The Dragonet Prophecy (9 page)

“But can you go through with it?” Webs asked. “Isn’t it too much like — I mean, we all know what happened —”

“That was totally different,” Kestrel snapped. “Glory is just a RainWing. I don’t care about her. I don’t even like her.” She blasted a ball of flames at the fire so it blazed up.

“If you’re sure . . .” Webs started.

“I’ll do it tonight while she’s sleeping,” Kestrel said. “I can get in there and break her neck before the others know what I’m doing, especially with the bossy one safely chained up. Tsunami’s the only one who could stop me.”

Shudders of horror were running through Clay so violently that he was afraid one of the big dragons would notice the waves on the water. He began paddling softly backward, but froze when he heard his name.

“Not Clay?” Dune asked. “He might try, at least.”

“He’ll definitely try,” Webs said. “Dumb as a rock, but he’s devoted to the other four.”

“It’s not natural, that much loyalty in a dragon,” Dune said. “Especially to dragons outside your own tribe.”

“I can handle him,” Kestrel said. “Even if he finally gets mad like we want him to, there’s nothing he can do to stop me.”

Clay had heard enough. He sank down below the surface and swam toward the gap in the wall.

What do we do? What can we do? What can I do?

There’s no time.

How do I save her?

It’s not true,” Sunny said. “They wouldn’t.”

“They definitely would,” said Tsunami. “They’ll do anything if they think it’s right for the prophecy.” The dragonets all looked at Glory, whose scales had gone pale green. Even her usual aloof expression was gone. She paced around Tsunami’s rock column, lashing her tail.

“But we won’t let them,” Clay blurted. He was still panting and dripping icy water on the stone floor. “Right, Tsunami? We’ll stop them.”

“You don’t have to get involved,” said Glory. “This is my problem, not yours.”

“How will you stop them?” Tsunami asked Clay, ignoring her. “Even all of you together are no match for Kestrel, especially with Dune helping her. And I can’t do anything.” She bared her teeth and snapped at her chains, pulling the one around her neck dangerously tight.

“So we escape,” Clay said. “Just like you wanted. We get you out of there and we escape, tonight. Right now.”

“Escape?” Sunny squeaked.

“Seriously,” Glory said. Apple-red stripes flickered across her ruff like lightning. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m the one that doesn’t fit in. I’ll — I’ll fight her or — or figure something out. . . .”

“Of
course
we have to do something,” Clay said fiercely.

“If escape were that easy, we’d have done it already,” Starflight pointed out. He stepped around Glory, stood up on his back legs, and tapped on the boulder that blocked the entrance. “This is the only way out. And they have it rigged on a mechanism that only the big dragons can move.”

“They do?” Clay said.

Starflight nodded. “You know how Dune never leaves, because he can’t fly? He has a stone that fits in this slot.” He tapped a grooved niche in the stone wall. “He turns it in here to unlock something so they can roll the boulder from inside the cave. But when Kestrel or Webs come from outside, there must be a lever or switch they use to open it from out there.”

“Oh.” Clay felt like an idiot for trying so hard to roll the big rock all these years. He’d never even noticed that Dune unlocked something before moving the boulder. He’d never thought twice about the oddly shaped stone that was always around the sand dragon’s neck.

“So can we steal Dune’s rock?” Sunny suggested.

“Terrible idea,” Glory said immediately.

“They’d catch us for sure,” Starflight said to Sunny, more kindly. “Especially tonight, when they’re already on high alert because of Morrowseer.”

“Well, then what about the sky —” Sunny asked.

“Is there any way to move the boulder without the rock?” Tsunami interrupted her.

Starflight shook his head. “Only from the outside. It’s impossible from in here. Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”

“Maybe the sky —” Sunny said.

“And we couldn’t force it?” Clay asked Starflight. “Even if we all leaned on it really hard?”

Starflight shook his head as Glory said, “This is all really sweet, guys, but you shouldn’t get in trouble for me. Morrowseer likes the rest of you. Just let me handle myself.”

“Stop that,” Tsunami snapped at her. “Acting like a martyr won’t help right now.”

Glory bristled. “I’m not
acting like a martyr
. I’m trying to make sure nobody gets killed for no reason.”

“Besides you,” Tsunami argued. “It’s fine if it’s you getting killed for no reason?”

“It just doesn’t matter,” Glory said. “I’m not even in the prophecy, so who cares what happens to me?”

“I swear I’m going to kill you myself,” Tsunami growled.

“Glory, she’s trying to say that
we
care,” Clay interjected. “In her usual gentle way.”

“Guys, what about the sky hole?” Sunny said in a rush, jumping into the brief pause in the conversation. “In the study room? Couldn’t we fly up to it and squeeze out?”

“Oh, Sunny, don’t be ridiculous,” Tsunami said.

“It’s way too small,” Starflight explained. “We’d never fit, especially Clay.”

“But maybe I might,” Sunny said. “I could climb out and then go around and open the boulder from the outside, like Starflight said. Right? And I could let you all out?”

Clay brushed her wing and twined his tail around hers. Sunny hadn’t even thought of escaping before today, and yet she was volunteering for the most dangerous part of it without any hesitation.

“It won’t work,” Starflight said. “I’m sorry, Sunny. I’ve flown up to the hole when no one was around.”

“Me too,” said Tsunami.

“Me too,” said Glory.

Clay felt slow. He’d sat below the sky hole often enough, watching the stars or clouds or rain overhead, but he’d never flown up to it or tried to climb out. Apparently the other dragonets had thought about escape a lot more than he had.

