Escaping Peril

by Tui T. Sutherland

  The sandstone arch was easy to find, high on a butte to the west of Possibility, looping out of the ground and back into it in a shape like a RainWing tail. Peril flew through the hole of the archway, feeling her wing tips brush the stone on either side, and then spiraled around to land on top of it.

  The desert spread out before her, vast and endless in the hot afternoon sun. When she turned around she could see the whole town of Possibility — the taller structures clustered around the river delta and the trail of smaller ones leading away along the river. From here, the dragons winding through the streets looked no bigger than scavengers, and sometimes it was even hard to tell what color their scales were.

  Beyond Possibility, across the eastern horizon, cut the jagged tooth shapes of the Claws of the Clouds Mountains. Scarlet was in there somewhere, Peril was sure of it. The queen wasn’t the kind of dragon to let herself be uncomfortable somewhere weird like the rainforest or the mud swamps. She knew the Sky Kingdom perhaps better than anyone, and she must have found somewhere she didn’t mind hiding.

  A flicker of movement caught Peril’s eye, and she swiveled her head to see a dragon winging his way toward her from the edge of Possibility. He was a big golden-orange SkyWing — not anyone she recognized, although it did seem as though he was flying directly toward her.

  Maybe he recognized me from all the way down there. Maybe he’s coming to yell at me about how I should leave his precious flammable town alone. Is he the one with the basket of snails from last time? Or perhaps I flambéed one of his relatives and he’s still grumpy about it.

  She flexed her talons. Well, if he’d like a fight, I’m certainly in the mood for it.

  Clay flashed into her head, wearing his disappointed face. Which was frustrating, because it both made her miss him and also made her want to yell at him that she hadn’t killed anybody yet, and couldn’t he appreciate that instead of anticipating her next bad thing?

  And then she felt silly, because she was busy getting mad at him for an imaginary conversation, when really she just wished he was there to nudge her wings and tell her what to do next.

  The SkyWing was definitely aiming for the arch and looking at her, but when he was only a few wingbeats away he suddenly jerked back with an expression Peril had seen many times before — that wonderful fear/hatred combination that just the sight of her face seemed to magically induce.

  Except this time it wasn’t for her. He wasn’t looking at her anymore; he was looking beyond her. And whatever he saw made him wheel around abruptly and hightail it back to Possibility as fast as he could fly.

  Peril turned and scanned the desert sky.

  Two more dragons were flying her way. This time it was an IceWing and a big NightWing, coming from the northwest.

  Another NightWing, out here?

  Could it be one of the ones who escaped from Thorn’s prison?

  Or Scarlet’s ally?

  The sunlight sparked and danced across the IceWing’s silver scales like a hundred little moons on fire. Peril curled her tail around her talons and watched him with narrow eyes.

  She vaguely remembered the IceWings who’d yelled at her in the big entrance hall at Jade Academy, but she doubted she’d be able to pick Winter or his sister out from a crowd of white dragons. Keeping faces in her head wasn’t a particular skill of hers. She always forgot to concentrate on storing their features, usually because she was sizing them up as a potential combatant instead.

  Mostly she’d never had to remember the dragons she met anyway, since she’d killed almost all the ones who got close enough to be faces in the first place.

  She definitely saw the moment when the ice dragon recognized her, though. He immediately altered his flight path to hurtle in her direction. And his face wasn’t exactly throwing her an enthusiastic full-moon festival.

  “What are you doing here?” he yelled down at Peril, circling over her head. The NightWing stayed back, beating her wings to hover in place.

  “What do you care?” Peril shouted. It made her instantly grumpy to see how he stayed up in the air, forcing her to look up at him as he flew around and around. That was basic dragon etiquette that even Peril knew: if you want to talk to someone on the ground, you land and look them in the eye.

  “Did Scarlet send you?” he called.

  “Did she send you?” she snapped back. “Last I heard, it was your sister who was working for her, not me.”

  That went in, sharp as a SandWing barb. Winter flinched and frowned even harder. “I’m not going to let you hurt my friends, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  “That’s funny,” Peril said. “I mean, the part where you think you could stop me.”

