Escaping Peril

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “Really?” Turtle asked. “Were you happy?”

  Peril let herself drop to a warmer air current, trying to think. Happy? Was that how she’d felt back then? It was definitely easier than life after Queen Scarlet (or rather, life after meeting Clay). In the Sky Palace, she’d had a purpose. There was a reason for her scales to be as deadly as they were. She’d been loyal to the queen, and she’d thought the queen cared about her, too, most of the time. Maybe half the time. Well, some of the time anyhow.

  She was probably supposed to say something about how terrible it was to kill all those dragons, how it ate her up inside every night and made her miserable. But it didn’t. Not back then, not while it was happening. She’d been killing dragons for Queen Scarlet for as long as she could remember. That was just … her life.

  “I had an idea,” Turtle said. “I bet Tsunami will head for water if she’s stopped anywhere. Can we check for clues down by the river?”

  Peril was too busy thinking to argue with him. She followed him down in a drifting spiral until they reached a rocky spot along the riverbank. Turtle landed in the water with a splash while Peril came down gently on the shore. She’d tried to aim for a spot with nothing but rocks and sand, but her tail accidentally flicked against a small shrub growing near the water. It instantly burst into flames, and almost as quickly burned out into a blackened heap, shriveled branches sticking out of it like skeletal claws.

  “Ack,” Peril said, curling her tail in. “Sorry.”

  Turtle blinked at the plant but didn’t say anything. He stuck his nose in the river and then shook it, spraying droplets everywhere. A few hit Peril, sizzling on her scales.

  “Maybe I wasn’t happy,” she blurted. He looked startled, and a little confused, as if he’d forgotten what they were talking about. She couldn’t stop herself from barreling on, though. “But I also wasn’t so worried all the time. I only had one dragon to please, and I didn’t always manage that, but at least I understood what I needed to do. Now everything is confusing. I guess — I mean, which would you rather be: lonely or insecure?”

  The SeaWing spread his wings across the surface of the water, sending ripples out in all directions. “Well,” he said, “I’ve tried lonely, so maybe I’d pick insecure.” He pounced suddenly, sending a cascade of water over Peril’s talons, and then sat up, brandishing a fish speared on one of his claws. “Hungry?”

  “No, thanks,” Peril said. She glanced up and down the river. Two of the moons were up, so she could see the outline of trees on the far side and the small flutterings of owls swooping through, hunting.

  Turtle began splashing upriver and Peril followed him, pacing along the riverbank and avoiding anything that looked flammable.

  “Maybe we should head to Possibility,” Turtle said. “We can meet up with Moon and Qibli there and find out what happened to Winter and Kinkajou.” His voice hitched slightly on the last word, and Peril gave him a sharp look.

  “What was that?” she demanded. “Are you about to cry?”

  “No,” he said, biting the head off the fish. “I’m just worried about them.”

  “They’re safer in Possibility than anywhere,” Peril said. “It’s a town full of dragons and more than half of them aren’t too fond of Queen Scarlet. At least, they really, really don’t like being asked about her. They tend to throw things. Which they also do when you set even the smallest basket of snails on fire — by accident, mind you. Frankly, I think they should rename the place Unnecessary Violent Overreaction.”

  In the moonlight, she couldn’t tell if Turtle’s expression was concerned or mildly amused.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “I’m not looking for an entourage. If I take more dragons with me to face Queen Scarlet, it just means more dragons for her to kill.”

  “Is that what you think is going to happen to me?” he asked.

  “Probably,” she said. “I mean — wait, what’s the reassuring thing to say?”

  “No,” he said. “That one’s pretty easy. The correct answer is no.”

  “Oh,” she said. “OK, that.”

  “But Moon and Qibli might know where Scarlet is,” Turtle pointed out. A choir of yawping frogs had been burbling away nearby, but cut off abruptly as the dragons approached. “Ruby said they told Sunny something about a new ally of hers, remember?”

  Peril frowned. How could Queen Scarlet have a new ally? Who was it, and where did he come from?

