The Dragonet Prophecy (32 page)

“I’m Reed,” said the biggest dragonet. “This is Sora, Pheasant, Marsh, and Umber.” The smallest one, Umber, had his eyes fixed on Clay again. The other three kept checking the sky with nervous expressions.

“I’m Clay, and this is Glory,” Clay answered. Pheasant tilted her head at Glory.

“That’s not a normal MudWing name,” she said.
Oops
, Clay thought.

“I didn’t choose it,” Glory said with a shrug that lifted her up and down in the air currents.

“Did one of you hatch from the blood egg?” asked Reed. “Are you our missing sib?”

“Sib!” Clay said suddenly. “Siblings! That’s what everyone keeps talking about!” He launched himself forward and gripped Reed’s front talons. “Is that what you mean? Were we in the same hatching?”

“I knew it!” Umber yelped. “I knew he had a familiar feeling! I told you!” He bundled into Marsh and nearly knocked them both out of the air.

“You’re our brother,” Reed said with a grin that warmed Clay to the tips of his claws. “You should have been with us all along.”

“He’s not just our brother,” Pheasant pointed out. “Look at him. He should be our bigwings.”

The grin faded from Reed’s face as he studied Clay from wing tips to talons. “That’s true,” he said.

Clay wanted to bring that grin back. He didn’t understand what was wrong. He pointed to a clear island in the marshes below. “Let’s talk,” he said.

His brothers and sisters couldn’t believe how little he knew about MudWing life, but they were happy to explain it all to him, their words tumbling over one another. The five of them coiled together naturally in the tall grass, tails and talons and wings entwined, with Umber climbing up their backs and standing on heads to make himself heard.

They told him that MudWing dragons laid their eggs in warm mud nests protected by walls of hot rocks. They were so safe that the mother never needed to check on them, and the dragonets were usually born when she wasn’t even there. The firstborn was always the biggest, and his or her first task was to help the other dragonets out of their eggs by cracking their shells from the outside.

As they came to this part of the explanation, Glory gasped. She turned to Clay. “That’s what it was!” she said. “When we hatched — the guardians didn’t know anything about MudWings, so they thought you were attacking us. But you were trying to help. Your instinct told you to get the rest of us out of our shells. Clay, you know what this means? You weren’t trying to kill us at all.”

Clay felt like he was filling up with warm summer clouds. Kestrel was wrong, all wrong about him, and she always had been. His strength wasn’t for killing and violence; it was for protecting his brothers and sisters. He wasn’t destined to be a monster. He wasn’t a killer deep inside somewhere.

He was a bigwings.

He crossed his tail over Glory’s and smiled at her, too happy to speak.

“So from then on, the bigwings takes care of all the others,” Pheasant said, nudging Reed with affection. “Some of them can be pretty bossy or too weak, but we got a good one.” She stopped, realizing what she’d said. “I mean … you would have been good, too, I’m sure. . . .”

Reed tugged up a clump of marsh grass and started shredding it without looking at Clay. “And then we all stick together,” he said. “For always. We learn to hunt and survive together, we grow up together, and we live together for the rest of our lives. And when we’re at war, we all fight as a group. Every MudWing troop is a hatching of siblings. Except for the ones who’ve lost too many, and then they try to find unsibs to form a new troop with.”

Pheasant glanced around at the others — wriggling Umber, silent Sora, nervous, twitching Marsh — as if she would rather die than replace them with unsibs who weren’t her own brothers and sisters.

“How many have you — have we lost?” Clay asked.

“Two,” said Reed. “You, and our sister Crane, two days ago in the battle by the cliff.” He nodded in the direction of the waterfall. Clay’s insides twisted as he realized one of the dead bodies he’d flown over had been his own sister.

“That was our first battle,” Sora said softly.

“It was awful,” Umber added.

Reed sighed heavily. “I was not the bigwings I wanted to be.”

“You were!” the others all protested at once. “You were amazing, Reed,” Pheasant said firmly.