  Even as she said it, she knew Clay would think it was exactly the wrong thing to say. She knew she was provoking the IceWing on purpose, because she was already having a bad day and he was making it worse, and she knew she should stop and explain everything and tell him where his friends were, but by all the moons, if he couldn’t even handle landing to have a civil conversation, then WHY SHOULD SHE DO ALL THE WORK of keeping things polite? SERIOUSLY.

  Still, she could probably have guessed what would happen next.

  Winter whirled with a roar and shot a blast of frostbreath at one of her wings. As she’d learned over many arena battles with IceWings, this did essentially nothing except make the spot feel numb for a few minutes while her firescales combated the ice.

  But it was still rude and she didn’t like it.

  She flung herself into the air and blasted fire right back at him. Clay’s voice in her head made her aim to his left so she wouldn’t actually hurt him … but surely it was all right to scare him a little bit.

  He shot out of the way, no doubt congratulating himself on moving so quickly rather than realizing she’d deliberately spared him. With a deft flip of his tail, the IceWing dodged below her and then swung up suddenly to frostbreath her back legs before looping away again.

  “That doesn’t do anything to me, you one-trick dragon,” she cried. “How about some claw-to-claw combat, or are you too much of a coward for that?”

  Whether or not he was a coward, he was fast. He swept around her in dizzying spirals, flashing headaches straight into her skull with every sun-reflecting spin. She lashed out with her front claws, half sure she wouldn’t catch him, and half starting not to care if she did because this dragon was SERIOUSLY ASKING FOR IT.

  Fighting in the air was hard! How did dragons focus on staying aloft and attacking and defending all at the same time? She’d never practiced against an opponent in the sky. Her wings felt all clumsy and in the way.

  Why didn’t Scarlet let me learn to fight properly, if this is how dragons normally do it? Why did she only pit me against prisoners with their wings bound?

  For the first time in her life, Peril began to wonder if maybe she wasn’t actually the most dangerous dragon in Pyrrhia.

  But I am! I am! I just have to touch him and he’s dead!

  Wait.

  That would be BAD.

  That would be very, very bad, Peril suddenly remembered. This was one of Clay’s Jade Mountain students. He was Turtle’s friend. Even though he technically attacked her first, she still knew how much trouble she’d be in if she hurt him.

  “Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t make me kill you!”

  Nope, that wasn’t the right thing to say either.

  She tucked in her wings abruptly and dove toward the arch, trying to put a safe distance between her and Winter.

  But at that exact moment, he did another flip to swoop below her again.

  And the two dragons collided in midair.

  Fire and ice, copper and silver … Winter and certain death.

  At first, all Peril felt was cold limbs, cold scales, cold wings slamming into hers.

  The shock knocked the breath out of her for a moment, and they tangled in startled freefall.

  And then Winter started screaming, and Peril shoved him away, and he plummeted to
ward the ground with smoke already rising from his scales, falling as hard and fast as Peril’s heart.

  Three moons, what have I done?

  “Oh my,” said the NightWing in the air above them. Peril had forgotten about her. “Firescales! I haven’t seen that in a long time.”

  “Get help!” Peril yelled. She plunged after Winter, who missed the arch and tumbled to the hard rock below it. At the last minute he managed to spread his wings so it wasn’t a crash landing, but as he did Peril saw the ropes of black burns smeared across them. He was burning, burning up everywhere she’d accidentally touched him.

  He landed heavily and collapsed, writhing in pain.

  “I’m sorry!” Peril cried, landing beside him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I was trying to get away! I didn’t mean to burn you, I really didn’t! I’m here to help your friends stop Scarlet! Stop dying and listen to me!”

  He’s going to die. Winter is going to die and Clay is never going to speak to me again. I’m going to be alone forever.

  She took a hopeless step toward him, but there was nothing she could do — touching him would only make it worse. Not that it could get worse. Except he’d die faster, and maybe that would be a mercy.