  Does she like him more than me?

  She caught herself with a stamp of annoyance that sent sparks flying off one of the stones underfoot. Of course Scarlet would like her new ally more than Peril — whoever it was must have agreed to help her when Peril wouldn’t. Also, more importantly, Peril shouldn’t care anymore. It was habit to want Scarlet to like her more than anyone, but it was a bad habit, and she wished she could scour it out of her brain.

  The new ally — was it an animus dragon? The one who had enchanted the severed head? Did that mean other magic was lurking up ahead for them?

  “Um … does it seem quieter than it should be?” Turtle asked, pausing in the center of the river. Peril stopped and listened, too. The water shivered softly around Turtle’s talons, as if it were trying to echo the rustling leaves in the wind overhead.

  But there were no more owls swooping, no frogs glurping. It seemed as though even the insects had fallen silent.

  Peril slowly twisted in place, scanning the dark trees, wishing she had night vision.

  Was that a glimmer of silver scales off to the left?

  Did she just imagine the crack of a branch snapping under talons?

  Could she smell a hint of smoke on the air?

  And then, all of a sudden, the river exploded.

  Turtle let out a yell of fright as three dragons burst out of the water almost directly beneath his talons. They seized his wings and tail and pinned him down with a violent splash that cascaded over Peril’s scales.

  At the same moment, two more dragons flew out of the forest, their claws outstretched and teeth bared. Peril whirled to face them, flinging her wings open.

  Try to grab me! Just try!

  A dazzling thrill darted through her like lightning. These dragons were attacking her! She could totally set them on fire without getting in trouble!

  I’m not being bad, Clay! I’m just defending myself! She flexed her talons and tried to squash her grin.

  “Don’t touch her!” Turtle bellowed, thrashing around like a vomiting whale. “It’ll kill you! Her scales are fire!”

  The two dragons skidded to a stop just out of her reach. Their claws left grooves in the pebbled sand and their wings flung a blanket of hot air in her direction.

  Way to spoil my fun, Turtle.

  Although, yes, fine, warning them was probably the Clay-approved thing to do.

  “He’s right,” she said, glowering at her attackers. “I am Peril of the SkyWings. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.” One of the dragons was a big red SkyWing, and Peril definitely saw her flinch and take a step back. “But if you’d like to find out whether he’s telling the truth, come a bit closer and we can do a fun experiment.” She spread her wet front talons in front of her and smiled wickedly at the coils of steam still rising from them.

  “It’s true,” said the SkyWing. “I recognize her now. Stay back, Cirrus.”

  The other dragon, a severe-looking IceWing, gave Peril a scornful look as if he highly doubted anyone, even a firescales dragon, could possibly be a match for him.

  Oooo, please try it, Peril thought, giving him an innocent expression.

  “So it’s not Scarlet?” asked one of the SeaWings.

  The SkyWing lashed her tail. “No. This is Peril, who might be worse.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Peril, genuinely offended. “Maybe you haven’t heard. I’m friends with the dragonets of destiny now. I don’t set other dragons on fire anymore. Not unless they provoke me,” she added, shooting the IceWing a fierce glare.

  “That is
one of the rumors going around,” said the SkyWing. “But we all know a dragon can’t change her scales.”

  “Maybe not, but I can change my mind,” Peril said defiantly. “Unlike some dragons, apparently.”

  “I’ve not only heard of you, little monster,” said the SkyWing, “I was one of the guards sent after your mother when she tried to escape with you.” She took a step toward Peril, lashing her tail and looking murderous.

  “Avalanche,” one of the SeaWings said softly. “Careful —”

  “My biggest regret,” said Avalanche, smoke billowing from her mouth and ears, “is that we didn’t kill you then. I don’t care that Kestrel got away. But if I’d known Scarlet would keep you alive —”

  “Wait,” said Cirrus, flaring his silver-white wings. “Did you say Kestrel?”

  Avalanche gave him an irritated look. “Yes. What?”

