The Poison Jungle

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “There,” she said. “Think you can figure it out now?”

  “Thank you,” Blue said.

  “So cool,” Swordtail breathed.

  “Sundew —” Cricket started.

  “I have to go report to Belladonna.” Sundew disentangled Bumblebee from her neck and passed her into Cricket’s talons. The dragonet protested sleepily, breathing capybara breath into Sundew’s snout, but it didn’t take long before she was curled up in Cricket’s arms with her eyes closed.

  “It’s just … aren’t you our friend?” Cricket asked. “There’s so much you didn’t tell us, like about the flamesilk or the other village or the secret plans to burn the Hives or the dragon you’re going to marry …”

  “Maybe not everything is your business!” Sundew flared. “Maybe you don’t need the answer to every question in the world. Maybe I was a little busy helping you investigate Queen Wasp and burning down greenhouses and keeping you alive!”

  “It’s not her fault, Cricket,” Blue said, leaning against the HiveWing’s side. His shimmering blue-purple scales were dimmer in the green light that filtered through the dome, but his flamesilk glowed like fireflies under the scales on his wrists. “She was trying to help by bringing us here. She’s been working on her tribe’s plan her whole life — she’s only known us for a few days. It makes sense that she didn’t tell us everything. And you know she didn’t want them to burn Bloodworm Hive.”

  “Do I know that?” Cricket asked. “Sundew, can you protect Blue if he doesn’t want them to use his flamesilk anymore?”

  “Of course I can!” Sundew shouted, and they all jumped back. “By all the trees! It’s like you cannot keep straight in your heads who are the good guys and who are the bad guys here! When it is very obvious! ARGH AT YOU!” She whirled and flung herself at the path toward the meeting house.

  As she stormed off, she heard Swordtail say, “She’s right. I have no idea if her mom is the good guy or the bad guy or what right now.”

  Sundew did not let herself think, Neither do I.

  She did not let herself worry about who was honest with her and whom she would rescue from a burning Hive and whether being manipulative was normal for a mom and a leader and what was going to happen next to Blue and his friends.

  She gave her report. She showed Belladonna the length of vine from Wasp’s greenhouse. Belladonna recognized it from the days they’d spent hiding there, but neither she nor any of the dragons she summoned knew what it was either.

  Sundew also explained what they’d learned about Wasp’s mind control, just as she’d promised Cricket she would. And as she’d predicted, Belladonna didn’t care. The entire HiveWing tribe was still trapped in Wasp’s power. It didn’t matter how they got that way. They still had to be defeated, every last one of them, and the only decision left to make, according to Belladonna, was which Hive to burn next.

  After giving her report, Sundew stopped by the weapons storehouse, where Mandrake, as usual, was sorting and taking care of the hazardous insect collection. He was always happiest in here, tending to the bullet ants and venomous centipedes.

  Sundew took off her empty pouches and reorganized her weaponry and supplies between the rest of the leafy bags, then resettled them around herself.

  “Do you want to restock?” Mandrake asked. He gestured at the wall of neatly labeled boxes. “More sleep lilies? Or smoke leaves?”

  “Not tonight,” Sundew said. “Maybe tomorrow.” She was too tired to plan a new set of weapons, and she didn’t know what the next threat would be anyway.

  Sundew sat through the feast, but she didn’t feel like eating panther or dancing with Mandrake or smiling at any of the dragons who came to congratulate her on a successful mission. As glowing night blooms lit the village, she watched her fellow LeafWings sidle up to Blue and Swordtail, testing out questions, slowly letting them in. She saw Cricket try to join the conversations, and she saw all the LeafWings turn away from her with their wings curled and teeth clenched. She saw the looks they gave Bumblebee as the little HiveWing dragonet ate everything she could reach, and she saw how Bumblebee seemed to sense it and grow smaller, staying close to the shelter of Cricket’s wings.

  Don’t make every problem your problem, Sundew. Not right now. Just get to midnight, and deal with everything else tomorrow.