  Look at him. I am as bad as everyone thinks I am. I’m the one who did this, me and my monstrous claws.

  Peril had never cried; she wasn’t sure if she could. But she had felt vast emptiness like this before, opening up inside her … when Osprey died, when she had to leave Clay the first time, when she found out her mother was dead, and worst of all, when she saw the dragonbite viper sink its fangs into Clay’s leg and she thought he would die and she would lose him and the world would not be worth living in anymore.

  This emptiness, though, had freezing winds shrieking through the darkness — shrieking, “This is your fault, your fault, your fault … you deserve to be the most hated dragon in Pyrrhia … your fault, your fault … ”

  “Moon,” Winter gasped. “Tell Moon —” He closed his eyes, folding into himself.

  “Winter!” a voice shouted from the sky. “Winter!”

  Of course they were here, just in time to see what Peril had done — to witness her monstrosity. She jumped back out of the way as Moon, Qibli, and Turtle thudded down and surged into a crowd around Winter.

  “Winter,” Moon cried again, grabbing his front talons in hers. “Oh no, oh no, oh no —”

  “It was an accident!” Peril said. “I didn’t mean to burn him! I didn’t!”

  “What are our options?” Qibli said frantically. “I know — Winter, frostbreath your scales! That should numb the injuries long enough to get him to the river. Isn’t there a cactus sap that heals burns? Winter, come on, don’t pass out. We can fix this!”

  The silver dragon lay limply on the rocks in front of them, shuddering in agony. He didn’t respond to either Moon or Qibli. Peril couldn’t bear to look at him — at the black scorch marks imprinted all over his snow-white scales. That had to be too many burns to survive. He was probably going into shock, if he hadn’t already.

  She couldn’t look at Turtle either. He was clutching his head and pacing around Winter’s tail, and she knew if she met his eyes she’d see how much he must hate her now.

  “What can we do?” Qibli asked Moon, and when she didn’t answer because she was crying too hard, he whirled on Peril. “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know!” Peril cried. “I’m the problem, not the solution!”

  “Use this,” Turtle said, scrabbling in the pouch around his neck. His voice sounded weird, like it was being mangled as it came out of his throat, and his expression was closer to terror than anger, now that Peril could see it. He yanked the grayish-white river rock from the pouch and held it out. Nothing could have looked more ordinary or useless.

  “What?” Qibli said, blinking back tears.

  “A rock isn’t going to … ” Peril started, but she trailed off as Turtle pushed Qibli aside and placed the rock on top of one of Winter’s burns.

  Winter let out a yelp of pain at the sudden contact, and Moon reached toward Turtle’s talons — then stopped.

  Below the rock, the burn looked as if it was evaporating.

  The blackness disappeared, and the scales smoothed over, silver and untouched again.

  Turtle moved the rock, sliding it gently over the burns all along Winter’s torso and wings. It looked as though he was sweeping snow along behind it; every injury disappeared, every wound knitted itself back together and vanished.

  The IceWing’s breathing became slower and less ragged. He opened his eyes and watched the progress of the rock, his face a mask of confusion and awe.

  Within a few moments, Winter was completely healed.

  Everyone stared at Turtle, who very much looked as though he wanted a deep ocean chasm to hide in. He stepped back, awkwardly twisting the rock in his talons as though it was a strange growth that had just appeared. “Did I get all of it?” he asked.

  “What —” Moon said. She shook her head and crouched beside Winter, gently running one talon over a patch of smooth scales on his torso. “Turtle, what … ?” Her voice faded away, swallowed by the disbelief swooping across her face.

  Winter sat up, holding out his talons with an awed expression. His wings cautiously expanded to their full width, then closed again. The burns were really gone.

  “Turtle,” Qibli said carefully. “Why do you have a magic healing rock? No, wait … HOW do you have a magic healing rock?”

  Peril couldn’t put her thoughts in order. She couldn’t wrap her brain around Winter surviving what she’d done. She couldn’t even feel relieved yet; it was too immense and strange and impossible. There wasn’t any room in her head for all her new questions about Turtle. She pulled her wings in as close as possible, watching Winter’s perfectly unharmed scales shift and half expecting him to suddenly collapse into a pile of ashes anyway.