  “Kestrel of the SkyWings?” Cirrus said. “Big, red, grumpy-looking?”

  “You’ve just described fifty percent of all SkyWings,” said the MudWing sitting on top of Turtle. “The other half is big, orange, and grumpy-looking.”

  “What does she have to do with anything?” Cirrus asked.

  “She was this creature’s mother,” Avalanche said. “The one who wouldn’t hand her over to be killed.”

  Cirrus frowned, carving deep canyons across his forehead. “That can’t be right. Kestrel never had any dragonets.”

  “Ha,” Avalanche muttered. “We all wish THAT were true.”

  “Did you know her?” Peril asked Cirrus. He was shaking his head, but there was something weird in his expression.

  “I doubt you would have met,” said the SeaWing who’d spoken before. “She joined the Talons of Peace before you did, and then she was assigned to guarding the dragonets underground before you came to us. Once the guardians went into hiding with the eggs, most of the Talons of Peace never saw them.”

  “But you did?” Peril asked the IceWing again. Cirrus looked as if a pile of ashes was slowly turning back into a dragon right in front of his eyes. But was he happy? Angry? Confused? She couldn’t tell what he even thought about Kestrel, although he was clearly feeling something.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head again, more vigorously. “Not — that is, only by reputation.”

  Peril wondered if he was lying. But how could an IceWing have known her mother, if they didn’t meet in the Talons of Peace?

  “Can I get back to my menacing story now?” Avalanche demanded.

  “Oh, let me skip to the ending,” Peril said. “You failed to catch or kill my mother as she escaped. You were punished. Then you discovered that I was still alive, instead of flung off a cliff like most firescales dragonets, and you’ve been seething about it ever since, which is funny because I have never had even one thought about you in my entire life.”

  Avalanche glowered at her for a long moment. Peril flicked her tail gently, casually, and a clump of reeds burst into flames behind her.

  “Oops,” she said.

  There was something very satisfying about how the SeaWings yelped and went scrambling around, splashing water over the fire with their wings. Of course, Peril had really done it to see that expression of powerless fury on Avalanche’s face.

  “Are you in league with Scarlet?” one of the SeaWings asked breathlessly when the fire was out. “We heard she was recently seen not far from here. Do you know where she is?”

  “No,” Peril snapped.

  “We’re looking for her, too,” Turtle offered, his voice muffled by the MudWing tail draped across his face. “I mean,” he added hastily, “not to join her. To, uh, kill her and stuff.”

  We need to have a chat about oversharing, Turtle.

  “Who are you?” Peril demanded, hoping to turn the tables on them.

  “We’re from the Talons of Peace — my name is Nautilus,” said the green SeaWing who’d done the most talking. “We spotted you flying and we’ve been tracking you for a while. There are several groups out looking for an orange SkyWing tonight.”

  “Since I’m clearly not Scarlet,” said Turtle’s squashed-sounding voice, “is there any chance I could get up now?”

  “Oh! Yes, sorry.” Nautilus flicked his tail at the other two dragons, motioning them away. The MudWing scowled as she heaved herself off Turtle’s wings.

  “How did you know Scarlet was around?” Turtle asked, stretching his wings and neck with little crackling noises. “Did someone see her?”

  “One of your alleged friends, in fact.” Avalanche sneered at Peril.

  “Tsunami tried to chase her, but when she lost Scarlet not far from here, she came to the Talons of Peace for extra help.” Nautilus puffed up his chest. “With all of us looking, Scarlet won’t get far.”

  “Tsunami is with you?” Turtle blurted. “Where? Can we see her? We have a message for her.”

  “She’s out hunting Scarlet with Riptide and his group right now,” Nautilus said haughtily, “but I can pass along anything you want her to know.”

  “All right, tell her Glory isn’t dead,” Turtle said. “Tell her it was a trick — it was a different dragon. Glory is fine. You have to tell her that as soon as possible.”

  Nautilus and Avalanche exchanged glances, and Peril realized that now they believed them. So maybe Turtle’s forest fire approach to blathering information was not so terrible, after all.