  And then, finally, finally, the feast ended. The LeafWings started crawling into their nests. Two dragons took up their posts outside the village entrance. Blue paused in front of Sundew as they headed down the path to the nests.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us tonight?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She wanted to be with someone who made her feel more like herself, not dragons who made her feel like an untrustworthy snake. Swordtail waved from the doorway of Pokeweed’s nest, and she nodded back.

  She climbed into her own nest and watched through the branches as the village went quiet.

  Finally, finally, finally the time came.

  Almost midnight.

  Time to go.

  Sundew slipped out of her nest and padded stealthily to the far side of the barrier from the entrance. The plants here knew her very well. They’d been trained to grow in a way that looked impenetrable to anyone else, but as she approached, they sensed her and leaned away from one another, bending and twining until there was a hole in the barrier just big enough for a small LeafWing.

  She hopped through and let it close behind her. The jungle night was noisier than the day, between the insects and night-prowling predators, the declarations of the frogs and the skittering clouds of bats overhead. She used her leafspeak to clear the way, warning off the dragon-traps and sundews. She knew this route by heart, better even than she knew the names of her fellow LeafWings.

  Soon she was at the pond. Dark water rippled in front of her, reflecting slivers of light from the three moons.

  Sundew set the small jade frog on the boulder in the center of the pond, climbed the nearest safe tree, took a deep breath, and curled herself on a branch to wait for Willow.

  It was the frog’s fault, really, that Sundew had discovered the SapWings when she was only two years old.

  Not the jade frog. This was an actual frog, small and brownish green with orange flecks across its knobbly back. A frog that hopped into Sundew’s bowl of taro, snarfed up the sugar-sprinkled grasshopper she’d been saving for dessert, stuck out its tongue at her, and then jaunted off into the jungle as if it aggravated dragons every day with no consequences.

  Well, THAT was not going to stand. NO, SIR. THIS time, there would MOST DEFINITELY BE CONSEQUENCES, FROG.

  She chased the frog to the thorn-vine fence, Belladonna’s original version of the barrier, where it popped through a gap in the leaves and vanished into the jungle.

  Now, dragonets under four years old were not technically allowed outside the safety perimeter of the village on their own. But Sundew was not like the other LeafWing dragonets. And really, she was almost three, which was practically four. And plus also, what was she supposed to do? Just LET the frog taunt her like that?

  Besides, she knew the jungle better than any of the other dragonets. She was a Venus dragon-trap slayer! She had battled cobra lilies and sundews and pitcher plants and beaten them all! She had mighty superpowers! No one could stop Sundew, chosen one, daughter of the leaders of the LeafWings! Especially not on a QUEST FOR VENGEANCE.

  This frog was going DOWN.

  Sundew glanced around to make sure no one was watching — most of the adult dragons were in a council meeting, so it seemed fairly safe — and then hurtled over the fence.

  The jungle on the other side of the thorns looked a lot like the jungle on her own side, except maybe the plants were bigger and grew more thickly entwined. She spotted the miscreant frog right away. It was squatting in a patch of wet leaf mulch, chewing in a very self-satisfied way. Chewing her grasshopper.

  “AHA!” Sundew roared, pouncing on it.

  Her claws squished
into the disintegrating leaves and mud, but somehow missed the frog, which leaped several feet into the air and bounded off through the undergrowth.

  “NO!” Sundew shouted. “You will PAY FOR THIS!”

  She shot after the frog, ducking under snapping plant teeth and weaving through thickets of strangler vines that tried to tighten and ensnare her. She was moving too fast for them, but not fast enough to catch the frog, who could bounce right over quicksand that she had to go around. At one point, she lost the frog and had to freeze for a moment — and then it made the mistake of leaping away again, and she was after it at once.

  Sundew was surprised when they broke through into a clearing and she realized the sky was turning purple. She didn’t think she’d been chasing the frog for that long … but she hadn’t been paying attention to anything except the flicker of its legs up ahead. One of the moons was already climbing the sky.

  Belladonna and Hemlock were going to be furious.

  Not as furious as I am, she thought. With THIS FROG, who caused all this TROUBLE in the FIRST place and must FEEL MY WRATH.

