The Poison Jungle Read online

  CONTENTS

  HALF-TITLE PAGE

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  MAP OF PANTALA

  A GUIDE TO THE DRAGONS OF PANTALA

  HIVEWINGS

  SILKWINGS

  LEAFWINGS

  THE LOST CONTINENT PROPHECY

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  COPYRIGHT

  Description: red, yellow, and/or orange, but always mixed with some black scales; four wings

  Abilities: vary from dragon to dragon; examples include deadly stingers that can extend from their wrists to stab their enemies; venom in their teeth or claws; or a paralyzing toxin that can immobilize their prey; others can spray boiling acid from a stinger on their tails

  Queen: Queen Wasp

  Description: SilkWing dragonets are born wingless, but go through a metamorphosis at age six, when they develop four huge wings and silk-spinning abilities; as beautiful and gentle as butterflies, with scales in any color under the sun, except black

  Abilities: can spin silk from glands on their wrists to create webs or other woven articles; can detect vibrations with their antennae to assess threats

  Queen: Queen Wasp (the last SilkWing queen, before the Tree Wars, was Queen Monarch)

  Description: wiped out during the Tree Wars with the HiveWings, but while they lived, this tribe had green and brown scales and wings shaped like leaves

  Abilities: could absorb energy from sunlight and were accomplished gardeners; some were rumored to have unusual control over plants

  Queen: last known queen of the LeafWings was Queen Sequoia, about fifty years ago, at the time of the Tree Wars

  Turn your eyes, your wings, your fire

  To the land across the sea

  Where dragons are poisoned and dragons are dying

  And no one can ever be free.

  A secret lurks inside their eggs.

  A secret hides within their book.

  A secret buried far below

  May save those brave enough to look.

  Open your hearts, your minds, your wings

  To the dragons who flee from the Hive.

  Face a great evil with talons united

  Or none of the tribes will survive.

  The HiveWing city loomed out of the savanna, impossibly tall and imposing and indestructible-looking, and honestly, its big smug aura would have been enough reason to burn it down, in Bryony’s opinion. But it was also, bonus, full of their enemies.

  Not to mention that it was made from trees that had been stolen from her own tribe, the LeafWings, long before she hatched. She had never known those trees herself, but she should have. They should have lived hundreds of years, whispering to their seedlings and slowly reaching toward the light. Instead they had been murdered, ground up into splinters, and mixed into the mash HiveWings called “treestuff.” Every Hive was made of it.

  Which is why every Hive is going to burn.

  Eventually. This one was a bit of a trial run. Bloodworm Hive — even the name gave her the creeps. She was glad her leaders had chosen one so palpably horrible; she might have felt a tad less enthusiastic about burning the prettier Jewel Hive they’d flown past a few days ago.

  Then again, maybe not. All she had to do was picture the dragons inside and even the sparkly Glitterbazaar became instantly more sinister.

  But it didn’t matter; they were here, behind a greenhouse outside Bloodworm Hive in the middle of the night, moments away from executing their great mission.

  “I think it’s kind of funny that all the Hives have greenhouses,” she said to Hemlock and Pokeweed. “It’s like, the HiveWings wiped out all the trees thinking they were sooo clever, and then after they were done, they realized, oops, plants are kind of useful, actually; maybe we should make some little houses and grow a few.”

  She brushed one of her leaf-shaped wings across the panes of glass. “Easy enough once they also stole the SilkWings’ fire, I guess,” she added.

  Hemlock and Pokeweed, as usual, were being stoic and boring and ignored her by staring grimly off into space, as if they were too busy envisioning heroic things to trouble with conversations. She rolled her eyes, crouched beside them, and peeked into the jar Belladonna had left them.

  Bryony had seen fire before, once when lightning hit a tree and burned it to charred ash. But she’d never seen it like this, a long thread curled quietly inside stone, glowing like a bit of captured sun. It was so small.

  Especially compared to the giant Hive in front of them.

  “How can this possibly work?” she whispered. How can this tiny bit of fire bring down a whole city?

  “We follow the plan,” Hemlock said. He gestured at the bags of dittany and other flammable plants they’d brought with them from the jungle.

  “This would be easier if we had Sundew with us,” Pokeweed pointed out in his deep, slow voice. “I don’t understand why she isn’t here.”

  “She’s busy,” Hemlock said curtly.

  “Doing what?” Bryony asked, although she knew perfectly well he would continue to not tell her anything about his daughter’s mystery activities.

  “I thought she was going to help,” Pokeweed said again. “I thought the plan involved flaming ivy growing up the walls.”

  “It will,” Hemlock said, lifting his claws and flexing them significantly.

  Pokeweed gave him a dubious look. “Maybe we should wait for her,” he said. “Maybe she’ll come soon.”

  “Pokeweed,” Hemlock said, finally letting a bit of exasperation slip into his voice. “Don’t be annoying.”

  “Hm,” Pokeweed grumbled. “That’s nice.”

  “The plan is fine.” Hemlock picked up the jar and cupped it between his talons. The glow lit up his face from below, casting his eyes into shadows. “We have what we need.”

