right. Let’s take her to Queen Moorhen.” Clay turned toward Ruby, wincing as he set his weight on his injured leg. “That’s the best place to start.”
She nodded, tilting her diamond-shaped head toward the orange dragon. “Go catch the SeaWing and tell her to return,” she ordered. “My soldiers should split up — half keep looking for Scarlet and the other half return to me. We’ll leave for Moorhen’s palace at midnight.”
All the SkyWings whirled into the air; the orange soldier went north, while Queen Ruby and the other two swept south toward Jade Mountain.
“I’m going to try the dreamvisitor again,” Sunny said to Clay.
He reached over and twined his tail around hers, and Peril felt a stab of jealousy so fierce she was surprised flames didn’t come shooting out of her eyeballs.
“They’re all right. I’m sure they are,” Clay said quietly to Sunny.
She shook her head without answering and lifted off into the sky.
Only Clay and Peril were left on the ledge. At last. She gazed deep into his warm brown eyes …
“So, Scarlet is pretty scary, huh?”
Oh, right, and Turtle. The SeaWing edged closer to them, twitching his wings curiously.
Escaping Peril Page 4