  “I’ll go,” said the other SeaWing. “I think I know where their patrol went.” He spread his wings and took off from the water in one smooth motion, like a small island suddenly whisking into the sky.

  Nautilus watched him go, but Peril saw that the IceWing, Cirrus, still had his glittering eyes on her.

  “Are you wondering if my fire works on IceWing scales?” she asked him. “The answer is yes, your wings and talons and face will melt and shrivel into ash just like anyone else’s. I know from experience.”

  “We’re not going to release them into the wild,” Cirrus hissed at the others, ignoring her. “You said it yourself — she’s even more dangerous than Scarlet.”

  “Wow, you have a very confused and amusing view of this situation,” Peril said. “We’re not your prisoners. You couldn’t take me prisoner even with an army of IceWings. Not even if all of them had arrogant foreheads like yours. There isn’t actually a world in which you need to decide whether to ‘release’ me. I released myself a long time ago, but thanks anyway.”

  She thought she was actually showing remarkably noble restraint here. He was basically asking to have his talons scorched off.

  “We have no reason to hold them,” said Nautilus.

  “Especially since you literally can’t,” Peril pointed out. Maybe she needed to set something else on fire to make this point.

  “Hey, we’re all on the same side here,” Turtle said. Avalanche snorted, sending tiny puffs of smoke out of her ears. “We all want to catch Scarlet.”

  “And where are you going to look for her?” Cirrus demanded.

  “We’re going to Possibility first,” said Turtle.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” Peril said, giving Turtle a stern look.

  “To find our friends,” Turtle added, as if stern looks completely meant NOTHING in his universe. “Please tell Tsunami that, too.”

  “We will,” said Nautilus. He nudged one of Turtle’s wings with his. It was one of those casual things Peril saw dragons do to other members of their tribes all the time — in this case, it was the kind of touch that she guessed meant, “we’re both SeaWings, so in the end we’ll stick together.”

  Nobody had ever nudged Peril that way. Apart from the fact that it would probably kill them, no other SkyWing had ever wanted to acknowledge that they were in the same tribe. There was this whole language of nudges and tail flicks and wing brushing that Peril couldn’t speak — except with Clay.

  But trying to speak it with Clay made her feel like a dragon with no tongue and no ears. What did it mean when he brushed her wing with his a
s he went by in the tunnels? Did it mean “I love you as much as you love me even if our deep powerful feelings cannot be expressed aloud”? Or “don’t worry, I see how nervous you are, but remember I’m always here to take care of you”? Or “it’s a dark world, Peril, but you and I will stand in the fire and be safe, because we have each other”?

  Sometimes she worried that it just meant “Hey.”

  But she couldn’t ask him. She couldn’t let him know that she was even weirder and more confused than he realized.

  “Good luck,” Nautilus said.

  “You too,” said Turtle.

  “I hope you die,” Avalanche said to Peril.

  “I would say it’s mutual,” said Peril, “except that I’m going to forget you exist in about a minute, so I don’t actually care.”

  She was rewarded for that brilliance with another expression of helpless rage. That’s right, you self-righteous fish nose. I learned a few things from Queen Scarlet, who could burn dragons without touching them.

  Shooting a scornful look at Avalanche and Cirrus, Peril leaped into the sky with Turtle not far behind her.

  As she wheeled to fly north, she thought about what she’d said to Avalanche.

  “I’ll forget you exist in a minute … I don’t actually care … ”

  If only it were true.

  They flew north toward Possibility for two days — two days of soaring over the mountains, two days of arguing over whether to even go to Possibility at all, although in the end Peril gave in because she couldn’t think of any better ways to track Scarlet.

  She quickly learned that Turtle didn’t have half the stamina she did for long flights. That was probably a SeaWing-SkyWing thing. Or possibly a Turtle-would-rather-be-napping-than-exercising thing. They had to rest ridiculously often. He would find a lake and float around, moaning about his sore wings, while she swooped in ever-widening circles, scanning the ground with sharp eyes.