  “Not being annoying,” Pokeweed muttered. “Being sensible.”

  Another dragon appeared around the corner of the greenhouse, and for a moment, Bryony tensed, ready to fight.

  But it wasn’t a HiveWing. This dragon had goldenrod-yellow spots on his wings, but the rest of his scales were shades of gray, pale and dark overlapping, like a chinchilla. Or a snuggled-up pile of chinchillas.

  She’d only known this SilkWing for a day, but every time she saw him, she thought of small adorable furry things.

  “Grayling!” she whispered.

  “Hi, Bryony,” he whispered back, smiling.

  “Is it done?” Hemlock interrupted.

  “We did the best we could,” Grayling said. “All the SilkWings who sleep in the Hive have been warned to stay near an exit and keep their dragonets with them so they can evacuate first. We have members of the Chrysalis assigned to retrieve our eggs and the dragonets going through Metamorphosis right now. And we’ve sent messages along the webs that connect this Hive to Jewel Hive and Mantis Hive.” He hesitated. “If we had one more day —”

  “We don’t,” Hemlock said, not unkindly, but with absolute finality
in his voice.

  Grayling’s gaze went to the long bridge of silk overhead that stretched toward Mantis Hive. It glimmered a little, as if some of the starlight was caught in the silvery filaments.

  “Do you really think the whole city will burn?” he asked. “And the webs along with it?”

  “We’re not going to set the webs alight on purpose,” Bryony answered. “But if the Hive burns down like we’re hoping …” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. It was pretty clear what would happen to the webs that were woven to the top levels of the Hive.

  When Sundew had first told them about the underground movement of SilkWings called the Chrysalis, Bryony had thought someone must have cracked her very hard on the head. She had grown up side by side with Sundew, who was only a year younger than her. They had both been raised with the absolutely certain knowledge that SilkWings were weak and timid and never stood up to anyone.

  And then when Sundew said they needed to warn the Chrysalis before burning Bloodworm Hive … well, that was truly epic nonsense. Wouldn’t someone go straight to tell the HiveWings? Wouldn’t that ruin the whole plan?

  But then they found Grayling and a few other dragons from the Bloodworm Hive Chrysalis. And now Bryony couldn’t even think about what would have happened if they’d burned it without getting the SilkWings out first. She’d never have known Grayling at all; he might have died, and she wouldn’t have known she’d lost him.

  “All right,” Grayling said, shaking himself. “Then how can the Chrysalis help?”

  “You would do that?” Bryony asked, surprised.

  A spark kindled in Hemlock’s eyes. “You could burn it from the inside, too,” he said. “That would be very helpful.”

  Grayling looked up at the Hive — no, not the Hive, Bryony realized. He was looking at the webs where he and his family lived, the home they had spun for themselves. The only home they knew. This mission, if it succeeded, would leave them lost in the savanna, with no idea where they’d end up.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she said, earning herself a frown from Hemlock. “It will be massively dangerous.”

  He met her eyes and tipped his head to the side. “I’ve wanted to fight back against the HiveWings almost since the day I hatched,” he said softly. “They let my father die and they sent my brother away to Tsetse Hive. Lady Bloodworm is one of the cruelest of Wasp’s sisters; that’s why the Chrysalis here has so many members. I’m ready to do something real. I think we all are.”

  “Excellent,” Hemlock said. “Let’s choose locations and plan our timing.”

  “We all have to act fast and as synchronized as possible,” Bryony said to Grayling. “Queen Wasp will be inside all these dragons the moment she realizes what’s happening. By then it has to be too late for her to stop it.”

  “I’ll show you the plants we have for burning,” Pokeweed said lugubriously.

  “I can do that,” Bryony jumped in. “You and Hemlock review the interior map of the Hive we got from the Chrysalis.” She brushed Grayling’s wing with her own and beckoned him over to the supplies.

  As she described each plant — how quickly it would catch, how long it would burn, which ones would spray burning oil — she caught Grayling watching her with a strange expression in his eyes.

  “What?” she said, putting down a bundle of dead palm fronds they’d gathered that morning along the shore of Dragonfly Bay.

  “It’s just …” He hesitated. “I’m just amazed at how much trouble your tribe has gone to — all these plants and all this work — just to save us.”

  Bryony tried not to show how startled she was. “To save you?” she echoed.

  “The SilkWings,” he said. “You could have left us to rot in Queen Wasp’s talons, after we abandoned you during the Tree Wars. But you didn’t. You came back to set us free.”

  Oh, the guilt! Bryony felt it stabbing all her internal organs at once. How could she tell him that she’d never once thought about the plight of the SilkWings before she met him? That their mission was vengeance, not rescue?

  “It’s n-not —” she stammered. “I mean, we — we’re doing it for ourselves. Honestly. Please don’t think of us like heroes or saviors or anything.”

  He flicked his tail, nearly toppling a neat pile of dry grass. “Maybe as friends, then?” he asked.

  “That works for me,” she said. “I’m sorry we’re burning down your home.”

  “It’s more like a cage anyway,” he said. “Where are you going to go after it burns?”