  She slowed down as she slipped out of the trees, realizing there was a pond in the clearing, fed on the far side by a small silvery stream. A boulder as smooth as obsidian stuck up out of the water near the middle of the pond, and some of the far trees leaned down toward it like parent dragons feeding their little ones. Not particularly like Sundew’s parents, that is, but like a few other parents she had seen among the tribe.

  The frog had paused by the edge of the pond, half-buried in the mud. Sundew could see its eyes rolling back toward her and its throat pulsing rapidly.

  She crept forward on stealthy talons, placing each claw silently, crouching close to the ground, and holding her wings perfectly still.

  Here I come, frog. Prepare to die.

  One step … another … closer … and … POUNCE!

  Her claws closed on mud and thin air. The frog disappeared into the pond with a smug plop!

  “ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!” Sundew roared, shaking the leaves on the trees overhead and making several dragon-traps snap shut on nothing. “You SLIPPERY, flea-brained, smirking, BUG-EYED SON OF A HIVEWING! I am going to DESTROY YOU!”

  Even in her rage, she knew better than to leap into an unfamiliar body of water without checking for waterwheels and bladderworts first. She whipped around, wrenched a large branch out of the nearest tree, and started furiously stabbing the water with it. Droplets flew up and drenched her face and wings, and the underbrush rippled with tiny animals scurrying away from the enormous splashes she was making.

  She checked the sharp end of the branch. No impaled frog. No tangles of deadly underwater plants either, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. If she went into the water and got drowned by a hungry waterwheel instead of fulfilling her great stupid destiny, her parents would strongly disapprove.

  BUT THE FROG. IT COULDN’T GET AWAY WITH THIS.

  “Come out and face me like a reptile!” Sundew shouted. “I’m going to bite off your legs and feed them to a tarantula! I’m going to pour piranhas into this pond and tell them all to eat you slowly!”

  “By all the trees,” said a voice above her. “Who are you talking to?”

  Sundew jumped back, startled.

  A pale green dragon sat on the boulder, blinking down at her. She had definitely not been there a moment earlier.

  Also, she was a dragonet, out beyond the safety perimeter, just like Sundew.

  Also, Sundew had never seen her before, which didn’t seem possible in a group as small as the LeafWings.

  Also, she had the deepest brown eyes Sundew had ever seen.

  “My archnemesis,” Sundew growled in response to her question. “Who is hiding in this pond but NOT FOR LONG because I am going to DESTROY HIM. Or her. Whatever it is.”

  The new dragon tilted her head to study the water. “Wow. What did this terrible, extremely doomed fiend do to you?”

  “It STOLE my GRASSHOPPER, which I was — you know what, it doesn’t matter,” Sundew said, noticing the amusement that was sneaking onto the stranger’s face. “What it DID is not the point; what I am going to do TO IT is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED, trust me. I just have to catch it first.”

  “Are we … we’re not talking about a dragon, are we?” the stranger asked.

  “Nnnnoooo,” Sundew admitted.

  The other dragon wrinkled her snout thoughtfully. “A crocodile? A monitor lizard? Oh, a Gila monster! Those things are cranky. I nearly got in a fight with one last two moons night, because I stepped on its tail, but I obviously didn’t mean to! Hey, maybe it’s the same one!”

  “It’s not,” Sundew snapped. She scowled at the water. “It’s … a frog,” she said at last. “But a VERY BAD frog who deserves STAMPING ON.”

  “Oh, no. That’s — oh dear.” The stranger covered her face as though she was overcome with sympathy, but Sundew could see her shoulders shaking.

  “Don’t you laugh at me!” she yelped. “You would understand if you’d seen its stupid smug face! I can’t stand smug faces. I just want to SMUSH THEM ALL FLAT. You should have been here five heartbeats sooner, then you could have seen it SMIRKETY SMIRKING its way into the pond.” Sundew glanced around at the dimming sunlight. “Where … did you come from anyway?”

  The stranger waved one of her wings at the trees behind her. “From the village, of course, silly.”

  But the village wasn’t behind her. It was quite a long way in the opposite direction.

  “Um. What?” Sundew asked, which wasn’t exactly the incisive line of questioning she’d been planning on.

  “Who are you?” the other dragon asked. “I feel like I should really know you already.”