“The hole is smaller than you think,” Starflight said to Sunny. “I can barely fit my head through it. It’s not a way out.”

“The minders wouldn’t have left it there if it was,” Glory said. She stopped next to Tsunami, waves of dark green pulsing from her ears to her tail. “They’re too careful. There’s no way to escape.”

“There
must
be,” Clay said desperately. He could feel time slipping away. Kestrel might come down to kill Glory at any moment. She wouldn’t care if they all saw her do it.

He could tell that Tsunami was thinking hard. She kept looking at him like she wanted to say something, then stopped herself.

“What if we tried talking to them?” Sunny offered hesitantly. “Maybe we could convince them to let her go instead?”

Glory snorted. Nobody else answered. Sunny sighed, pressing her wings back against her sides.

“You have an idea,” Clay said to Tsunami. “I can tell. You’ve been working on an escape plan forever.”

She wound her talons through the chains, hissing. “It’s too dangerous,” she said. “It was supposed to be me.”

He caught her sideways glance and followed her eyes to the river.

The river.

They’d only ever gone upstream, into the guardians’ cave. Downstream, the river flowed from the main cavern along the tunnel into the battle cave and then … Clay had no idea where it went. The roof of the battle cave sank lower and lower until the river disappeared. Clay had never explored underwater in the battle cave; he’d never wondered about where the river went.

But of course Tsunami had.

“Do you know where the river goes?” he asked.

“No — I mean, I’ve seen the gap in the wall, but it’s even smaller than the one to the guardians’ cave,” she said. “I’ve never been through in case I couldn’t get back. But the river has to go somewhere.”

“Can we get out that way?” he asked.

“Not all of us,” she said. “Only me.”

“And me,” he said.

She shook her head. “Clay, you can’t. We have no idea what’s on the other side. You can only hold your breath for an hour — you could get trapped with no air and drown. And you can’t see in the dark like me. You’d be swimming blind into who knows what. It has to be a SeaWing who goes. It has to be me.”

“And even if you did get out,” Starflight said, “how would you find us again? How would you get back to this cave from the outside?”

“The sky hole,” Clay said, pouncing on an idea of his own at last. “You guys start a fire in the study room, and I’ll follow the smoke back to you. Then I’ll know the entrance is nearby, and once I find it, I can let you all out.”

Glory’s eyes glinted. “I can think of a few scrolls I’d like to burn.”

Clay grinned at the shocked expression on Starflight’s face. “Yeah, me too,” he said. “Throw
The Sluglike Qualities of MudWings
on there and think of me.”

“Stop joking about this,” Tsunami cried. “Clay, you can’t go, and that’s final. You’ll almost certainly die.”

“But Glory
will
die if I don’t,” he said. “Right? There’s no other way.”

Tsunami growled and thrashed her whole body, straining against the chains. The heavy links pressed into the scales of her neck, and she stopped with a cough.

“Wait, you won’t be able to see the smoke until daylight,” Sunny said worriedly. “Won’t Kestrel come for Glory before then?”

Clay’s hopes dropped like a boulder in his stomach. He hadn’t thought of that. He might not make it back in time — it might all be for nothing.

Then Glory smiled, and her scales shifted into a warm, rosy pink. “I know what to do,” she said. “Starflight’s method.”

“Act like a lump and hope no one notices you?” Tsunami said sarcastically.

“Hey!” Starflight protested.

“Exactly,” Glory said. She crouched down to the floor. Slowly, as if the stone were eating her alive, grays and browns and blacks crept over her scales. All her beautiful colors faded away. The shadows and crags behind her appeared perfectly reproduced, as if the dragonets were seeing right through her.

She closed her eyes and vanished.

“Wow,” Sunny said faintly. “I mean, I knew you could, but … I’d never . . .”

“The guardians don’t know I can do this.” They all jumped as Glory’s voice came from the top of a stalagmite. “I guess it’s a good thing we never studied RainWings after all. I’ll find a corner and hide. You don’t even have to risk the river, Clay. I could just stay like this.”

“For how long?” Starflight said. “Until you starve or one of them catches you accidentally?”

“Tsunami was right earlier,” Clay said. “We do need to get out of here, as soon as we can.”

Sunny gave Tsunami an unhappy look. “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” she asked, but no one answered her.

“All right,” said Glory with a sigh. Her green eyes appeared again, halfway across the cave. She was looking straight at Clay. “Do what you want, as long as you’re not doing it only for me. I’ll stay out of the way until Clay comes back to get us.”

Clay felt like the rosy pink color was rising up through his scales now. Glory trusted him. She believed he could do this.

He could save her. He could save all of them.

He just had to survive the river first.

“I hate this,” Tsunami called softly. “I hate this a lot.” She beat her wings against the chains that trapped her.

“I don’t love it either,” said Glory’s voice.

“Shhhh,” Starflight scolded from the riverbank. Clay stood in the shallows, shivering as the icy water washed over his talons. He wished he could take fire with him underwater. He wished he knew what he was getting into. He really, really wished he didn’t have to go alone.

But he had to do this. He glanced at the corner of the cave where Glory had disappeared.

“Are we sure this is the only way?” Sunny asked, splashing the river with her tail. “I bet I could think of some more ideas, with a little more time.”

“We don’t have any more time,” Clay said.

“Follow the current,” Starflight said to Clay. “Don’t leave the river. If it goes out into the world anywhere, the current should take you there.”