  “We found some underground caves to hide in for a few days,” she said. “Belladonna said we had to lie low so we wouldn’t lead Wasp back to everyone else.”

  “Oh,” he said, running his claws over one of the palm fronds. “Any chance there’s room in there for a small friendly SilkWing?” She smiled at him, and he made a “sorry about this” face. “Or … a couple hundred of them?”

  “I’ll talk to Hemlock about it,” she promised. She could see the older LeafWing beckoning them, his talons holding down the scribbled map of the interior of the Hive.

  “Thank you,” Grayling said.

  She twined her tail around his. “Let’s go set a fire.”

  Sundew sometimes liked to imagine that she could fly all the way around the world without stopping, using nothing but her fury to keep her going.

  When she got tired, she’d think about all the things that made her angry.

  HiveWings.

  HiveWings.

  HiveWings.

  Queen Wasp.

  The murder of the trees.

  The attempted murder of my entire tribe.

  HiveWings.

  Mother and Father …

  No, those weren’t allowed on this list.

  HiveWings. Sundew imagined stabbing her claws into their necks, ripping their smug expressions off their faces, choking them with strangler vines, releasing fire ants into their eyeballs …

  A flash of yellow and black caught her eye, and she whipped her head toward it with a hiss.

  “Sorry!” Cricket dropped to a different air current and called up, “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

  “You didn’t,” Sundew snapped. It was sort of difficult to rage-fly on the power of hating HiveWings when there were two HiveWings flying right alongside her, being extremely noisy and distracting. Also when one of those HiveWings was sort of practically almost a friendish kind of dragon, maybe, and the other was the size of a large mango and madly in love with Sundew.

  “SNUDOO!” cried the little dragonet tied snugly to Cricket’s chest. Bumblebee reached her tiny talons toward Sundew. “MRBLE SNUDOO!”

  “Is that tiny lizard trying to say my name?” Sundew asked, alarmed. “How did THAT happen?”

  “She’s very smart,” Cricket said proudly.

  “Not if she thinks she wants my attention,” Sundew pointed out. She turned her head north again, beating her wings harder.

  There was a dark line on the horizon ahead. They were almost there.

  The Poison Jungle. Home. Or Never-home, as some of the LeafWings called it, but the only home Sundew had ever known. Her tribe’s true home, the rest of the continent, covered in vast ancient forests, only existed in stories of the old days and dreams for the future.

  Sundew breathed and flew.

  Each wingbeat brought her closer.

  Closer to the thorn-sharp, fangs-bared, twisted safety of the Poison Jungle.

  Closer to the dragon she wasn’t allowed to think about.

  She felt the pouch she kept over her heart thump once, twice, again, in rhythm with her wings. It was the only pouch, out of the many wrapped around her, that didn’t hold venomous insects or useful plants.

  Inside it was nothing but a small jade frog.

  Which didn’t help with the not-thinking-about. It served, in fact, the opposite purpose.

  But Sundew still brought it with her everywhere. As long as her parents, Belladonna and Hemlock, didn’t know what it
meant, they couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Um — Sundew?” Blue asked nervously from her left. She tilted her head toward him. It was weird to know a SilkWing, after years of scoffing about how beautiful and useless they were. Even weirder, he’d turned out to not be useless at all. Flamesilk. I should have been a flamesilk. If I had the power of fire …

  Well, I sort of do, now that we have Blue.

  That thought made her uncomfortable, and she wasn’t sure why. She bared her teeth at a passing starling, and it nearly fell out of the sky in fright.

  Blue’s wings glimmered azure in the rays of the setting sun. “Um. Isn’t the Poison Jungle … really dangerous?”

  “Or is that a lie?” Swordtail asked from her other side. “Like, maybe LeafWings spread stories exaggerating how dangerous it is so that no one else would go there? That would make sense; I bet that’s it.”

  Sundew laughed. “How could we spread stories?” she said. “We haven’t communicated with any SilkWings or HiveWings since the end of the Tree Wars fifty years ago. We were supposed to be extinct. That was kind of your whole goal, remember?”

  “Not our goal,” Blue protested in distress.

  “No, everything you’ve heard about the jungle is true,” Sundew said to Swordtail. “Queen Wasp sent a few expeditions to the Poison Jungle looking for resources and trying to make sure no dragons were hiding from her there. Almost all of them died; the rest are the ones who brought the stories back to you.”

  She frowned. “One of the expeditions was sent to burn down the jungle, because Wasp wanted no more trees anywhere. None of those dragons survived.” She flicked her tail. “We helped the jungle make sure of that. No one who comes for the trees again will be allowed to live.”

  “But then how have you survived?” Blue asked. “How can there be a whole tribe living in a place that’s so dangerous for dragons?”

  “We didn’t have a choice,” Sundew answered. “It’s easier when you grow up knowing what to avoid and how to treat snakebites and where the quicksand is. Nowadays we only lose a few dragons a year to the carnivorous plants.”

  “The what now?” Swordtail said, his voice rising an octave. “CARNIVOROUS WHATS?”