“We’d
all
be dead if it weren’t for you,” Marsh agreed. They all had the same expression as they looked at Reed. Clay could see it was trust — faith that their bigwings would take care of them, no matter what happened.

“But it’s all right now,” Reed said. “Because you’re back, and you should be our bigwings.” He glanced sidelong at Clay, and in his amber eyes Clay could see all the worries he’d ever felt himself … all the fears for his friends, all the things he’d done and would do to protect them, all the ferocity of how much he cared about them.

Clay cared about his real brothers and sisters, too, although he’d only just met them. He felt instinctively like they were extensions of his own claws and wings. This was the family he’d always wanted.

And if he stayed, it would tear them apart.

He could see it in their eyes — they wanted him and were afraid of him at the same time. If he became their bigwings, what would happen to their loyalty to Reed? What would happen to Reed himself, forced to follow him but desperate to protect them his own way?

Clay didn’t know anything about MudWing life, or troop formations, or even how to hunt in a swamp. How could he lead them into battle? It would never be like the closeness they had with Reed, no matter how hard they all tried.

There was only one way to protect his siblings, he realized. If he was really their bigwings, he had to leave them — and leave Reed as their bigwings, the way he’d always been. He would keep them safe better than Clay ever could, and their sibs would not be forced to choose between them.

Glory was looking at him, too.

Clay shook his head. “No,” he said to his brothers and sisters. “Reed is your bigwings. You trust him and you need him. I couldn’t replace him, even if I tried.”

His brother raised his head, pride warring with disbelief on his face. The other dragonets looked relieved and sad at the same time.

“Besides,” Glory said, “he can’t stay with you. He’s
our
bigwings.” She brushed Clay’s wings with hers. He was glad he couldn’t change colors like her, or he felt like he might have turned crimson from nose to tail.

“Are you sure?” Reed said to Clay. “You could still join us, bigwings or not. There’s more fighting ahead, and we could always use another strong dragon at our side.”

Clay was tempted. He wanted to know his brothers and sisters, and it would be so easy to slip into this life and become a warrior, with no prophecies to worry about and no angry SandWing queens hunting him. But he remembered the charred corpses on the battlefield, and he thought about his friends and how they’d try to go on without him.

“I’m afraid I have a destiny,” he said ruefully. “We’re going to try to stop the war.”

Umber’s eyes went wide. “Like the prophecy?” he breathed. “That’s
you
?”

Pheasant looked at Glory doubtfully.

“That’s us,” Clay said, touching Glory’s talon.

“Apparently,” Glory added. “More or less.”

“We’ll try, anyway,” Clay said. “But maybe after that, once the war is over … maybe then I could come back?”

“You’re one of us,” Reed said. “You can come back anytime.”

“I hope you do,” Umber said. The others nodded.

Clay looked from face to face, wondering how many of his brothers and sisters would survive the next battle.

He wondered if he could stop the war in time to save them all.

Tsunami and Sunny did not seem at all surprised to hear the explanation of Clay’s attack on their eggs.

“Of course,” Tsunami said. She had hunted while they were gone, and she nudged a dead wild duck in Clay’s direction. “I never thought you
were
trying to kill us.”

“As if you would ever!” Sunny agreed.

“Well,
I
didn’t know that,” Clay said. They had found a small grove at the top of the cliff, far enough away from the waterfall and the battlefield that they couldn’t smell the burning dragons anymore. He dug his claws into the duck, suddenly famished.

“So what now, bigwings?” Glory asked, clawing up a pheasant for herself. “I’m never going to get tired of calling you that.”

“We’ll be like the MudWings,” Clay said proudly. “We stick together. No matter what happens. We’re a team, and we look after one another. Which means the first thing we have to do is find Starflight. The NightWings can’t just take him away. He’s one of us, and we’ll search the whole world until we find him. It’s time for us to get our friend ba —”

He stopped as a heavy thump shook the ground and wings flapped to a stop behind him. The others were staring over his shoulder.

“That better not be who I think it is,” said Clay.

“Found him!” Glory said gleefully.