  “It’s an animus-touched object,” Moon said to Turtle. “Where did you get — OH.” Her eyes suddenly went as wide as the moons she was named after.

  Qibli got it a second later. “You didn’t find it somewhere,” he said, sounding awestruck. “You made it! You’re an animus dragon!”

  “That’s your secret,” Moon breathed. She had an expression like someone who’d just managed to finally alphabetize a million scrolls exactly right. “An animus.”

  That’s why he thinks he can handle Queen Scarlet, Peril realized.

  “Oooorg,” Turtle said, shivering his wings. “I’ve never heard anyone say that out loud before. Nobody else knows. Actually, can we not talk about it? It’s really not a big deal.”

  “NOT A —” Winter suddenly chimed in, then cut himself off with a growl, lashing his tail.

  “You could have told me,” Peril said to Turtle. Wasn’t that what friends did? He hadn’t told her about Moon’s power because it was “her secret,” but he could have told her this.

  “I was thinking about it,” Turtle said to Peril. “I mean, so we’re not so different, you and I. Right?”

  Well, I never had the option of hiding my “gift,” Peril thought. That’s a pretty big difference.

  “Would anyone else like to make a dramatic confession?” Qibli asked. “Who else is hiding magic powers? Winter, anything we should know? A secret IceWing ability to kill dragons with a sneer?”

  “No. Trust me, I’m nothing special,” Winter growled.

  “Same here.” Qibli glanced around at Moon, Peril, and Turtle. “At least that makes two of us.”

  “When did you make this rock?” Moon asked Turtle. “Are you all right? How much have you used your power so far?” She rubbed her forehead, her wings flickering like moths around a candle.

  “Don’t worry, my soul is fine,” Turtle said, waving at the air. “I haven’t enchanted very many things. I mean, I didn’t want anyone to notice I can do this, obviously.”

  “But why?” Winter exploded. “Why would you hide your power? You could have served your trib
e during the war! Your queen needed you! You could have won the war easily, with a gift like that!”

  “Well,” Turtle said, shying away from him. “Um. Exactly?”

  “Wait, so it would be all right with you,” Peril said suddenly to Winter, “for his queen to use him as a weapon, but it was the most unforgivable crime in history for my queen to use me as one?”

  An awkward silence dropped over the group, like a dragonflame cactus full of guilt-suspicion-distrust-judgment-superiority instead of thorn seeds. Nobody would meet Peril’s eyes, not even Turtle.

  “I get it,” Moon said finally to Turtle. “You should be the one who decides what to do with your abilities, not your queen or anyone else.”

  Now she glanced at Peril quickly, almost as if she were throwing out a tail for Peril to grab.

  Me? Peril thought. Did she mean that for me, too? I never get to decide anything. If I did, I’d probably mess up and nearly kill or really kill someone else.

  “Would that rock work on Kinkajou?” Qibli asked. “Could we heal her, too?”

  Turtle squirmed. “We could try,” he said. “But I’m afraid I enchanted it to heal scales and muscles, not internal organs or bones — it was only supposed to help me feel less sore after flying all day. I know, I was an idiot, I should have made it more useful.”

  “And more obvious,” Peril said. “What a dopey thing to enchant. It looks like every other rock in the world. If you drop it while you’re leaning over a river one day, you’ll never find it again.”

  “It might work on your scar, though,” Turtle said to Qibli. He held out the rock and Qibli jumped away from it.

  “No way!” he said, touching his snout. “I like my scar! It’s part of who I am! Get your magic nonsense away from me.”

  “Hey,” Winter interrupted suddenly. “Where’s Foeslayer?”

  “Who?” Moon asked.

  “I was traveling with a NightWing,” he said. “Where’d she go?”

  Peril glanced up and realized the big NightWing was no longer in the sky above them. She tried to remember when she’d last seen her — right after the fight? Before Turtle and the others showed up?