  Sundew drew herself up and made her fiercest face. It was one thing for Sundew to not know this stranger, but it was inconceivable for this stranger to not know her. “Yes, you should! I’m Sundew. Who are you?”

  The dragon tilted her head. Her scales were dappled with darker green leaf shapes, like the shadows of long oval leaves. Her eyes looked like they were smiling. Her whole face was doing a weird crinkly sparkly thing that made Sundew’s face want to do the same thing. Crinkling and sparkling! What kind of weird brain magic was this?

  “Sundew, really? That’s an unusual name,” she said.

  “No, it’s not!” Sundew snapped. “I mean, it is, technically, because I’m the only one who has it, but everyone’s heard it, so it’s very well-known, which means it can’t be unusual, by that definition, I mean, is my point, and besides, YOUR name is the weird one, it’s … just, SO WEIRD …” The brain magic was doing something to her words, too! She frowned as severely as she could. Stop crinkling, face!

  “I haven’t told you my name yet,” said the other dragon, sparkling even more.

  “Well, I BET IT’S WEIRDER THAN SUNDEW.” Sundew fluffed out her wings.

  “I’m Willow,” said the dappled green dragon with the perfect face.

  “There, see, I was right,” Sundew said. “Like, who ever knew anyone named Willow, NOT ME.”

  Willow tilted her head, looking confused. “What do you mean by ‘well-known’? I’ve … never heard of you. Should I have?”

  Sundew flicked her tail and accidentally knocked a startled lizard into the pond. “I’m the daughter of Belladonna and Hemlock!” she said. “You know! The whole plan? I’m the one who has to save Pantala?”

  “Save Pantala from what?” Willow asked.

  Sundew’s jaw dropped. “From THE HIVEWINGS!” she cried. “Don’t you know anything? Where have you been? Who are you?”

  “Oh!” Willow’s front talons flew to her face. She stared at Sundew as though a lightning bolt had dropped out of the sky and asked for directions. “I know why your names are weird! You’re a PoisonWing!”

  “A what?” Sundew barked, but Willow had already flown off the boulder to land beside her. She circled Sundew, studying her wings and tail with wide eyes. Up close, she carried a scent of mint and chocolat
e and new rain.

  “But how can you be? You look just like us!” Willow said. “Maybe a little prettier.” She met Sundew’s eyes and ducked her head, doing that full-face smile crinkle thing and trying to hide it at the same time. “Maybe a lot.”

  Which was a weird and wrong observation, because Willow was the one with the river-deep eyes and the sparkle face and THAT WASN’T THE POINT, SUNDEW.

  “I’m not a poison-anything,” Sundew said. “I’m a LeafWing.”

  “But you’re one of the offshoots, aren’t you?” Willow asked. She stopped circling and sat down, checking the ground below her for anything thorny first. “The scary dragons with all the dangerous-plant names?”

  Sundew stared at her. “Offshoots?” she echoed. “I thought … we were the only ones. The only LeafWings left.”

  Willow’s sparkly look dimmed a little, as though someone had thrown cobwebs over her starlight. “Oh … no,” she said. “There’s us. The rest of us. The, um … sorry, I’m not sure how else to say this … the real LeafWings? The ones who stayed with Queen Sequoia and are still loyal to her.”

  “Queen Sequoia is still alive?” Sundew said, startled.

  “Wow,” Willow said. Her wide-eyed look was sort of unreasonably adorable. “I can’t believe they keep us a secret from you! We learn all about the PoisonWings in school.”

  “What do you learn?” Sundew asked, curiosity warring with anger. Did Mother know about this? If so, how DARE she hide anything from Sundew! “What do they tell you about us?”

  “Oh, you know … how some dragons wanted to keep fighting the Tree Wars, so they split off from the rest of the tribe when we reached the Poison Jungle. And then they started naming their dragonets after deadly plants instead of giving them tree names, like LeafWings always have. And how they’ve been plotting revenge on the HiveWings all these years. Queen Sequoia met with their leader last moon cycle — she’s always trying to convince her that it’s safer to stay here and lie low until Queen Wasp dies.”