Clay turned around. Starflight stood, blinking, in the waving grass just outside the trees. The sunlight picked up glints of purple and deep blue in his black scales. Up in the sky, the black bulk of Morrowseer was winging away.

“Oh, bye!” Tsunami shouted after him. “Thanks for everything! You’ve been SO HELPFUL!”

Sunny flung herself at Starflight with a cry of joy. “You found us!” She batted his wings with hers. “I hoped you would.” He returned her hug, smiling shyly at her.

“Hello,” Clay said to Starflight. “You couldn’t have waited until after my noble speech? Maybe a day or two, so we could at least pretend to look for you?”

“Morrowseer saw you flying up from the marshes,” Starflight said. “He said to tell you some other dragon could have spotted you, too, and we should be more careful.”

“Well, great,” Tsunami said. “That’s such useful advice. Glad he’s so concerned, now that we’ve managed to save our own selves about a hundred times and everything. Any other survival tips? Or prophecy-fulfilling suggestions?”

Starflight ducked his head, looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry he took me,” he said. “I wanted him to bring me back right away, but he wouldn’t. He said they couldn’t afford to lose any NightWings, even —” He swallowed. “Even peculiar little ones.”

“What the heck does that mean?” Clay asked.

“You’re not peculiar!” Sunny said. “I’m the one that’s peculiar and little.”

“Well, he is a bit,” Glory said. “But we don’t mind.”

Tsunami looked thoughtful. “Couldn’t afford to lose any NightWings?” she echoed. “Is there something wrong with them? Did you notice?”

“No.” Starflight glanced up at the sky. “He didn’t take me to the secret NightWing kingdom, if that’s what you’re wondering. I didn’t even get to meet any of the dragons he’d brought with him. We just stayed up in the mountain peaks, waiting. I guess he wanted to see what would happen to you guys.”

“Not that he was going to do anything about it,” Glory muttered.

“So he doesn’t care what we do next?” Clay asked. “He’s not making us go back to the Talons of Peace?”

“I’m not sure he’s really happy with the Talons of Peace right now,” Starflight said.

“Then we can do whatever we want,” Clay said. “I say we visit Tsunami’s mother, who, by the way,” he said to Starflight, “is the queen of the SeaWings, according to Kestrel.”

“Seriously?” Starflight said, staring at Tsunami. “Like in the scroll? Coral’s supposed to be a great queen. Not crazy like Scarlet.”

Tsunami looked uncharacteristically nervous. “Do you think she’ll be happy to meet me? What if she’s like Clay’s mother — no offense, Clay.”

“I
know
she’ll be happy to see you,” Starflight said. “Don’t you remember what it said in
The Royal Lineage of the SeaWings, from the Scorching to the Present
?”

All four dragonets groaned.

“Remind me why we wanted him back?” Glory asked Clay.

“This is important and fascinating!” Starflight said, stomping his feet. “Listen! Queen Coral doesn’t have an heir. Not a single one of her female dragonets has lived to adulthood. Rumor has it there’s a curse on her hatchings.
That’s
why she’ll be glad to meet Tsunami — you’re the lost heir to the Kingdom of the Sea.”

Tsunami puffed out her chest. “Me? Really?”

“Oh my gosh! Tsunami! You could be queen of the SeaWings one day!” Sunny cried.

Tsunami grinned. “Wouldn’t that be great? I’ve always thought I’d be a good queen.”

“Boy, I don’t know,” Glory said. “I mean, if you want to be queen one day, you’ll have to be bossy, controlling, full of yourself … oh, wait.”

Tsunami whacked her lightly with her tail. “Behave, or I’ll have you beheaded,” she said, lifting her snout.

“So let’s go find the SeaWings,” Clay said. “They’re not on Burn’s side, are they?”

Starflight heaved one of his long-suffering sighs. “No, Clay. They’re allied with Blister, the middle sister, of whom the scrolls say —”

Glory, Tsunami, and Clay all tackled him at once. Sunny tried to come to his rescue, and the five of them ended up scuffling in the grass, laughing.